My Year With Proust - Day 295

The Baron, who now sought to disguise the impression that had been made in him, and yet, in spite of his affectation of indifference, seemed unable to move away without regret, came and went, looked vaguely into the distance in the way which he felt would most enhance the beauty of his eyes, assumed a smug, nonchalant, fatuous air.  Meanwhile Jupien, shedding at once the humble kindly expression which I had always associated with him, had - in perfect symmetry with the Baron - thrown back his head, given a becoming tilt to his body, placed his hand with grotesque effrontery on his hip, stuck out his behind, struck poses with the coquetry that the orchid might have adopted on the providential arrival of the bee.  I had not supposed that he could appear so repellent.  but I was equally unaware that he was capable of improvising his part in this sort of dumb show which (although he found himself for the first time in the presence of M. de Charlus) seemed to have been long and carefully rehearsed; one does not arrive spontaneously at that pitch of perfection except when one meets in a foreign country a compatriot with whom an understand then develops of itself, the means of communication being the same and, even though one has never seen each other before, the scene already set.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 626-627

There is an old saying, that Tim Mackintosh-Smith quotes a couple times in his wonderful travel books, which, of course, I can't remember at the moment; that seems to be the norm lately (stupid old age).  Essentially, the saying proposes, and delivered much more eloquently than I am achieving, that travelers in foreign countries are always brothers.  I'm sure my poorly-delivered rendition reflects the words delivered by Proust: "one does not arrive spontaneously at that pitch of perfection except when one meets in a foreign country a compatriot with whom an understand then develops of itself, the means of communication being the same and, even though one has never seen each other before, the scene already set."  Jupien and M. de Charlus are "compatriots" meeting in a "foreign country," or, as the communists would have proposed, fellow travelers.  This is not meant to imply that the situations are equal, or the countries as foreign, but in the light of this last election I'm feeling more and more like a traveler in my own country.  One leaves beautiful, liberal Vermont and one hopes to meet a fellow liberal along the way, and you're instantly drawn together, if for no other reason than safety.