ROGER SHATTUCK
73
was. But the possibility is there always, a law held in abeyance, the threat of
the abyss of unreality, of dreams taking over everything.
Callif:
You see? I told you a scholar would help me. Now we have
three laws: things conneCl, we are all doubles, and dream encroaches on re–
ality. Where do we go now? More coHee?
Prof. F:
Yes, please. You are relentless. I'll try once more . There's a
psychological law that applies in many domains of Proust's novel. I wish I
had a good name for it. Since I don't, I'll have
to
borrow a phrase from a
critic I have my reservations about, Roger Shattuck. In his second book on
Proust, Shattuck himself borrows an expression from Montaigne,
nreur
d'ame,
soul error. The term refers
to
the condition which makes it so ditlicult
for
liS
to cherish what we have and leads us to see mystery and prestige in
what we do not possess. Anyone who has read a single volume of Proust
can sense the operation of this law in the domain we call romantic love. We
say possession is nine tenths of the law. Marcel's extended capture and im–
prisonment of Albertine demonstrate that in attachments of the heart,
possession is one tenth of the law. But soul error, which wants what it does
not or cannot have, also explains Proust's rejection of fi-iendship. He presents
friendship as a false and distracting personal relationship in which we seek
"hospitalization" in another individual instead of cultivating the true life of the
mind in ourselves. Shattuck fails to see how essential a role soul error plays
in the great driving force of all social relations: snobbery. There's a superb
comic page in the second volume about a rich and titled old lady - it's Mme
de Villeparisis - arriving at the Crand HOlel in Balbec. All the guests in the
dining room are consumed with curiosity about her and the desire to make
her acquaintance - a desire they then
half~successfully
suppress by convinc–
ing themselves that she is ugly and not worth knowing. Proust has written a
subtle modern version ofJEsop's fable of the sour grapes. AJI these constantly
readjusted states of mind turn on the axis of soul error.
Of
course now we
have come back around to what I discuss in my chapter on "perverseness of
mind" in Proust. I cannot judge whether soul error has equal sway in Nerval,
an author I don't know as well as the two of you.
Ned:
Yes. Yes. Everything in
Sylvif
and
Aurelio
depends on keeping
the ideal at a distance in order
to
sustain the illusion and the emotion. But ...
going through a set oflaws like this ... If I can remember accurately ... Just
aminute. Borges. That's who it is. Somewhere I read about Borges stating in
a lecture the principles of fantastic art. They are almost the same ones that
we have pulled out of Proust and Nerval. 1 think I can remember Borges's
four devices. The work within the work, the contamination of reality by
dream or unreality, the voyage in time, and the double. The voyage in time
may be Borges's version of memory and association. But what does it all
