Proust's Latin Americans

2 Gabriel de Yturri: An Argentinian in Paris

2 Gabriel de Yturri An Argentinian in Paris Not all of Proust’s Latin American friends were as rich, successful, and integrated into French culture as Reynaldo Hahn. Gabriel de Yturri (figs. 2.1 and 2.2) came from a modest family, spoke French with a thick accent, and stood out as a foreigner in the salons. He was born in 1860 in the village of Yerba Buena, near Tucumán, in northern Argentina, and he did not move to Europe until he was twenty, after a family friend—the British priest Kenelm Vaughan—arranged a scholarship at the English College in Lisbon.1 Gabriel remained in Portugal only a few months before making his way to Paris, where he found a job selling ties at Le Carnaval de Venise, a fashionable store near the Louvre. In 1885, when he was twenty-five, he met Count Robert de Montesquiou, who offered him a position as his personal secretary and took him in as a lover.2 Montesquiou—often cited as the main model for the Baron de Charlus in Proust’s novel—was a thirty-year-old poet and socialite who lived in his family’s mansion on the Quai d’Orsay, where he had created an apartment (fig. 2.3) that was so lavishly—and eccentrically—decorated that it became the model for des Esseintes’s home in J. K. Huysman’s Against the Grain. Yturri came to share the count’s passion for collecting and acquiring memorabilia and became an expert at scouting for paintings, sculptures, and antiques to furnish their numerous residences. One of his most celebrated finds was a monolithic marble basin that had once belonged to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s mistress. Yturri successfully negotiated to buy this vast tub—it was more than eighteen feet wide and weighed over a ton—and then arranged for it to be excavated, transported on a horse-drawn cart across town, and installed at Montesquiou’s villa in Neuilly in 1900 (figs. 2.4 and 2.5). The Montesquiou papers at the Biblioth èque Nationale contain two photos showing a triumphant Yturri, riding Figure 2.1. Photo of Gabriel de Yturri, ca. 1885–1890. Département de Manuscrits, NaFr 15146, f. 18, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Figure 2.2. Robert de Montesquiou, Sketch of Gabriel de Yturri. Département de Manuscrits, NaFr 15146, f.14, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. 92 Gabriel de Yturri atop the marble basin, beaming with pride like a hunter with his trophy. “Yturri loved this basin so much,” Montesquiou later explained, “that he wanted to add to its past pedigree a more contemporary contribution,”3 so the couple asked their poet friends to compose verses to the tub. Anna de Noailles and Jean Lorrain accepted the invitation, and the count capped the literary homage with a sonnet praising the object’s illustrious past. Les larmes des objets sont dans ce bloc de Rance, Vasque de Montespan, miroir de Pompadour, Piscine qui mesure un incroyable tour, Et, du faste des dieux, symbolise l’outrance Les filons azurés, les veines de garance, Du bleu sang de nos rois, du sang vif de l’amour, Dans ce marbre immortel mêlent, encore un jour, Le souverain Éros aux monarques de France. Figure 2.3. Photo of Robert de Montesquiou’s apartment, Quai d’Orsay, 1880s. Département de Manuscrits, NaFr 15037, f. 126, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. An Argentinian in Paris 93 Des lignes de batiste ont traîné sur ces bords; Les uns glissant au long de voluptueux corps, Les autres ablués aux doigts de mains pieuses. Car l’Hermitage, qui fut temple à Cupido, Devient chapelle; et des candeurs religieuses, Frôlant l’impur bassin, le changement d’âme et d’eau.4 (Objects’ tears within the marbled block from Rance Montespan’s basin, Pompadour’s looking glass Pool of girth beyond belief That all the pomp of gods exceeds. In azured skeins and veins of madder Blue blood of kings and scarlet blood of love Shall mingle still in this immortal marble Sovereign Eros with the Royalty of France. White batiste pleats have brushed along this rim; Some over a voluptuous body sliding, Others by pious fingers softly rinsed. Just as the Hermitage, that once was Cupid’s temple, Is now a shrine, so blessed whiteness th’impure basin Cleansed, for soul and water both...