My Year With Proust - Day 325

These descendants of the Sodomites, so numerous that we may apply to them that other verse of Genesis: "If a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered," have established themselves throughout the entire world; they have had access to every profession and are so readily admitted into the most exclusive clubs that, whenever a Sodomite fails to secure election, the black balls are for the most part cast by other Sodomites, who make a point of condemning sodomy, having inherited the mendacity that enabled their ancestors to escape from the accursed city.  It is possible that they may return there one day.  Certainly they form in every land an oriental colony, cultured, musical, malicious, which has charming qualities and intolerable defects.  We shall study them with greater thoroughness in the course of the following pages; but I have thought it as well to utter here a provisional warning against the lamentable errors of proposing (just as people have encouraged a Zionist movement) to create a Sodomist movement and to rebuild Sodom.  For, no sooner had they arrived there than the Sodomites would leave the town so as not to have the appearance of belonging to it, would take wives, keep mistresses in other cities where they would find, incidentally, every diversion that appealed to them.  They would repair to Sodom only on days of supreme necessity, when their own town was empty, at those seasons when hunger drives the wolf from the woods.  In other words, everything would go on very much as it does to-day in London, Berlin, Rome, Petrograd or Paris.

   At all events, on the day in question, before paying my call to the Duchess, I did not look so far ahead, and I was distressed to find that, by my engrossment in the Jupien-Charlus conjunction, I had missed perhaps an opportunity of witnessing the fertilisation of the blossom by the bumble bee.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 655-656

And so ends Part One of Cities of the Plain, and Proust finishes the section as he began it, focusing, specifically, on the love life of M. de Charlus and Jupien, but more generally on the issue of homosexuality and society's response.  Proust seems much more interested in the conflicted role that homosexuals themselves play in denying their own identity, and in supporting societal oppression of homosexuality.  To be fair, if it is still difficult to come out today to your family and friends and co-workers, how imposing was that challenge a century ago?  However, you can only fight your own needs and desire so long, and, Proust proposes,  "They would repair to Sodom only on days of supreme necessity, when their own town was empty, at those seasons when hunger drives the wolf from the woods."

The question is always the same: why would anyone care?  Christians who can readily quote Jesus in regards to throwing the first stone or Muslim who could quote the Quran on the fact that it's only your job to warn others, will still speak viciously or even take action against homosexuals.  Don't we all have better things to do with our time, such as , well, trying to be better persons ourselves.  Even Proust finds himself wondering what he missed because of his fascination with M. de Charlus and Jupien, " . . . I did not look so far ahead, and I was distressed to find that, by my engrossment in the Jupien-Charlus conjunction, I had missed perhaps an opportunity of witnessing the fertilisation of the blossom by the bumble bee."