Thus M. de Charlus lived in a fool's paradise like the fish that thinks that the water in which it is swimming extends beyond the glass wall of its aquarium which mirrors it, while it does not see close beside it in the shadow the amused stroller who is watching its gyrations, or the all-powerful keeper who, at the unforeseen and fatal moment, postponed for the present in the case of the Barton (for whom the keeper, in Paris, will be Mme Verdurin), will extract it without compunction from the environment in which it was happily living to fling it into another. Moreover, the races of mankind, insofar as they are no more than collections of individuals, may furnish us with examples from extensive, but identical in each of their parts, of this profound, obstinate and disconcerting blindness. Up to the present, if it was responsible for the fact that M. de Charlus addressed to the little clan remarks of a futile subtlety or of an audacity which made his listeners smile to themselves, it had not yet caused him, nor was it to cause him, at Balbec, any serious inconvenience. A trace of albumen, of sugar, of cardiac arythmia, does not prevent life from continuing normally for the man who is not even aware of it, while the physician alone sees in it a prophecy of catastrophes in store.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 1083
Proust is giving us another hint of trouble that awaits M. de Charlus in the future. He is existing in his little world - a world that was unacceptable at the time - and he's losing sight of the fact that more and more people are seeing into that world. As Proust tells us: "Thus M. de Charlus lived in a fool's paradise like the fish that thinks that the water in which it is swimming extends beyond the glass wall of its aquarium which mirrors it, while it does not see close beside it in the shadow the amused stroller who is watching its gyrations . . ." He even lets us know who will play a role in that future trouble, Mme Verdurin, the "keeper" who "will extract it without compunction from the environment in which it was happily living to fling it into another." We'll get to that moment soon enough I suspect. What interests me at this point is whether M. de Charlus has just gotten sloppy in protecting his little world - or is he so arrogant that he doesn't think he can be touched - or has he simply stopped caring? Maybe at that age it was easier to convince yourself that others couldn't see into our aquarium. However, I suspect that we're still that delusional today, and, in fact, far more foolish because we live online all the time and seem to not understand what that means. I'll share only one of dozens of examples I could share (although I'll speak as opaquely as possible in recounting the story). If you're on Twitter you know that occasionally Twitter sends you emails suggesting people that you might want to follow (including repeatedly trying to convince me to following @scuddertravel, that is, me) or just sharing emails from people that "it" (some computer program) thinks might interest us. One time it sent me a picture of a beautiful naked woman posing for what was obviously as selfie. My initial thought: "Wow, thanks, Twitter, for just sending porn to my inbox. WTF?" But then I realized that I thought knew the person, and, sure enough, after clicking on her link I realized that I did in fact know her. First off, understand that I'm not criticizing whatever she was posting online because everyone is the master of their own fate, and if she was exploring her own sexuality then more power to her. What I found interesting is that she provided no information on her Twitter homepage - no name, no location, no identification of any organizations - she didn't follow me and I didn't follow her (and didn't even know that she had a Twitter account) - but somehow Twitter "knew" that we were at least marginally linked and thus "it" (again, some computer formula) decided that I might find this interesting. This also meant that everyone within the broad Venn diagram that makes up our lives probably also received the picture. Again, it wasn't as if the Internet raided her personal computer and published the picture against her will - and she was easily of age and free to do what she wanted - but she didn't include her real name on her Twitter page so I'm assuming that she considered that a completely separate side of her personality, another self, but obviously Twitter wasn't making that subtle distinction. And certainly I've mentioned things on social media, including this blog, about myself that I probably should have kept to myself. So, are we (and that we includes me) just as sloppy or arrogant as M. de Charlus? Or, have we just given up as well?
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