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The young Marcel was asked to fill out
questionnaires at two social events: one when he was 13, another when
he was 20. Proust did not invent this party game; he simply responded
to the questionnaires. At the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure,
the 13-year-old Marcel was asked to answer the following questions in
the birthday book, and here's what he said:
- What do you regard as the lowest
depth of misery?
To be separated from Mama
- Where would you like to live?
In the country of the Ideal, or,
rather, of my ideal
- What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To live in contact with those I love,
with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music,
and to have, within easy distance, a French theater
- To what faults do you feel most
indulgent?
To a life deprived of the works of
genius
- Who are your favorite heroes of
fiction?
Those of romance and poetry, those
who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the
real
- Who are your favorite characters
in history?
A mixture of Socrates, Pericles,
Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry
- Who are your favorite heroines
in real life?
A woman of genius leading an ordinary
life
- Who are your favorite heroines
of fiction?
Those who are more than women without
ceasing to be womanly; everything that is tender, poetic, pure and
in every way beautiful
- Your favorite painter?
- Your favorite musician?
- The quality you most admire in
a man?
Intelligence, moral sense
- The quality you most admire in
a woman?
Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence
- Your favorite virtue?
All virtues that are not limited
to a sect: the universal virtues
- Your favorite occupation?
Reading, dreaming, and writing verse
- Who would you have liked
to be?
Since the question does not arise,
I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have
liked to be Pliny the Younger.
Seven years after the first questionnaire,
Proust was asked, at another social event, to fill out another; the questions
are much the same, but the answers somewhat different, indicative of his
traits at 20:
- Your most marked characteristic?
A craving to be loved, or, to be
more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired
- The quality you most like
in a man?
- The quality you most like in a
woman?
A man's virtues, and frankness in
friendship
- What do you most value in your
friends?
Tenderness - provided they possess
a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
- What is your principle defect?
Lack of understanding; weakness of
will
- What is your favorite occupation?
- What is your dream of happiness?
Not, I fear, a very elevated one.
I really haven't the courage to say what it is, and if I did I should
probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.
- What to your mind would be
the greatest of misfortunes?
Never to have known my mother or
my grandmother
- What would you like to be?
Myself - as those whom I admire would
like me to be
- In what country would you
like to live?
One where certain things that I want
would be realized - and where feelings of tenderness would always
be reciprocated. [Proust's underlining]
- What is your favorite color?
Beauty lies not in colors but in
thier harmony
- What is your favorite flower?
Hers - but apart from that, all
- What is your favorite bird?
- Who are your favorite prose writers?
At the moment, Anatole France and
Pierre Loti
- Who are your favorite poets?
Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
- Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
- Who are your favorite heroines
of fiction?
Phedre (crossed out) Berenice
- Who are your favorite composers?
Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann
- Who are your favorite painters?
Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt
- Who are your heroes in real life?
Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux
(professors)
- Who are your favorite heroines
of history?
- What are your favorite names?
I only have one at a time
- What is it you most dislike?
- What historical figures do you
most despise?
I am not sufficiently educated to
say
- What event in military history
do you most admire?
My own enlistment as a volunteer!
- What reform do you most admire?
- What natural gift would you most
like to possess?
Will power and irresistible charm
- How would you like to die?
A better man than I am, and much
beloved
- What is your present state
of mind?
Annoyance at having to think about
myself in order to answer these questions
- To what faults do you feel most
indulgent?
- What is your motto?
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