The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Joachim Neugroschel Page B

households and
     settle in Puzzuoli or Naples. You say you want to complete a book there? Where could
     you work better than in the city? Inside its walls you can have the grandest sceneries
     that you like roll by; here you will more easily avoid the Princess di Bergamo’s luncheons
     than in Puzzuoli and you will be less tempted to go on idle strolls. Why, above all,
     are you so bent on enjoying the present and weeping because you fail to do so? As
     a man with imagination you can enjoy only in regret or in anticipation—that is, in
     the past or in the future.
    That is why, Olivian, you are dissatisfied with your mistress, your summer holidays,
     and yourself. As for the cause of these ills, you may have already pinpointed it;
     but then why relish them instead of trying to cure them? The fact is: you are truly
     miserable, Olivian. You are not yet a man, and you are already a man of letters.
Characters in the Commedia of High Society
    Just as Scaramuccio is always a braggart in the commedia dell’arte, Arlecchino always
     a bumpkin, Pasquino’s conduct is sheer intrigue and Pantalone’s sheer avarice and
     credulity, so too society has decreed that Guido is witty but perfidious and would
     not hesitate to sacrifice a friend to a bon mot; that Girolamo hoards a treasure trove
     of sensitivity behind a gruff frankness; that Castruccio, whose vices should be stigmatized,
     is the most loyal of friends and the most thoughtful of sons; that Iago, despite the
     ten fine books he has published, remains an amateur, whereas a few bad newspaper articles
     have anointed Ercole a writer; that Cesare must have ties with the police as a reporter
     or a spy. Cardenio is a snob, and Pippo is nothing but a fraud despite his protestations
     of friendship. As for Fortunata, ithas been settled definitively: she is a good person. The rotundity of her embonpoint
     is enough of a warranty for her benevolence: how could such a fat lady be a wicked
     person?
    Furthermore, each of these individuals, so different by nature from the definitive
     character picked out for him by society from its storehouse of costumes and characters,
     deviates from that character all the more as the
a priori
conception of his qualities creates a sort of impunity for him by opening a large
     credit line for his opposite defects. His immutable persona as a loyal friend in general
     allows Castruccio to betray each of his friends in particular. The friend alone suffers
     for it: “What a scoundrel he must be if he was dropped by Castruccio, that loyal friend!”
    Fortunata can disgorge torrents of backbiting. Who would be so demented as to look
     for their source in the folds of her bodice, whose hazy amplitude can hide anything?
     Girolamo can fearlessly practice flattery, to which his habitual frankness lends the
     charm of surprise. His gruffness to a friend can be ferocious, for it is understood
     that Girolamo is brutalizing him for his friend’s own good. If Cesare asks me about
     my health, it is because he plans to report on it to the doge. He has not asked me:
     how cleverly he hides his cards! Guido comes up to me; he compliments me on how fine
     I look. “No one is as witty as Guido,” those present exclaim in chorus, “but he is
     really too malicious!”
    In their true character, Castruccio, Guido, Cardenio, Ercole, Pippo, Cesare, and Fortunata
     may differ from the types that they irrevocably embody in the sagacious eyes of society;
     but this divergence holds no danger for them, because society refuses to see it. Still,
     it does not last forever. Whatever Girolamo may do, he is a benevolent curmudgeon.
     Whatever Fortunata may say, she is a good person. The absurd, crushing, and immutable
     persistence of their types, from which they can endlessly depart without disrupting
     their serene entrenchment, eventually imposes itself, with an increasing gravitational
     pull, on these unoriginal people with their incoherent conduct; and ultimately