I looked at M. de Charlus. Undoubtedly his magnificent head, though repellent, yet far surpassed that of any of his relatives; he was like an ageing Apollo; but an olive-hued, bilious juice seemed ready to start from the corners of his malevolent mouth; as for intellect, one could not deny that his, over a vast compass, had a grasp of many things which would always remain unknown to his brother Guermantes. But whatever the fine words with which he embellished all his hatreds, one felt that , whether he was moved by offended pride or disappointed love, whether his motivating force was rancour, sadism, teasing or obsession, this man was capable of committing murder, and of proving by dint of logic that he had been right in doing it and was still head and shoulders above his brother, his sister-in-law, or any of the rest.
"As, in Velazquez's Surrender of Breda," he went on, "the victor advances towards him who is humbler in rank, and as is the duty of every noble nature, since I was everything and you were nothing, it was I who took the first steps towards you. You have made an imbecilic reply to what it is not for me to describe as an act of grandeur. But I did not allow myself to be discouraged. Our religion enjoins patience. The patience I have shown towards you will be counted, I hope, ot my credit, and also my having only smiled at what might be denounced as impertinence, were it within your power to be impertinent to one who is so infinity your superior. However, all this is now neither here nor there. I have subjected you to the test which the one eminent man of our world was ingeniously named the test of untoward kindness, and which he rightly declares to be the most terrible of all, the only one that can separate the wheat from the chaff. I can scarcely reproach you for having undergone it without success, for those who emerge from it triumphant are very few. But at least, and this is the conclusion which I am entitled to draw from the last words that we shall exchange on this earth, at least I intend to protect myself against your calumnious fabrications."
So far, I had never dreamed that M. de Charlus's rage could have been caused by an unflattering remark which had been repeated to him; I searched my memory; I had not spoken about him to anyone.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 576-577
M. de Charlus continues to rage, and Marcel, sort of, figures out why. Proust certainly paints an unflattering picture of him, and reveals him to be one of the great ass clowns of literature (although, as we'll see, there's more to M. de Charlus than means the eye). As a person with an unpleasant temper I usually feel more disgust with angry characters than sympathy, mainly because it hits too close to home. I'm paraphrasing fairly wildly, but in one of my favorite Hadiths a man asked the Prophet what he could do to be a better man. Muhammad answered, "Three things. First off, control your anger." And the man replied, "Yes, OK, and?" And the Prophet continued, "Secondly, control your anger." At this point the man can see where this is going, but still asked him to identify the third bit of advice, and the Prophet responded, "Control your anger." I suspect that every religion has, or should have anyway, a similar canonical passage or anecdote. Few things destroy the world - or the soul - more quickly or totally than rage. I suspect it is because, beyond that fact that anger is distracting, it is also a reflection of the excesses of the ego, and every religion agrees that the ego, the inflated self, is the biggest obstacle to enlightenment.
Having said all that, I am intrigued by M. de Charlus's statement that, "I have subjected you to the test which the one eminent man of our world was ingeniously named the test of untoward kindness, and which he rightly declares to be the most terrible of all, the only one that can separate the wheat from the chaff." While I don't agree that M. de Charlus ever showed much sincere kindness - or might even be capable of any sort of altruistic act - I wonder if there are many things more disarming than true kindness? Again, drawing from the Hadiths, the Prophet proposed that "every act of kindness is charity," and charity is one of the five pillars of the faith. So, why would M. de Charlus consider it to be the most "terrible of all" tests?
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| Velazquez's Surrender of Breda, because it is mentioned in this passage and because I, like all right-thinking individuals, loves Velazquez. |
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