67. Marcel & Celeste, Part II

The Land of Desire: French History and Culture

“Proust n’a aime que deux personnes, sa mere et Celeste.” – Prince Antoine Bibesco

What better way to “celebrate” a year of sheltering in place than a closer look at France’s most famous social distancer? This week, I’m looking at the curious relationship between the eccentric, reclusive writer, Marcel Proust, and his beloved housekeeper-confidant, Céleste Albaret. Together, the two hunkered down into a mostly nocturnal life of writing, collaborating, and remembering while the world outside became incomprehensible. It’s the ultimate experiment in working from home – if your Uber Eats came from the Hotel Ritz, that is! Here’s the conclusion of our two part history of Marcel & Céleste. (Listen to part one here: 66. Marcel & Celeste, Part I.)

Episode 67: “Marcel & Celeste, Part II”

Transcript

In 1916, Marcel received a surprising letter: a sixteen year old soldier who had snuck his way to the front line wrote him from the trenches to admire his work. Entering into a discussion of friendship, Proust confessed, “I am myself only when alone, and I profit from others only to the extent that they enable me to make discoveries within myself, either by making me suffer…or by their absurdities, which..help me to understand human character.” While Proust continued making sorties outside his apartment, it’s unclear whether they were out of genuine loneliness or a colder, more ambitious sort of reconnaissance. In his all-encompassing dedication to In Search of Lost Time, Marcel’s own life seemed less and less important – in many ways, it seemed, his life was already over. His real life – that of dazzling society soirees and elegant salons, was an anachronism, murdered by the war. He now existed for reconnaissance work: categorizing the beauty and elegance he had known, trying to capture its essence in full. One night, he knocked on the door of a quartet leader, asking to hear a particular work of music as soon as possible. The two of them shared a cab around Paris, picking up the other musicians, and ferrying them back to 102 boulevard Haussman at one in the morning. Another time, he interviewed his housekeeper Celeste’s young niece to accurately capture the writing of a high school girl. He spent his money recklessly – what use was money if not in service of his work, and what use was money if he was going to die young? Of this he was convinced, the only question was whether he would finish his great work first. “I am a very old man, Celeste,” he once told his beloved housekeeper and friend. “I shan’t live long…and that is why I am so anxious to finish.”

In 1917, as World War One ground up a generation of Europeans, Marcel Proust began attending regular dinners at the Hotel Ritz. There, he dined with other refugees of the old world: princesses on the run from empires which no longer existed, sophisticated artists and intellectuals, aging dandies and more. Relying on his personal charm and the gossip of the Ritz staff, Proust learned everything he’d ever wanted to know about the ruling classes of the aristocracy. Spending the dwindling reserves of his fortune on lobster and champagne while the war approached its climax, Proust was an eyewitness to the changing of the guard. On July 27th, 1917, attending a dinner party in the Ritz hotel room of a Greek princess, Proust heard the air raid siren go off. Standing on the balcony, Proust replayed that fateful night from three years earlier, “watching this wonderful Apocalypse in which the airplanes climbing and swooping seemed to complement and eclipse the constellations.” A few months later, Proust stepped out onto the sidewalk and encountered two soldiers: Americans. It was the end of the war, and the end of Proust’s world. In the years to come, Paris would fill up with this new, young, “Lost Generation”, and the world of Bizet, Zola, and Anatole France was giving way to Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald. On November 11th, Germany signed the armistice. “What a marvelous allegro presto is this finale,” he wrote, “after the infinite slow movements of the beginning and all that followed.” Marcel’s brother, Robert, returned home unharmed, but 1,384,000 men did not. Even then, Marcel knew, it was the beginning of the end.

Just as the second volume of In Search of Lost Time appeared in stores, Marcel received a blow: he was being evicted from his apartment. For a moment, he allowed himself to dream: would he live in Venice? Would he finish his life’s work in Florence? But reality intruded – he was broke, and, his doctor reminded him, he would not survive the trip. “For an asthmatic,” he wrote, “moving to new quarters is usually fatal” but he was determined to finish his work. For months, Céleste ran ragged, making arrangements for Marcel, packing up his belongings, selling his possessions, and to the eternal chagrin of Proust scholars everywhere, burning Proust’s old notebooks in the stove. After taking one last look around his beloved home, Marcel exited 102 boulevard Haussman and with it, his connection with the outside world. As Céleste recalled, “Death began for him with our leaving Boulevard Haussman.”

At once, Marcel set to work recreating his beloved isolation chamber. In went the carpets, the servants’ bell, his electric lamp, his electric kettle, the thick blue satin curtains. The apartment was freezing cold, and Marcel was hardly attached to his physical surroundings. According to Céleste, “he spent those last two years…in an atmosphere that already resembled the grave.” When she asked if he was comfortable in his new home, he would simply reply that they were “only passing through. When I have finished we will be more comfortable.” As he had murmured during their seaside strolls in Cabourg, Marcel assured Céleste that someday, when he was finished, they would travel, and he would show her the marvels of the world. Inside his cloistered apartment, Proust gasped “like a half-drowned person pulled out of the water, unable to say a word or make the slightest movement.” Outside, the second volume of In Search of Lost Time was a bestseller. On December 10th, Within A Budding Grove received the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor. Within a day, the first edition was entirely sold out. Suddenly, the outside world spilled into Proust’s sanctuary. Within three days, Marcel received 886 letters of congratulations. Just before the publication of the third installment, Marcel received word that he had been awarded the Legion of Honor, just like his father. Marcel was world famous – but his grasp on life was more tenuous than ever. Whether out of stress, illness, or just plain addiction, Marcel depended on heavy doses of drugs to sleep. Life was now a race against time. He’d finished the all of his manuscripts, and now he had to correct the proofs, send them to publishers, and see them published before he died.

By May 1921, the third and fourth volumes appeared in bookstores, and Proust could not stand out of bed without falling down. One week later, Marcel made it all the way out of his apartment to the Jeu de Paume museum, to attend an exhibit on Dutch masters, including a work by Vermeer. Standing outside the terrace of the museum, a passerby recognized the world-famous author and took a snapshot. Pale and sickly, with bags under his eyes but impeccably dressed, he looks into the distance, perhaps unaware that he is being photographed. He would never be photographed again in his lifetime. He spent the next six months in bed. He dragged himself out of bed to attend a lavish party on New Year’s Eve. He would not see the next one.

Sources:

The two biggies:

• Marcel Proust: A Life, William Carter, 2013.
• Monsieur Proust, Celeste Albaret, 2003. (Screw those reviewers, reading this book was a joy, I loved it.)

The rest:

• “Marcel Proust and the medicine of the Belle Epoque” pamphlet, the Royal Society of Medicine: https://www.rsm.ac.uk/media/2060/marcel-proust-exhibition-booklet.pdf
• Lamont, Rosette, and Céleste Albaret. “Interview Avec Céleste Albaret.” The French Review, vol. 44, no. 1, 1970, pp. 15–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/385924. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.
• “In the Footsteps of Marcel Proust” William Friedkin, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/t-magazine/william-friedkin-marcel-proust.html
• Boym, Svetlana. “Nostalgia and its discontents.” The Hedgehog Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 2007, p. 7+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A168775861/AONE?u=sfpl_main&sid=AONE&xid=9c209110. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.
• Manley, Janet. “Longing for a Distant Home Amid a Pandemic.” New York Times, 14 Sept. 2020, p. B6(L). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A635356510/AONE?u=sfpl_main&sid=AONE&xid=115d21c9. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.
• “these were the days; OPINION.” Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada], 11 July 2020, p. O1,O6,O7. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A629146415/AONE?u=sfpl_main&sid=AONE&xid=6f8acd35. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

Further reading:

• “How I Came to Love My Epic Quarantine Reading Project”, Oliver Munday, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/11/reading-proust-in-search-of-lost-time-during-pandemic/616850/
• “Analogue Ambles: Marcel Proust’s Dark Room”, Adam Scovell, February 10 2019, https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2019/02/marcel-prousts-dark-room/
• Kear, Jon (2007) Une Chambre Mentale: Proust’s Solitude. In: Hendrix, Harald, ed. Writers’ Houses and the Making of Memory. Routledge, New York/Oxon, pp. 221-235. ISBN 978-0-415-95742-7

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