Chapter 9
FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAINI
N the latter half of 1892 Proust began again the series of ardent
but still platonic friendships with young men which three years
of apparently normal love for women had interrupted. It is prob-
able that in his teens, like Gide, he had remained unaware of his
destiny, perhaps ignorant even of the existence of homosexual
love. At the Lycee Condorcet M. Darlu would mildly enquire,
when he noticed the symptoms of yet another new attachment:
"What number did you give him when he came through the door
of your heartr" But his pupil, it seemed, was attracted only by
intellectual and moral distinction, real or imagined; his utmost
desire was for a declaration of exclusive mutual devotion, to be
followed by long conversations about literature. If his advances
were rejected, if the sacred fire disappointingly faded in Jacques
Bizet or 'little Halevy', he turned with unquenchable optimism
elsewhere. In his army year the sequence continued: Horace
Finaly was closely followed by Gaston de Caillavet, as was Bloch
by Saint-Loup. He appreciated at Orleans the simplicity and
originality of his peasant comrades; though he did not follow
the path thus suggested till fifteen years later, when his mother's
death set him free to make friends among the working classes.
Next comes the long interlude during which nothing is heard of
male friends, when his heart was occupied in tum with Jeanne
Pouquet, Mme Straus, Laure Hayman, the Comtesse de Chevigne
and Marie Finaly. But from the autumn of 1892 the charming
young men appear in uninterrupted succession for many years,
handing on, like Grecian runners, the torch of friendship or love.
Proust was nearing the period in his life which corresponds in his
novel to the Narrator's detection of the true nature of M. de
Charlus. It is probable that in this revelation, and the proliferation
of Sodom throughout the novel which is its consequence, he
symbolised his discovery of his own inversion. In 1893 he met
the chief original of Charlus; in 1894 came his first undoubtedly
homosexual love-affair.