Within A Budding Grove: Madame Swann at Home (12th post)

This section serves essentially two purposes: to chronicle the development of Marcel's relationship with Gilberte and to depict the Swanns' home and social life.

Artist: Renoir

Marcel and Gilberte's growing intimacy echoes in some respects that of her parents in Swann in Love: Swann and Marcel fall for their would-be lovers by indirect means (via Botticelli and Bergotte, as we have already seen); their predominant emotion in pursuit of love is pain; each suffers as a result of not only his beloved's behaviour but also his own back-firing actions; and each uses the strategy of feigned indifference in the belief that the deception will make his inamorata less indifferent to him. One major difference, however, is that Swann is, initially at least, loved by Odette, whereas Marcel's love for Gilberte is unrequited. The story of his love for her is, therefore, one of deception, self-deception and eventual realisation, still mingled with self-deception, that their relationship is not reciprocal.

Their story picks up where we left them in Place-Names: The Name, with Marcel and Gilberte meeting in the park and playing together. We have learnt that Gilberte is 14 or 15 and we can assume that Marcel is about the same age (p.67 III Scott Moncrieff, p.513 Kilmartin). Quite unexpectedly, Marcel suffers a sudden setback when, one day, Gilberte says of her parents: “You know, they can't abide you!” She laughs and informs him that although they do not require him to stop playing with their daughter, they believe him to have low moral standards and have an evil influence on her. While we might be suspicious about this, Marcel takes it seriously and hands Gilberte a letter he has written to Swann to protest his innocence. The next day, Gilberte returns with the letter and tells Marcel that her father had found it meaningless and it only went to corroborate his view of the boy's character. Marcel feels “despair” at this unfair judgement that he is powerless to correct. Instead of giving the letter back to him, Gilberte and Marcel agree to wrestle for it. They grapple and their bodies lock together in a way that seems to have a sexual element leading, it would appear from the coy language, to Marcel's orgasm (pp.88-92 III SM, pp.529-532 TK).

After the shock of learning the impression that Gilberte's parents have of him, Marcel is again surprised when he receives a letter from her saying that her mother would like him to come to tea (p.101 III SM, p.539 TK). And it is true, he is welcomed by Gilberte's parents and over time this leads him to believe that, as they have full authority over their daughter, his “love is running no risk” (p.220 III SM, p.626 TK). However, his popularity with M and Mme Swann has the opposite effect to what he had supposed. Their inviting him makes Gilberte miss other events and cramps her style, so she comes to resent his presence, which he notices: “On several occasions I felt that Gilberte was anxious to put off my visits.”

Acting with the same sort of self-deceit as Swann had acted with Odette, Marcel makes “a sudden resolution not to see her again” (p.224 III SM, p.629 TK). His resolution is dishonest because it has the ulterior motive of trying to force Gilberte to respond and bring about their reconciliation. He writes her a letter in which he “allowed the tempest of my wrath to thunder, not however without throwing her the lifebuoy of a few words disposed as though by accident on the page, by clinging to which my friend might be brought to a reconciliation; a moment later, the wind having changed, they were phrases full of love that I addressed to her, chosen for the sweetness of certain forlorn expressions, those 'nevermores' so touching to those who pen them, so wearisome to her who will have to read them” (p.226 III SM, p.630 TK).

It is doubtful that Marcel's realisation his love is not returned is, out of respect for her feelings, the reason he stops seeing Gilberte. His real reason is devious: his “hope of reconciliation ... overlay my intention to renounce her” (p.233 III SM, p.636 TK). That is to say, he expects his feigned indifference will change her attitude and make her contact him. When her awaited letter never arrives, he tries another strategy of equally twisted logic: visiting Mme Swann while Gilberte is not there in the hope that will enhance her opinion of him. Whatever effect this course of action is likely to have on her, the effect it has on him is one of wishing not to see her while at the same time thinking continually about her (p.235 III SM, p.637 TK). He is aware of the contradictory nature of his plan: if their breach becomes final, that will create a fresh anxiety, which will reawaken his love make resignation harder (p.234 III SM, p.636 TK).

Marcel hopes the occasion of the new year will bring a letter from Gilberte, but this dream does not materialise (pp.258ff III SM, pp.654ff TK). And he comes to realise that there will be a point at which “I had already lost Gilberte, and loved her more than ever” (p.262 III SM, p.657 TK). This duality of renunciation/loss and reconciliation/love endures even after he sees her out walking one evening with another young man: “I continued, it is true, to assure myself that Gilberte did not love me, that I had known this for ever so long, that I could see her again if I chose, and, if I did not choose, forget her in course of time” and “I planned to my own satisfaction all the steps that she was to take towards our reconciliation, perhaps even towards our betrothal” (pp.283-284 III SM, pp.673-674 TK).

Somewhere amidst all the illogicality of Marcel's thoughts, a brief spell of lucid thinking sounds the knell for his love: if, after time, Gilberte were to change her mind, during that same period, his feelings would have also changed and he would have no longer been in love with her. Her reversal would have been like “posthumous fulfilments of a dream in which I should not, when the time came, be greatly interested” (p.289 III SM, p.677 TK).

Marcel's love, like Swann's before him, clearly exhibited a frailty of the mind, albeit not of the noblest variety. His mental state was like a continuous Tristan chord, its two dissonances representing a double desire that cannot both be resolved. I think most readers are relieved when the unbalanced relationship is over and some equilibrium is temporarily restored.

In my next post I will focus on the other theme that I mentioned at the beginning of this post: the Swanns' home and social life.