My Year With Proust - Day 297

Thus, every other minute, the same question seemed to be put to Jupien intently in M. de Charlus's ogling, like those questioning phrases of Beethoven's, indefinitely repeated at regular intervals and intended - with an exaggerated lavishness of preparation - to introduce a new theme, a change of key, a "re-entry." On the other hand, the beauty of the reciprocal glances of M. de Charlus and Jupien arose precisely from the fact that they did not, for the moment at least, seem to be intended to lead to anything further.  It was the first time I had seen the manifestation of this beauty in the Baron and Jupien.  In the eyes of both of them, it was the sky not of Zurich but of some Oriental city, the name of which I had not yet divined.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 627-628

One of the topics that pops up in several class we teach in the Core is the exoticification of "the other" and also the construct of the "exotic" east, which were so much a part of western mind, especially during the time period when Proust was writing, a time when the Europeans controlled most of the world during the high point of colonialism.  And so, appropriately, when describing the relationship between Jupien and M. de Charlus, Proust suggests, "In the eyes of both of them, it was the sky not of Zurich but of some Oriental city, the name of which I had not yet divined."  I'm thinking of that scene in The English Patient when the European man flips the truck over while putting dates into the mouth of the Arabic boy, and how he says something about the area itself was making him do things he normally wouldn't do.  Of course, it could easily be identified as a classic Freudian defense mechanism.