"'It isn't, by any chance, by Sar Peladan?' asked the historian of the Fronde, meaning to make a subtle and topical illusion, but in such a low voice that his question passed unnoticed.
'So you know The Seven Princesses, do you?' asked the Duchess. 'I congratulate you! I only know one, but she's quite enough; I have no wish to make the acquaintance of the other six. If they're all like the one I've seen!'
'What a goose!' I thought to myself, irritated by her icy greeting. I found a sort of bitter satisfaction in this proof of her total incomprehension of Maeterlinck. 'To think that's the woman I walk miles every morning to see. Really, I'm too kind. Well, it's my turn now to ignore here.' Those were the words I said to myself, but they were the opposite of what I thought; they were purely conversational words such as we say to ourselves at those moments when, too excited to remain quietly alone with ourselves, we feel the need, for want of another listener, to talk to ourselves, without meaning what we say, as we talk to a stranger."
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, p. 236
Ah, the bloom is off the rose, sort of. Proust, as part of an endless party, ends up in a discussion with a famous historian and the Duchess, who had so ensnared Marcel in her charms that he routinely arranged his schedule around simply so he could pass her in the street. Essentially, and inelegantly, he's suddenly realized that the Duchess is no big deal. As is usually the case, a couple things jump to mind. During these course of these meandering discussions we've discussed the concept of love at first sight, as compared to slowly warming to someone - or, for that matter, lust at first sight. The other end of that arc is the collapse of the relationship, which we almost always accept as the sad, and maybe inevitable, accumulation of faults and disappointments, or simply the tyranny of boredom ("We had just become different people.") What's the opposite of Love of First Sight? End of Love at Millionth Sight? Can you be in love with someone and then have it end in one instant? A few years ago I was engaged to a lovely British woman and we had begun the process of acquiring a green card for her so she could move to the US. There are several approaches to take, but I remember our attorney discussing what she called the "moonlight in Vermont" option, wherein you have to say that the two of you weren't really thinking of getting married as you planned her trip over for a visit, but one night you saw her in some magical light and could not not get married. So, at least on one of the paths, the government was legally accepting love at first sight, or at least the overpowering primacy of love. Sadly, like way too many of us, I'm divorced, and at no point in that process did the court system ask me to identify the exact moment when I fell out of love with my ex-wife. Instead, we just discussed the sad decline of the relationship, and took time to take very public note of all my failings. I'm trying to think of moments in relationships when I clearly knew I was no longer in love, which is not the same as moments when you finally had the courage (or at least were emotionally desperate enough) to end it. Maybe these things do always end with a whimper instead of a bang. [phrasing]
Having said all that, Proust understands that he probably didn't mean it. "Those were the words I said to myself, but they were the opposite of what I thought; they were purely conversational words such as we say to ourselves at those moments when, too excited to remain quietly alone with ourselves, we feel the need, for want of another listener, to talk to ourselves, without meaning what we say, as we talk to a stranger." He spoke to himself, in the absence of a more viable option. We often say things that we don't mean in the presence of another person because we feel they have to be said or they should be said or sometimes we just like the way they sound coming out of our mouth. We're speaking to or for society, although, truthfully, so much of it is posing. How often do we make these statements, but only to ourselves? We're still saying what has to be said, but we don't even have the excuse of stating it publicly as some sort of moral referendum. In this instance we're only "posing" for ourselves. What is amazing/funny/sad is the people you meet who will regale you with the heroic statement they claim to have made, but which you know they "said" only to themselves.
Once again we've learned the wisdom of the Drive-By Truckers song Pauline Hawkins.
No comments:
Post a Comment