Thus it was no longer entirely Mme de Stermaria that I should have wished to see. Forced now to spend my evening with her, I should have preferred, as it was almost the last before the return of my parents, that it should remain free and that I should be able to seek out some of the women I had seen at Rivebelle. . . . And the door onto the outer landing never closed by itself, very gently, against the draughts of the staircase, without rendering those broken, voluptuous, plaintive phrases that overlap the chant of the pilgrims towards the end of the Overture to Tannhauser, I had in fact, just as I had put my towel back on its rail, an opportunity of hearing a fresh rendering of this dazzling symphonic fragment, for at a peal of the bell I hurried out to open the door to the driver who had come with Mme de Stermaria's answer. I thought that his message would be: "The lady is downstairs," or "The lady is waiting." But he had a letter in his hand. I hesitated for a moment before looking to see what Mme de Stermaria had written, which as long as she held the pen in her hand might have been different, but was now, detached from her her, an engine of fate pursuing its course alone, which she was utterly powerless to alter. I asked the driver to wait downstairs for a moment, although he grumbled about the fog. As soon as he had gone I opened the envelope. On her card, inscribed Vicomtresse Alix de Stermaria, my guest had written: "Am so sorry - am unfortunately prevented from dining with you this evening on the island in the Bois. Had been so looking forward to it. Will write you a proper letter from Stermaria. Very sorry. Kindest regards." I stood motionless, stunned by the shock that I had received. At my feet lay the card and envelope, fallen like the spent cartridge from a gun when the shot has been fired. I picked them up, and tried to analyse her message. . .
What added to my despair at not seeing Mme de Stermaria was that her answer led me to suppose that whereas, hour by hour, since Sunday, I had been living for this dinner alone, she had presumably never given it a second thought. Later on I learned of an absurd love match that she made with a young man whom she must already have been seeing at his time, and who had presumably made her forget my invitation. For if she had remember it she would surely never have waited for the carriage, which I had not in fact arranged to send for her, to inform me that she was otherwise engaged. My dreams of a young feudal maiden on a misty island had opened up a path to a still non-existent love. Now my disappointment, my rage, my desperate desire to recapture her who had just refused me, were able, by bringing my sensibility into play, to make define the possible love which until then my imagination alone had - though more feebly - offered me.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 405-408
You should probably just ahead and start listening to the Overture to Wagner's Tannhauser opera and re-read Proust's words, not only because the music is beautiful but also it provides the backstory to the denouement of this adventure. At the last moment Mme de Stermaria has stood up Marcel and probably for the cruelest of reasons; she apparently simply forgot. So, why did Proust take the time to tell us that Marcel was listening to Wagner's Tannhauser, and, for that matter, why did I include the link to the Overture? And it's not simply that at times Proust's narrative is a tad over-heated, and, well, who better to convey that than Wagner. Rather, the opera itself focuses on the misadventures of a knight who has ignored the demands of chivalrous behavior and is more than a bit of a man whore, at least by 13th century standards, when the legendary actions take place, or by 19th century standards, when Wagner wrote his opera, until he is later repudiated by the Pope. It's a classically Wagnerian theme of sacred vs profane love, and, truthfully, what better musical backdrop could Proust provide for this section? Marcel is determined to see Mme de Stermaria because his friend Robert has assured him that she is a sure thing, and his conquest of her will validate his view of himself as a sophisticated man of the world. In the hands of a less skilled author this could easily be rendered as a mere morality play in which Marcel has learned his lesson, but I'm pretty certain that Proust won't leave us at that level. It's also interesting to me because it reminds me of something I end up discussing with my students quite a bit in Concepts of the Self, and Aesthetic Expression and also Heroines and Heroes: the challenges that an artist faces in using symbols or metaphors or, for that matter, references that the audience will understand. There was a time when an educated audience would have immediately understood the Tannhauser reference and Proust relied upon it as he constructed the scene, but that age is long past. Truthfully, although I assumed that there was a deeper meaning (as I would tell my students, Proust could have had Marcel listening to anything at that moment), I didn't get the reference initially and had to do some research. Maybe this is really what we're trying to teach our students in the Core at Champlain; not mere facts (although we don't avoid them), but the habit of mind to do something with those facts. So, in this particular instance, I assumed that there was a story behind the choice of the Overture from Tannhauser, which provided the context needed to get at a deeper appreciation of the story. I didn't have to know the facts, but rather what to do with the facts. Looks like my students are getting more Proust on Tuesday.
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