Baron de Charlus and his fractured homosexuality in Volume 4 of Search for Lost Time

Impossible to fully understand In Search of Lost Time without making some sense out of the character of the Baron de Charlus. As we learn definitively at the outset of volume 4, the aptly named Sodom and Gommorah, Charlus leads a "secret" life as a homosexual - he's a certain recognizable type, an older, distinguished man, going to pot a little bit (getting notably fatter over the course of the volumes) who is attracted only to much younger men and of a much lower social status; he's also a stalker, picks out likely pick-ups and engages in quick, violent, masochistic sex with them and then he's gone. There's much discussion about what today we'd call his "gaydar," as he seems to have a lot of trysts and, at least to the knowledge of the narrator, never gets beaten or assaulted by straight men he tries to pick up. Over the course of volume 4, Charlus develops his first, it seems, long-standing gay relationship, as he links up with a man who fits the type but is a little more cultured than the shopkeepers he previously picked up: Morel, an accomplished violinist who is in active military service (as a side note: military service in France at this era seems to be a joke; no wonder the country fared so poorly in the world wars). As Morel becomes Charlus' constant companion, we begin to see the fractures in Charlus' life. On the one hand, his homosexuality is supposed to be a deep secret. He never comes out, openly, as a homosexual - as he would today of course, and even in the time he would have, though it would have threatened his treasured social status and acceptance. On the other hand, everyone seems to know about Charlus' "taste" - hosts make a point of putting him and Morel up in "adoining rooms," for example, and there are various scenes in which someone says something off-hand like "Your taste is known to differ," referring to artworks, but that leads to weird and awkward embarrassing moments. Homosexuality is the great unspoken - and yet, it's not unspoken in this novel, it's a major theme, especially of volume 4. It's only unspoken in relation to Proust himself, a homosexual, as all readers know or surmise, who pretends otherwise. This fractured knowledge is part of the tension and excitement of the novel, and of French (and our) society, to varying degrees. As we proceed through volume 4 Charlus takes increasingly daring steps toward revealing his homosexuality - wearing lipstick!, for example - but he can never quite cross the line and everyone else pretends not to know what everyone knows.