However, jealousy is one of those intermittent maladies the cause of which is capricious, arbitrary, always identical in the same patient, sometimes entirely different in another. There are asthma sufferers who can assuage their attacks only by opening the windows, inhaling the high winds, the pure air of mountains, others by taking refuge in the heart of the city, in a smoke-filled room. There are few jealous men whose jealousy does not allow certain derogations. One will consent to infidelity provided he is told of it, another provided it is concealed from him, wherein they are equally absurd, since if the latter is more literally deceived inasmuch as the truth is not disclosed to him, the other demands from that truth the aliment, the extension, the renewal of his sufferings.
What is more, these two inverse idiosyncrasies of jealousy often extend beyond words, whether they implore or reject confidences. We see jealous lovers who are jealous only of the men with whom their mistress has relations in their absence, but allow her to give herself to another man, if it is done with their permission, near at hand, and, if not actually before their eyes, at least under their roof. This case is not at all uncommon among elderly men who are in love with a young woman. They feel the difficulty of winning her favours, sometimes their inability to satisfy her, and, rather than be deceived, prefer to allow into the house, into an adjoining room, some man whom they consider incapable of giving her bad advice, but not incapable of giving her pleasure. With others it will be just the opposite; never allow their mistress to go out by herself for a single minute in a town they know, keeping her in a state of veritable bondage, they allow her to go for a month to a place they do not know, where they cannot picture to themselves what she may be doing. With regard to Albertine, I had both sorts of soothing quirk. I should not have been jealous if she had enjoyed her pleasures in my vicinity, with my encouragement, completely under my surveillance, thereby relieving me of any fear of mendacity; nor should I have been jealous if she had moved to a place of unfamiliar and remote that I could not imagine, had not possibility of knowing, and no temptation to know, her manner of life. In either case, my uncertainty would have been eliminated or an ignorance equally complete.
Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 22-23
I we stumble through life it's rare that we actually get to display our expertise in anything, which may seem a strange thing for a college professor to say. In our Core division at Champlain all of our classes are interdisciplinary which means that by definition we're perpetually teaching outside of that sweet spot of our disciplinary expertise. That said, even if I were teaching a traditional history class at a traditional university, I would very seldom be talking about the exact sub-field that I specialized in while studying in graduate school. About the closest I ever came to claiming mastery on a subject matter, and being able to own it in a public forum, was when I would present on Global Modules at conferences, or even occasionally when universities would fly me in to present on the topic. Since I made up the program I enjoyed that rarity of rarities, a momentary and remarkably limited expertise on a subject. This may seem like an odd introduction to today's posting on Remembrance of Things Past, but it makes at least passable sense. Proust is reflecting upon the nature of jealousy, and, truthfully, by this point I am completely happy to cede him expertise on the subject. He proposes that there are two types of jealous men who survive their jealousy: "One will consent to infidelity provided he is told of it, another provided it is concealed from him, wherein they are equally absurd, since if the latter is more literally deceived inasmuch as the truth is not disclosed to him, the other demands from that truth the aliment, the extension, the renewal of his sufferings." He then builds upon his theory by explaining how this plays itself out in their relationships with their lovers, and also claims that "I had both sorts of soothing quirk." I'm not completely certain that I agree that he shared both in equal measure, and I definitely don't agree that he ever found a way to survive his jealousy. That said, I'm interested in his opinion about old men and advancing infirmity, which he places in the category of those who accept infidelity as long as they know about it and essentially direct it: "This case is not at all uncommon among elderly men who are in love with a young woman. They feel the difficulty of winning her favours, sometimes their inability to satisfy her, and, rather than be deceived, prefer to allow into the house, into an adjoining room, some man whom they consider incapable of giving her bad advice, but not incapable of giving her pleasure." Now, as a man who was once engaged to a lovely and much younger woman I suppose this would have been my fate someday, but I'm intrigued by it rather because I think it gives us greater insight into Proust's worldview. We know that he wrote for years with the dark cloud of declining health hanging over his head, and I wonder if this expresses his seemingly mad desire to control every aspect of Albertine's life, even if he doesn't seem to love her or even desire her much?
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