. . . And yet he found himself offering this as the price for far less, for a first kiss in fact, because had met with unexpected resistance or, on the contrary, because there had been no resistance. In love it often happens that gratitude, the desire to give pleasure, make us generous beyond the limits of what hope and self-interest had foreseen. But then the realisation of this offer was hindered by conflicting circumstances. In the first place, all the women who had responded to M. de Guermantes's love, and sometimes even when they had not yet given themselves to him, he had one after another kept cut off from the world. He no longer allowed them to see anyone, spent almost all his time in their company, looked after the education of their children, to whom now and again, if one was to judge by certain striking resemblances later on, he had occasion to present a little brother or sister. And then if, at the start of the liaison, the prospect of an introduction to Mme de Guermantes, which had never been envisaged by the Duke had played a part in the minister's mind, the liaison in itself had altered the lady's point of view, the Duke was no longer for her merely the husband of the smartest woman in Paris, but a man with whom the new mistress was in love, a man moreover who had given her the means and the inclination for a more luxurious style of living and transposed the relative importance in her mind of questions of social and of material advantage; while now then a composite jealousy of Mme de Guermantes, into which all these factors entered, animated the Duke's mistresses. But this case was the rarest of all; besides, when the day appointed for the introduction at length arrived (at a point when as a rule it had more or less become a matter of indifference to the Duke, whose actions, like everyone's else, were more often dictated by previous actions than by the original motive which had ceased to exist), it frequently happened that it was Mme de Guermantes who had sought the acquaintance of the mistress in whom she hoped, and so greatly needed, to find a valuable ally against her dread husband.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 498-499
Proust continues to reflect upon the many infidelities of the M. de Guermantes, the social transcendence of his wife the Mme de Guermantes, and the odd emotional interplay between these two. As we've discussed, while he would use the opportunity to meet his wife, and enter more fully into the highest level of society, to seal the deal with his mistresses, she in turn would sometimes use these women as chess pieces in her battle with her husband; "it frequently happened that it was Mme de Guermantes who had sought the acquaintance of the mistress in whom she hoped, and so greatly needed, to find a valuable ally against her dread husband."
I was also struck by the wonderful, maddening, illogical, unfathomable peculiarities of love that this little snippet reveals. As my first year students know from Linden's The Accidental Mind, the brain bum rushes into love by overloading us with an abundance of chemical treats in the early days of a relationship, causing us to act, like all addicts, foolishly. It means that we, among many other things, will certainly promise far more than we can possibly deliver. "In love it often happens that gratitude, the desire to give pleasure, make us generous beyond the limits of what hope and self-interest had foreseen." It could be that the M. de Guermantes is simply a man whore, but he may also be a person who falls passionately in love again and again. As compared to most of us, he does appear to follow through on his promises, as it is presented that all of these women eventually do get to meet his wife. In other ways, as well, he appears to be a man in love, including being overly possessive of them. As Proust tells us, the M. de Guermantes "had one after another kept cut off from the world. He no longer allowed them to see anyone, spent almost all his time in their company, looked after the education of their children . . ." Of course, his fascination with their children might not have been totally selfless, because "if one was to judge by certain striking resemblances later on, he had occasion to present a little brother or sister.
The emotions and actions of the women is also not quite as clear cut as it might appear at first blush. While they might have been initially drawn to the M. de Guermantes because of his fortune or as one avenue to his wife, it, as it often does, became something more. For some of these women "the Duke was no longer for her merely the husband of the smartest woman in Paris, but a man with whom the new mistress was in love . . ." As we've discussed previously, it is rare (if non-existent) for a man or woman to see a person from across the room and immediately think of spending the rest of their life in debt servitude to that big house in the suburbs they will need for their family. Our goals our almost always much more immediate, and certainly much more base. However, along the way we inevitably fall in love. I can remember falling in love - or suddenly understanding that I was in love - with crazy/lovely British woman while doing our traditional Friday morning grocery shopping. I don't think either of us saw that coming, but do we ever? We are all of us like the Duke - and for that matter his mistresses - looking for one thing, and in the great evolutionary emotional shell game we end up with something else; which is really OK, because the something else is almost always much better than what we wanted in the first place.
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