de Charlus, his want of common sense, perhaps too the chastity of what were probably his relations with Morel, made him go out of his way at this period to shower upon the violinist strange bounties which the other was incapable of understanding, and to which his nature, impulsive in its own way, but mean and ungrateful, could respond only by a harshness or a violence that were steadily intensified and plunged M. de Charlus⁠—formerly so proud, now quite timid⁠—in fits of genuine despair. We shall see how, in the smallest matters, Morel, who fancied himself a M.