TSVETAN TODOROV
587
native country
It should be added, however, that
Les Natchez
has another main char–
acter-Rene, the symmetrical opposite of Chactas. Both want to become ac–
quainted with the other half of the world: whereas Chactas comes to France,
Rene goes to America. Both are free of nationalistic prejudices that would
incite them to prefer their country to others under all circumstances. How–
ever, there are important differences between them as well: whereas
Chactas feels at home in both America and Europe, Rene is everywhere an
alien; whereas Chactas attains a state of serenity and know how to help his
fellowmen, Rene is incurably miserable and constantly brings misery to those
near him. According to Chateaubriand, the reason for this is Rene's profound
indifference towards society and others in general (itself the result of a
disappointment in love); he lives "inside himself, withdrawn from the sur–
rounding world." Rene is so obsessively egocentric that he transcends good
and evil. Though Chateaubriand dearly projected himself into both Chactas
and Rene, expressing his philosophy through the former and his experience
through the latter,
Les Natchez
is a book written far more by Rene than by
Chactas, both as regards its style and composition as well as its general
meaning. Thus, the universalism professed by Chactas-Chateaubriand is as
often as not belied by the self-centeredness of Rene-Chateaubriand.
A few years later, the author set off on another voyage-this time to
the Orient: Greece, Palestine, and Egypt. This time, however, the conflict
had disappeared, and Rene was sole master on board. Chateaubriand
henceforth writes using the first person: "I am interested in nothing that in–
terests others....Everything tires me: I am painfully aware of how boring
my days are, and everywhere I go I yawn my life away." His travelogue
is, therefore, unlike that of earlier travellers: in this book, as he warns us
from the start, "I speak eternally of myself." The outside world now
interests Chateaubriand only as a reservoir of potential images for his next
book, or as an opportunity to collect stories ofwhich he is the main character;
it is a world of objects in which he himself is the only subject. This explains
his total lack of interest in human encounters: he says that when, by chance,
someone asks to speak to him, he takes flight: "Being somewhat unsociable
by nature, I had not come to the Orient in search ofwhat is called society: I
was impatient to see camels, and to hear their driver's cry." This preference
for camels over natives will be recognized as a distinguishing characteristic of
the modem tourist.
If it is absolutely necessary to have dealings with other human beings,
let them at least be dead ones. The past is infinitely more attractive than the
present: it never yells at you as do these insolent Turks and Arabs. "Before
we may speak of Carthage, which is the only object of interest here, we
