On ambition

On ambition 👑🌟

Referring to the drawing room of Mrs Antoine Desroches (née Grimaldi), a cousin of Mrs Santeuil whom Jean affectionately calls “Aunt Louise”, the narrator begins to reflect on human ambition: 🖋️

“Some human beings desire—because, knowing it only in their imagination, they know it only as something beautiful—that which they have always lacked. The courtesan desires respect or love. The servant longs for independence. Some men, for style. Which is why every day we see a valet who is loved and cherished by the masters he has served all his life – and whom he could continue to serve, in the certainty that he will one day inherit their estate – yet, right up until their death, only to leave them once he has become rich, only to squander in a few months, as a wine merchant, the savings he made as a servant. (…) This also explains why so many young women and men, born to parents whose profession or social background was looked down upon, abandon their friends, squander their happiness, stake their fortunes, and even risk their lives just to have a nobleman as a witness in a duel or as a guest at their table. It is worth noting that men of letters, often the sons of poor parents, and seeing the world, moreover, through their imagination which embellishes everything, often make a greater sacrifice to the world than others do, since to all those sacrifices we have just mentioned, they add the love of solitude, the joys of the inner life, the depth of their thought, the dignity of their life, and the solitude of their glory.”
— Quarto, pp. 273–274

In this passage, we see Proust’s fondness for what he would call ‘general laws’. We can also see in it the beginnings of a critique of the ‘artistic bachelors’ 🖼️: the aesthetes who are too lazy or too distracted to devote themselves to creating a work of art, and thus let their lives slip by in vain, chasing a pipe dream (social and high-society life, for example), whilst renouncing their calling. 🤦🏻‍♂️

#MarcelProust #JeanSanteuil #CharlesHaas #CharlesSwann #proustagram @quarto_livres @editions_gallimard