Proust Moment, April 25, 2003

Envy

Marcel’s grandfather takes a liking to Swann and his adventures in high society, but that priggish great-aunt will have none of it: Swann is out of his element, and she cannot forgive him for it:

“…for anyone who chose his associates outside the caste in which he had been born and bred, outside his 'proper station,' was condemned to utter degradation in her eyes. It seemed to her that such a one abdicated all claim to enjoy the fruits of those friendly relations with people of good position which prudent parents cultivate and store up for their children's benefit, for my great-aunt had actually ceased to 'see' the son of a lawyer we had known because he had married a 'Highness' and had thereby stepped down—in her eyes—from the respectable position of a lawyer's son to that of those adventurers, upstart footmen or stable-boys mostly, to whom we read that queens have sometimes shewn their favours. She objected, therefore, to my grandfather's plan of questioning Swann, when next he came to dine with us, about these people whose friendship with him we had discovered.”

The great-aunt is not softened by the fact that Swann sends a case of wine before dining with the family. She has just read in Le Figaro that the recent Corot exhibition includes works from Swann’s private collection, which intensifies her resentment; Swann has not only broken with his caste, but has prospered as a result. The great-aunt tries to rally the family in support of her own selfish bitterness, but even her two deaf sisters – who hear only what they want – tune her out.

“`But I have always told you,’ said my grandmother, `that he had plenty of taste.’

“`You would, of course,’ retorted my great-aunt, `say anything just to seem different from us.’ For, knowing that my grandmother never agreed with her, and not being quite confident that it was her own opinion which the rest of us invariably endorsed, she wished to extort from us a wholesale condemnation of my grandmother's views, against which she hoped to force us into solidarity with her own.

“But we sat silent. My grandmother's sisters having expressed a desire to mention to Swann this reference to him in the Figaro, my great-aunt dissuaded them. Whenever she saw in others an advantage, however trivial, which she herself lacked, she would persuade herself that it was no advantage at all, but a drawback, and would pity so as not to have to envy them.

“`I don't think that would please him at all; I know very well, I should hate to see my name printed like that, as large as life, in the paper, and I shouldn't feel at all flattered if anyone spoke to me about it.’"

--"Overture," Swann's Way