The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Joachim Neugroschel

they
     are fascinated by this sole identity, which remains inflexible amid all their universal
     variations.
    Girolamo, by telling his friend “a few home truths,” is thankful to him for serving
     as his stooge, enabling Girolamo “to rake him over the coals for his own good” and
     thereby play an honorable, almost glamorous, and now quasi-sincere role. He seasons
     the vehemence of his diatribes with a quite indulgent pity that is natural toward
     an inferior who accentuates Girolamo’s glory; Girolamo feels genuine gratitude toward
     him and, in the end, the cordiality which high society has attributed to him for such
     a long time that he finally holds on to it.
    While expanding the sphere of her own personality, Fortunata’s embonpoint, growing
     without blighting her mind or altering her beauty, slightly diminishes her interest
     in others, and she feels a softening of her acrimony, which was all that prevented
     her from worthily carrying out the venerable and charming functions that the world
     had delegated to her. The spirit of the words “benevolence,” “goodness,” and “rotundity,”
     endlessly uttered in front of her and behind her back, has gradually saturated her
     speech, which is now habitually laudatory and on which her vast shape confers something
     like a more pleasing authority. She has the vague and deep sensation of exercising
     an immense and peaceable magistrature. At times, she seems to overflow her own individuality,
     as if she were the stormy yet docile plenary council of benevolent judges, an assembly
     over which she presides and whose approval stirs her in the distance. . . .
    During conversations at soirées, each person, untroubled by the contradictory behavior
     of these figures and heedless of their gradual adaptation to the imposed types, neatly
     files every figure away with his actions in the quite suitable and carefully defined
     pigeonhole of his ideal character; and at these moments each person feels with deeply
     emotional satisfaction that the level of conversation is incontestably rising. Granted,
     we soon interrupt this labor and avoid dwelling on it, so that people unaccustomed
     to abstract thinking will not doze off (we are men of the world, after all). Then,
     after stigmatizing one person’s snobbery, another’s malevolence, and a third man’s
     libertinism or abusiveness, the guests disperse, convinced that they havepaid their generous tribute to modesty, charity, and benevolence; and so, with no
     remorse, with a clear conscience that has just shown its mettle, each person goes
     off to indulge in his elegant and multiple vices.

    If these reflections, inspired by Bergamo’s high society, were applied to any other,
     they would lose their validity. When Arlecchino left the Bergamo stage for the French
     stage, the bumpkin became a wit. That is why a few societies regard Liduvina as outstanding
     and Girolamo as clever. We must also add that at times a man may appear for whom society
     has no ready-made character, or at least no available character, because it is being
     used by someone else. At first society gives him characters that do not suit him.
     If he is truly original, and no character is the right size, then society, unable
     to try to understand him and lacking a character with a proper fit, will simply ostracize
     him; unless he can gracefully play juvenile leads, who are always in short supply.

S OCIAL A MBITIONS AND M USICAL T ASTES OF B OUVARD AND P ÉCUCHET *
Social Ambitions
    “Now that we have positions,” said Bouvard, “why shouldn’t we live a life of high
     society?”
    Pécuchet could not have agreed with him more; but they would have to shine, and to
     do so they would have to study the subjects dealt with in society.
    Contemporary literature is of prime importance.
    They subscribed to the various journals that disseminate it; they read them aloud
     and attempted to write reviews, whereby, mindful of their goal, they aimed