Selby

Selby is a newly arrived art student in Paris whose tentative entrance into Julian's studio develops into a comic and emotionally charged education in artistic society, friendship, and love. Shy, nervous, and dependent at first on a letter of introduction, he nevertheless possesses an unexpected audacity and a capacity for improvised social performance. His movement from intimidated newcomer to jealous, companionable participant in the Latin Quarter makes him one of the story's most revealing observers of bohemian life.

Identity and Introduction

Selby first appears at Julian's when another student identifies Foxhall Clifford for him: Clifford is a young man seated before an easel and doing nothing. Selby approaches with the formal declaration that he has just arrived in Paris and carries a letter of introduction, but the speech is swallowed by the crash of a falling easel and the sudden assault of one student upon another. The resulting battle rolls through the studios of MM. Boulanger and Lefebvre and continues as a scuffle on the stairs. Selby's apprehension about his reception is therefore established against an environment whose disorder is both threatening and ordinary.

Clifford's calm response immediately changes the atmosphere for Selby. Although the studio is noisy, Clifford assures him that he will like the other students once he knows them, then introduces him with unaffected simplicity to half a dozen artists of different nationalities. Even the imposing Massier welcomes Selby, praising his French and joking that, as Clifford's friend, he will have no difficulty in the studio, provided he accepts the customary work of filling the stove until the arrival of the next new student. Selby's first social protection is thus Clifford's informal authority rather than any established standing of his own.

Social Adaptation and Comic Confidence

Selby's timidity does not prevent him from answering the studio's challenges. When the model calls out to ask whether she has been forgotten, Selby replies that she is charming, astonishing himself with his own audacity. The studio immediately approves: the students rise as one man and proclaim that he has done well, while the model laughs, kisses her hand to him, and promises to see him the next day. The moment is small but decisive. Selby discovers that boldness, even when spontaneous and slightly absurd, can win him acceptance more quickly than formal introductions can.

He works at the studio throughout the following week without molestation, becoming a communal comic character in the process. The French students christen him l'Enfant Prodigue, which is variously translated as The Prodigious Infant, The Kid, Kid Selby, and Kidby. The nickname then degenerates from Kidby to Kidney and finally to Tidbits before Clifford's authority stops the process and restores Kid. The sequence gives Selby a collective identity while also showing how precarious identity is within the studio: it is made, altered, and protected through group play.

His treatment by M. Boulanger further clarifies his position. On Wednesday, the professor subjects the students, including Clifford, to three hours of biting sarcasm. Clifford is told that he knows less about a work of art than about the art of work, whereas Selby escapes with a silent examination of his drawing, a sharp look, and a non-committal gesture. Selby is neither celebrated nor humiliated; he passes through the studio's judgment without being fully claimed by it. When Clifford does not appear the next day, Selby learns that expecting to see him has been an act of vanity and wanders alone back toward the Latin Quarter.

Desire, Performance, and the Flower Market

Selby's social boldness becomes more elaborate when he arranges flowers for Rue Barrée. He instructs the gardener to send a rose-bush with the other flowers and emphatically forbids him to say who sent them. He also directs that the remaining flowers be delivered to the Hôtel du Sénat at 7 rue de Tournon, where he will leave instructions with the concierge. The care with which he manages anonymity reveals both romantic intention and uncertainty: he wants the gesture to reach its recipient, but he wants its authorship concealed.

Immediately afterward, Selby's public dignity collapses into private embarrassment. He buttons his glove with great solemnity and stalks away, only to blush furiously once he is around the corner and out of the gardener's sight. Ten minutes later, still wearing his hat and gloves and still holding his stick, he sits in his room at the Hôtel du Sénat repeating that he is an ass. An hour later he remains in the same chair and posture, but his smile has become less foolish and more retrospective. The episode turns romantic self-consciousness into a physical tableau: his unchanged clothing and pose register the interval in which humiliation gradually becomes reflection, perhaps even satisfaction.

Jealousy and the Clifford Rivalry

Selby's attachment to Rue Barrée intensifies after Clifford's relationship with her appears to change. At first Selby refuses to acknowledge his jealousy and escapes the studio for a day in the country. The retreat has the opposite effect from the one intended. The woods and fields aggravate his condition; brooks seem to speak of Rue Barrée, and the mowers' calls across the meadow end, in his imagination, in her name. The countryside does not release him from the Latin Quarter but fills the landscape with the object of his preoccupation.

That day in the country leaves him angry for a week. He works sulkily at Julian's while tormented by the desire to know where Clifford is and what he may be doing. His jealousy is therefore directed not only toward Rue Barrée but toward Clifford's unknown movements and privileged intimacy with the social world Selby is still learning to navigate. The emotion culminates in an erratic Sunday walk that begins at the flower market on the Pont au Change, extends gloomily to the morgue, and returns to the marble bridge. The route transforms romantic anxiety into compulsive wandering, as though no ordinary destination could contain it.

Selby finally recognizes that the situation is becoming intolerable and visits Clifford, who is convalescing in his garden over mint juleps. They discuss morals and human happiness, and each finds the other entertaining, though Selby fails to extract the information he wants from Clifford. Clifford's amusement at the unsuccessful attempt to pump him preserves the mystery that feeds Selby's jealousy. Yet the juleps soothe Selby, bringing balm to his pain and hope to his disappointed heart. Their companionship interrupts the rivalry rather than resolving it.

The meeting also reveals the strength of Selby's attachment to Clifford. When Selby says he must leave, Clifford goes with him; when Selby insists on accompanying Clifford back to his door, Clifford decides to escort Selby halfway; and when separation remains difficult, they agree to dine together and flit. The mutual reluctance to part converts suspicion into renewed fellowship. Dinner at Mignon's is arranged amid comic ceremony, with Selby interviewing the chef while Clifford keeps a fatherly eye on the butler. Selby's emotional life consequently remains divided between romantic jealousy and the pleasure of male companionship, with neither side wholly displacing the other.

Narrative Role and Significance

Selby functions as a comic outsider whose awkwardness makes the social rituals of the Paris studios visible. He enters with a letter of introduction but no confidence, is absorbed into the studio through nicknames and practical jokes, and learns that social belonging depends on performance as much as on artistic merit. His unexpected reply to the model, his carefully staged flower delivery, and his exaggerated departure from the gardener all show a young man repeatedly rehearsing adulthood before an audience that is ready to laugh with him.

His jealousy supplies a more serious counterpoint to the comedy. Selby tries to suppress desire by withdrawing into the country, tries to master it through surveillance and wandering, and finally seeks relief in Clifford's company. None of these measures gives him complete control, but each changes the form of his feeling. He begins as a nervous stranger who needs Clifford to introduce him; he becomes a recognized studio figure, a romantic intriguer, and a friend capable of insisting on continued companionship. The character's importance lies in that unstable mixture of innocence, vanity, audacity, jealousy, and genuine affection: Selby is not simply the butt of the studio's jokes, but the emotional instrument through which its freedoms and cruelties are felt.