My Years With Proust - Day 455

"You would do wrong to apply in this case the proverbial 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' for you were the child in question, and I do not intend to spare the rod, even after our quarrel, for those who have base sought to do you injury. Until now, in response to their inquisitive insinuation s, when they dared to ask me how a man like myself could associate with a gigolo of your sort, sprung form the gutter, I have answered only in the words of the motto of my La Rochefourcauld cousins: 'It is my pleasure.' I have indeed pointed out to you more than once that this pleasure was capable of becoming my chieftest pleasure, without there resulting from your arbitrary elevation any debasement of myself." And in an impulse of almost insane pride he exclaimed, raising his arms in the air: "Tantus ab uno splendor! To condescend is not to descend," he added in a calmer tone, after this delirious outburst of pride and joy. "I hope at least that my two adversaries, notwithstanding their inferior rank, are of a blood that I can shed without reproach.  I have made certain discreet inquiries in that direction which have reassured me.  If you retained a shred of gratitude towards me, you ought on the contrary to be proud to see me that for your sake I am reviving the bellicose humour of my ancestors, saying like them, in the event of a fatal outcome, now that I have learned what a little rascal you are: 'Death to me is life.'"

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1104-1105

Somewhere along the way M. de Charlus has become one of those Dickensian characters designed to express pomposity and class arrogance, which was maybe always Proust's intention.  He's won this round with Morel, and the victory only makes him more arrogant.  He even goes so far to proclaim, quite loudly, "Tantus ab uno splendor!" which I think translates out as "So much brilliance coming from one person."

The Baron throws in one last pompostic exclamation: "If you retained a shred of gratitude towards me, you ought on the contrary to be proud to see me that for your sake I am reviving the bellicose humour of my ancestors, saying like them, in the event of a fatal outcome, now that I have learned what a little rascal you are: 'Death to me is life." Now, is this just the Baron showing off, again, or is there a darker meaning in that statement that "Death to me is life."