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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Within a Budding Grove - -Author: Marcel Proust - -Translator: Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff - -Release Date: October 23, 2020 [EBook #63532] -[Most recently updated: May 5, 2023] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by The Internet Archive.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE *** - - - - -WITHIN A -BUDDING GROVE - -by - -MARCEL PROUST - -TRANSLATED BY - -C. K. SCOTT MONCRIEFF - - -THE MODERN LIBRARY - -PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK - - - - -_Copyright_, 1924, _By_ THOMAS SELTZER - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S DEDICATION - - -_To_ -K. S. S. - -That _men in armour may be born -With serpents' teeth the field is sown; -Rains mould, winds bend, suns gild the corn -Too quickly ripe, too early mown._ - -_I scan the quivering beads, behold -The features, catch the whispered breath -Of friends long garnered in the cold -Unopening granaries of death_, - -_Whose names in solemn cadence ring -Across my slow oblivious page. -Their friendship was a finer thing -Than fame, or wealth, or honoured age._ - -_And--while you live and I--shall last -Its tale of seasons with us yet -Who cherish, in the undying -The men we never can forget._ - - -Bad Kissingen, C. K. S. M. - -July 31, 1923. - - - - -CONTENTS - -PART I -Madame Swann at Home -_A break in the narrative: old friends in new aspects--The -Marquis de Norpois--Bergotte--How I cease for the time being -to see Gilberte: a general outline of the sorrow caused by a parting -and of the irregular process of oblivion._ - -Place-Names: The Place -_My first visit to Balbec_ - -PART II -Place-Names: The Place (continued) -_First impressions of M. de Charlus and -of Robert de Saint-Loup--Dinner with Bloch and his family._ - -Seascape, with Frieze of Girls -_Dinners at Rivebelle--Enter Albertine._ - - - - -WITHIN A -BUDDING GROVE - - - -PART I - - - - -_MADAME SWANN AT HOME_ - - -My mother, when it was a question of our having M. de Norpois to dinner -for the first time, having expressed her regret that Professor Cottard -was away from home, and that she herself had quite ceased to see -anything of Swann, since either of these might have helped to entertain -the old Ambassador, my father replied that so eminent a guest, so -distinguished a man of science as Cottard could never be out of place at -a dinner-table, but that Swann, with his ostentation, his habit of -crying aloud from the house-tops the name of everyone that he knew, -however slightly, was an impossible vulgarian whom the Marquis de -Norpois would be sure to dismiss as--to use his own epithet--a -"pestilent" fellow. Now, this attitude on my father's part may be felt to -require a few words of explanation, inasmuch as some of us, no doubt, -remember a Cottard of distinct mediocrity and a Swann by whom modesty -and discretion, in all his social relations, were carried to the utmost -refinement of delicacy. But in his case, what had happened was that, to -the original "young Swann" and also to the Swann of the Jockey Club, our -old friend had added a fresh personality (which was not to be his last) -that of Odette's husband. Adapting to the humble ambitions of that lady -the instinct, the desire, the industry which he had always had, he had -laboriously constructed for himself, a long way beneath the old, a new -position more appropriate to the companion who was to share it with him. -In this he shewed himself another man. Since (while he continued to go, -by himself, to the houses of his own friends, on whom he did not care to -inflict Odette unless they had expressly asked that she should be -introduced to them) it was a new life that he had begun to lead, in -common with his wife, among a new set of people, it was quite -intelligible that, in order to estimate the importance of these new -friends and thereby the pleasure, the self-esteem that were to be -derived from entertaining them, he should have made use, as a standard -of comparison, not of the brilliant society in which he himself had -moved before his marriage but of the earlier environment of Odette. And -yet, even when one knew that it was with unfashionable officials and -their faded wives, the wallflowers of ministerial ball-rooms, that he -was now anxious to associate, it was still astonishing to hear him, who -in the old days, and even still, would so gracefully refrain from -mentioning an invitation to Twickenham or to Marlborough House, proclaim -with quite unnecessary emphasis that the wife of some Assistant -Under-Secretary for Something had returned Mme. Swann's call. It will -perhaps be objected here that what this really implied was that the -simplicity of the fashionable Swann had been nothing more than a supreme -refinement of vanity, and that, like certain other Israelites, my -parents' old friend had contrived to illustrate in turn all the stages -through which his race had passed, from the crudest and coarsest form of -snobbishness up to the highest pitch of good manners. But the chief -reason--and one which is applicable to humanity as a whole--was that our -virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we -retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so -closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which -we make it our duty to practise them, that, if we are suddenly called -upon to perform some action of a different order, it takes us by -surprise, and without our supposing for a moment that it might involve -the bringing of those very same virtues into play. Swann, in his intense -consciousness of his new social surroundings, and in the pride with -which he referred to them, was like those great artists--modest or -generous by nature--who, if at the end of their career they take to -cooking or to gardening, display a childlike gratification at the -compliments that are paid to their dishes or their borders, and will not -listen to any of the criticism which they heard unmoved when it was -applied to their real achievements; or who, after giving away a canvas, -cannot conceal their annoyance if they lose a couple of francs at -dominoes. - -As for Professor Cottard, we shall meet him again and can study him at -our leisure, much later in the course of our story, with the "Mistress", -Mme. Verdurin, in her country house La Raspelière. For the present, the -following observations must suffice; first of all, in the case of Swann -the alteration might indeed be surprising, since it had been -accomplished and yet was not suspected by me when I used to see -Gilberte's father in the Champs-Elysées, where, moreover, as he never -spoke to me, he could not very well have made any display of his -political relations. It is true that, if he had done so, I might not at -once have discerned his vanity, for the idea that one has long held of a -person is apt to stop one's eyes and ears; my mother, for three whole -years, had no more noticed the salve with which one of her nieces used -to paint her lips than if it had been wholly and invisibly dissolved in -some clear liquid; until one day a streak too much, or possibly -something else, brought about the phenomenon known as super-saturation; -all the paint that had hitherto passed unperceived was now crystallised, -and my mother, in the face of this sudden riot of colour, declared, in -the best Combray manner, that it was a perfect scandal, and almost -severed relations with her niece. With Cottard, on the contrary, the -epoch in which we have seen him assisting at the first introduction of -Swann to the Verdurins was now buried in the past; whereas honours, -offices and titles come with the passage of years; moreover, a man may -be illiterate, and make stupid puns, and yet have a special gift, which -no amount of general culture can replace--such as the gift of a great -strategist or physician. And so it was not merely as an obscure -practitioner, who had attained in course of time to European celebrity, -that the rest of his profession regarded Cottard. The most intelligent -of the younger doctors used to assert--for a year or two, that is to -say, for fashions, being themselves begotten of the desire for change, -are quick to change also--that if they themselves ever fell ill Cottard -was the only one of the leading men to whom they would entrust their -lives. No doubt they preferred, socially, to meet certain others who -were better read, more artistic, with whom they could discuss Nietzsche -and Wagner. When there was a musical party at Mme. Cottard's, on the -evenings when she entertained--in the hope that it might one day make -him Dean of the Faculty--the colleagues and pupils of her husband, he, -instead of listening, preferred to play cards in another room. Yet -everybody praised the quickness, the penetration, the unerring -confidence with which, at a glance, he could diagnose disease. Thirdly, -in considering the general impression which Professor Cottard must have -made on a man like my father, we must bear in mind that the character -which a man exhibits in the latter half of his life is not always, even -if it is often his original character developed or withered, attenuated -or enlarged; it is sometimes the exact opposite, like a garment that has -been turned. Except from the Verdurins, who were infatuated with him, -Cottard's hesitating manner, his excessive timidity and affability had, -in his young days, called down upon him endless taunts and sneers. What -charitable friend counselled that glacial air? The importance of his -professional standing made it all the more easy to adopt. Wherever he -went, save at the Verdurins', where he instinctively became himself -again, he would assume a repellent coldness, remain silent as long as -possible, be peremptory when he was obliged to speak, and not forget to -say the most cutting things. He had every opportunity of rehearsing this -new attitude before his patients, who, seeing him for the first time, -were not in a position to make comparisons, and would have been greatly -surprised to learn that he was not at all a rude man by nature. Complete -impassivity was what he strove to attain, and even while visiting his -hospital wards, when he allowed himself to utter one of those puns which -left everyone, from the house physician to the junior student, helpless -with laughter, he would always make it without moving a muscle of his -face, while even that was no longer recognisable now that he had shaved -off his beard and moustache. - -But who, the reader has been asking, was the Marquis de Norpois. Well, -he had been Minister Plenipotentiary before the War, and was actually an -Ambassador on the Sixteenth of May; in spite of which, and to the -general astonishment, he had since been several times chosen to -represent France on Extraordinary Missions,--even as Controller of the -Public Debt in Egypt, where, thanks to his great capability as a -financier, he had rendered important services--by Radical Cabinets under -which a reactionary of the middle classes would have declined to serve, -and in whose eyes M. de Norpois, in view of his past, his connexions and -his opinions, ought presumably to have been suspect. But these advanced -Ministers seemed to consider that, in making such an appointment, they -were shewing how broad their own minds were, when the supreme interests -of France were at stake, were raising themselves above the general run -of politicians, were meriting, from the _Journal des Débats_ itself, -the title of "Statesmen", and were reaping direct advantage from the -weight that attaches to an aristocratic name and the dramatic interest -always aroused by an unexpected appointment. And they knew also that -they could reap these advantages by making an appeal to M. de Norpois, -without having to fear any want of political loyalty on his part, a -fault against which his noble birth not only need not put them on their -guard but offered a positive guarantee. And in this calculation the -Government of the Republic were not mistaken. In the first place, -because an aristocrat of a certain type, brought up from his cradle to -regard his name as an integral part of himself of which no accident can -deprive him (an asset of whose value his peers, or persons of even -higher rank, can form a fairly exact estimate), knows that he can -dispense with the efforts (since they can in no way enhance his -position) in which, without any appreciable result, so many public men -of the middle class spend themselves,--to profess only the "right" -opinions, to frequent only the "sound" people. Anxious, on the other -hand, to increase his own importance in the eyes of the princely or -ducal families which take immediate precedence of his own, he knows that -he can do so by giving his name that complement which hitherto it has -lacked, which will give it priority over other names heraldically its -equals: such as political power, a literary or an artistic reputation, -or a large fortune. And so what he saves by avoiding the society of the -ineffective country squires, after whom all the professional families -run helter-skelter, but of his intimacy with whom, were he to profess -it, a prince would think nothing, he will lavish on the politicians who -(free-masons, or worse, though they be) can advance him in Diplomacy or -"back" him in an election, and on the artists or scientists whose -patronage can help him to "arrive" in those departments in which they -excel, on everyone, in fact, who is in a position to confer a fresh -distinction or to "bring off" a rich marriage. - -But in the character of M. de Norpois there was this predominant -feature, that, in the course of a long career of diplomacy, he had -become imbued with that negative, methodical, conservative spirit, -called "governmental", which is common to all Governments and, under -every Government, particularly inspires its Foreign Office. He had -imbibed, during that career, an aversion, a dread, a contempt for the -methods of procedure, more or less revolutionary and in any event quite -incorrect, which are those of an Opposition. Save in the case of a few -illiterates--high or low, it makes no matter--by whom no difference in -quality is perceptible, what attracts men one to another is not a common -point of view but a consanguinity of spirit. An Academician of the kind -of Legouvé, and therefore an upholder of the classics, would applaud -Maxime Ducamp's or Mezière's eulogy of Victor Hugo with more fervour -than that of Boileau by Claudel. A common Nationalism suffices to endear -Barrès to his electors, who scarcely distinguish between him and M. -Georges Berry, but does not endear him to those of his brother -Academicians who, with a similar outlook on politics but a different -type of mind, will prefer to him even such open adversaries as M. Ribot -and M. Deschanel, with whom, in turn, the most loyal Monarchists feel -themselves more closely allied than with Maurras or Léon Daudet, -although these also are living in the hope of a glorious Restoration. -Miserly in the use of words, not only from a professional scruple of -prudence and reserve, but because words themselves have more value, -present more subtleties of definition to men whose efforts, protracted -over a decade, to bring two countries to an understanding, are -condensed, translated--in a speech or in a protocol--into a single -adjective, colourless in all appearance, but to them pregnant with a -world of meaning, M. de Norpois was considered very stiff, at the -Commission, where he sat next to my father, whom everyone else -congratulated on the astonishing way in which the old Ambassador unbent -to him. My father was himself more astonished than anyone. For not -being, as a rule, very affable, his company was little sought outside -his own intimate circle, a limitation which he used modestly and frankly -to avow. He realised that these overtures were an outcome, in the -diplomat, of that point of view which everyone adopts for himself in -making his choice of friends, from which all a man's intellectual -qualities, his refinement, his affection are a far less potent -recommendation of him, when at the same time he bores or irritates one, -than are the mere straightforwardness and good-humour of another man -whom most people would regard as frivolous or even fatuous. "De Norpois -has asked me to dinner again; it's quite extraordinary; everyone on the -Commission is amazed, as he never has any personal relations with any of -us. I am sure he's going to tell me something thrilling, again, about -the 'Seventy war." My father knew that M. de Norpois had warned, had -perhaps been alone in warning the Emperor of the growing strength and -bellicose designs of Prussia, and that Bismarck rated his intelligence -most highly. Only the other day, at the Opera, during the gala -performance given for King Theodosius, the newspapers had all drawn -attention to the long conversation which that Monarch had held with M. -de Norpois. "I must ask him whether the King's visit had any real -significance," my father went on, for he was keenly interested in -foreign politics. "I know old Norpois keeps very close as a rule, but -when he's with me he opens out quite charmingly." - -As for my mother, perhaps the Ambassador had not the type of mind -towards which she felt herself most attracted. I should add that his -conversation furnished so exhaustive a glossary of the superannuated -forms of speech peculiar to a certain profession, class and period--a -period which, for that profession and that class, might be said not to -have altogether passed away--that I sometimes regret that I have not -kept any literal record simply of the things that I have heard him say. -I should thus have obtained an effect of old-fashioned courtesy by the -same process and at as little expense as that actor at the Palais-Royal -who, when asked where on earth he managed to find his astounding hats, -answered, "I do not find my hats. I keep them." In a word, I suppose -that my mother considered M. de Norpois a trifle "out-of-date", which -was by no means a fault in her eyes, so far as manners were concerned, -but attracted her less in the region--not, in this instance, of ideas, -for those of M. de Norpois were extremely modern--but of idiom. She -felt, however, that she was paying a delicate compliment to her husband -when she spoke admiringly of the diplomat who had shewn so remarkable a -predilection for him. By confirming in my father's mind the good opinion -that he already had of M. de Norpois, and so inducing him to form a good -opinion of himself also, she knew that she was carrying out that one of -her wifely duties which consisted in making life pleasant and -comfortable for her husband, just as when she saw to it that his dinner -was perfectly cooked and served in silence. And as she was incapable of -deceiving my father, she compelled herself to admire the old Ambassador, -so as to be able to praise him with sincerity. Incidentally she could -naturally, and did appreciate his kindness, his somewhat antiquated -courtesy (so ceremonious that when, as he was walking along the street, -his tall figure rigidly erect, he caught sight of my mother driving -past, before raising his hat to her he would fling away the cigar that -he had just lighted); his conversation, so elaborately circumspect, in -which he referred as seldom as possible to himself and always considered -what might interest the person to whom he was speaking; his promptness -in answering a letter, which was so astonishing that whenever my father, -just after posting one himself to M. de Norpois, saw his handwriting -upon an envelope, his first thought was always one of annoyance that -their letters must, unfortunately, have crossed in the post; which, one -was led to suppose, bestowed upon him the special and luxurious -privilege of extraordinary deliveries and collections at all hours of -the day and night. My mother marvelled at his being so punctilious -although so busy, so friendly although so much in demand, never -realising that "although", with such people, is invariably an -unrecognised "because", and that (just as old men are always wonderful -for their age, and kings extraordinarily simple, and country cousins -astonishingly well-informed) it was the same system of habits that -enabled M. de Norpois to undertake so many duties and to be so -methodical in answering letters, to go everywhere and to be so friendly -when he came to us. Moreover she made the mistake which everyone makes -who is unduly modest; she rated everything that concerned herself below, -and consequently outside the range of other people's duties and -engagements. The letter which it seemed to her so meritorious in my -father's friend to have written us promptly, since in the course of the -day he must have had ever so many letters to write, she excepted from -that great number of letters, of which actually it was a unit; in the -same way she did not consider that dining with us was, for M. de -Norpois, merely one of the innumerable activities of his social life; -she never guessed that the Ambassador had trained himself, long ago, to -look upon dining out as one of his diplomatic functions, and to display, -at table, an inveterate charm which it would have been too much to have -expected him specially to discard when he came to dine with us. - -The evening on which M. de Norpois first appeared at our table, in a -year when I still went to play in the Champs-Elysées, has remained -fixed in my memory because the afternoon of the same day was that upon -which I at last went to hear Berma, at a _matinée_, in _Phèdre_, and -also because in talking to M. de Norpois I realised suddenly, and in a -new and different way, how completely the feelings aroused in me by all -that concerned Gilberte Swann and her parents differed from any that the -same family could inspire in anyone else. - -It was no doubt the sight of the depression in which I was plunged by -the approach of the New Year holidays, in which, as she herself had -informed me, I was to see nothing of Gilberte, that prompted my mother -one day, in the hope of distracting my mind, to suggest, "If you are -still so anxious to hear Berma, I think that your father would allow you -perhaps to go; your grandmother can take you." - -But it was because M. de Norpois had told him that he ought to let me -hear Berma, that it was an experience for a young man to remember in -later life, that my father, who had hitherto been so resolutely opposed -to my going and wasting my time, with the added risk of my falling ill -again, on what he used to shock my grandmother by calling "futilities", -was now not far from regarding this manner of spending an afternoon as -included, in some vague way, in the list of precious formulae for -success in a brilliant career. My grandmother, who, in renouncing on my -behalf the profit which, according to her, I should have derived from -hearing Berma, had made a considerable sacrifice in the interests of my -health, was surprised to find that this last had become of no account at -a mere word from M. de Norpois. Reposing the unconquerable hopes of her -rationalist spirit in the strict course of fresh air and early hours -which had been prescribed for me, she now deplored, as something -disastrous, this infringement that I was to make of my rules, and in a -tone of despair protested, "How easily led you are!" to my father, who -replied angrily "What! So it's you that are for not letting him go, now. -That is really too much, after your telling us all day and every day -that it would be so good for him." - -M. de Norpois had also brought about a change in my father's plans in a -matter of far greater importance to myself. My father had always meant -me to become a diplomat, and I could not endure the thought that, even -if I did have to stay for some years, first, at the Ministry, I should -run the risk of being sent, later on, as Ambassador, to capitals in -which no Gilberte dwelt. I should have preferred to return to the -literary career that I had planned for myself, and had then abandoned, -years before, in my wanderings along the Guermantes way. But my father -had steadily opposed my devoting myself to literature, which he regarded -as vastly inferior to diplomacy, refusing even to dignify it with the -title of career, until the day when M. de Norpois, who had little love -for the more recent generations of diplomatic agents, assured him that -it was quite possible, by writing, to attract as much attention, to -receive as much consideration, to exercise as much influence, and at the -same time to preserve more independence than in the Embassies. - -"Well, well, I should never have believed it. Old Norpois doesn't at all -disapprove of your idea of taking up writing," my father had reported. -And as he had a certain amount of influence himself, he imagined that -there was nothing that could not be "arranged", no problem for which a -happy solution might not be found in the conversation of people who -"counted". "I shall bring him back to dinner, one of these days, from -the Commission. You must talk to him a little, and let him see what he -thinks of you. Write something good that you can shew him; he is an -intimate friend of the editor of the _Deux-Mondes_; he will get you in -there; he will arrange it all, the cunning old fox; and, upon my soul, -he seems to think that diplomacy, nowadays----!" - -My happiness in the prospect of not being separated from Gilberte made -me desirous, but not capable, of writing something good which could be -shewn to M. de Norpois. After a few laboured pages, weariness made the -pen drop from my fingers; I cried with anger at the thought that I -should never have any talent, that I was not "gifted", that I could not -even take advantage of the chance that M. de Norpois's coming visit was -to offer me of spending the rest of my life in Paris. The recollection -that I was to be taken to hear Berma alone distracted me from my grief. -But just as I did not wish to see any storms except on those coasts -where they raged with most violence, so I should not have cared to hear -the great actress except in one of those classic parts in which Swann -had told me that she touched the sublime. For when it is in the hope of -making a priceless discovery that we desire to receive certain -impressions from nature or from works of art, we have certain scruples -about allowing our soul to gather, instead of these, other, inferior, -impressions, which are liable to make us form a false estimate of the -value of Beauty. Berma in _Andromaque_, in _Les Caprices de Marianne_, -in _Phèdre_, was one of those famous spectacles which my imagination -had so long desired. I should enjoy the same rapture as on the day when -in a gondola I glided to the foot of the Titian of the Frari or the -Carpaccios of San Giorgio dei Schiavoni, were I ever to hear Berma -repeat the lines beginning, - - -"On dit qu'un prompt départ vous éloigne de nous, -Seigneur,----" - - -I was familiar with them from the simple reproduction in black and white -which was given of them upon the printed page; but my heart beat -furiously at the thought--as of the realisation of a long-planned -voyage--that I should at length behold them, bathed and brought to life -in the atmosphere and sunshine of the voice of gold. A Carpaccio in -Venice, Berma in _Phèdre_, masterpieces of pictorial or dramatic art -which the glamour, the dignity attaching to them made so living to me, -that is to say so indivisible, that if I had been taken to see -Carpaccios in one of the galleries of the Louvre, or Berma in some piece -of which I had never heard, I should not have experienced the same -delicious amazement at finding myself at length, with wide-open eyes, -before the unique and inconceivable object of so many thousand dreams. -Then, while I waited, expecting to derive from Berma's playing the -revelation of certain aspects of nobility and tragic grief, it seemed to -me that whatever greatness, whatever truth there might be in her playing -must be enhanced if the actress imposed it upon a work of real value, -instead of what would, after all, be but embroidering a pattern of truth -and beauty upon a common-place and vulgar web. - -Finally, if I went to hear Berma in a new piece, it would not be easy -for me to judge of her art, of her diction, since I should not be able -to differentiate between a text which was not already familiar and what -she added to it by her intonations and gestures, an addition which would -seem to me to be embodied in the play itself; whereas the old plays, the -classics which I knew by heart, presented themselves to me as vast and -empty walls, reserved and made ready for my inspection, on which I -should be able to appreciate without restriction the devices by which -Berma would cover them, as with frescoes, with the perpetually fresh -treasures of her inspiration. Unfortunately, for some years now, since -she had retired from the great theatres, to make the fortune of one on -the boulevards where she was the "star", she had ceased to appear in -classic parts; and in vain did I scan the hoardings; they never -advertised any but the newest pieces, written specially for her by -authors in fashion at the moment. When, one morning, as I stood -searching the column of announcements to find the afternoon performances -for the week of the New Year holidays, I saw there for the first -time--at the foot of the bill, after some probably insignificant -curtain-raiser, whose title was opaque to me because it had latent in it -all the details of an action of which I was ignorant--two acts of -_Phèdre_ with Mme. Berma, and, on the following afternoons, _Le -Demi-Monde, Les Caprices de Marianne_, names which, like that of -_Phèdre_, were for me transparent, filled with light only, so familiar -were those works to me, illuminated to their very depths by the -revealing smile of art. They seemed to me to invest with a fresh -nobility Mme. Berma herself when I read in the newspapers, after the -programme of these performances, that it was she who had decided to shew -herself once more to the public in some of her early creations. She was -conscious, then, that certain stage-parts have an interest which -survives the novelty of their first production or the success of a -revival; she regarded them, when interpreted by herself, as museum -pieces which it might be instructive to set before the eyes of the -generation which had admired her in them long ago, or of that which had -never yet seen her in them. In thus advertising, in the middle of a -column of plays intended only to while away an evening, this _Phèdre_, -a title no longer than any of the rest, nor set in different type, she -added something indescribable, as though a hostess, introducing you, -before you all go in to dinner, to her other guests, were to mention, -casually, amid the string of names which are the names of guests and -nothing more, and without any change of tone:--"M. Anatole France." - -The doctor who was attending me--the same who had forbidden me to -travel--advised my parents not to let me go to the theatre; I should -only be ill again afterwards, perhaps for weeks, and should in the long -run derive more pain than pleasure from the experience. The fear of this -might have availed to stop me, if what I had anticipated from such a -spectacle had been only a pleasure for which a subsequent pain could so -compensate as to cancel it. But what I demanded from this -performance--just as from the visit to Balbec, the visit to Venice for -which I had so intensely longed--was something quite different from -pleasure; a series of verities pertaining to a world more real than that -in which I lived, which, once acquired, could never be taken from me -again by any of the trivial incidents--even though it were the cause of -bodily suffering--of my otiose existence. At best, the pleasure which I -was to feel during the performance appeared to me as the perhaps -inevitable form of the perception of these truths; and I hoped only that -the illness which had been forecast for me would not begin until the -play was finished, so that my pleasure should not be in any way -compromised or spoiled. I implored my parents, who, after the doctor's -visit, were no longer inclined to let me go to _Phèdre._ I repeated, -all day long, to myself, the speech beginning, - - -"On dit qu'un prompt départ vous éloigne de nous,----" - - -seeking out every intonation that could be put into it, so as to be able -better to measure my surprise at the way which Berma would have found of -uttering the lines. Concealed, like the Holy of Holies, beneath the veil -that screened her from my gaze, behind which I invested her, every -moment, with a fresh aspect, according to which of the words of -Bergotte--in the pamphlet that Gilberte had found for me--was passing -through my mind; "plastic nobility", "Christian austerity" or "Jansenist -pallor", "Princess of Troezen and of Cleves" or "Mycenean drama", -"Delphic symbol", "Solar myth"; that divine Beauty, whom Berma's acting -was to reveal to me, night and day, upon an altar perpetually illumined, -sat enthroned in the sanctuary of my mind, my mind for which not itself -but my stern, my fickle parents were to decide whether or not it was to -enshrine, and for all time, the perfections of the Deity unveiled, in -the same spot where was now her invisible form. And with my eyes fixed -upon that inconceivable image, I strove from morning to night to -overcome the barriers which my family were putting in my way. But when -those had at last fallen, when my mother--albeit this _matinée_ was -actually to coincide with the meeting of the Commission from which my -father had promised to bring M. de Norpois home to dinner--had said to -me, "Very well, we don't wish you to be unhappy;--if you think that you -will enjoy it so very much, you must go; that's all;" when this day of -theatre-going, hitherto forbidden and unattainable, depended now only -upon myself, then for the first time, being no longer troubled by the -wish that it might cease to be impossible, I asked myself if it were -desirable, if there were not other reasons than my parents' prohibition -which should make me abandon my design. In the first place, whereas I -had been detesting them for their cruelty, their consent made them now -so dear to me that the thought of causing them pain stabbed me also with -a pain through which the purpose of life shewed itself as the pursuit -not of truth but of loving-kindness, and life itself seemed good or evil -only as my parents were happy or sad. "I would rather not go, if it -hurts you," I told my mother, who, on the contrary, strove hard to expel -from my mind any lurking fear that she might regret my going, since -that, she said, would spoil the pleasure that I should otherwise derive -from _Phèdre_, and it was the thought of my pleasure that had induced -my father and her to reverse their earlier decision. But then this sort -of obligation to find a pleasure in the performance seemed to me very -burdensome. Besides, if I returned home ill, should I be well again in -time to be able to go to the Champs-Elysées as soon as the holidays -were over and Gilberte returned? Against all these arguments I set, so -as to decide which course I should take, the idea, invisible there -behind its veil, of the perfections of Berma. I cast into one pan of the -scales "Making Mamma unhappy", "risking not being able to go on the -Champs-Elysées", and into the other, "Jansenist pallor", "Solar myth", -until the words themselves grew dark and clouded in my mind's vision, -ceased to say anything to me, lost all their force; and gradually my -hesitations became so painful that if I had now decided upon the theatre -it would have been only that I might bring them to an end, and be -delivered from them once and for all. It would have been to fix a term -to my sufferings, and no longer in the expectation of an intellectual -benediction, yielding to the attractions of perfection, that I would let -myself be taken, not now to the Wise Goddess, but to the stem, -implacable Divinity, featureless and unnamed, who had been secretly -substituted for her behind the veil. But suddenly everything was -altered. My desire to go and hear Berma received a fresh stimulus which -enabled me to await the coming of the _matinée_ with impatience and -with joy; having gone to take up, in front of the column on which the -playbills were, my daily station, as excruciating, of late, as that of a -stylite saint, I had seen there, still moist and wrinkled, the complete -bill of _Phèdre_, which had just been pasted up for the first time (and -on which, I must confess, the rest of the cast furnished no additional -attraction which could help me to decide). But it gave to one of the -points between which my indecision wavered a form at once more concrete -and--inasmuch as the bill was dated not from the day on which I read it -but from that on which the performance would take place, and from the -very hour at which the curtain would rise--almost imminent, well on the -way, already, to its realisation, so that I jumped for joy before the -column at the thought that on that day, and at that hour precisely, I -should be sitting there in my place, ready to hear the voice of Berma; -and for fear lest my parents might not now be in time to secure two good -seats for my grandmother and myself, I raced back to the house, whipped -on by the magic words which had now taken the place, in my mind, of -"Jansenist pallor" and "Solar myth";--"Ladies will not be admitted to -the stalls in hats. The doors will be closed at two o'clock." - -Alas! that first _matinée_ was to prove a bitter disappointment. My -father offered to drop my grandmother and me at the theatre, on his way -to the Commission. Before leaving the house he said to my mother: "See -that you have a good dinner for us to-night; you remember, I'm bringing -de Norpois back with me." My mother had not forgotten. And all that day, -and overnight, Françoise, rejoicing in the opportunity to devote -herself to that art of the kitchen,--of which she was indeed a -past-master, stimulated, moreover, by the prospect of having a new guest -to feed, the consciousness that she would have to compose, by methods -known to her alone, a dish of beef in jelly, had been living in the -effervescence of creation; since she attached the utmost importance to -the intrinsic quality of the materials which were to enter into the -fabric of her work, she had gone herself to the Halles to procure the -best cuts of rump-steak, shin of beef, calves'-feet, as Michelangelo -passed eight months in the mountains of Carrara choosing the most -perfect blocks of marble for the monument of Julius II.--Françoise -expended on these comings and goings so much ardour that Mamma, at the -sight of her flaming cheeks, was alarmed lest our old servant should -make herself ill with overwork, like the sculptor of the Tombs of the -Medici in the quarries of Pietrasanta. And overnight Françoise had sent -to be cooked in the baker's oven, shielded with breadcrumbs, like a -block of pink marble packed in sawdust, what she called a "Nev'-York -ham". Believing the language to be less rich than it actually was in -words, and her own ears less trustworthy, the first time that she heard -anyone mention York ham she had thought, no doubt,--feeling it to be -hardly conceivable that the dictionary could be so prodigal as to -include at once a "York" and a "New York"--that she had misheard what -was said, and that the ham was really called by the name already -familiar to her. And so, ever since, the word York was preceded in her -ears, or before her eyes when she read it in an advertisement, by the -affix "New" which she pronounced "Nev'". And it was with the most -perfect faith that she would say to her kitchen-maid: "Go and fetch me a -ham from Olida's. Madame told me especially to get a Nev'-York." On that -particular day, if Françoise was consumed by the burning certainty of -creative genius, my lot was the cruel anxiety of the seeker after truth. -No doubt, so long as I had not yet heard Berma speak, I still felt some -pleasure. I felt it in the little square that lay in front of the -theatre, in which, in two hours' time, the bare boughs of the chestnut -trees would gleam with a metallic lustre as the lighted gas-lamps shewed -up every detail of their structure; before the attendants in the -box-office, the selection of whom, their promotion, all their destiny -depended upon the great artist--for she alone held power in the theatre, -where ephemeral managers followed one after the other in an obscure -succession--who took our tickets without even glancing at us, so -preoccupied were they with their anxiety lest any of Mme. Berma's -instructions had not been duly transmitted to the new members of the -staff, lest it was not clearly, everywhere, understood that the hired -applause must never sound for her, that the windows must all be kept -open so long as she was not on the stage, and every door closed tight, -the moment that she appeared; that a bowl of hot water must be concealed -somewhere close to her, to make the dust settle: and, for that matter, -at any moment now her carriage, drawn by a pair of horses with flowing -manes, would be stopping outside the theatre, she would alight from it -muffled in furs, and, crossly acknowledging everyone's salute, would -send one of her attendants to find out whether a stage box had been kept -for her friends, what the temperature was "in front", who were in the -other boxes, if the programme sellers were looking smart; theatre and -public being to her no more than a second, an outermost cloak which she -would put on, and the medium, the more or less "good" conductor through -which her talent would have to pass. I was happy, too, in the theatre -itself; since I had made the discovery that--in contradiction of the -picture so long entertained by my childish imagination--there was but -one stage for everybody, I had supposed that I should be prevented from -seeing it properly by the presence of the other spectators, as one is -when in the thick of a crowd; now I registered the fact that, on the -contrary, thanks to an arrangement which is, so to speak, symbolical of -all spectatorship, everyone feels himself to be the centre of the -theatre; which explained to me why, when Françoise had been sent once -to see some melodrama from the top gallery, she had assured us on her -return that her seat had been the best in the house, and that instead of -finding herself too far from the stage she had been positively -frightened by the mysterious and living proximity of the curtain. My -pleasure increased further when I began to distinguish behind the said -lowered curtain such confused rappings as one hears through the shell of -an egg before the chicken emerges, sounds which speedily grew louder and -suddenly, from that world which, impenetrable by our eyes, yet -scrutinised us with its own, addressed themselves, and to us -indubitably, in the imperious form of three consecutive hammer-blows as -moving as any signals from the planet Mars. And--once this curtain had -risen,--when on the stage a writing-table and a fireplace, in no way out -of the ordinary, had indicated that the persons who were about to enter -would be, not actors come to recite, as I had seen them once and heard -them at an evening party, but real people, just living their lives at -home, on whom I was thus able to spy without their seeing me--my -pleasure still endured; it was broken by a momentary uneasiness; just as -I was straining my ears in readiness before the piece began, two men -entered the theatre from the side of the stage, who must have been very -angry with each other, for they were talking so loud that in the -auditorium, where there were at least a thousand people, we could hear -every word, whereas in quite a small _café_ one is obliged to call the -waiter and ask what it is that two men, who appear to be quarrelling, -are saying; but at that moment, while I sat astonished to find that the -audience was listening to them without protest, drowned as it was in a -universal silence upon which broke, presently, a laugh here and there, I -understood that these insolent fellows were the actors, and that the -short piece known as the "curtain-raiser" had now begun. It was followed -by an interval so long that the audience, who had returned to their -places, grew impatient and began to stamp their feet. I was terrified at -this; for just as in the report of a criminal trial, when I read that -some noble-minded person was coming, against his own interests, to -testify on behalf of an innocent prisoner, I was always afraid that they -would not be nice enough to him, would not shew enough gratitude, would -not recompense him lavishly, and that he, in disgust, would then range -himself on the side of injustice; so now attributing to genius, in this -respect, the same qualities as to virtue, I was afraid lest Berma, -annoyed by the bad behaviour of so ill-bred an audience--in which, on -the other hand, I should have liked her to recognise, with satisfaction, -a few celebrities to whose judgment she would be bound to attach -importance--should express her discontent and disdain by acting badly. -And I gazed appealingly round me at these stamping brutes who were about -to shatter, in their insensate rage, the rare and fragile impression -which I had come to seek. The last moments of my pleasure were during -the opening scenes of _Phèdre._ The heroine herself does not appear in -these first scenes of the second act; and yet, as soon as the curtain -rose, and another curtain, of red velvet this time, was parted in the -middle (a curtain which was used to halve the depth of the stage in all -the plays in which the "star" appeared), an actress entered from the -back who had the face and voice which, I had been told, were those of -Berma. The cast must therefore have been changed; all the trouble that I -had taken in studying the part of the wife of Theseus was wasted. But a -second actress now responded to the first. I must, then, have been -mistaken in supposing that the first was Berma, for the second even more -closely resembled her, and, more than the other, had her diction. Both -of them, moreover, enriched their parts with noble gestures--which I -could vividly distinguish, and could appreciate in their relation to the -text, while they raised and let fall the lovely folds of their -tunics--and also with skilful changes of tone, now passionate, now -ironical, which made me realise the significance of lines that I had -read to myself at home without paying sufficient attention to what they -really meant. But all of a sudden, in the cleft of the red curtain that -veiled her sanctuary, as in a frame, appeared a woman, and -simultaneously with the fear that seized me, far more vexing than -Berma's fear could be, lest someone should upset her by opening a -window, or drown one of her lines by rustling a programme, or annoy her -by applauding the others and by not applauding her enough;--in my own -fashion, still more absolute than Berma's, of considering from that -moment theatre, audience, play and my own body only as an acoustic -medium of no importance, save in the degree to which it was favourable -to the inflexions of that voice,--I realised that the two actresses whom -I had been for some minutes admiring bore not the least resemblance to -her whom I had come to hear. But at the same time all my pleasure had -ceased; in vain might I strain towards Berma eyes, ears, mind, so as not -to let one morsel escape me of the reasons which she would furnish for -my admiring her, I did not succeed in gathering a single one. I could -not even, as I could with her companions, distinguish in her diction and -in her playing intelligent intonations, beautiful gestures. I listened -to her as though I were reading _Phèdre_, or as though Phaedra herself -had at that moment uttered the words that I was hearing, without its -appearing that Berma's talent had added anything at all to them. I could -have wished, so as to be able to explore them fully, so as to attempt to -discover what it was in them that was beautiful, to arrest, to -immobilise for a time before my senses every intonation of the artist's -voice, every expression of her features; at least I did attempt, by dint -of my mental agility in having, before a line came, my attention ready -and tuned to catch it, not to waste upon preparations any morsel of the -precious time that each word, each gesture occupied, and, thanks to the -intensity of my observation, to manage to penetrate as far into them as -if I had had whole hours to spend upon them, by myself. But how short -their duration was! Scarcely had a sound been received by my ear than it -was displaced there by another. In one scene, where Berma stands -motionless for a moment, her arm raised to the level of a face bathed, -by some piece of stagecraft, in a greenish light, before a back-cloth -painted to represent the sea, the whole house broke out in applause; but -already the actress had moved, and the picture that I should have liked -to study existed no longer. I told my grandmother that I could not see -very well; she handed me her glasses. Only, when one believes in the -reality of a thing, making it visible by artificial means is not quite -the same as feeling that it is close at hand. I thought now that it was -no longer Berma at whom I was looking, but her image in a magnifying -glass. I put the glasses down, but then possibly the image that my eye -received of her, diminished by distance, was no more exact; which of the -two Bermas was the real? As for her speech to Hippolyte, I had counted -enormously upon that, since, to judge by the ingenious significance -which her companions were disclosing to me at every moment in less -beautiful parts, she would certainly render it with intonations more -surprising than any which, when reading the play at home, I had -contrived to imagine; but she did not attain to the heights which Œnone -or Aricie would naturally have reached, she planed down into a uniform -flow of melody the whole of a passage in which there were mingled -together contradictions so striking that the least intelligent of tragic -actresses, even the pupils of an academy could not have missed their -effect; besides which, she ran through the speech so rapidly that it was -only when she had come to the last line that my mind became aware of the -deliberate monotony which she had imposed on it throughout. - -Then, at last, a sense of admiration did possess me, provoked by the -frenzied applause of the audience. I mingled my own with theirs, -endeavouring to prolong the general sound so that Berma, in her -gratitude, should surpass herself, and I be certain of having heard her -on one of her great days. A curious thing, by the way, was that the -moment when this storm of public enthusiasm broke loose was, as I -afterwards learned, that in which Berma reveals one of her richest -treasures. It would appear that certain transcendent realities emit all -around them a radiance to which the crowd is sensitive. So it is that -when any great event occurs, when on a distant frontier an army is in -jeopardy, or defeated, or victorious, the vague and conflicting reports -which we receive, from which an educated man can derive little -enlightenment, stimulate in the crowd an emotion by which that man is -surprised, and in which, once expert criticism has informed him of the -actual military situation, he recognises the popular perception of that -"aura" which surrounds momentous happenings, and which may be visible -hundreds of miles away. One learns of a victory either after the war is -over, or at once, from the hilarious joy of one's hall porter. One -discovers the touch of genius in Berma's acting a week after one has -heard her, in the criticism of some review, or else on the spot, from -the thundering acclamation of the stalls. But this immediate recognition -by the crowd was mingled with a hundred others, all quite erroneous; the -applause came, most often, at wrong moments, apart from the fact that it -was mechanically produced by the effect of the applause that had gone -before, just as in a storm, once the sea is sufficiently disturbed, it -will continue to swell, even after the wind has begun to subside. No -matter; the more I applauded, the better, it seemed to me, did Berma -act. "I say," came from a woman sitting near me, of no great social -pretensions, "she fairly gives it you, she does; you'd think she'd do -herself an injury, the way she runs about. I call that acting, don't -you?" And happy to find these reasons for Berma's superiority, though -not without a suspicion that they no more accounted for it than would -for that of the Gioconda or of Benvenuto's Perseus a peasant's gaping -"That's a good bit of work. It's all gold, look! Fine, ain't it?", I -greedily imbibed the strong wine of this popular enthusiasm. I felt, all -the same, when the curtain had fallen for the last time, disappointed -that the pleasure for which I had so longed had been no greater, but at -the same time I felt the need to prolong it, not to depart for ever, -when I left the theatre, from this strange life of the stage which had, -for a few hours, been my own, from which I should be tearing myself -away, as though I were going into exile, when I returned to my own home, -had I not hoped there to learn a great deal more about Berma from her -admirer, to whom I was indebted already for the permission to go to -_Phèdre_, M. de Norpois. I was introduced to him before dinner by my -father, who summoned me into his study for the purpose. As I entered, -the Ambassador rose, held out his hand, bowed his tall figure and fixed -his blue eyes attentively on my face. As the foreign visitors who used -to be presented to him, in the days when he still represented France -abroad, were all more or less (even the famous singers) persons of note, -with regard to whom he could tell, when he met them, that he would be -able to say, later on, when he heard their names mentioned in Paris or -in Petersburg, that he remembered perfectly the evening he had spent -with them at Munich or Sofia, he had formed the habit of impressing upon -them, by his affability, the pleasure with which he was making their -acquaintance; but in addition to this, being convinced that in the life -of European capitals, in contact at once with all the interesting -personalities that passed through them and with the manners and customs -of the native populations, one acquired a deeper insight than could be -gained from books into the intellectual movement throughout Europe, he -would exercise upon each newcomer his keen power of observation, so as -to decide at once with what manner of man he had to deal. The Government -had not for some time now entrusted to him a post abroad, but still, as -soon as anyone was introduced to him, his eyes, as though they had not -yet been informed of their master's retirement, began their fruitful -observation, while by his whole attitude he endeavoured to convey that -the stranger's name was not unknown to him. And so, all the time, while -he spoke to me kindly and with the air of importance of a man who is -conscious of the vastness of his own experience, he never ceased to -examine me with a sagacious curiosity, and to his own profit, as though -I had been some exotic custom, some historic and instructive building or -some "star" upon his course. And in this way he gave proof at once, in -his attitude towards me, of the majestic benevolence of the sage Mentor -and of the zealous curiosity of the young Anacharsis. - -He offered me absolutely no opening to the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_, but -put a number of questions to me on what I had been doing and reading; -asked what were my own inclinations, which I heard thus spoken of for -the first time as though it might be a quite reasonable thing to obey -their promptings, whereas hitherto I had always supposed it to be my -duty to suppress them. Since they attracted me towards Literature, he -did not dissuade me from that course; on the contrary, he spoke of it -with deference, as of some venerable personage whose select circle, in -Rome or at Dresden, one remembers with pleasure, and regrets only that -one's multifarious duties in life enable one to revisit it so seldom. He -appeared to be envying me, with an almost jovial smile, the delightful -hours which, more fortunate than himself and more free, I should be able -to spend with such a Mistress. But the very terms that he employed -shewed me Literature as something entirely different from the image that -I had formed of it at Combray, and I realised that I had been doubly -right in abandoning my intention. Until now, I had reckoned only that I -had not the "gift" for writing; now M. de Norpois took from me the -ambition also. I wanted to express to him what had been my dreams; -trembling with emotion, I was painfully apprehensive that all the words -which I could utter would not be the sincerest possible equivalent of -what I had felt, what I had never yet attempted to formulate; that is to -say that my words had no clear significance. Perhaps by a professional -habit, perhaps by virtue of the calm that is acquired by every important -personage whose advice is commonly sought, and who, knowing that he will -keep the control of the conversation in his own hands, allows the other -party to fret, to struggle, to take his time; perhaps also to emphasise -the dignity of his head (Greek, according to himself, despite his -sweeping whiskers), M. de Norpois, while anything was being explained to -him, would preserve a facial immobility as absolute as if you had been -addressing some ancient and unhearing bust in a museum. Until suddenly, -falling upon you like an auctioneer's hammer, or a Delphic oracle, the -Ambassador's voice, as he replied to you, would be all the more -impressive, in that nothing in his face had allowed you to guess what -sort of impression you had made on him, or what opinion he was about to -express. - -"Precisely;" he suddenly began, as though the case were now heard and -judged, and after allowing me to writhe in increasing helplessness -beneath those motionless eyes which never for an instant left my face. -"There is the case of the son of one of my friends, which, _mutatis -mutandis_, is very much like yours." He adopted in speaking of our -common tendency the same reassuring tone as if it had been a tendency -not to literature but to rheumatics, and he had wished to assure me that -it would not necessarily prove fatal. "He too has chosen to leave the -Quai d'Orsay, although the way had been paved for him there by his -father, and without caring what people might say, he has settled down to -write. And certainly, he's had no reason to regret it. He published two -years ago--of course, he's much older than you, you understand--a book -dealing with the Sense of the Infinite on the Western Shore of Victoria -Nyanza, and this year he has brought out a little thing, not so -important as the other, but very brightly, in places perhaps almost too -pointedly written, on the Repeating Rifle in the Bulgarian Army; and -these have put him quite in a class by himself. He's gone pretty far -already, and he's not the sort of man to stop half-way; I happen to know -that (without any suggestion, of course, of his standing for election) -his name has been mentioned several times, in conversation, and not at -all unfavourably, at the Academy of Moral Sciences. And so, one can't -say yet, of course, that he has reached the pinnacle of fame, still he -has made his way, by sheer industry, to a very fine position indeed, and -success--which doesn't always come only to agitators and mischief-makers -and men who make trouble which is usually more than they are prepared to -take--success has crowned his efforts." - -My father, seeing me already, in a few years' time, an Academician, was -tasting a contentment which M. de Norpois raised to the supreme pitch -when, after a momentary hesitation in which he appeared to be -calculating the possible consequences of so rash an act, he handed me -his card and said: "Why not go and see him yourself? Tell him, I sent -you. He may be able to give you some good advice," plunging me by his -words into as painful a state of anxiety as if he had told me that, next -morning, I was to embark as cabin-boy on board a sailing ship, and to go -round the world. - -My Aunt Léonie had bequeathed to me, together with all sorts of other -things and much of her furniture, with which it was difficult to know -what to do, almost all her unsettled estate--revealing thus after her -death an affection for me which I had hardly suspected in her lifetime. -My father, who was trustee of this estate until I came of age, now -consulted M. de Norpois with regard to several of the investments. He -recommended certain stocks bearing a low rate of interest, which he -considered particularly sound, notably English consols and Russian four -per cents. "With absolutely first class securities such as those," said -M. de Norpois, "even if your income from them is nothing very great, you -may be certain of never losing any of your capital." My father then told -him, roughly, what else he had bought. M. de Norpois gave a just -perceptible smile of congratulation; like all capitalists, he regarded -wealth as an enviable thing, but thought it more delicate to compliment -people upon their possessions only by a half-indicated sign of -intelligent sympathy; on the other hand, as he was himself immensely -rich, he felt that he shewed his good taste by seeming to regard as -considerable the meagre revenues of his friends, with a happy and -comforting resilience to the superiority of his own. He made amends for -this by congratulating my father, without hesitation, on the -"composition" of his list of investments, selected "with so sure, so -delicate, so fine a taste." You would have supposed, to hear him, that -he attributed to the relative values of investments, and even to -investments themselves something akin to aesthetic merit. Of one, -comparatively recent and still little known, which my father mentioned, -M. de Norpois, like the people who have always read the books of which, -you imagine, you yourself alone have ever heard, said at once, "Ah, yes, -I used to amuse myself for some time with watching it in the papers; it -was quite interesting," with the retrospective smile of a regular -subscriber who has read the latest novel already, in monthly -instalments, in his magazine. "It would not be at all a bad idea to -apply for some of this new issue. It is distinctly attractive; they are -offering it at a most tempting discount." But when he came to some of -the older investments, my father, who could not remember their exact -names, which it was easy to confuse with others of the same kind, opened -a drawer and shewed the securities themselves to the Ambassador. The -sight of them enchanted me. They were ornamented with cathedral spires -and allegorical figures, like the old, romantic editions that I had -pored over as a child. All the products of one period have something in -common; the artists who illustrate the poetry of their generation are -the same artists who are employed by the big financial houses. And -nothing reminds me so much of the monthly parts of _Notre-Dame de -Paris_, and of various books by Gérard de Nerval, that used to hang -outside the grocer's door at Combray, than does, in its rectangular and -flowery border, supported by recumbent river-gods, a "personal share" in -the Water Company. - -The contempt which my father had for my kind of intelligence was so far -tempered by his natural affection for me that, in practice, his attitude -towards anything that I might do was one of blind indulgence. And so he -had no qualm about telling me to fetch a little "prose poem" which I had -made up, years before, at Combray, while coming home from a walk. I had -written it down in a state of exaltation which must, I felt certain, -infect everyone who read it. But it was not destined to captivate M. de -Norpois, for he handed it back to me without a word. - -My mother, who had the most profound respect for all my father's -occupations, came in now, timidly, to ask whether dinner might be -served. She was afraid to interrupt a conversation in which she herself -could have no part. And indeed my father was continually reminding the -Marquis of some useful suggestion which they had decided to make at the -next meeting of the Commission; speaking in the peculiar tone always -adopted, when in a strange environment by a pair of colleagues--as -exclusive, in this respect, as two young men from the same -college--whose professional routine has furnished them with a common -fund of memories to which the others present have no access, and to -which they are unwilling to refer before an audience. - -But the absolute control over his facial muscles to which M. de Norpois -had attained allowed him to listen without seeming to hear a word. At -last my father became uneasy: "I had thought," he ventured, after an -endless preamble, "of asking the advice of the Commission . . ." Then -from the face of the noble virtuoso, who had been sitting inert as a -player in an orchestra sits until the moment comes for him to begin his -part, were uttered, with an even delivery, on a sharp note, and as -though they were no more than the completion (but scored for a different -voice) of the phrase that my father had begun, the words: "of which you -will not hesitate, of course, to call a meeting; more especially as the -present members are all known to you personally, and there may be a -change any day." This was not in itself a very remarkable ending. But -the immobility that had preceded it made it detach itself with the -crystal clarity, the almost malicious unexpectedness of those phrases in -which the piano, silent until then, "takes up", at a given moment, the -violoncello to which one has just been listening, in a Mozart concerto. - -"Well, did you enjoy your _matinée?_" asked my father, as we moved to -the dining-room; meaning me to "shew off", and with the idea that my -enthusiasm would give M. de Norpois a good opinion of me. "He has just -been to hear Berma. You remember, we were talking about it the other -day," he went on, turning towards the diplomat, in the same tone of -retrospective, technical, mysterious allusiveness as if he had been -referring to a meeting of the Commission. - -"You must have been enchanted, especially if you had never heard her -before. Your father was alarmed at the effect that the little jaunt -might have upon your health, which is none too good, I am told, none too -robust. But I soon set his mind at rest. Theatres to-day are not what -they were even twenty years ago. You have more or less comfortable seats -now, and a certain amount of ventilation, although we have still a long -way to go before we come up to Germany or England, which in that respect -as in many others are immeasurably ahead of us. I have never seen Mme. -Berma in _Phèdre_, but I have always heard that she is excellent in the -part. You were charmed with her, of course?" - -M. de Norpois, a man a thousand times more intelligent than myself, must -know that hidden truth which I had failed to extract from Berma's -playing; he knew, and would reveal it to me; in answering his question I -would implore him to let me know in what that truth consisted; and he -would tell me, and so justify me in the longing that I had felt to see -and hear the actress. I had only a moment, I must make what use I could -of it and bring my cross-examination to bear upon the essential points. -But what were they? Fastening my whole attention upon my own so confused -impressions, with no thought of making M. de Norpois admire me, but -only that of learning from him the truth that I had still to discover, I -made no attempt to substitute ready made phrases for the words that -failed me--I stood there stammering, until finally, in the hope of -provoking him into declaring what there was in Berma that was admirable, -I confessed that I had been disappointed. - -"What's that?" cried my father, annoyed at the bad impression which this -admission of my failure to appreciate the performance must make on M. de -Norpois, "What on earth do you mean; you didn't enjoy it? Why, your -grandmother has been telling us that you sat there hanging on every word -that Berma uttered, with your eyes starting out of your head; that -everyone else in the theatre seemed quite bored, beside you." - -"Oh, yes, I was listening as hard as I could, trying to find out what it -was that was supposed to be so wonderful about her. Of course, she's -frightfully good, and all that . . ." - -"If she is 'frightfully good', what more do you want?" - -"One of the things that have undoubtedly contributed to the success of -Mme. Berma," resumed M. de Norpois, turning with elaborate courtesy -towards my mother, so as not to let her be left out of the conversation, -and in conscientious fulfilment of his duty of politeness to the lady of -the house, "is the perfect taste that she shews in selecting her parts; -thus she can always be assured of success, and success of the right -sort. She hardly ever appears in anything trivial. Look how she has -thrown herself into the part of Phèdre. And then, she brings the same -good taste to the choice of her costumes, and to her acting. In spite of -her frequent and lucrative tours in England and America, the -vulgarity--I will not say of John Bull; that would be unjust, at any -rate to the England of the Victorian era--but of Uncle Sam has not -infected her. No loud colours, no rant. And then that admirable voice, -which has been of such service to her, with which she plays so -delightfully--I should almost be tempted to describe it as a musical -instrument!" - -My interest in Berma's acting had continued to grow ever since the fall -of the curtain, because it was then no longer compressed within the -limits of reality; but I felt the need to find explanations for it; -moreover it had been fixed with the same intensity, while Berma was on -the stage, upon everything that she offered, in the indivisibility of a -living whole, to my eyes and ears; there was nothing separate or -distinct; it welcomed, accordingly, the discovery of a reasonable cause -in these tributes paid to the simplicity, to the good taste of the -actress, it attracted them to itself by its power of absorption, seized -hold of them, as the optimism of a drunken man seizes hold of the -actions of his neighbour, in each of which he finds an excuse for -emotion. "He is right!" I told myself. "What a charming voice, what an -absence of shrillness, what simple costumes, what intelligence to have -chosen _Phèdre._ No; I have not been disappointed!" - -The cold beef, spiced with carrots, made its appearance, couched by the -Michelangelo of our kitchen upon enormous crystals of jelly, like -transparent blocks of quartz. - -"You have a chef of the first order, Madame," said M. de Norpois, "and -that is no small matter. I myself, who have had, when abroad, to -maintain a certain style in housekeeping, I know how difficult it often -is to find a perfect master-cook. But this is a positive banquet that -you have set before us!" - -And indeed Françoise, in the excitement of her ambition to make a -success, for so distinguished a guest, of a dinner the preparation of -which had been obstructed by difficulties worthy of her powers, had -given herself such trouble as she no longer took when we were alone, and -had recaptured her incomparable Combray manner. - -"That is a thing you can't get in a chophouse,--in the best of them, I -mean; a spiced beef in which the jelly does not taste of glue and the -beef has caught the flavour of the carrots; it is admirable! Allow me to -come again," he went on, making a sign to shew that he wanted more of -the jelly. "I should be interested to see how your Vatel managed a dish -of quite a different kind; I should like, for instance, to see him -tackle a _bœuf Stroganoff._" - -M. de Norpois, so as to add his own contribution to the gaiety of the -repast, entertained us with a number of the stories with which he was in -the habit of regaling his colleagues in "the career", quoting now some -ludicrous sentence uttered by a politician, an old offender, whose -sentences were always long and packed with incoherent images, now some -monumental epigram of a diplomat, sparkling with attic salt. But, to -tell the truth, the criterion which for him set apart these two kinds of -phrase in no way resembled that which I was in the habit of applying to -literature. Most of the finer shades escaped me; the words which he -repeated with derision seemed to me not to differ very greatly from -those which he found remarkable. He belonged to the class of men who, -had we come to discuss the books that I liked, would have said; "So you -understand that, do you? I must confess that I do not understand, I am -not initiated," but I could have matched his attitude, for I did not -grasp the wit or folly, the eloquence or pomposity which he found in a -statement or a speech, and the absence of any perceptible reason for -one's being badly and the other's well expressed made that sort of -literature seem more mysterious, more obscure to me than any other. I -could distinguish only that to repeat what everybody else was thinking -was, in politics, the mark not of an inferior but of a superior mind. -When M. de Norpois made use of certain expressions which were "common -form" in the newspapers, and uttered them with emphasis, one felt that -they became an official pronouncement by the mere fact of his having -employed them, and a pronouncement which would provoke a string of -comment. - -My mother was counting greatly upon the pineapple and truffle salad. But -the Ambassador, after fastening for a moment on the confection the -penetrating gaze of a trained observer, ate it with the inscrutable -discretion of a diplomat, and without disclosing to us what he thought -of it. My mother insisted upon his taking some more, which he did, but -saying only, in place of the compliment for which she was hoping: "I -obey, Madame, for I can see that it is, on your part, a positive ukase!" - -"We saw in the 'papers that you had a long talk with King Theodosius," -my father ventured. - -"Why, yes; the King, who has a wonderful memory for faces, was kind -enough to remember, when he noticed me in the stalls, that I had had the -honour to meet him on several occasions at the Court of Bavaria, at a -time when he had never dreamed of his oriental throne--to which, as you -know, he was summoned by a European Congress, and indeed had grave -doubts about accepting the invitation, regarding that particular -sovereignty as unworthy of his race, the noblest, heraldically speaking, -in the whole of Europe. An aide-de-camp came down to bid me pay my -respects to his Majesty, whose command I hastened, naturally, to obey." - -"And I trust, you are satisfied with the results of his visit?" - -"Enchanted! One was justified in feeling some apprehension as to the -manner in which a Sovereign who is still so young would handle a -situation requiring tact, particularly at this highly delicate juncture. -For my own part, I reposed entire confidence in the King's political -sense. But I must confess that he far surpassed my expectations. The -speech that he made at the Elysée, which, according to information that -has come to me from a most authoritative source, was composed, from -beginning to end, by himself, was fully deserving of the interest that -it has aroused in all quarters. It was simply masterly; a trifle daring, -I quite admit, but with an audacity which, after all, has been fully -justified by the event. Traditional diplomacy is all very well in its -way, but in practice it has made his country and ours live in an -hermetically sealed atmosphere in which it was no longer possible to -breathe. Very well! There is one method of letting in fresh air, -obviously not one of the methods which one could officially recommend, -but one which King Theodosius might allow himself to adopt--and that is -to break the windows. Which he accordingly did, with a spontaneous good -humour that delighted everybody, and also with an aptness in his choice -of words in which one could at once detect the race of scholarly princes -from whom he is descended through his mother. There can be no question -that when he spoke of the 'affinities' that bound his country to France, -the expression, rarely as it may occur in the vocabulary of the -Chancellories, was a singularly happy one. You see that literary ability -is no drawback, even in diplomacy, even upon a throne," he went on, -turning for a moment to myself. "The community of interests had long -been apparent, I quite admit, and the relations of the two Powers were -excellent. Still, it needed putting into words. The word was what we -were all waiting for, it was chosen with marvellous aptitude; you have -seen the effect it had. For my part, I must confess I applauded openly." - -"Your friend M. de Vaugoubert will be pleased, after preparing for the -agreement all these years." - -"All the more so that his Majesty, who is quite incorrigible, really, in -some ways, had taken care to spring it on him as a surprise. And it did -come as a complete surprise, incidentally, to everyone concerned, -beginning with the Foreign Minister himself, who--I have heard--did not -find it at all to his liking. It appears that someone spoke to him about -it and that he replied, pretty sharply, and loud enough to be overheard -by the people on either side of them: 'I have been neither consulted nor -informed!' indicating clearly by that that he declined to accept any -responsibility for the consequences. I must own that the incident has -given rise to a great deal of comment, and I should not go so far as to -deny," he went on with a malicious smile, "that certain of my -colleagues, for whom the supreme law appears to be that of inertia, may -have been shaken from their habitual repose. As for Vaugoubert, you are -aware that he has been bitterly attacked for his policy of bringing that -country into closer relations with France, which must have been more -than ordinarily painful to him, he is so sensitive, such an exquisite -nature. I can amply testify to that, since, for all that he is -considerably my junior, I have had many dealings with him, we are -friends of long standing and I know him intimately. Besides, who could -help knowing him? His is a heart of crystal. Indeed, that is the one -fault that there is to be found with him; it is not necessary for the -heart of a diplomat to be as transparent as all that. Still, that does -not prevent their talking of sending him to Rome, which would be a fine -rise for him, but a pretty big plum to swallow. Between ourselves, I -fancy that Vaugoubert, utterly devoid of ambition as he is, would be -very well pleased, and would by no means ask for that cup to pass from -him. For all we know, he may do wonders down there; he is the chosen -candidate of the Consulta, and for my part I can see him very well -placed, with his artistic leanings, in the setting of the Farnese Palace -and the Caracci Gallery. At least you would suppose that it was -impossible for any one to hate him; but there is a whole camarilla -collected round King Theodosius which is more or less held in fief by -the Wilhelmstrasse, whose inspiration its members dutifully absorb, and -these men have done everything in their power to checkmate him. Not only -has Vaugoubert had to face these backstairs intrigues, he has had to -endure also the insults of a gang of hireling pamphleteers who later on, -being like every subsidised journalist the most arrant cowards, have -been the first to cry quits, but in the interval had not shrunk from -hurling at our Representative the most fatuous accusations that the wit -of irresponsible fools could invent. For a month and more Vaugoubert's -enemies had been dancing round him, howling for his scalp," M. de -Norpois detached this word with sharp emphasis. "But forewarned is -forearmed; as for their insults, he spurned I them with his foot!" he -went on with even more determination, and with so fierce a glare in his -eye that for a moment we forgot our food. "In the words of a fine Arab -proverb, 'The dogs may bark; the caravan goes on!'" - -After launching this quotation M. de Norpois paused and examined our -faces, to see what effect it had had upon us. Its effect was great, the -proverb being familiar to us already. It had taken the place, that year, -among people who "really counted", of "He who sows the wind shall reap -the whirlwind", which was sorely in need of a rest, not having the -perennial freshness of "Working for the King of Prussia". For the -culture of these eminent men was an alternate, if not a tripartite and -triennial culture. Of course, the use of quotations such as these, with -which M. de Norpois excelled in jewelling his articles in the _Revue_, -was in no way essential to their appearing solid and well-informed. Even -without the ornament which the quotations supplied, it sufficed that M. -de Norpois should write at a given point (as he never failed to write): -"The Court of St. James's was not the last to be sensible of the peril," -or "Feeling ran high on the Singers' Bridge, which with anxious eyes was -following the selfish but, skilful policy of the Dual Monarchy," or "A -cry of alarm sounded from Montecitorio," or yet again, "That everlasting -double dealing which is so characteristic of the Ballplatz." By these -expressions the profane reader had at once recognised and had paid -deference to the diplomat _de carrière._ But what had made people say -that he was something more than that, that he was endowed with a -superior culture, had been his careful use of quotations, the perfect -example of which, at that date, was still: "Give me a good policy and I -will give you good finances, _to quote the favourite words of Baron -Louis_": for we had not yet imported from the Far East: "Victory is on -the side that can hold out a quarter of an hour longer than the other, -_as the Japanese say_". This reputation for immense literary gifts, -combined with a positive genius for intrigue which he kept concealed -beneath a mask of indifference, had secured the election of M. de -Norpois to the Académie des Sciences Morales. And there were some who -even thought that he would not be out of place in the Académie -Française, on the famous day when, wishing to indicate that it was only -by drawing the Russian Alliance closer that we could hope to arrive at -an understanding with Great Britain, he had not hesitated to write: "Be -it clearly understood in the Quai d'Orsay, be it taught henceforward in -all the manuals of geography, which appear to be incomplete in this -respect, be his certificate of graduation remorselessly withheld from -every candidate who has not learned to say, 'If all roads lead to Rome, -nevertheless the way from Paris to London runs of necessity through St. -Petersburgh.'" - -"In short," M. de Norpois went on, addressing my father, "Vaugoubert has -won himself considerable distinction from this affair, quite beyond -anything on which he can have reckoned. He expected, you understand, a -correctly worded speech (which, after the storm-clouds of recent years, -would have been something to the good) but nothing more. Several persons -who had the honour to be present have assured me that it is impossible, -when one merely reads the speech, to form any conception of the effect -that it produced when uttered--when articulated with marvellous -clearness of diction by the King, who is a master of the art of public -speaking and in that passage underlined every possible shade of meaning. -I allowed myself, in this connexion, to listen to a little anecdote -which brings into prominence once again that frank, boyish charm by -which King Theodosius has won so many hearts. I am assured that, just as -he uttered that word 'affinities', which was, of course, the startling -innovation of the speech, and one that, as you will see, will provoke -discussion in the Chancellories for years to come, his Majesty, -anticipating the delight of our Ambassador, who was to find in that word -the seal, the crown set upon all his labours, on his dreams, one might -almost say, and, in a word, his marshal's baton, made a half turn -towards Vaugoubert and fixing upon him his arresting gaze, so -characteristic of the Oettingens, fired at him that admirably chosen -word 'affinities', a positive treasure-trove, uttering it in a tone -which made it plain to all his hearers that it was employed of set -purpose and with full knowledge of the circumstances. It appears that -Vaugoubert found some difficulty in mastering his emotion, and I must -confess that, to a certain extent, I can well understand it. Indeed, a -person who is entirely to be believed has told me, in confidence, that -the King came up to Vaugoubert after the dinner, when His Majesty was -holding an informal court, and was heard to say, 'Well, are you -satisfied with your pupil, my dear Marquis?' - -"One thing, however," M. de Norpois concluded, "is certain; and that is -that a speech like that has done more than twenty years of negotiation -towards bringing the two countries together, uniting their 'affinities', -to borrow the picturesque expression of Theodosius II. It is no more -than a word, if you like, but look what success it has had, how the -whole of the European press is repeating it, what interest it has -aroused, what a new note it has struck. Besides it is distinctly in the -young Sovereign's manner. I will not go so far as to say that he lights -upon a diamond of that water every day. But it is very seldom that, in -his prepared speeches, or better still in the impulsive flow of his -conversation, he does not reveal his character--I was on the point of -saying 'does not affix his signature'--by the use of some incisive word. -I myself am quite free from any suspicion of partiality in this respect, -for I am stoutly opposed to all innovations in terminology. Nine times -out of ten they are most dangerous." - -"Yes, I was thinking, only the other day, that the German Emperor's -telegram could not be much to your liking," said my father. - -M. de Norpois raised his eyes to heaven, as who should say, "Oh, that -fellow!" before he replied: "In the first place, it is an act of -ingratitude. It is more than a crime; it is a blunder, and one of a -crassness which I can describe only as pyramidal! Indeed, unless some -one puts a check on his activities, the man who has got rid of Bismarck -is quite capable of repudiating by degrees the whole of the Bismarckian -policy; after which it will be a leap in the dark." - -"My husband tells me, sir, that you are perhaps going to take him to -Spain one summer; that will be nice for him; I am so glad." - -"Why, yes; it is an idea that greatly attracts me; I amuse myself, -planning a tour. I should like to go there with you, my dear fellow. But -what about you, Madame; have you decided yet how you are going to spend -your holidays?" - -"I shall perhaps go with my son to Balbec, but I am not certain." - -"Oh, but Balbec is quite charming, I was down that way a few years ago. -They are beginning to build some very pretty little villas there; I -think you'll like the place. But may I ask what has made you choose -Balbec?" - -"My son is very anxious to visit some of the churches in that -neighbourhood, and Balbec church in particular. I was a little afraid -that the tiring journey there, and the discomfort of staying in the -place might be too much for him. But I hear that they have just opened -an excellent hotel, in which he will be able to get all the comfort that -he requires." - -"Indeed! I must make a note of that, for a certain person who will not -turn up her nose at a comfortable hotel." - -"The church at Balbec is very beautiful, sir, is it not?" I inquired, -repressing my sorrow at learning that one of the attractions of Balbec -consisted in its pretty little villas. - -"No, it is not bad; but it cannot be compared for a moment with such -positive jewels in stone as the Cathedrals of Rheims and Chartres, or -with what is to my mind the pearl among them all, the Sainte-Chapelle -here in Paris." - -"But, surely, Balbec church is partly romanesque, is it not?" - -"Why, yes, it is in the romanesque style, which is to say very cold and -lifeless, with no hint in it anywhere of the grace, the fantasy of the -later gothic builders, who worked their stone as if it had been so much -lace. Balbec church is well worth a visit, if you are in those parts; it -is decidedly quaint; on a wet day, when you have nothing better to do, -you might look inside; you will see the tomb of Tourville." - -"Tell me, were you at the Foreign Ministry dinner last night?" asked my -father. "I couldn't go." - -"No," M. de Norpois smiled, "I must confess that I renounced it for a -party of a very different sort. I was, dining with a lady whose name you -may possibly have heard, the beautiful Mme. Swann." My mother checked an -impulsive movement, for, being more rapid in perception than my father, -she used to alarm herself on his account over things which only began to -upset him a moment later. Anything unpleasant that might occur to him -was discovered first by her, just as bad news from France is always -known abroad sooner than among ourselves. But she was curious to know -what sort of people the Swanns managed to entertain, and so inquired of -M. de Norpois as to whom he had met there. - -"Why, my dear lady, it is a house which (or so it struck me) is -especially attractive to gentlemen. There were several married men there -last night, but their wives were all, as it happened, unwell, and so had -not come with them," replied the Ambassador with a mordancy sheathed in -good-humour, casting on each of us a glance the gentleness and -discretion of which appeared to be tempering while in reality they -deftly intensified its malice. - -"In all fairness," he went on, "I must add that women do go to the -house, but women who belong rather--what shall I say--to the Republican -world than to Swann's" (he pronounced it "Svann's") "circle. Still, you -can never tell. Perhaps it will turn into a political or a literary -salon some day. Anyhow, they appear to be quite happy as they are. -Indeed, I feel that Swann advertises his happiness just a trifle too -blatantly. He told us the names of all the people who had asked him and -his wife out for the next week, people with whom there was no particular -reason to be proud of being intimate, with a want of reserve, of taste, -almost of tact which I was astonished to remark in so refined a man. He -kept on repeating, 'We haven't a free evening!' as though that had been -a thing to boast of, positively like a _parvenu_, and he is certainly -not that. For Swann had always plenty of friends, women as well as men, -and without seeming over-bold, without the least wish to appear -indiscreet, I think I may safely say that not all of them, of course, -nor even the majority of them, but one at least, who is a lady of the -very highest rank, would perhaps not have shewn herself inexorably -averse from the idea of entering upon relations with Mme. Swann, in -which case it is safe to assume that more than one sheep of the social -flock would have followed her lead. But it seems that there has been no -indication on Swann's part of any movement in that direction. - -"What do I see? A Nesselrode pudding! As well! I declare, I shall need a -course at Carlsbad after such a Lucullus-feast as this. - -"Possibly Swann felt that there would be too much resistance to -overcome. The marriage--so much is certain--was not well received. There -has been some talk of his wife's having money, but that is all humbug. -Anyhow, the whole affair has been looked upon with disfavour. And then, -Swann has an aunt who is excessively rich and in an admirable position -socially, married to a man who, financially speaking, is a power. Not -only has she refused to meet Mme. Swann, she has actually started a -campaign to force her friends and acquaintance to do the same. I do not -mean to say that anyone who moves in a good circle in Paris has shewn -any actual incivility to Mme. Swann. . . . No! A hundred times no! Quite -apart from her husband's being eminently a man to take up the challenge. -Anyhow, there is one curious thing about it, to see the immense -importance that Swann, who knows so many and such exclusive people, -attaches to a society of which the best that can be said is that it is -extremely mixed. I myself, who knew him in the old days, must admit that -I felt more astonished than amused at seeing a man so well-bred as he -is, so much at home in the best houses, effusively thanking the Chief -Secretary to the Minister of Posts for having come to them, and asking -him whether Mme. Swann might _take the liberty_ of calling upon his -wife. He must feel something of an exile, don't you know; evidently, -it's quite a different world. I don't think, all the same, that Swann is -unhappy. It is true that for some years before the marriage she was -always trying to blackmail him in a rather disgraceful way; she would -take the child away whenever Swann refused her anything. Poor Swann, who -is as unsophisticated as he is, for all that, sharp, believed every time -that the child's disappearance was a coincidence, and declined to face -the facts. Apart from that, she made such continual scenes that everyone -expected that, from the day she attained her object and was safely -married, nothing could possibly restrain her and that their life would -be a hell on earth. Instead of which, just the opposite has happened. -People are inclined to laugh at the way in which Swann speaks of his -wife; it's become a standing joke. Of course, one could hardly expect -that, conscious, more or less of being a--(you remember Molière's line) -he would go and proclaim it _urbi et orbi_; still that does not prevent -one from finding a tendency in him to exaggerate when he declares that -she makes an excellent wife. And yet that is not so far from the truth -as people imagine. In her own way--which is not, perhaps, what all -husbands would prefer, but then, between you and me, I find it difficult -to believe that Swann, who has known her for ever so long and is far -from being an utter fool, did not know what to expect--there can be no -denying that she does seem to have a certain regard for him. I do not -say that she is not flighty, and Swann himself has no fault to find with -her for that, if one is to believe the charitable tongues which, as you -may suppose, continue to wag. But she is distinctly grateful to him for -what he has done for her, and, despite die fears that were everywhere -expressed of the contrary, her temper seems to have become angelic." - -This alteration was perhaps not so extraordinary as M. de Norpois -professed to find it. Odette had not believed that Swann would ever -consent to marry her; each time that she made the suggestive -announcement that some man about town had just married his mistress she -had seen him stiffen into a glacial silence, or at the most, if she were -directly to challenge him, asking: "Don't you think it very nice, a very -fine thing that he has done, for a woman who sacrificed all her youth to -him?" had heard him answer dryly: "But I don't say that there's anything -wrong in it. Everyone does what he himself thinks right." She came very -near, indeed, to believing that (as he used to threaten in moments of -anger) he was going to leave her altogether, for she had heard it said, -not long since, by a woman sculptor, that "You cannot be surprised at -anything men do, they're such brutes," and impressed by the profundity -of this maxim of pessimism she had appropriated it for herself, and -repeated it on every possible occasion with an air of disappointment -which seemed to imply: "After all, it's not impossible in any way; it -would be just my luck." Meanwhile all the virtue had gone from the -optimistic maxim which had hitherto guided Odette through life: "You can -do anything with men when they're in love with you, they're such -idiots!" a doctrine which was expressed on her face by the same tremor -of an eyelid that might have accompanied such words as: "Don't be -frightened; he won't break anything." While she waited, Odette was -tormented by the thought of what one of her friends, who had been -married by a man who had not lived with her for nearly so long as Odette -herself had lived with Swann, and had had no child by him, and who was -now in a definitely respectable position, invited to the balls at the -Elysée and so forth, must think of Swann's behaviour. A consultant more -discerning than M. de Norpois would doubtless have been able to diagnose -that it was this feeling of shame and humiliation that had embittered -Odette, that the devilish characteristics which she displayed were no -essential part of her, no irremediable evil, and so would easily have -foretold what had indeed come to pass, namely that a new rule of life, -the matrimonial, would put an end, with almost magic swiftness, to these -painful incidents, of daily occurrence but in no sense organic. -Practically everyone was surprised at the marriage, and this, in itself, -is surprising. No doubt very few people understand the purely subjective -nature of the phenomenon that we call love, or how it creates, so to -speak, a fresh, a third, a supplementary person, distinct from the -person whom the world knows by the same name, a person most of whose -constituent elements are derived from ourself, the lover. And so there -are very few who can regard as natural the enormous proportions that a -creature comes to assume in our eyes who is not the same as the creature -that they see. It would appear, none the less, that so far as Odette was -concerned people might have taken into account the fact that if, indeed, -she had never entirely understood Swann's mentality, at least she was -acquainted with the titles, and with all the details of his studies, so -much so that the name of Vermeer was as familiar to her as that of her -own dressmaker; while as for Swann himself she knew intimately those -traits of character of which the rest of the world must remain ignorant -or merely laugh at them, and only a mistress or a sister may gain -possession of the revealing, cherished image; and so strongly are we -attached to such eccentricities, even to those of them which we are most -anxious to correct, that it is because a woman comes in time to acquire -an indulgent, an affectionately mocking familiarity, such as we -ourselves have with them, or our relatives have, that amours of long -standing have something of the sweetness and strength of family -affection. The bonds that unite us to another creature receive their -consecration when that creature adopts the same point of view as ourself -in judging one of our imperfections. And among these special traits -there were others, besides, which belonged as much to his intellect as -to his character, which, all the same, because they had their roots in -the latter, Odette had been able more easily to discern. She complained -that when Swann turned author, when he published his essays, these -characteristics were not to be found in them as they were in his -letters, or in his conversation, where they abounded. She urged him to -give them a more prominent place. She would have liked that because it -was these things that she herself preferred in him, but since she -preferred them because they were the things most typical of himself, she -was perhaps not wrong in wishing that they might be found in his -writings. Perhaps also she thought that his work, if endowed with more -vitality, so that it ultimately brought him success, might enable her -also to form what at the Verdurins' she had been taught to value above -everything else in the world--a salon. - -Among the people to whom this sort of marriage appeared ridiculous, -people who in their own case would ask themselves, "What will M. de -Guermantes think, what will Bréauté say when I marry Mlle. de -Montmorency?", among the people who cherished that sort of social ideal -would have figured, twenty years earlier, Swann himself, the Swann who -had taken endless pains to get himself elected to the Jockey Club, and -had reckoned at that time on making a brilliant marriage which, by -consolidating his position, would have made him one of the most -conspicuous figures in Paris. Only, the visions which a marriage like -that suggests to the mind of the interested party need, like all -visions, if they are not to fade away and be altogether lost, to receive -sustenance from without. Your most ardent longing is to humiliate the -man who has insulted you. But if you never hear of him again, having -removed to some other place, your enemy will come to have no longer the -slightest importance for you. If one has lost sight for a score of years -of all the people on whose account one would have liked to be elected to -the Jockey Club or the Institute, the prospect of becoming a member of -one or other of those corporations will have ceased to tempt one. Now -fully as much as retirement, ill-health or religious conversion, -protracted relations with a woman will substitute fresh visions for the -old. There was not on Swann's part, when he married Odette, any -renunciation of his social ambitions, for from these ambitions Odette -had long ago, in the spiritual sense of the word, detached him. Besides, -had he not been so detached, his marriage would have been all the more -creditable. It is because they imply the sacrifice of a more or less -advantageous position to a purely private happiness that, as a general -rule, "impossible" marriages are the happiest of all. (One cannot very -well include among the "impossible" marriages those that are made for -money, there being no instance on record of a couple, of whom the wife -or even the husband has thus sold himself, who have not sooner or later -been admitted into society, if only by tradition, and on the strength of -so many precedents, and so as not to have two conflicting standards.) -Perhaps, on the other hand, the artistic, if not the perverse side of -Swann's nature would in any event have derived a certain amount of -pleasure from coupling with himself, in one of those crossings of -species such as Mendelians practise and mythology records, a creature of -a different race, archduchess or prostitute, from contracting a royal -alliance or from marrying beneath him. There had been but one person in -all the world whose opinion he took into consideration whenever he -thought of his possible marriage with Odette; that was, and from no -snobbish motive, the Duchesse de Guermantes. With whom Odette, on the -contrary, was but little concerned, thinking only of those people whose -position was immediately above her own, rather than in so vague an -empyrean. But when Swann in his daydreams saw Odette as already his wife -he invariably formed a picture of the moment in which he would take -her--her, and above all her daughter--to call upon the Princesse des -Laumes (who was shortly, on the death of her father-in-law, to become -Duchesse de Guermantes). He had no desire to introduce them anywhere -else, but his heart would soften as he invented--uttering their actual -words to himself--all the things that the Duchess would say of him to -Odette, and Odette to the Duchess, the affection that she would shew for -Gilberte, spoiling her, making him proud of his child. He enacted to -himself the scene of this introduction with the same precision in each -of its imaginary details that people shew when they consider how they -would spend, supposing they were to win it, a lottery prize the amount -of which they have arbitrarily determined. In so far as a mental picture -which accompanies one of our resolutions may be said to be its motive, -so it might be said that if Swann married Odette it was in order to -present her and Gilberte, without anyone's else being present, without, -if need be, anyone's else ever coming to know of it, to the Duchesse de -Guermantes. We shall see how this sole social ambition that he had -entertained for his wife and daughter was precisely that one the -realisation of which proved to be forbidden him by a veto so absolute -that Swann died in the belief that the Duchess would never possibly come -to know them. We shall see also that, on the contrary, the Duchesse de -Guermantes did associate with Odette and Gilberte after the death of -Swann. And doubtless he would have been wiser--seeing that he could -attach so much importance to so small a matter--not to have formed too -dark a picture of the future, in this connexion, but to have consoled -himself with the hope that the meeting of the ladies might indeed take -place when he was no longer there to enjoy it. The laborious process of -causation which sooner or later will bring about every possible effect, -including (consequently) those which one had believed to be most nearly -impossible, naturally slow at times, is rendered slower still by our -impatience (which in seeking to accelerate only obstructs it) and by our -very existence, and comes to fruition only when we have ceased to desire -it--have ceased, possibly, to live. Was not Swann conscious of this from -his own experience, had there not been already, in his life, as it were -a prefiguration of what was to happen after his death, a posthumous -happiness in this marriage with this Odette whom he had passionately -loved--even if she had not been pleasing to him at first sight--whom he -had married when he no longer loved her, when the creature that, in -Swann, had so longed to live, had so despaired of living all its life in -company with Odette, when that creature was extinct? - -I began next to speak of the Comte de Paris, to ask whether he was not -one of Swann's friends, for I was afraid lest the conversation should -drift away from him. "Why, yes!" replied M. de Norpois, turning towards -me and fixing upon my modest person the azure gaze in which floated, as -in their vital element, his immense capacity for work and his power of -assimilation. And "Upon my word," he added, once more addressing my -father, "I do not think that I shall be overstepping the bounds of the -respect which I have always professed for the Prince (though without, -you understand, maintaining any personal relations with him, which would -inevitably compromise my position, unofficial as that may be), if I tell -you of a little episode which is not without point; no more than four -years ago, at a small railway station in one of the countries of Central -Europe, the Prince happened to set eyes on Mme. Swann. Naturally, none -of his circle ventured to ask his Royal Highness what he thought of her. -That would not have been seemly. But when her name came up by chance in -conversation, by certain signs--imperceptible, if you like, but quite -unmistakable--the Prince appeared willing enough to let it be understood -that his impression of her had, in a word, been far from unfavourable." - -"But there could have been no possibility, surely, of her being -presented to the Comte de Paris?" inquired my father. - -"Well, we don't know; with Princes one never does know," replied M. de -Norpois. "The most exalted, those who know best how to secure what is -due to them, are as often as not the last to let themselves be -embarrassed by the decrees of popular opinion, even by those for which -there is most justification, especially when it is a question of their -rewarding a personal attachment to themselves. Now it is certain that -the Comte de Paris has always most graciously recognised the devotion of -Swann, who is, for that matter, a man of character, in spite of it all." - -"And what was your own impression, your Excellency? Do tell us!" my -mother asked, from politeness as well as from curiosity. - -All the energy of the old connoisseur broke through the habitual -moderation of his speech as he answered: "Quite excellent!" - -And knowing that the admission that a strong impression has been made on -one by a woman takes its place, provided that one makes it in a playful -tone, in a certain category of the art of conversation that is highly -appreciated, he broke into a little laugh that lasted for several -seconds, moistening the old diplomat's blue eyes and making his -nostrils, with their network of tiny scarlet veins, quiver. "She is -altogether charming!" - -"Was there a writer of the name of Bergotte at this dinner, sir?" I -asked timidly, still trying to keep the conversation to the subject of -the Swanns. - -"Yes, Bergotte was there," replied M. de Norpois, inclining his head -courteously towards me, as though in his desire to be pleasant to my -father he attached to everything connected with him a real importance, -even to the questions of a boy of my age who was not accustomed to see -such politeness shewn to him by persons of his. "Do you know him?" he -went on, fastening on me that clear gaze, the penetration of which had -won the praise of Bismarck. - -"My son does not know him, but he admires his work immensely," my mother -explained. - -"Good heavens!" exclaimed M. de Norpois, inspiring me with doubts of my -own intelligence far more serious than those that ordinarily distracted -me, when I saw that what I valued a thousand times more than myself, -what I regarded as the most exalted thing in the world, was for him at -the very foot of the scale of admiration. "I do not share your son's -point of view. Bergotte is what I call a flute-player: one must admit -that he plays on it very agreeably, although with a great deal of -mannerism, of affectation. But when all is said, it is no more than -that, and that is nothing very great. Nowhere does one find in his -enervated writings anything that could be called construction. No -action--or very little--but above all no range. His books fail at the -foundation, or rather they have no foundation at all. At a time like the -present, when the ever increasing complexity of life leaves one scarcely -a moment for reading, when the map of Europe has undergone radical -alterations, and is on the eve, very probably, of undergoing others more -drastic still, when so many new and threatening problems are arising on -every side, you will allow me to suggest that one is entitled to ask -that a writer should be something else than a fine intellect which makes -us forget, amid otiose and byzantine discussions of the merits of pure -form, that we may be overwhelmed at any moment by a double tide of -barbarians, those from without and those from within our borders. I am -aware that this is a blasphemy against the sacrosanct school of what -these gentlemen term 'Art for Art's sake', but at this period of history -there are tasks more urgent than the manipulation of words in a -harmonious manner. Not that Bergotte's manner is not now and then quite -attractive. I have no fault to find with that, but taken as a whole, it -is all very precious, very thin, and has very little virility. I can now -understand more easily, when I bear in mind your altogether excessive -regard for Bergotte, the few lines that you shewed me just now, which it -would have been unfair to you not to overlook, since you yourself told -me, in all simplicity, that they were merely a childish scribbling." (I -had, indeed, said so, but I did not think anything of the sort.) "For -every sin there is forgiveness, and especially for the sins of youth. -After all, others as well as yourself have such sins upon their -conscience, and you are not the only one who has believed himself to be -a poet in his day. But one can see in what you have shewn me the evil -influence of Bergotte. You will not, of course, be surprised when I say -that there was in it none of his good qualities, since he is a -past-master in the art--incidentally quite superficial--of handling a -certain style of which, at your age, you cannot have acquired even the -rudiments. But already there is the same fault, that paradox of -stringing together fine-sounding words and only afterwards troubling -about what they mean. That is putting the cart before the horse, even in -Bergotte's books. All those Chinese puzzles of form, all these -deliquescent mandarin subtleties seem to me to be quite futile. Given a -few fireworks, let off prettily enough by an author, and up goes the -shout of genius. Works of genius are not so common as all that! Bergotte -cannot place to his credit--does not carry in his baggage, if I may use -the expression--a single novel that is at all lofty in its conception, -any of those books which one keeps in a special corner of one's library. -I do not discover one such in the whole of his work. But that does not -exclude the fact that, with him, the work is infinitely superior to the -author. Ah! there is a man who justifies the wit who insisted that one -ought never to know an author except through his books. It would be -impossible to imagine an individual who corresponded less to his--more -pretentious, more pompous, less fitted for human society. Vulgar at some -moments, at others talking like a book, and not even like one of his -own, but like a boring book, which his, to do them justice, are -not--such is your Bergotte. He has the most confused mind, alembicated, -what our ancestors called a _diseur de phébus_, and he makes the things -that he says even more unpleasant by the manner in which he says them. I -forget for the moment whether it is Loménie or Sainte-Beuve who tells -us that Vigny repelled people by the same eccentricity. But Bergotte has -never given us a _Cinq-Mars_, or a _Cachet Rouge_, certain pages of -which are regular anthology pieces." - -Paralysed by what M. de Norpois had just said to me with regard to the -fragment which I had submitted to him, and remembering at the same time -the difficulties that I experienced when I attempted to write an essay -or merely to devote myself to serious thought, I felt conscious once -again of my intellectual nullity and that I was not born for a literary -life. Doubtless in the old days at Combray certain impressions of a very -humble order, or a few pages of Bergotte used to plunge me into a state -of musing which had appeared to me to be of great value. But this state -was what my poem in prose reflected; there could be no doubt that M. de -Norpois had at once grasped and had seen through the fallacy of what I -had discovered to be beautiful simply by a mirage that must be entirely -false since the Ambassador had not been taken in by it. He had shewn me, -on the other hand, what an infinitely unimportant place was mine when I -was judged from outside, objectively, by the best-disposed and most -intelligent of experts. I felt myself to be struck speechless, -overwhelmed; and my mind, like a fluid which is without dimensions save -those of the vessel that is provided for it, just as it had been -expanded a moment ago so as to fill all the vast capacity of genius, -contracted now was entirely contained in the straitened mediocrity in -which M. de Norpois had of a sudden enclosed and sealed it. - -"Our first introduction--I speak of Bergotte and myself----" he resumed, -turning to my father, "was somewhat beset with thorns (which is, after -all, only another way of saying that it was not lacking in points). -Bergotte--some years ago, now--paid a visit to Vienna while I was -Ambassador there; he was presented to me by the Princess Metternich, -came and wrote his name, and expected to be asked to the Embassy. Now, -being in a foreign country as the Representative of France, to which he -has after all done some honour by his writings, to a certain extent (let -us say, to be quite accurate, to a very slight extent), I was prepared -to set aside the unfavourable opinion that I hold of his private life. -But he was not travelling alone, and he actually let it be understood -that he was not to be invited without his companion. I trust that I am -no more of a prude than most men, and, being a bachelor, I was perhaps -in a position to throw open the doors of the Embassy a little wider than -if I had been married and the father of a family. Nevertheless, I must -admit that there are depths of degradation to which I should hesitate to -descend, while these are rendered more repulsive still by the tone, not -moral, merely--let us be quite frank and say moralising,--that Bergotte -takes up in his books, where one finds nothing but perpetual and, -between ourselves, somewhat wearisome analyses, torturing scruples, -morbid remorse, and all for the merest peccadilloes, the most trivial -naughtinesses (as one knows from one's own experience), while all the -time he is shewing such an utter lack of conscience and so much cynicism -in his private life. To cut a long story short, I evaded the -responsibility, the Princess returned to the charge, but without -success. So that I do not suppose that I appear exactly in the odour of -sanctity to the gentleman, and I am not sure how far he appreciated -Swann's kindness in inviting him and myself on the same evening. Unless -of course it was he who asked for the invitation. One can never tell, -for really he is not normal. Indeed that is his sole excuse." - -"And was Mme. Swann's daughter at the dinner?" I asked M. de Norpois, -taking advantage, to put this question, of a moment in which, as we all -moved towards the drawing-room, I could more easily conceal my emotion -than would have been possible at table, where I was held fast in the -glare of the lamplight. - -M. de Norpois appeared to be trying for a moment to remember: then, -"Yes, you mean a young person of fourteen or fifteen? Yes, of course, I -remember now that she was introduced to me before dinner as the daughter -of our Amphitryon. I may tell you that I saw but little of her; she -retired to bed early. Or else she went out to see a friend--I forget. -But I can see that you are very intimate with the Swann household." - -"I play with Mlle. Swann in the Champs-Elysées, and she is delightful." - -"Oh! so that is it, is it? But I assure you, I thought her charming. I -must confess to you, however, that I do not believe that she will ever -be anything like her mother, if I may say as much without wounding you -in a vital spot." - -"I prefer Mlle. Swann's face, but I admire her mother, too, enormously; -I go for walks in the Bois simply in the hope of seeing her pass." - -"Ah! But I must tell them that; they will be highly flattered." - -While he was uttering these words, and for a few seconds after he had -uttered them, M. de Norpois was still in the same position as anyone -else who, hearing me speak of Swann as an intelligent man, of his family -as respectable stockbrokers, of his house as a fine house, imagined that -I would speak just as readily of another man equally intelligent, of -other stockbrokers equally respectable, of another house equally fine; -it was the moment in which a sane man who is talking to a lunatic has -not yet perceived that his companion is mad. M. de Norpois knew that -there was nothing unnatural in the pleasure which one derived from -looking at pretty women, that it was a social convention, when anyone -spoke to you of a pretty woman with any fervour, to pretend to think -that he was in love with her, and to promise to further his designs. But -in saying that he would speak of me to Gilberte and her mother (which -would enable me, like an Olympian deity who has taken on the fluidity of -a breath of wind, or rather the aspect of the old greybeard whose form -Minerva borrows, to penetrate, myself, unseen, into Mme. Swann's -drawing-room, to attract her attention, to occupy her thoughts, to -arouse her gratitude for my admiration, to appear before her as the -friend of an important person, to seem to her worthy to be invited by -her in the future and to enter into the intimate life of her family), -this important person who was going to make use, in my interests, of the -great influence which he must have with Mme. Swann inspired in me -suddenly an affection so compelling that I had difficulty in restraining -myself from kissing his gentle hands, white and crumpled, which looked -as though they had been left lying too long in water. I even sketched in -the air an outline of that impulsive movement, but this I supposed that -I alone had observed. For it is difficult for any of us to calculate -exactly on what scale his words or his gestures are apparent to others. -Partly from the fear of exaggerating our own importance, and also -because we enlarge to enormous proportions the field over which the -impressions formed by other people in the course of their lives are -obliged to extend, we imagine that the accessories of our speech and -attitudes scarcely penetrate the consciousness, still less remain in the -memory of those with whom we converse. It is, we may suppose, to a -prompting of this sort that criminals yield when they "touch up" the -wording of a statement already made, thinking that the new variant -cannot be confronted with any existing version. But it is quite possible -that, even in what concerns the millennial existence of the human race, -the philosophy of the journalist, according to which everything is -destined to oblivion, is less true than a contrary philosophy which -would predict the conservation of everything. In the same newspaper in -which the moralist of the "Paris column" says to us of an event, of a -work of art, all the more forcibly of a singer who has enjoyed her -"crowded hour": "Who will remember this in ten years' time?" overleaf -does not the report of the Académie des Inscriptions speak often of a -fact, in itself of smaller importance, of a poem of little merit, which -dates from the epoch of the Pharaohs and is now known again in its -entirety? Is it not, perhaps, just the same in our brief life on earth? -And yet, some years later, in a house in which M. de Norpois, who was -also calling there, had seemed to me the most solid support that I could -hope to find, because he was the friend of my father, indulgent, -inclined to wish us all well, and besides, by his profession and -upbringing, trained to discretion, when, after the Ambassador had gone, -I was told that he had alluded to an evening long ago when he had seen -the moment in which I was just going to kiss his hands, not only did I -colour up to the roots of my hair but I was stupefied to learn how -different from all that I had believed were not only the manner in which -M. de Norpois spoke of me but also the constituents of his memory: this -tittle-tattle enlightened me as to the incalculable proportions of -absence and presence of mind, of recollection and forgetfulness which go -to form the human intelligence; and I was as marvellously surprised as -on the day on which I read for the first time, in one of Maspero's -books, that we had an exact list of the sportsmen whom Assurbanipal used -to invite to his hunts, a thousand years before the Birth of Christ. - -"Oh, sir," I assured M. de Norpois, when he told me that he would inform -Gilberte and her mother how much I admired them, "if you would do that, -if you would speak of me to Mme. Swann, my whole life would not be long -enough for me to prove my gratitude, and that life would be all at your -service. But I feel bound to point out to you that I do not know Mme. -Swann, and that I have never been introduced to her." - -I had added these last words from a scruple of conscience, and so as not -to appear to be boasting of an acquaintance which I did not possess. But -while I was uttering them I felt that they were already superfluous, for -from the beginning of my speech of thanks, with its chilling ardour, I -had seen flitting across the face of the Ambassador an expression of -hesitation and dissatisfaction, and in his eyes that vertical, narrow, -slanting look (like, in the drawing of a solid body in perspective, the -receding line of one of its surfaces), that look which one addresses to -the invisible audience whom one has within oneself at the moment when -one is saying something that one's other audience, the person whom one -has been addressing--myself, in this instance--is not meant to hear. I -realised in a flash that these phrases which I had pronounced, which, -feeble as they were when measured against the flood of gratitude that -was coursing through me, had seemed to me bound to touch M. de Norpois -and to confirm his decision upon an intervention which would have given -him so little trouble and me so much joy, were perhaps (out of all those -that could have been chosen, with diabolical malice, by persons anxious -to do me harm) the only ones that could result in making him abandon his -intention. Indeed, when he heard me speak, just as at the moment when a -stranger with whom we have been exchanging--quite pleasantly--our -impressions, which we might suppose to be similar to his, of the -passers-by, whom we have agreed in regarding as vulgar, reveals suddenly -the pathological abyss that divides him from us by adding carelessly, as -he runs his hand over his pocket: "What a pity, I haven't got my -revolver here; I could have picked off the lot!" M. de Norpois, who knew -that nothing was less costly or more easy than to be commended to Mme. -Swann and taken to her house, and saw that to me, on the contrary, such -favours bore so high a price and were consequently, no doubt, of great -difficulty, thought that the desire, apparently normal, which I had -expressed must cloak some different thought, some suspect intention, -some pre-existent fault, on account of which, in the certainty of -displeasing Mme. Swann, no one hitherto had been willing to undertake -the responsibility for conveying a message to her from me. And I -understood that this office was one which he would never discharge, that -he might see Mme. Swann daily, for years to come, without ever -mentioning my name. He did indeed ask her, a few days later, for some -information which I required, and charged my father to convey it to me. -But he had not thought it his duty to tell her at whose instance he was -inquiring. So she would never discover that I knew M. de Norpois and -that I hoped so greatly to be asked to her house; and this was perhaps a -less misfortune than I supposed. For the second of these discoveries -would probably not have added much to the efficacy, in any event -uncertain, of the first. In Odette the idea of her own life and of her -home awakened no mysterious disturbance; a person who knew her, who came -to see her, did not seem to her a fabulous creature such as he seemed to -me who would have flung a stone through Swann's windows if I could have -written upon it that I knew M. de Norpois; I was convinced that such a -message, even when transmitted in so brutal a fashion, would have done -far more to exalt me in the eyes of the lady of the house than it would -have prejudiced her against me. But even if I had been capable of -understanding that the mission which M. de Norpois did not perform must -have remained futile, nay, more than that, might even have damaged my -credit with the Swanns, I should not have had the courage, had he shewn -himself consenting, to release the Ambassador from it, and to renounce -the pleasure--however fatal its consequences might prove--of feeling -that my name and my person were thus brought for a moment into -Gilberte's presence, in her unknown life and home. - -After M. de Norpois had gone my father cast an eye over the evening -paper; I dreamed once more of Berma. The pleasure which I had found in -listening to her required to be made complete, all the more because it -had fallen far short of what I had promised myself; and so it at once -assimilated everything that was capable of giving it nourishment, those -merits, for instance, which M. de Norpois had admitted that Berma -possessed, and which my mind had absorbed at one draught, like a dry -lawn when water is poured on it. Then my father handed me the newspaper, -pointing me out a paragraph which ran more or less as follows:-- - - -The performance of _Phèdre_, given this afternoon before an -enthusiastic audience, which included the foremost representatives of -society and the arts, as well as the principal critics, was for Mme. -Berma, who played the heroine, the occasion of a triumph as brilliant as -any that she has known in the course of her phenomenal career. We shall -discuss more fully in a later issue this performance, which is indeed an -event in the history of the stage; for the present we need only add that -the best qualified judges are unanimous in the pronouncement that such -an interpretation sheds an entirely new light on the part of Phèdre, -which is one of the finest and most studied of Racine's creations, and -that it constitutes the purest and most exalted manifestation of -dramatic art which it has been the privilege of our generation to -witness. - - -Immediately my mind had conceived this new idea of "the purest and most -exalted manifestation of dramatic art", it, the idea, sped to join the -imperfect pleasure which I had felt in the theatre, added to it a little -of what was lacking, and their combination formed something so exalting -that I cried out within myself: "What a great artist!" It may doubtless -be argued that I was not absolutely sincere. But let us bear in mind, -rather, the numberless writers who, dissatisfied with the page which -they have just written, if they read some eulogy of the genius of -Chateaubriand, or evoke the spirit of some great artist whose equal they -aspire to be, by humming to themselves, for instance, a phrase of -Beethoven, the melancholy of which they compare with what they have been -trying to express in prose, are so filled with that idea of genius that -they add it to their own productions, when they think of them once -again, see them no longer in the light in which at first they appeared, -and, hazarding an act of faith in the value of their work, say to -themselves: "After all!" without taking into account that, into the -total which determines their ultimate satisfaction, they have introduced -the memory of marvellous pages of Chateaubriand which they assimilate to -their own, but of which, in cold fact, they are not the authors; let us -bear in mind the numberless men who believe in the love of a mistress on -the evidence only of her betrayals; all those, too, who are sustained by -the alternative hopes, either of an incomprehensible survival of death, -when they think, inconsolable husbands, of the wives whom they have lost -but have not ceased to love, or, artists, of the posthumous glory which -they may thus enjoy; or else the hope of complete extinction which -comforts them when their thoughts turn to the misdeeds that otherwise -they must his own meditation, which do not appear to him to be of great -value since he does not separate them from himself, oblige a publisher -to choose a kind of paper, to employ a fount of type finer, perhaps, -than they deserve, I asked myself whether my desire to write was of -sufficient importance to justify my father in dispensing so much -generosity. But apart from that, when he spoke of my inclinations as no -longer liable to change, he awakened in me two terrible suspicions. The -first was that (at a time when, every day, I regarded myself as standing -upon the threshold of a life which was still intact and would not enter -upon its course until the following morning) my existence was already -begun, and that, furthermore, what was yet to follow would not differ to -any extent from what had already elapsed. The second suspicion, which -was nothing more, really, than a variant of the first, was that I was -not situated somewhere outside the realm of Time, but was subject to its -laws, just like the people in novels who, for that reason, used to -plunge me in such depression when I read of their lives, down at -Combray, in the fastness of my wicker sentry-box. In theory one is aware -that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the -ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live -undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life. And to make its flight -perceptible novelists are obliged, by wildly accelerating the beat of -the pendulum, to transport the reader in a couple of minutes over ten, -or twenty, or even thirty years. At the top of one page we have left a -lover full of hope; at the foot of the next we meet him again, a bowed -old man of eighty, painfully dragging himself on his daily walk about -the courtyard of an almshouse, scarcely replying to what is said to him, -oblivious of the past. In saying of me, "He is no longer a child", "His -tastes will not change now", and so forth, my father had suddenly made -me apparent to myself in my position in Time, and caused me the same -kind of depression as if I had been, not yet the enfeebled old -pensioner, but one of those heroes of whom the author, in a tone of -indifference which is particularly galling, says to us at the end of a -book: "He very seldom comes up now from the country. He has finally -decided to end his days there." - -Meanwhile my father, so as to forestall any criticism that we might feel -tempted to make of our guest, said to my mother: "Upon my word, old -Norpois was rather 'typical', as you call it, this evening, wasn't he? -When he said that it would not have been 'seemly' to ask the Comte de -Paris a question, I was quite afraid you would burst out laughing." - -"Not at all!" answered my mother. "I was delighted to see a man of his -standing, and age too, keep that sort of simplicity, which is really a -sign of straightforwardness and good-breeding." - -"I should think so, indeed! That does not prevent his having a shrewd -and discerning mind; I know him well, I see him at the Commission, -remember, where he is very different from what he was here," exclaimed -my father, who was glad to see that Mamma appreciated M. de Norpois, and -anxious to persuade her that he was even superior to what she supposed, -because a cordial nature exaggerates a friend's qualities with as much -pleasure as a mischievous one finds in depreciating them. "What was it -that he said, again--'With Princes one never does know.' . . .?" - -"Yes, that was it. I noticed it at the time; it was very neat. You can -see that he has a vast experience of life." - -"The astonishing thing is that he should have been dining with the -Swanns, and that he seems to have found quite respectable people there, -officials even. How on earth can Mme. Swann have managed to catch them?" - -"Did you notice the malicious way he said: 'It is a house which is -especially attractive to gentlemen!'?" - -And each of them attempted to reproduce the manner in which M. de -Norpois had uttered these words, as they might have attempted to capture -some intonation of Bressant's voice or of Thiron's in _L'Aventurière_ -or in the _Gendre de M. Poirier._ But of all his sayings there was none -so keenly relished as one was by Françoise, who, years afterwards, -even, could not "keep a straight face" if we reminded her that she had -been qualified by the Ambassador as "a chef of the first order", a -compliment which my mother had gone in person to transmit to her, as a -War Minister publishes the congratulations addressed to him by a -visiting Sovereign after the grand review. I, as it happened, had -preceded my mother to the kitchen. For I had extorted from Françoise, -who though opposed to war was cruel, that she would cause no undue -suffering to the rabbit which she had to kill, and I had had no report -yet of its death. Françoise assured me that it had passed away as -peacefully as could be desired, and very swiftly. "I have never seen a -beast like it; it died without uttering a word; you would have thought -it was dumb." Being but little versed in the language of beasts I -suggested that the rabbit had not, perhaps, a cry like the chicken's. -"Just wait till you see," said Françoise, filled with contempt for my -ignorance, "if rabbits don't cry every bit as much as chickens. Why, -they are far noisier." She received the compliments of M. de Norpois -with the proud simplicity, the joyful and (if but for the moment) -intelligent expression of an artist when someone speaks to him of his -art. My mother had sent her when she first came to us to several of the -big restaurants to see how the cooking there was done. I had the same -pleasure, that evening, in hearing her dismiss the most famous of them -as mere cookshops that I had had long ago, when I learned with regard to -theatrical artists that the hierarchy of their merits did not at all -correspond to that of their reputations. "The Ambassador," my mother -told her, "assured me that he knows no place where he can get cold beef -and _soufflés_ as good as yours." Françoise, with an air of modesty -and of paying just homage to the truth, agreed, but seemed not at all -impressed by the title "Ambassador"; she said of M. de Norpois, with the -friendliness due to a man who had taken her for a chef: "He's a good old -soul, like me." She had indeed hoped to catch sight of him as he -arrived, but knowing that Mamma hated their standing about behind doors -and in windows, and thinking that Mamma would get to know from the other -servants or from the porter that she had been keeping watch (for -Françoise saw everywhere nothing but "jealousies" and "tale-bearings", -which played the same grim and unending part in her imagination as do -for others of us the intrigues of the Jesuits or the Jews), she had -contented herself with a peep from the kitchen window, "so as not to -have words with Madame," and beneath the momentary aspect of M. de -Norpois had "thought it was Monsieur Legrand," because of what she -called his "agelity" and in spite of their having not a single point in -common. "Well," inquired my mother, "and how do you explain that nobody -else can make a jelly as well as you--when you choose?" "I really -couldn't say how that becomes about," replied Françoise, who had -established no very clear line of demarcation between the verb "to -come", in certain of its meanings at least, and the verb "to become". -She was speaking the truth, if not the whole truth, being scarcely more -capable--or desirous--of revealing the mystery which ensured the -superiority of her jellies or her creams than a leader of fashion the -secrets of her toilet or a great singer those of her song. Their -explanations tell us little; it was the same with the recipes furnished -by our cook. "They do it in too much of a hurry," she went on, alluding -to the great restaurants, "and then it's not all done together. You want -the beef to become like a sponge, then it will drink up all the juice to -the last drop. Still, there was one of those Cafés where I thought they -did know a little bit about cooking. I don't say it was altogether my -jelly, but it was very nicely done, and the _soufflés_ had plenty of -cream." "Do you mean Henry's?" asked my father (who had now joined us), -for he greatly enjoyed that restaurant in the Place Gaillon where he -went regularly to club dinners. "Oh, dear no!" said Françoise, with a -mildness which cloaked her profound contempt. "I meant a little -restaurant. At that Henry's it's all very good, sure enough, but it's -not a restaurant, it's more like a--soup-kitchen." "Weber's, then?" "Oh, -no, sir, I meant a good restaurant. Weber's, that's in the Rue Royale; -that's not a restaurant, it's a drinking-shop. I don't know that the -food they give you there is even served. I think they don't have' any -table-cloths; they just shove it down in front of you like that, with a -take it or leave it." "Ciro's?" "Oh! there I should say they have the -cooking done by ladies of the world." ("World" meant for Françoise the -under-world.) "Lord! They need that to fetch the boys in." We could see -that, with all her air of simplicity, Françoise was for the celebrities -of her profession a more disastrous "comrade" than the most jealous, the -most infatuated of actresses. We felt, all the same, that she had a -proper feeling for her art and a respect for tradition; for she went on: -"No, I mean a restaurant where they looked as if they kept a very good -little family table. It's a place of some consequence, too. Plenty of -custom there. Oh, they raked in the coppers there, all right." -Françoise, being an economist, reckoned in coppers, where your plunger -would reckon in gold. "Madame knows the place well enough, down there to -the right along the main boulevards, a little way back." The restaurant -of which she spoke with this blend of pride and good-humoured tolerance -was, it turned out, the Café Anglais. - -When New Year's Day came, I first of all paid a round of family visits -with Mamma who, so as not to tire me, had planned them beforehand (with -the aid of an itinerary drawn up by my father) according to districts -rather than to degrees of kinship. But no sooner had we entered the -drawing-room of the distant cousin whose claim to being visited first -was that her house was at no distance from ours, than my mother was -horrified to see standing there, his present of _marrons glacés_ or -_déguisés_ in his hand, the bosom friend of the most sensitive of all -my uncles, to whom he would at once go and report that we had not begun -our round with him. And this uncle would certainly be hurt; he would -have thought it quite natural that we should go from the Madeleine to -the Jardin des Plantes, where he lived, before stopping at -Saint-Augustin, on our way to the Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine. - -Our visits ended (my grandmother had dispensed us from the duty of -calling on her, since we were to dine there that evening), I ran all the -way to the Champs-Elysées to give to our own special stall-keeper, with -instructions to hand it over to the person who came to her several times -a week from the Swanns to buy gingerbread, the letter which, on the day -when my friend had caused me so much anxiety, I had decided to send her -at the New Year, and in which I told her that our old friendship was -vanishing with the old year, that I would forget, now, my old sorrows -and disappointments, and that, from this first day of January, it was a -new friendship that we were going to cement, one so solid that nothing -could destroy it, so wonderful that I hoped that Gilberte would go out -of her way to preserve it in all its beauty, and to warn me in time, as -I promised to warn her, should either of us detect the least sign of a -peril that might endanger it. On our way home Françoise made me stop at -the corner of the Rue Royale, before an open air stall from which she -selected for her own stock of presents photographs of Pius IX and -Raspail, while for myself I purchased one of Berma. The innumerable -admiration which that artist excited gave an air almost of poverty to -this one face that she had to respond with, unalterable and precarious -as are the garments of people who have not a "change", this face on -which she must continually expose to view only the tiny dimple upon her -upper lip, the arch of her eyebrows, a few other physical peculiarities -always the same, which, when it came to that, were at the mercy of a -burn or a blow. This face, moreover, could not in itself have seemed to -me beautiful, but it gave me the idea, and consequently the desire to -kiss it by reason of all the kisses that it must have received, for -which, from its page in the album, it seemed still to be appealing with -that coquettishly tender gaze, that artificially ingenuous smile. For -our Berma must indeed have felt for many young men those longings which -she confessed under cover of the personality of Phaedra, longings of -which everything, even the glamour of her name which enhanced her beauty -and prolonged her youth, must render the gratification so easy to her. -Night was falling; I stopped before a column of playbills, on which was -posted that of the piece in which she was to appear on January I. A -moist and gentle breeze was blowing. It was a time of day and year that -I knew; I suddenly felt a presentiment that New Year's Day was not a day -different from the rest, that it was not the first day of a new world, -in which I might, by a chance that had never yet occurred, that was -still intact, make Gilberte's acquaintance afresh, as at the Creation of -the World, as though the past had no longer any existence, as though -there had been obliterated, with the indications which I might have -preserved for my future guidance, the disappointments which she had -sometimes brought me; a new world in which nothing should subsist from -the old--save one thing, my desire that Gilberte should love me. I -realised that if my heart hoped for such a reconstruction, round about -it, of a universe that had not satisfied it before, it was because my -heart had not altered, and I told myself that there was no reason why -Gilberte's should have altered either; I felt that this new friendship -was the same, just as there is no boundary ditch between their -fore-runners and those new years which our desire for them, without -being able to reach and so to modify them, invests, unknown to -themselves, with distinctive names. I might dedicate this new year, if I -chose, to Gilberte, and as one bases a religious system upon the blind -laws of nature, endeavour to stamp New Year's Day with the particular -image that I had formed of it; but in vain, I felt that it was not aware -that people called it New Year's Day, that it was passing in a wintry -dusk in a manner that was not novel to me; in the gentle breeze that -floated about the column of playbills I had recognised, I had felt -reappear the eternal, the universal substance, the familiar moisture, -the unheeding fluidity of the old days and years. - -I returned to the house. I had spent the New Year's Day of old men, who -differ on that day from their juniors, not because people have ceased to -give them presents but because they themselves have ceased to believe in -the New Year. Presents I had indeed received, but not that present which -alone could bring me pleasure, namely a line from Gilberte. I was young -still, none the less, since I had been able to write her one, by means -of which I hoped, in telling her of my solitary dreams of love and -longing, to arouse similar dreams in her. The sadness of men who have -grown old lies in their no longer even thinking of writing such letters, -the futility of which their experience has shewn. - -After I was in bed, the noises of the street, unduly prolonged upon this -festive evening, kept me awake. I thought of all the people who were -ending the night in pleasure, of the lover, the troop, it might be, of -debauchees who would be going to meet Berma at the stage-door after the -play that I had seen announced for this evening. I was not even able, so -as to calm the agitation which that idea engendered in me during my -sleepless night, to assure myself that Berma was not, perhaps, thinking -about love, since the lines that she was reciting, which she had long -and carefully rehearsed, reminded her at every moment that love is an -exquisite thing, as of course she already knew, and knew so well that -she displayed its familiar pangs--only enriched with a new violence and -an unsuspected sweetness--to her astonished audience; and yet each of -them had felt those pangs himself. I lighted my candle again, to look -once more upon her face. At the thought that it was, no doubt, at that -very moment being caressed by those men whom I could not prevent from -giving to Berma and receiving from her joys superhuman but vague, I felt -an emotion more cruel than voluptuous, a longing that was aggravated -presently by the sound of a horn, as one hears it on the nights of the -Lenten carnival and often of other public holidays, which, because it -then lacks all poetry, is more saddening, coming from a toy squeaker, -than "at evening, in the depth of the woods." At that moment, a message -from Gilberte would perhaps not have been what I wanted. Our desires cut -across one another's paths, and in this confused existence it is but -rarely that a piece of good fortune coincides with the desire that -clamoured for it. - -I continued to go to the Champs-Elysées on fine days, along streets -whose stylish pink houses seemed to be washed (because exhibitions of -water-colours were then at the height of fashion) in a lightly floating -atmosphere. It would be untrue to say that in those days the palaces of -Gabriel struck me as being of greater beauty, or even of another epoch -than the adjoining houses. I found more style, and should have supposed -more antiquity if not in the Palais de l'Industrie at any rate in the -Trocadéro. Plunged in a restless sleep, my adolescence embodied in one -uniform vision the whole of the quarter through which it might be -strolling, and I had never dreamed that there could be an eighteenth -century building in the Rue Royale, just as I should have been -astonished to learn that the Porte-Saint-Martin and the -Porte-Saint-Denis, those glories of the age of Louis XIV, were not -contemporary with the most recently built tenements in the sordid -regions that bore their names. Once only one of Gabriel's palaces made -me stop for more than a moment; that was because, night having fallen, -its columns, dematerialised by the moonlight, had the appearance of -having been cut out in pasteboard, and by recalling to me a scene in the -operetta _Orphée aux Enfers_ gave me for the first time an impression -of beauty. - -Meanwhile Gilberte never came to the Champs-Elysées. And yet it was -imperative that I should see her, for I could not so much as remember -what she was like. The questing, anxious, exacting way that we have of -looking at the person we love, our eagerness for the word which shall -give us or take from us the hope of an appointment for the morrow, and, -until that word is uttered, our alternative if not simultaneous -imaginings of joy and of despair, all these make our observation, in the -beloved object's presence, too tremulous to be able to carry away a dear -impression of her. Perhaps, also, that activity of all the senses at -once which endeavours to learn from the visible aspect alone what lies -behind it is over-indulgent to the thousand forms, to the changing -fragrance, to the movements of the living person whom as a rule, when we -are not in love, we regard as fixed in one permanent position. Whereas -the beloved model does not stay still; and our mental photographs of her -are always blurred. I did not rightly know how Gilberte's features were -composed, save in the heavenly moments when she disclosed them to me; I -could remember nothing but her smile. And not being able to see again -that beloved face, despite every effort that I might make to recapture -it, I would be disgusted to find, outlined in my memory with a maddening -precision of detail, the meaningless, emphatic faces of the man with the -wooden horses and of the barley-sugar woman; just as those who have lost -a dear friend whom they never see even while they are asleep, are -exasperated at meeting incessantly in their dreams any number of -insupportable creatures whom it is quite enough to have known in the -waking world. In their inability to form any image of the object of -their grief they are almost led to assert that they feel no grief. And I -was not far from believing that, since I could not recall the features -of Gilberte, I had forgotten Gilberte herself, and no longer loved her. -At length she returned to play there almost every day, setting before me -fresh pleasures to desire, to demand of her for the morrow, indeed -making my love for her every day, in this sense, a new love. But an -incident was to change once again, and abruptly, the manner in which, at -about two o'clock every afternoon, the problem of my love confronted me. -Had M. Swann intercepted the letter that I had written to his daughter, -or was Gilberte merely confessing to me long after the event, and so -that I should be more prudent in future, a state of things already long -established? As I was telling her how greatly I admired her father and -mother, she assumed that vague air, full of reticence and kept secrets, -which she invariably wore when anyone spoke to her of what she was going -to do, her walks, drives, visits--then suddenly expressed it with: "You -know, they can't abide you!" and, slipping from me like the Undine that -she was, burst out laughing. Often her laughter, out of harmony with her -words, seemed, as music seems, to be tracing an invisible surface on -another plane. M. and Mme. Swann did not require Gilberte to give up -playing with me, but they would have been just as well pleased, she -thought, if we had never begun. They did not look upon our relations -with a kindly eye; they believed me to be a young person of low moral -standard and imagined that my influence over their daughter must be -evil. This type of unscrupulous young man whom the Swanns thought that I -resembled, I pictured him to myself as detesting the parents of the girl -he loved, flattering them to their faces but, when he was alone with -her, making fun of them, urging her on to disobey them and, when once he -had completed his conquest, not allowing them even to set eyes on her -again. With these characteristics (though they are never those under -which the basest of scoundrels recognises himself) how vehemently did my -heart contrast the sentiments that did indeed animate it with regard to -Swann, so passionate, on the contrary, that I never doubted that, were -he to have the least suspicion of them, he must repent of his -condemnation of me as of a judicial error. All that I felt about him I -made bold to express to him in a long letter which I entrusted to -Gilberte, with the request that she would deliver it. She consented. -Alas! so he saw in me an even greater impostor than I had feared; those -sentiments which I had supposed myself to be portraying, in sixteen -pages, with such amplitude of truth, so he had suspected them; in short, -the letter that I had written him, as ardent and as sincere as the words -that I had uttered to M. de Norpois, met with no more success. Gilberte -told me next day, after taking me aside behind a clump of laurels, along -a little path by which we sat down on a couple of chairs, that as he -read my letter, which she had now brought back to me, her father had -shrugged his shoulders, with: "All this means nothing; it only goes to -prove how right I was." I, who knew the purity of my intentions, the -goodness of my soul, was furious that my words should not even have -impinged upon the surface of Swann's ridiculous error. For it was an -error; of that I had then no doubt. I felt that I had described with -such accuracy certain irrefutable characteristics of my generous -sentiments that, if Swann had not at once reconstructed these from my -indications, had not come to ask my forgiveness and to admit that he had -been mistaken, it must be because these noble sentiments he had never -himself experienced, which would make him incapable of understanding the -existence of them in other people. - -Well, perhaps it was simply that Swann knew that generosity is often no -more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we -have not yet named and classified them. Perhaps he had recognised in the -sympathy that I expressed for him simply an effect--and the strongest -possible proof--of my love for Gilberte, by which, and not by any -subordinate veneration of himself, my subsequent actions would be -irresistibly controlled. I was unable to share his point of view, since -I had not succeeded in abstracting my love from myself, in forcing it -back into the common experience of humanity, and thus suffering, -experimentally, its consequences; I was in despair. I was obliged to -leave Gilberte for a moment; Françoise had called me. I must accompany -her into a little pavilion covered in a green trellis, not unlike one of -the disused toll-houses of old Paris, in which had recently been -installed what in England they call a lavatory but in France, by an -ill-informed piece of anglomania, "water-closets". The old, damp walls -at the entrance, where I stood waiting for Françoise, emitted a chill -and fusty smell which, relieving me at once of the anxieties that -Swann's words, as reported by Gilberte, had just awakened in me, -pervaded me with a pleasure not at all of the same character as other -pleasures, which leave one more unstable than before, incapable of -retaining them, of possessing them, but, on the contrary, with a -consistent pleasure on which I could lean for support, delicious, -soothing, rich with a truth that was lasting, unexplained and certain. -I should have liked, as long ago in my walks along the Guermantes way, -to endeavour to penetrate the charm of this impression which had seized -hold of me, and, remaining there motionless, to interrogate this -antiquated emanation which invited me not to enjoy the pleasure which it -was offering me only as an "extra", but to descend into the underlying -reality which it had not yet disclosed to me. But the tenant of the -establishment, an elderly dame with painted cheeks and an auburn wig, -was speaking to me. Françoise thought her "very well-to-do indeed." Her -"missy" had married what Françoise called "a young man of family," -which meant that he differed more, in her eyes, from a workman than, in -Saint-Simon's, a duke did from a man "risen from the dregs of the -people." No doubt the tenant, before entering upon her tenancy, had met -with reverses. But Françoise was positive that she was a "marquise", -and belonged to the Saint-Ferréol family. This "marquise" warned me not -to stand outside in the cold, and even opened one of her doors for me, -saying: "Won't you go inside for a minute? Look, here's a nice, clean -one, and I shan't charge you anything." Perhaps she just made this offer -in the spirit in which the young ladies at Gouache's, when we went in -there to order something, used to offer me one of the sweets which they -kept on the counter under glass bells, and which, alas, Mamma would -never allow me to take; perhaps with less innocence, like an old florist -whom Mamma used to have in to replenish her flower-stands, who rolled -languishing eyes at me as she handed me a rose. In any event, if the -"marquise" had a weakness for little boys, when she threw open to them -the hypogean doors of those cubicles of stone in which men crouch like -sphinxes, she must have been moved to that generosity less by the hope -of corrupting them than by the pleasure which all of us feel in -displaying a needless prodigality to those whom we love, for I have -never seen her with any other visitor except an old park-keeper. - -A moment later I said good-bye to the "marquise", and went out -accompanied by Françoise, whom I left to return to Gilberte. I caught -sight of her at once, on a chair, behind the clump of laurels. She was -there so as not to be seen by her friends: they were playing at -hide-and-seek. I went and sat down by her side. She had on a flat cap -which drooped forwards over her eyes, giving her the same "underhand", -brooding, crafty look which I had remarked in her that first time at -Combray. I asked her if there was not some way for me to have it out -with her father, face to face. Gilberte said that she had suggested that -to him, but that he had not thought it of any use. "Look," she went on, -"don't go away without your letter; I must run along to the others, as -they haven't caught me." - -Had Swann appeared on the scene then before I had recovered it, this -letter, by the sincerity of which I felt that he had been so -unreasonable in not letting himself be convinced, perhaps he would have -seen that it was he who had been in the right. For as I approached -Gilberte, who, leaning back in her chair, told me to take the letter but -did not hold it out to me, I felt myself so irresistibly attracted by -her body that I said to her: - -"Look! You try to stop me from getting it; we'll see which is the -stronger." - -She thrust it behind her back; I put my arms round her neck, raising the -plaits of hair which she wore over her shoulders, either because she was -still of an age for that or because her mother chose to make her look a -child for a little longer so that she herself might still seem young; -and we wrestled, locked together. I tried to pull her towards me, she -resisted; her cheeks, inflamed by the effort, were as red and round as -two cherries; she laughed as though I were tickling her; I held her -gripped between my legs like a young tree which I was trying to climb; -and, in the middle of my gymnastics, when I was already out of breath -with the muscular exercise and the heat of the game, I felt, as it were -a few drops of sweat wrung from me by the effort, my pleasure express -itself in a form which I could not even pause for a moment to analyse; -immediately I snatched the letter from her. Whereupon Gilberte said, -good-naturedly: - -"You know, if you like, we might go on wrestling for a little." - -Perhaps she was dimly conscious that my game had had another object than -that which I had avowed, but too dimly to have been able to see that I -had attained it. And I, who was afraid that she had seen (and a slight -recoil, as though of offended modesty which she made and checked a -moment later made me think that my fear had not been unfounded), agreed -to go on wrestling, lest she should suppose that I had indeed no other -object than that, after which I wished only to sit quietly by her side. - -On my way home I perceived, I suddenly recollected the impression, -concealed from me until then, towards which, without letting me -distinguish or recognise it, the cold, almost sooty smell of the -trellised pavilion had borne me. It was that of my uncle Adolphe's -little sitting-room at Combray, which had indeed exhaled the same odour -of humidity. But I could not understand, and I postponed the attempt to -discover why the recollection of so trivial an impression had given me -so keen a happiness. It struck me, however, that I did indeed deserve -the contempt of M. de Norpois; I had preferred, hitherto, to all other -writers, one whom he styled a mere "flute-player" and a positive rapture -had been conveyed to me, not by any important idea, but by a mouldy -smell. - -For some time past, in certain households, the name of the -Champs-Elysées, if a visitor mentioned it, would be greeted by the -mother of the family with that air of contempt which mothers keep for a -physician of established reputation whom they have (or so they make out) -seen make too many false diagnoses to have any faith left in him; people -insisted that these gardens were not good for children, that they knew -of more than one sore throat, more than one case of measles and any -number of feverish chills for which the Champs must be held responsible. -Without venturing openly to doubt the maternal affection of Mamma, who -continued to let me play there, several of her friends deplored her -inability to see what was as plain as daylight. - -Neurotic subjects are perhaps less addicted than any, despite the -time-honoured phrase, to "listening to their insides": they can hear so -many things going on inside themselves, by which they realise later that -they did wrong to let themselves be alarmed, that they end by paying no -attention to any of them. Their nervous systems have so often cried out -to them for help, as though from some serious malady, when it was merely -because snow was coming, or because they had to change their rooms, that -they have acquired the habit of paying no more heed to these warnings -than a soldier who in the heat of battle perceives them so little that -he is capable, although dying, of carrying on for some days still the -life of a man in perfect health. One morning, bearing arranged within me -all my regular disabilities, from whose constant, internal circulation I -kept my mind turned as resolutely away as from the circulation of my -blood, I had come running into the dining-room where my parents were -already at table, and--having assured myself, as usual, that to feel -cold may mean not that one ought to warm oneself but that, for instance, -one has received a scolding, and not to feel hungry that it is going to -rain, and not that one ought not to eat anything--had taken my place -between them when, in the act of swallowing the first mouthful of a -particularly tempting cutlet, a nausea, a giddiness stopped me, the -feverish reaction of a malady that had already begun, the symptoms of -which had been masked, retarded by the ice of my indifference, but which -obstinately refused the nourishment that I was not in a fit state to -absorb. Then, at the same moment, the thought that they would stop me -from going out if they saw that I was unwell gave me, as the instinct of -self-preservation gives a wounded man, the strength to crawl to my own -room, where I found that I had a temperature of 104, and then to get -ready to go to the Champs-Elysées. Through the languid and vulnerable -shell which encased them, my eager thoughts were urging me towards, were -clamouring for the soothing delight of a game of prisoner's base with -Gilberte, and an hour later, barely able to keep on my feet, but happy -in being by her side, I had still the strength to enjoy it. - -Françoise, on our return, declared that I had been "taken bad", that I -must have caught a "hot and cold", while the doctor, who was called in -at once, declared that he "preferred" the "severity", the "virulence" of -the rush of fever which accompanied my congestion of the lungs, and -would be no more than "a fire of straw", to other forms, more -"insidious" and "septic". For some time now I had been liable to choking -fits, and our doctor, braving the disapproval of my grandmother, who -could see me already dying a drunkard's death, had recommended me to -take, as well as the caffeine which had been prescribed to help me to -breathe, beer, champagne or brandy when I felt an attack coming. These -attacks would subside, he told me, in the "euphoria" brought about by -the alcohol. I was often obliged, so that my grandmother should allow -them to give it to me, instead of dissembling, almost to make a display -of my state of suffocation. On the other hand, as soon as I felt an -attack coming, never being quite certain what proportions it would -assume, I would grow distressed at the thought of my grandmother's -anxiety, of which I was far more afraid than of my own sufferings. But -at the same time my body, either because it was too weak to keep those -sufferings secret, or because it feared lest, in their ignorance of the -imminent disaster, people might demand of me some exertion which it -would have found impossible or dangerous, gave me the need to warn my -grandmother of my attacks with a punctiliousness into which I finally -put a sort of physiological scruple. Did I perceive in myself a -disturbing symptom which I had not previously observed, my body was in -distress so long as I had not communicated it to my grandmother. Did she -pretend to pay no attention, it made me insist. Sometimes I went too -far; and that dear face, which was no longer able always to control its -emotion as in the past, would allow an expression of pity to appear, a -painful contraction. Then my heart was wrung by the sight of her grief; -as if my kisses had had power to expel that grief, as if my affection -could give my grandmother as much joy as my recovery, I flung myself -into her arms. And its scruples being at the same time calmed by the -certainty that she now knew the discomfort that I felt, my body offered -no opposition to my reassuring her. I protested that this discomfort had -been nothing, that I was in no sense to be pitied, that she might be -quite sure that I was now happy; my body had wished to secure exactly -the amount of pity that it deserved, and, provided that someone knew -that it 'had a pain' in its right side, it could see no harm in my -declaring that this pain was of no consequence and was not an obstacle -to my happiness; for my body did not pride itself on its philosophy; -that was outside its province. Almost every day during my convalescence -I passed through these crises of suffocation. One evening, after my -grandmother had left me comparatively well, she returned to my room very -late and, seeing me struggling for breath, "Oh, my poor boy," she -exclaimed, her face quivering with sympathy, "you are in dreadful pain." -She left me at once; I heard the outer gate open, and in a little while -she came back with some brandy which she had gone out to buy, since -there was none in the house. Presently I began to feel better. My -grandmother, who was rather flushed, seemed "put out" about something, -and her eyes had a look of weariness and dejection. - -"I shall leave you alone now, and let you get the good of this -improvement," she said, rising suddenly to go. I detained her, however, -for a kiss, and could feel on her cold cheek something moist, but did -not know whether it was the dampness of the night air through which she -had just passed. Next day, she did not come to my room until the -evening, having had, she told me, to go out. I considered that this -shewed a surprising indifference to my welfare, and I had to restrain -myself so as not to reproach her with it. - -As my chokings had persisted long after any congestion remained that -could account for them, my parents asked for a consultation with -Professor Cottard. It is not enough that a physician who is called in to -treat cases of this sort should be learned. Brought face to face with -symptoms which may or may not be those of three or four different -complaints, it is in the long run his instinct, his eye that must decide -with which, despite the more or less similar appearance of them all, he -has to deal. This mysterious gift does not imply any superiority in the -other departments of the intellect, and a creature of the utmost -vulgarity, who admires the worst pictures, the worst music, in whose -mind there is nothing out of the common, may perfectly well possess it. -In my case, what was physically evident might equally well have been due -to nervous spasms, to the first stages of tuberculosis, to asthma, to a -toxi-alimentary dyspnoea with renal insufficiency, to chronic -bronchitis, or to a complex state into which more than one of these -factors entered. Now, nervous spasms required to be treated firmly, and -discouraged, tuberculosis with infinite care and with a "feeding-up" -process which would have been bad for an arthritic condition such as -asthma, and might indeed have been dangerous in a case of -toxi-alimentary dyspnoea, this last calling for a strict diet which, in -return, would be fatal to a tuberculous patient. But Cottard's -hesitations were brief and his prescriptions imperious. "Purges; violent -and drastic purges; milk for some days, nothing but milk. No meat. No -alcohol." My mother murmured that I needed, all the same, to be "built -up", that my nerves were already weak, that drenching me like a horse -and restricting my diet would make me worse. I could see in Cottard's -eyes, as uneasy as though he were afraid of missing a train, that he was -asking himself whether he had not allowed his natural good-humour to -appear. He was trying to think whether he had remembered to put on his -mask of coldness, as one looks for a mirror to see whether one has not -forgotten to tie one's tie. In his uncertainty, and, so as, whatever he -had done, to put things right, he replied brutally: "I am not in the -habit of repeating my instructions. Give me a pen. Now remember, milk! -Later on, when we have got the crises and the agrypnia by the throat, I -should like you to take a little clear soup, and then a little broth, -but always with milk; _au lait!_ You'll enjoy that, since Spain is all -the rage just now; _ollé, ollé!_" His pupils knew this joke well, for -he made it at the hospital whenever he had to put a heart or liver case -on a milk diet. "After that, you will gradually return to your normal -life. But whenever there is any coughing or choking--purges, injections, -bed, milk!" He listened with icy calm, and without uttering a word, to -my mother's final objections, and as he left us without having -condescended to explain the reasons for this course of treatment, my -parents concluded that it had no bearing on my case, and would weaken me -to no purpose, and so they did not make me try it. Naturally they sought -to conceal their disobedience from the Professor, and to succeed in this -avoided all the houses in which he was likely to be found. Then, as my -health became worse, they decided to make me follow out Cottard's -prescriptions to the letter; in three days my "rattle" and cough had -ceased, I could breathe freely. Whereupon we realised that Cottard, -while finding, as he told us later on, that I was distinctly asthmatic, -and still more inclined to "imagine things", had seen that what was -really the matter with me at the moment was intoxication, and that by -loosening my liver and washing out my kidneys he would get rid of the -congestion of my bronchial tubes and thus give me back my breath, my -sleep and my strength. And we realised that this imbecile was a clinical -genius. At last I was able to get up. But they spoke of not letting me -go any more to the Champs-Elysées. They said that it was because the -air there was bad; but I felt sure that this was only a pretext so that -I should not see Mlle. Swann, and I forced myself to repeat the name of -Gilberte all the time, like the native tongue which peoples in captivity -endeavour to preserve among themselves so as not to forget the land that -they will never see again. Sometimes my mother would stroke my forehead -with her hand, saying: "So little boys don't tell Mamma their troubles -any more?" And Françoise used to come up to me every day with: "What a -face, to be sure! If you could just see yourself! Anyone would think -there was a corpse in the house." It is true that, if I had simply had a -cold in the head, Françoise would have assumed the same funereal air. -These lamentations pertained rather to her "class" than to the state of -my health. I could not at the time discover whether this pessimism was -due to sorrow or to satisfaction. I decided provisionally that it was -social and professional. - -One day, after the postman had called, my mother laid a letter upon my -bed. I opened it carelessly, since it could not bear the one signature -that would have made me happy, the name of Gilberte, with whom I had no -relations outside the Champs-Elysées. And lo, at the foot of the page, -embossed with a silver seal representing a man's head in a helmet, and -under him a scroll with the device _Per viam rectam_, beneath a letter -written in a large and flowing hand, in which almost every word appeared -to be underlined, simply because the crosses of the 't's ran not across -but over them, and so drew a line beneath the corresponding letters of -the word above, it was indeed Gilberte's signature and nothing else that -I saw. But because I knew that to be impossible upon a letter addressed -to myself, the sight of it, unaccompanied by any belief in it, gave me -no pleasure. For a moment it merely struck an impression of unreality on -everything round about me. With lightning rapidity the impossible -signature danced about my bed, the fireplace, the four walls. I saw -everything sway, as one does when one falls from a horse, and I asked -myself whether there was not an existence altogether different from the -one I knew, in direct contradiction of it, but itself the true -existence, which, being suddenly revealed to me, filled me with that -hesitation which sculptors, in representing the Last Judgment, have -given to the awakening dead who find themselves at the gates of the next -world. "My dear Friend," said the letter, "I hear that you have been -very ill and have given up going to the Champs-Elysées. I hardly ever -go there either because there has been such an enormous lot of illness. -But I'm having my friends to tea here every Monday and Friday. Mamma -asks me to tell you that it will be a great pleasure to us all if you -will come too, as soon as you are well again, and we can have some more -nice talks here, just like the Champs-Elysées. Good-bye, dear friend; I -hope that your parents will allow you to come to tea very often. With -all my kindest regards. GILBERTE." - -While I was reading these words, my nervous system was receiving, with -admirable promptitude, the news that a piece of great good fortune had -befallen me. But my mind, that is to say myself, and in fact the party -principally concerned, was still in ignorance. Such good fortune, coming -from Gilberte, was a thing of which I had never ceased to dream; a thing -wholly in my mind, it was, as Leonardo says of painting, _cosa mentale._ -Now, a sheet of paper covered with writing is not a thing that the mind -assimilates at once. But as soon as I had finished reading the letter, I -thought of it, it became an object of my dreams, became, it also, _cosa -mentale_, and I loved it so much already that every few minutes I must -read it, kiss it again. Then at last I was conscious of my happiness. - -Life is strewn with these miracles, for which people who are in love can -always hope. It is possible that this one had been artificially brought -about by my mother who, seeing that for some time past I had lost all -interest in life, may have suggested to Gilberte to write to me, just -as, when I was little and went first to the seaside, so as to give me -some pleasure in bathing, which I detested because it took away my -breath, she used secretly to hand to the man who was to "dip" me -marvellous boxes made of shells, and branches of coral, which I believed -that I myself had discovered lying at the bottom of the sea. However, -with every occurrence which, in our life and among its contrasted -situations, bears any relation to love, it is best to make no attempt to -understand it, since in so far as these are inexorable, as they are -unlooked-for, they appear to be governed by magic rather than by -rational laws. When a multi-millionaire--who for all his millions is -quite a charming person--sent packing by a poor and unattractive woman -with whom he has been living, calls to his aid, in his desperation, all -the resources of wealth, and brings every worldly influence to bear -without succeeding in making her take him back, it is wiser for him, in -the face of the implacable obstinacy of his mistress, to suppose that -Fate intends to crush him, and to make him die of an affection of the -heart, than to seek any logical explanation. These obstacles, against -which lovers have to contend, and which their imagination, over-excited -by suffering, seeks in vain to analyse, are contained, as often as not, -in some peculiar characteristic of the woman whom they cannot bring back -to themselves, in her stupidity, in the influence acquired over her, the -fears suggested to her by people whom the lover does not know, in the -kind of pleasures which, at the moment, she is demanding of life, -pleasures which neither her lover nor her lover's wealth can procure for -her. In any event, the lover is scarcely in a position to discover the -nature of these obstacles, which her womanly cunning hides from him and -his own judgment, falsified by love, prevents him from estimating -exactly. They may be compared with those tumours which the doctor -succeeds in reducing, but without having traced them to their source. -Like them these obstacles remain mysterious but are temporary. Only they -last, as a rule, longer than love itself. And as that is not a -disinterested passion, the lover who is no longer in love does not seek -to know why the woman, neither rich nor virtuous, with whom he was in -love refused obstinately for years to let him continue to keep her. - -Now the same mystery which often veils from our eyes the reason for a -catastrophe, when love is in question, envelops just as frequently the -suddenness of certain happy solutions, such as had come to me with -Gilberte's letter. Happy, or at least seemingly happy, for there are few -solutions that can really be happy when we are dealing with a sentiment -of such a kind that every satisfaction which we can bring to it does no -more, as a rule, than dislodge some pain. And yet sometimes a respite is -granted us, and we have for a little while the illusion that we are -healed. - -So far as concerns this letter, at the foot of which Françoise declined -to recognise Gilberte's name, because the elaborate capital 'G' leaning -against the undotted 'i' looked more like an 'A' while the final -syllable was indefinitely prolonged by a waving flourish, if we persist -in looking for a rational explanation of the sudden reversal of her -attitude towards me which it indicated, and which made me so radiantly -happy, we may perhaps find that I was to some extent indebted for it to -an incident which I should have supposed, on the contrary, to be -calculated to ruin me for ever in the sight of the Swann family. A short -while back, Bloch had come to see me at a time when Professor Cottard, -whom, now that I was following his instructions, we were again calling -in, happened to be in my room. As his examination of me was over, and he -was sitting with me simply as a visitor because my parents had invited -him to stay to dinner, Bloch was allowed to come in. While we were all -talking, Bloch having mentioned that he had heard it said that Mme. -Swann was very fond of me, by a lady with whom he had been dining the -day before, who was herself very intimate with Mme. Swann, I should have -liked to reply that he was most certainly mistaken, and to establish the -fact (from the same scruple of conscience that had made me proclaim it -to M. de Norpois, and for fear of Mme. Swann's taking me for a liar) -that I did not know her and had never spoken to her. But I had not the -courage to correct Bloch's mistake, because I could see quite well that -it was deliberate, and that, if he invented something that Mme. Swann -could not possibly have said, it was simply to let us know (what he -considered flattering to himself, and was not true either) that he had -been dining with one of that lady's friends. And so it fell out that, -whereas M. de Norpois, on learning that I did not know but would very -much like to know Mme. Swann, had taken great care to avoid speaking to -her about me, Cottard, who was her doctor also, having gathered from -what he had heard Bloch say that she knew me quite well and thought -highly of me, concluded that to remark, when next he saw her, that I was -a charming young fellow and a great friend of his could not be of the -smallest use to me and would be of advantage to himself, two reasons -which made him decide to speak of me to Odette whenever an opportunity -arose. - -Thus at length I found my way into that abode from which was wafted even -on to the staircase the scent that Mme. Swann used, though it was -embalmed far more sweetly still by the peculiar, disturbing charm that -emanated from the life of Gilberte. The implacable porter, transformed -into a benevolent Eumenid, adopted the custom, when I asked him if I -might go upstairs, of indicating to me, by raising his cap with a -propitious hand, that he gave ear to my prayer. Those windows which, -seen from outside, used to interpose between me and the treasures -within, which were not intended for me, a polished, distant and -superficial stare, which seemed to me the very stare of the Swanns -themselves, it fell to my lot, when in the warm weather I had spent a -whole afternoon with Gilberte in her room, to open them myself, so as to -let in a little air, and even to lean over the sill of one of them by -her side, if it was her mothers "at home" day, to watch the visitors -arrive who would often, raising their heads as they stepped out of their -carriages, greet me with a wave of the hand, taking me for some nephew -of their hostess. At such moments Gilberte's plaits used to brush my -cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once -natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their constructed -tracery, a matchless work of art, in the composition of which had been -used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, even infinitely -minute, what celestial herbary would I not have given as a reliquary. -But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if -at least I had been able to have their photograph, how far more precious -than one of a sheet of flowers traced by Vinci's pencil! To acquire one -of these, I stooped--with friends of the Swanns, and even with -photographers--to servilities which did not procure for me what I -wanted, but tied me for life to a number of extremely tiresome people. - -Gilberte's parents, who for so long had prevented me from seeing her, -now--when I entered the dark hall in which hovered perpetually, more -formidable and more to be desired than, at Versailles of old, the -apparition of the King, the possibility of my encountering them, in -which too, invariably, after butting into an enormous hat-stand with -seven branches, like the Candlestick in Holy Writ, I would begin bowing -confusedly before a footman, seated among the skirts of his long grey -coat upon the wood-box, whom in the dim light I had mistaken for Mme. -Swann--Gilberte's parents, if one of them happened to be passing at the -moment of my arrival, so far from seeming annoyed would come and shake -hands with a smile, and say: - -"How d'e do?" (They both pronounced it in the same clipped way, which, -you may well imagine, once I was back at home, I made an incessant and -delightful practice of copying.) "Does Gilberte know you're here? She -does? Then I'll leave you to her." - -Better still, the tea-parties themselves to which Gilberte invited her -friends, parties which for so long had seemed to me the most -insurmountable of the barriers heaped up between her and myself, became -now an opportunity for uniting us of which she would inform me in a few -lines, written (because I was still a comparative stranger) upon sheets -that were always different. One was adorned with a poodle embossed in -blue, above a fantastic inscription in English with an exclamation mark -after it; another was stamped with an anchor, or with the monogram G. S. -preposterously elongated in a rectangle which ran from top to bottom of -the page, or else with the name Gilberte, now traced across one corner -in letters of gold which imitated my friend's signature and ended in a -flourish, beneath an open umbrella printed in black, now enclosed in a -monogram in the shape of a Chinaman's hat, which contained all the -letters of the word in capitals without its being possible to make out a -single one of them. At last, as the series of different writing-papers -which Gilberte possessed, numerous as it might be, was not unlimited, -after a certain number of weeks I saw reappear the sheet that bore (like -the first letter she had written me) the motto _Per viam rectam_, and -over it the man's head in a helmet, set in a medallion of tarnished -silver. And each of them was chosen, on one day rather than another, by -virtue of a certain ritual, as I then supposed, but more probably, as I -now think, because she tried to remember which of them she had already -used, so as never to send the same one twice to any of her -correspondents, of those at least whom she took special pains to please, -save at the longest possible intervals. As, on account of the different -times of their lessons, some of the friends whom Gilberte used to invite -to her parties were obliged to leave just as the rest were arriving, -while I was still on the stairs I could hear escaping from the hall a -murmur of voices which, such was the emotion aroused in me by the -imposing ceremony in which I was to take part, long before I had reached -the landing, broke all the bonds that still held me to my past life, so -that I did not even remember that I was to take off my muffler as soon -as I felt too hot, and to keep an eye on the clock so as not to be late -in getting home. That staircase, besides, all of wood, as they were -built about that time in certain houses, in keeping with that Henri II -style which had for so long been Odette's ideal though she was shortly -to lose interest in it, and furnished with a placard, to which there was -no equivalent at home, on which one read the words: "NOTICE. The lift -must not be taken downstairs", seemed to me a thing so marvellous that I -told my parents that it was an ancient staircase brought from ever so -far away by M. Swann. My regard for the truth was so great that I should -not have hesitated to give them this information even if I had known it -to be false, for it alone could enable them to feel for the dignity of -the Swanns' staircase the same respect that I felt myself. It was just -as, when one is talking to some ignorant person who cannot understand in -what the genius of a great physician consists, it is as well not to -admit that he does not know how to cure a cold in the head. But since I -had no power of observation, since, as a general rule, I never knew -either the name or the nature of things that were before my eyes, and -could understand only that when they were connected with the Swanns they -must be extraordinary, I was by no means certain that in notifying my -parents of the artistic value and remote origin of the staircase I was -guilty of falsehood. It did not seem certain; but it must have seemed -probable, for I felt myself turn very red when my father interrupted me -with: "I know those houses; I have been in one; they are all alike; -Swann just has several floors in one; it was Berlier built them all." He -added that he had thought of taking a flat in one of them, but that he -had changed his mind, finding that they were not conveniently arranged, -and that the landings were too dark. So he said; but I felt -instinctively that my mind must make the sacrifices necessary to the -glory of the Swanns and to my own happiness, and by a stroke of internal -authority, in spite of what I had just heard, I banished for ever from -my memory, as a good Catholic banishes Renan's _Vie de Jésus_, the -destroying thought that their house was just an ordinary flat in which -we ourselves might have been living. - -Meanwhile on those tea-party days, pulling myself up the staircase step -by step, reason and memory already cast off like outer garments, and -myself no more now than the sport of the basest reflexes, I would arrive -in the zone in which the scent of Mme. Swann greeted my nostrils. I felt -that I could already behold the majesty of the chocolate cake, encircled -by plates heaped with little cakes, and by tiny napkins of grey damask -with figures on them, as required by convention but peculiar to the -Swanns. But this unalterable and governed whole seemed, like Kant's -necessary universe, to depend on a supreme act of free-will. For when we -were all together in Gilberte's little sitting-room, suddenly she would -look at the clock and exclaim: - -"I say! It's getting a long time since luncheon, and we aren't having -dinner till eight. I feel as if I could eat something. What do you say?" - -And she would make us go into the dining-room, as sombre as the interior -of an Asiatic Temple painted by Rembrandt, in which an architectural -cake, as gracious and sociable as it was imposing, seemed to be -enthroned there in any event, in case the fancy seized Gilberte to -discrown it of its chocolate battlements and to hew down the steep brown -slopes of its ramparts, baked in the oven like the bastions of the -palace of Darius. Better still, in proceeding to the demolition of that -Babylonitish pastry, Gilberte did not consider only her own hunger; she -inquired also after mine, while she extracted for me from the crumbling -monument a whole glazed slab jewelled with scarlet fruits, in the -oriental style. She asked me even at what o'clock my parents were -dining, as if I still knew, as if the disturbance that governed me had -allowed to persist the sensation of satiety or of hunger, the notion of -dinner or the picture of my family in my empty memory and paralysed -stomach. Alas, its paralysis was but momentary. The cakes that I took -without noticing them, a time would come when I should have to digest -them. But that time was still remote. Meanwhile Gilberte was making "my" -tea. I went on drinking it indefinitely, whereas a single cup would keep -me awake for twenty-four hours. Which explains why my mother used always -to say: "What a nuisance it is; he can never go to the Swanns' without -coming home ill." But was I aware even, when I was at the Swanns', that -it was tea that I was drinking? Had I known, I should have taken it just -the same, for even supposing that I had recovered for a moment the sense -of the present, that would not have restored to me the memory of the -past or the apprehension of the future. My imagination was incapable of -reaching to the distant time in which I might have the idea of going to -bed, and the need to sleep. - -Gilberte's girl friends were not all plunged in that state of -intoxication in which it is impossible to make up one's mind. Some of -them refused tea! Then Gilberte would say, using a phrase highly -fashionable that I year: "I can see I'm not having much of a success -with my tea!" And to destroy more completely any idea of ceremony, she -would disarrange the chairs that were drawn up round the table, with: -"We look just like a wedding breakfast. Good lord, what fools servants -are!" - -She nibbled her cake, perched sideways upon a cross-legged seat placed -at an angle to the table. And then, just as though she could have had -all those cakes at her disposal without having first asked leave of her -mother, when Mme. Swann, whose "day" coincided as a rule with Gilberte's -tea-parties, had shewn one of her visitors to the door, and came -sweeping in, a moment later, dressed sometimes in blue velvet, more -often in a black satin gown draped with white lace, she would say with -an air of astonishment: "I say, that looks good, what you've got there. -It makes me quite hungry to see you all eating cake." - -"But, Mamma, do! We invite you!" Gilberte would answer. - -"Thank you, no, my precious; what would my visitors say? I've still got -Mme. Trombert and Mme. Cottard and Mme. Bontemps; you know dear Mme. -Bontemps never pays very short visits, and she has only just come. What -would all those good people say if I never went back to them? If no one -else calls, I'll come in again and have a chat with you (which will be -far more amusing) after they've all gone. I really think I've earned a -little rest; I have had forty-five different people to-day, and -forty-two of them told me about Gérôme's picture! But you must come -along one of these days," she turned to me, "and take 'your' tea with -Gilberte. She will make it for you just as you like it, as you have it -in your own little 'studio'," she went on, flying off to her visitors, -as if it had been something as familiar to me as my own habits (such as -the habit that I should have had of taking tea, had I ever taken it; as -for my "studio", I was uncertain whether I had one or not) that I had -come to seek in this mysterious world. "When can you come? To-morrow? We -will make you 'toast' every bit as good, as you get at Colombin's. No? -You are horrid!"--for, since she also had begun to form a salon, she had -borrowed Mme. Verdurin's mannerisms, and notably her tone of petulant -autocracy. "Toast" being as incomprehensible to me as "Colombin's", this -further promise could not add to my temptation. It will appear stranger -still, now that everyone uses such expressions--and perhaps even at -Combray they are creeping in--that I had not at first understood of whom -Mme. Swann was speaking when I heard her sing the praises of our old -"nurse". I did not know any English; I gathered, however, as she went on -that the word was intended to denote Françoise. I who, in the -Champs-Elysées, had been so terrified of the bad impression that she -must make, I now learned from Mme. Swann that it was all the things that -Gilberte had told them about my "nurse" that had attracted her husband -and her to me. "One feels that she is so devoted to you; she must be -nice!" (At once my opinion of Françoise was diametrically changed. By -the same token, to have a governess equipped with a waterproof and a -feather in her hat no longer appeared quite so essential.) Finally I -learned from some words which Mme. Swann let fall with regard to Mme. -Blatin (whose good nature she recognised but dreaded her visits) that -personal relations with that lady would have been of less value to me -than I had supposed, and would not in any way have improved my standing -with the Swanns. - -If I had now begun to explore, with tremors of reverence and joy the -faery domain which, against all probability, had opened to me its -hitherto locked approaches, this was still only in my capacity as a -friend of Gilberte. The kingdom into which I was received was itself -contained within another, more mysterious still, in which Swann and his -wife led their supernatural existence and towards which they made their -way, after taking my hand in theirs, when they crossed the hall at the -same moment as myself but in the other direction. But soon I was to -penetrate also to the heart of the Sanctuary. For instance, Gilberte -might be out when I called, but M. or Mme. Swann was at home. They would -ask who had rung, and on being told that it was myself would send out to -ask me to come in for a moment and talk to them, desiring me to use in -one way or another, and with this or that object in view, my influence -over their daughter. I reminded myself of that letter, so complete, so -convincing, which I had written to Swann only the other day, and which -he had not deigned even to acknowledge. I marvelled at the impotence of -the mind, the reason and the heart to effect the least conversion, to -solve a single one of those difficulties which, in the sequel, life, -without one's so much as knowing what steps it has taken, so easily -unravels. My new position as the friend of Gilberte, endowed with an -excellent influence over her, entitling me now to enjoy the same favours -as if, having had as a companion at some school where they had always -put me at the head of my class the son of a king, I had owed to that -accident the right of informal entry into the palace and to audiences in -the throne-room, Swann, with an infinite benevolence and as though he -were not overburdened with glorious occupations, would make me go into -his library and there let me for an hour on end respond in stammered -monosyllables, timid silences broken by brief and incoherent bursts of -courage, to utterances of which my emotion prevented me from -understanding a single word; would shew me works of art and books which -he thought likely to interest me, things as to which I had no doubt, -before seeing them, that they infinitely surpassed in beauty anything -that the Louvre possessed or the National Library, but at which I found -it impossible to look. At such moments I should have been grateful to -Swann's butler, had he demanded from me my watch, my tie-pin, my boots, -and made me sign a deed acknowledging him as my heir: in the admirable -words of a popular expression of which, as of the most famous epics, we -do not know who was the author, although, like those epics, and with all -deference to Wolff and his theory, it most certainly had an author, one -of those inventive, modest souls such as we come across every year, who -light upon such gems as "putting a name to a face", though their own -names they never let us learn, I did not know what I was doing. All the -greater was my astonishment, when my visit was prolonged, at finding to -what a zero of realisation, to what an absence of happy ending those -hours spent in the enchanted dwelling led me. But my disappointment -arose neither from the inadequacy of the works of art that were shewn to -me nor from the impossibility of fixing upon them my distracted gaze. -For it was not the intrinsic beauty of the objects themselves that made -it miraculous for me to be sitting in Swann's library, it was the -attachment to those objects--which might have been the ugliest in the -world--of the particular feeling, melancholy and voluptuous, which I had -for so many years localised in that room and which still impregnated it; -similarly the multitude of mirrors, of silver-backed brushes, of altars -to Saint Anthony of Padua, carved and painted by the most eminent -artists, her friends, counted for nothing in the feeling of my own -unworthiness and of her regal benevolence which was aroused in me when -Mme. Swann received me for a moment in her own room, in which three -beautiful and impressive creatures, her principal and second and third -maids, smilingly prepared for her the most marvellous toilets, and -towards which, on the order conveyed to me by the footman in -knee-breeches that Madame wished to say a few words to me, I would make -my way along the tortuous path of a corridor all embalmed, far and near, -by the precious essences which exhaled without ceasing from her -dressing-room a fragrance exquisitely sweet. - -When Mme. Swann had returned to her visitors, we could still hear her -talking and laughing, for even with only two people in the room, and as -though she had to cope with all the "good friends" at once, she would -raise her voice, ejaculate her words, as she had so often in the "little -clan" heard its "Mistress" do, at the moments when she "led the -conversation". The expressions which we have borrowed from other people -being those which, for a time at least, we are fondest of using, Mme. -Swann used to select at one time those which she had learned from -distinguished people whom her husband had not managed to prevent her -from getting to know (it was from them that she derived the mannerism -which consists in suppressing the article or demonstrative pronoun, in -French, before an adjective qualifying a person's name), at another time -others more plebeian (such as "It's a mere nothing!" the favourite -expression of one of her friends), and used to make room for them in all -the stories which, by a habit formed among the "little clan", she loved -to tell about people. She would follow these up automatically with, "I -do love that story!" or "Do admit, it's a very _good_ story!" which came -to her, through her husband, from the Guermantes, whom she did not know. - -Mme. Swann had left the dining-room, but her husband, who had just -returned home, made his appearance among us in turn. "Do you know if -your mother is alone, Gilberte?" "No, Papa, she has still some people." -"What, still? At seven o'clock! It's appalling! The poor woman must be -absolutely dead. It's odious." (At home I had always heard the first -syllable of this word pronounced with a long 'o', like "ode", but M. and -Mme. Swann made it short, as in "odd".) "Just think of it; ever since -two o'clock this afternoon!" he went on, turning to me. "And Camille -tells me that between four and five he let in at least a dozen people. -Did I say a dozen? I believe he told me fourteen. No, a dozen; I don't -remember. When I came home I had quite forgotten it was her 'day', and -when I saw all those carriages outside the door I thought there must be -a wedding in the house. And just now, while I've been in the library for -a minute, the bell has never stopped ringing; upon my word, it's given -me quite a headache. And are there a lot of them in there still?" "No; -only two." "Who are they, do you know?" "Mme. Cottard and Mme. -Bontemps." "Oh! the wife of the Chief Secretary to the Minister of -Posts." "I know her husband's a clerk in some Ministry or other, but I -don't know what he does." Gilberte assumed a babyish manner. - -"What's that? You silly child, you talk as if you were two years old. -What do you mean; 'a clerk in some Ministry or other' indeed! He is -nothing less than Chief Secretary, chief of the whole show, and what's -more--what on earth am I thinking of? Upon my word, I'm getting as -stupid as yourself; he is not the Chief Secretary, he's the Permanent -Secretary." - -"I don't know, I'm sure; does that mean a lot, being Permanent -Secretary?" answered Gilberte, who never let slip an opportunity of -displaying her own indifference to anything that gave her parents cause -for vanity. (She may, of course, have considered that she only enhanced -the brilliance of such an acquaintance by not seeming to attach any -undue importance to it.) - -"I should think it did 'mean a lot'!" exclaimed Swann, who preferred to -this modesty, which might have left me in doubt, a more explicit mode of -speech. "Why it means simply that he's the first man after the Minister. -In fact, he's more important than the Minister, because it is he that -does all the work. Besides, it appears that he has immense capacity, a -man quite of the first rank, a most distinguished individual. He's an -Officer of the Legion of Honour. A delightful man, he is, and very -good-looking too." - -(This man's wife, incidentally, had married him against everyone's -wishes and advice because he was a c charming creature'. He had, what -may be sufficient to constitute a rare and delicate whole, a fair, silky -beard, good features, a nasal voice, powerful lungs and a glass eye.) - -"I may tell you," he added, turning again to me, "that I am greatly -amused to see that lot serving in the present Government, because they -are Bontemps of the Bontemps-Chenut family, typical old-fashioned -middle class people, reactionary, clerical, tremendously strait-laced. -Your grandfather knew quite well--at least by name and by sight he must -have known old Chenut, the father, who never tipped the cabmen more than -a ha'penny, though he was a rich enough man for those days, and the -Baron Bréau-Chenut. All their money went in the Union Générale -smash--you're too young to remember that, of course--and, gad! they've -had to get it back as best they could." - -"He's the uncle of a little girl who used to come to my lessons, in a -class a long way below mine, the famous 'Albertine'. She's certain to be -dreadfully 'fast' when she's older, but just now she's the quaintest -spectacle." "She is amazing, this daughter of mine. She knows everyone." - -"I don't know her. I only used to see her going about, and hear them -calling 'Albertine' here, and 'Albertine' there. But I do know Mme. -Bontemps, and I don't like her much either." - -"You are quite wrong; she is charming, pretty, intelligent. In fact, -she's quite clever. I shall go in and say how d'ye do to her, and ask -her if her husband thinks we're going to have war, and whether we can -rely on King Theodosius. He's bound to know, don't you think, since he's -in the counsels of the gods." - -It was not thus that Swann used to talk in days gone by; but which of us -cannot call to mind some royal princess of limited intelligence who let -herself be carried off by a footman, and then, ten years later, tried to -get back into society, and found that people were not very willing to -call upon her; have we not found her spontaneously adopting the language -of all the old bores, and, when we referred to some duchess who was at -the height of fashion, heard her say: "She came to see me only -yesterday," or "I live a very quiet life." So that it is superfluous to -make a study of manners, since we can deduce them all from psychological -laws. - -The Swanns shared this eccentricity of people who have not many friends; -a visit, an invitation, a mere friendly word from some one ever so -little prominent were for them events to which they aspired to give full -publicity. If bad luck would have it that the Verdurins were in London -when Odette gave a rather smart dinner-party, arrangements were made by -which some common friend was to "cable" a report to them across the -Channel. Even the complimentary letters and telegrams received by Odette -the Swanns were incapable of keeping to themselves. They spoke of them -to their friends, passed them from hand to hand. Thus the Swanns' -drawing-room reminded one of a seaside hotel where telegrams containing -the latest news are posted up on a board. - -Still, people who had known the old Swann not merely Outside society, as -I had known him, but in society, in that Guermantes set which, with -certain concessions to Highnesses and Duchesses, was almost infinitely -exacting in the matter of wit and charm, from which banishment was -sternly decreed for men of real eminence whom its members found boring -or vulgar,--such people might have been astonished to observe that their -old Swann had ceased to be not only discreet when he spoke of his -acquaintance, but difficult when he was called upon to enlarge it. How -was it that Mme. Bontemps, so common, so ill-natured, failed to -exasperate him? How could he possibly describe her as attractive? The -memory of the Guermantes set must, one would suppose, have prevented -him; as a matter of fact it encouraged him. There was certainly among -the Guermantes, as compared with the great majority of groups in -society, taste, indeed a refined taste, but also a snobbishness from -which there arose the possibility of a momentary interruption in the -exercise of that taste. If it were a question of some one who was not -indispensable to their circle, of a Minister for Foreign Affairs, a -Republican and inclined to be pompous, or of an Academician who talked -too much, their taste would be brought to bear heavily against him, -Swann would condole with Mme. de Guermantes on having had to sit next to -such people at dinner at one of the Embassies, and they would a thousand -times rather have a man of fashion, that is to say a man of the -Guermantes kind, good for nothing, but endowed with the wit of the -Guermantes, some one who was "of the same chapel" as themselves. Only, a -Grand Duchess, a Princess of the Blood, should she dine often with Mme. -de Guermantes, would soon find herself enrolled in that chapel also, -without having any right to be there, without being at all so endowed. -But with the simplicity of people in society, from the moment they had -her in their houses they went out of their way to find her attractive, -since they were unable to say that it was because she was attractive -that they invited her. Swann, coming to the rescue of Mme. de -Guermantes, would say to her after the Highness had gone: "After all, -she's not such a bad woman; really, she has quite a sense of the comic. -I don't suppose for a moment that she has mastered the _Critique of Pure -Reason_; still, she is not unattractive." "Oh, I do so entirely agree -with you!" the Duchess would respond. "Besides, she was a little -frightened of us all; you will see that she can be charming." "She is -certainly a great deal less devastating than Mme. X----" (the wife of -the talkative Academician, and herself a remarkable woman) "who quotes -twenty volumes at you." "Oh, but there isn't any comparison between -them." The faculty of saying such things as these, and of saying them -sincerely, Swann had acquired from the Duchess, and had never lost. He -made use of it now with reference to the people who came to his house. -He forced himself to distinguish, and to admire in them the qualities -that every human being will display if we examine him with a prejudice -in his favour, and not with the distaste of the nice-minded; he extolled -the merits of Mme. Bontemps, as he had once extolled those of the -Princesse de Parme, who must have been excluded from the Guermantes set -if there had not been privileged terms of admission for certain -Highnesses, and if, when they presented themselves for election, no -consideration had indeed been paid except to wit and charm. We have seen -already, moreover, that Swann had always an inclination (which he was -now putting into practice, only in a more lasting fashion) to exchange -his social position for another which, in certain circumstances, might -suit him better. It is only people incapable of analysing, in their -perception, what at first sight appears indivisible who believe that -one's position is consolidated with one's person. One and the same man, -taken at successive points in his life, will be found to breathe, at -different stages on the social ladder, in atmospheres that do not of -necessity become more and more refined; whenever, in any period of our -existence, we form or re-form associations with a certain environment, -and feel that we can move at ease in it and are made comfortable, we -begin quite naturally to make ourselves fast to it by putting out roots -and tendrils. - -In so far as Mme. Bontemps was concerned, I believe also that Swann, in -speaking of her with so much emphasis, was not sorry to think that my -parents would hear that she had been to see his wife. To tell the truth, -in our house the names of the people whom Mme. Swann was gradually -getting to know pricked our curiosity more than they aroused our -admiration. At the name of Mme. Trombert, my mother exclaimed: "Ah! -That's a new recruit, and one who will bring in others." And as though -she found a similarity between the somewhat summary, rapid and violent -manner in which Mme. Swann acquired her friends, as it were by conquest, -and a Colonial expedition, Mamma went on to observe: "Now that the -Tromberts have surrendered, the neighbouring tribes will not be long in -coming in." If she had passed Mme. Swann in the street, she would tell -us when she came home: "I saw Mme. Swann in all her war-paint; she must -have been embarking on some triumphant offensive against the -Massachutoes, or the Cingalese, or the Tromberts." And so with all the -new people whom I told her that I had seen in that somewhat composite -and artificial society, to which they had often been brought with great -difficulty and from widely different surroundings, Mamma would at once -divine their origin, and, speaking of them as of trophies dearly bought, -would say: "Brought back from an Expedition against the so-and-so!" - -As for Mme. Cottard, my father was astonished that Mme. Swann could find -anything to be gained by getting so utterly undistinguished a woman to -come to her house, and said: "In spite of the Professor's position, I -must say that I cannot understand it." Mamma, on the other hand, -understood quite well; she knew that a great deal of the pleasure which -a woman finds in entering a class of society different from that in -which she has previously lived would be lacking if she had no means of -keeping her old associates informed of those others, relatively more -brilliant, with whom she has replaced them. Therefore, she requires an -eye-witness who may be allowed to penetrate this new, delicious world -(as a buzzing, browsing insect bores its way into a flower) and will -then, as the course of her visits may carry her, spread abroad, or so at -least one hopes, with the tidings, a latent germ of envy and of wonder. -Mme. Cottard, who might have been created on purpose to fill this part, -belonged to that special category in a visiting list which Mamma (who -inherited certain facets of her father's turn of mind) used to call the -"Tell Sparta" people. Besides--apart from another reason which did not -come to our knowledge until many years later--Mme. Swann, in inviting -this good-natured, reserved and modest friend, had no need to fear lest -she might be introducing into her drawing-room, on her brilliant "days", -a traitor or a rival. She knew what a vast number of homely blossoms -that busy worker, armed with her plume and card-case, could visit in a -single afternoon. She knew the creature's power of dissemination, and, -basing her calculations upon the law of probability, was led to believe -that almost certainly some intimate of the Verdurins would be bound to -hear, within two or three days, how the Governor of Paris had left cards -upon her, or that M. Verdurin himself would be told how M. Le Hault de -Pressagny, the President of the Horse Show, had taken them, Swann and -herself, to the King Theodosius gala; she imagined the Verdurins as -informed of these two events, both so flattering to herself and of these -alone, because the particular materialisations in which we embody and -pursue fame are but few in number, by the default of our own minds which -are incapable of imagining at one time all the forms which, none the -less, we hope--in a general way--that fame will not fail simultaneously -to assume for our benefit. - -Mme. Swann had, however, met with no success outside what was called the -"official world". Smart women did not go to her house. It was not the -presence there of Republican "notables" that frightened them away. In -the days of my early childhood, conservative society was to the last -degree worldly, and no "good" house would ever have opened its doors to -a Republican. The people who lived in such an atmosphere imagined that -the impossibility of ever inviting an "opportunist"--still more, a -"horrid radical"--to their parties was something that would endure for -ever, like oil-lamps and horse-drawn omnibuses. But, like at -kaleidoscope which is every now and then given a turn, society arranges -successively in different orders elements which one would have supposed -to be immovable, and composes a fresh pattern. Before I had made my -first Communion, ladies on the "right side" in politics had had the -stupefaction of meeting, while paying calls, a smart Jewess. These new -arrangements of the kaleidoscope are produced by what a philosopher -would call a "change of criterion". The Dreyfus case brought about -another, at a period rather later than that in which I began to go to -Mme. Swann's, and the kaleidoscope scattered once again its little -scraps of colour. Everything Jewish, even the smart lady herself, fell -out of the pattern, and various obscure nationalities appeared in its -place. The most brilliant drawing-room in Paris was that of a Prince who -was an Austrian and ultra-Catholic. If instead of the Dreyfus case there -had come a war with Germany, the base of the kaleidoscope would have -been turned in the other direction, and its pattern reversed. The Jews -having shewn, to the general astonishment, that they were patriots also, -would have kept their position, and no one would have cared to go any -more, or even to admit that he had ever gone to the Austrian Prince's. -All this does not, however, prevent the people who move in it from -imagining, whenever society is stationary for the moment, that no -further change will occur, just as in spite of having witnessed the -birth of the telephone they decline to believe in the aeroplane. -Meanwhile the philosophers of journalism are at work, castigating the -preceding epoch, and not only the kind of pleasures in which it -indulged, which seem to them to be the last word in corruption, but even -the work of its artists and philosophers, which have no longer the least -value in their eyes, as though they were indissolubly linked to the -successive moods of fashionable frivolity. The one thing that does not -change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been -"great changes". At the time when I went to Mme. Swann's the Dreyfus -storm had not yet broken, and some of the more prominent Jews were -extremely powerful. None more so than Sir Rufus Israels, whose wife, -Lady Israels, was Swann's aunt. She had not herself any intimate -acquaintance so distinguished as her nephew's, while he, since he did -not care for her, had never much cultivated her society, although he -was, so far as was known, her heir. But she was the only one of Swann's -relatives who had any idea of his social position, the others having -always remained in the state of ignorance, in that respect, which had -long been our own. When, from a family circle, one of its members -emigrates into "high society"--which to him appears a feat without -parallel until after the lapse of a decade he observes that it has been -performed in other ways and for different reasons by more than one of -the men whom he knew as boys--he draws round about himself a zone of -shadow, a _terra incognita_, which is clearly visible in its minutest -details to all those who inhabit it with him, but is darkest night and -nothingness to those who may not penetrate it but touch its fringe -without the least suspicion of its existence in their midst. There being -no news agency to furnish Swann's lady cousins with intelligence of the -people with whom he consorted, it was (before his appalling marriage, of -course) with a smile of condescension that they would tell one another, -over family dinner-tables, that they had spent a "virtuous" Sunday in -going to see "cousin Charles", whom (regarding him as a "poor relation" -who was inclined to envy their prosperity,) they used wittily to name, -playing upon the title of Balzac's story, "Le Cousin Bête". Lady -Israels, however, was letter-perfect in the names and quality of the -people who lavished upon Swann a friendship of which she was frankly -jealous. Her husband's family, which almost equalled the Rothschilds in -importance, had for several generations managed the affairs of the -Orleans Princes. Lady Israels, being immensely rich, exercised a wide -influence, and had employed it so as to ensure that no one whom she knew -should be "at home" to Odette. One only had disobeyed her, in secret, -the Comtesse de Marsantes. And then, as ill luck would have it, Odette -having gone to call upon Mme. de Marsantes, Lady Israels had entered the -room almost at her heels. Mme. de Marsantes was on tenter-hooks. With -the craven impotence of those who are at liberty to act as they choose, -she did not address a single word to Odette, who thus found little -encouragement to press farther the invasion of a world which, moreover, -was not at all that into which she would have liked to be welcomed. In -this complete detachment of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Odette continued -to be regarded as the illiterate "light woman", utterly different from -the respectable ladies, "well up" in all the minutest points of -genealogy, who endeavoured to quench by reading biographies and memoirs -their thirst for the aristocratic relations with which real life had -omitted to provide them. And Swann, for his part, continued no doubt to -be the lover in whose eyes all these peculiarities of an old mistress -would appear lovable or at least inoffensive, for I have often heard his -wife profess what were really social heresies, without his attempting -(whether from lingering affection for her, loss of regard for society or -weariness of the effort to make her perfect) to correct them. It was -perhaps also another form of the simplicity which for so long had misled -us at Combray, and which now had the effect that, while he continued to -know, on his own account at least, many highly distinguished people, he -did not make a point, in conversation in his wife's drawing-room, of our -seeming to feel that they were of the smallest importance. They had, -indeed, less than ever for Swann, the centre of gravity of his life -having been displaced. In any case, Odette's ignorance of social -distinctions was so dense that if the name of the Princesse de -Guermantes were mentioned in conversation after that of the Duchess, her -cousin, "So those ones are Princes, are they?" she would exclaim; "Why, -they've gone up a step." Were anyone to say "the Prince", in speaking of -the Duc de Chartres, she would put him right with, "The Duke, you mean; -he is Duc de Chartres, not Prince." As for the Duc d'Orléans, son of -the Comte de Paris: "That's funny; the son is higher than the father!" -she would remark, adding, for she was afflicted with anglomania, "Those -_Royalties_ are so dreadfully confusing!"--while to someone who asked -her from what province the Guermantes family came she replied, "From the -Aisne." - -But, so far as Odette was concerned, Swann was quite blind, not merely -to these deficiencies in her education but to the general mediocrity of -her intelligence. More than that; whenever Odette repeated a silly story -Swann would sit listening to his wife with a complacency, a merriment, -almost an admiration into which some survival of his desire for her must -have entered; while in the same conversation, anything subtle, anything -deep even that he himself might say would be listened to by Odette with -an habitual lack of interest, rather curtly, with impatience, and would -at times be sharply contradicted. And we must conclude that this -enslavement of refinement by vulgarity is the rule in many households, -when we think, conversely, of all the superior women who yield to the -blandishments of a boor, merciless in his censure of their most delicate -utterances, while they go into ecstasies, with the infinite indulgence -of love, over the feeblest of his witticisms. To return to the reasons -which prevented Odette, at this period, from making her way into the -Faubourg Saint-Germain, it must be observed that the latest turn of the -social kaleidoscope had been actuated by a series of scandals. Women to -whose houses one had been going with entire confidence had been -discovered to be common prostitutes, if not British spies. One would, -therefore, for some time to come expect people (so, at least, one -supposed) to be, before anything else, in a sound position, regular, -settled, accountable. Odette represented simply everything with which -one had just severed relations, and was incidentally to renew them at -once (for men, their natures not altering from day to day, seek in every -new order a continuance of the old) but to renew them by seeking it -under another form which would allow one to be innocently taken in, and -to believe that it was no longer the same society as before the -disaster. However, the scapegoats of that society and Odette were too -closely alike. People who move in society are very short-sighted; at the -moment in which they cease to have any relations with the Israelite -ladies whom they have known, while they are asking themselves how they -are to fill the gap thus made in their lives, they perceive, thrust into -it as by the windfall of a night of storm, a new lady, an Israelite -also; but by virtue of her novelty she is not associated in their minds -with her predecessors, with what they are convinced that they must -abjure. She does not ask that they shall respect her God. They take her -up. There was no question of anti-semitism at the time when I used first -to visit Odette. But she was like enough to it to remind people of what -they wished, for a while, to avoid. - -As for Swann himself, he was still a frequent visitor of several of his -former acquaintance, who, of course, were all of the very highest rank. -And yet when he spoke to us of the people whom he had just been to see I -noticed that, among those whom he had known in the old days, the choice -that he made was dictated by the same kind of taste, partly artistic -partly historic, that inspired him as a collector. And remarking that it -was often some great lady or other of waning reputation, who interested -him because she had been the mistress of Liszt or because one of -Balzac's novels was dedicated to her grandmother (as he would purchase a -drawing if Chateaubriand had written about it) I conceived a suspicion -that we had, at Combray, replaced one error, that of regarding Swann as -a mere stockbroker, who did not go into society, by another, when we -supposed him to be one of the smartest men in Paris. To be a friend of -the Comte de Paris meant nothing at all. Is not the world full of such -"friends of Princes", who would not be received in any house that was at -all "exclusive"? Princes know themselves to be princes, and are not -snobs; besides, they believe themselves to be so far above everything -that is not of their blood royal that great nobles and "business men" -appear, in the depths beneath them, to be practically on a level. - -But Swann went farther than this; not content with seeking in society, -such as it was, when he fastened upon the names which, inscribed upon -its roll by the past, were still to be read there, a simple artistic and -literary pleasure, he indulged in the slightly vulgar diversion of -arranging as it were social nosegays by grouping heterogeneous elements, -bringing together people taken at hazard, here, there and everywhere. -These experiments in the lighter side (or what was to Swann the lighter -side) of sociology did not stimulate an identical reaction, with any -regularity, that is to say, in each of his wife's friends. "I'm thinking -of asking the Cottards to meet the Duchesse de Vendôme," he would -laughingly say to Mme. Bontemps, in the appetised tone of an epicure who -has thought of, and intends to try the substitution, in a sauce, of -cayenne pepper for cloves. But this plan, which was, in fact, to appear -quite humorous, in an archaic sense of the word, to the Cottards, had -also the power of infuriating Mme. Bontemps. She herself had recently -been presented by the Swanns to the Duchesse de Vendôme, and had found -this as agreeable as it seemed to her natural. The thought of winning -renown from it at the Cottards', when she related to them what had -happened, had been by no means the least savoury ingredient of her -pleasure. But like those persons recently decorated who, their -investiture once accomplished, would like to see the fountain of honour -turned off at the main, Mme. Bontemps would have preferred that, after -herself, no one else in her own circle of friends should be made known -to the Princess. She denounced (to herself, of course) the licentious -taste of Swann who, in order to gratify a wretched aesthetic whim, was -obliging her to scatter to the winds, at one swoop, all the dust that -she would have thrown in the eyes of the Cottards when she told them -about the Duchesse de Vendôme. How was she even to dare to announce to -her husband that the Professor and his wife were in their turn to -partake of this pleasure, of which she had boasted to him as though it -were unique. And yet, if the Cottards could only be made to know that -they were being invited not seriously but for the amusement of their -host! It is true that the Bontemps had been invited for the same reason, -but Swann, having acquired from the aristocracy that eternal "Don Juan" -spirit which, in treating with two women of no importance, makes each of -them believe that it is she alone who is seriously loved, had spoken to -Mme. Bontemps of the Duchesse de Vendôme as of a person whom it was -clearly laid down that she must meet at dinner. "Yes, we're determined -to have the Princess here with the Cottards," said Mme. Swann a few -weeks later; "My husband thinks that we might get something quite -amusing out of that conjunction." For if she had retained from the -"little nucleus" certain habits dear to Mme. Verdurin, such as that of -shouting things aloud so as to be heard by all the faithful, she made -use, at the same time, of certain expressions, such as "conjunction", -which were dear to the Guermantes circle, of which she thus felt -unconsciously and at a distance, as the sea is swayed by the moon, the -attraction, though without being drawn perceptibly closer to it. "Yes, -the Cottards and the Duchesse de Vendôme. Don't you think that might be -rather fun?" asked Swann. "I think they'll be exceedingly ill-assorted, -and it can only lead to a lot of bother; people oughtn't to play with -fire, is what I say!" snapped Mme. Bontemps, furious. She and her -husband were, all the same, invited, as was the Prince d'Agrigente, to -this dinner, which Mme. Bontemps and Cottard had each two alternative -ways of describing, according to whom they were telling about it. To one -set Mme. Bontemps for her part, and Cottard for his would say casually, -when asked who else had been of the party: "Only the Prince d'Agrigente; -it was all quite intimate." But there were others who might, alas, be -better informed (once, indeed, some one had challenged Cottard with: -"But weren't the Bontemps there too?" "Oh, I forgot them," Cottard had -blushingly admitted to the tactless questioner whom he ever afterwards -classified among slanderers and speakers of evil). For these the -Bontemps and Cottards had each adopted, without any mutual arrangement, -a version the framework of which was identical for both parties, their -own names alone changing places. "Let me see;" Cottard would say, "there -were our host and hostess, the Duc and Duchesse de Vendôme--" (with a -satisfied smile) "Professor and Mme. Cottard, and, upon my soul, heaven -only knows how they got there, for they were about as much in keeping as -hairs in the soup, M. and Mme. Bontemps!" Mme. Bontemps would recite an -exactly similar "piece", only it was M. and Mme. Bontemps who were named -with a satisfied emphasis between the Duchesse de Vendôme and the -Prince d'Agrigente, while the "also ran", whom finally she used to -accuse of having invited themselves, and who completely spoiled the -party, were the Cottards. - -When he had been paying calls Swann would often come home with little -time to spare before dinner. At that point in the evening, six o'clock, -when in the old days he had felt so wretched, he no longer asked himself -what Odette might be about, and was hardly at all concerned to hear that -she had people still with her, or had gone out. He recalled at times -that he had once, years ago, tried to read through its envelope a letter -addressed by Odette to Forcheville. But this memory was not pleasing to -him, and rather than plumb the depth of shame that he felt in it he -preferred to indulge in a little grimace, twisting up the corners of his -mouth and adding, if need be, a shake of the head which signified "What -does it all matter?" In truth, he considered now that the hypothesis by -which he had often been brought to a standstill in days gone by, -according to which it was his jealous imagination alone that blackened -what was in reality the innocent life of Odette--that this hypothesis -(which after all was beneficent, since, so long as his amorous malady -had lasted, it had diminished his sufferings by making them seem -imaginary) was not the truth, that it was his jealousy that had seen -things in the right light, and that if Odette had loved him better than -he supposed, she had deceived him more as well. Formerly, while his -sufferings were still keen, he had vowed that, as soon as he should have -ceased to love Odette, and so to be afraid either of vexing her or of -making her believe that he loved her more than he did, he would afford -himself the satisfaction of elucidating with her, simply from his love -of truth and as a historical point, whether or not she had had -Forcheville in her room that day when he had rung her bell and rapped on -her window without being let in, and she had written to Forcheville that -it was an uncle of hers who had called. But this so interesting problem, -of which he was waiting to attempt the solution only until his jealousy -should have subsided, had precisely lost all interest in Swann's eyes -when he had ceased to be jealous. Not immediately, however. He felt no -other jealousy now with regard to Odette than what the memory of that -day, that afternoon spent in knocking vainly at the little house in the -Rue Lapérouse, had continued to excite in him; as though his jealousy, -not dissimilar in that respect from those maladies which appear to have -their seat, their centre of contagion less in certain persons than in -certain places, in certain houses, had had for its object not so much -Odette herself as that day, that hour in the irrevocable past when Swann -had beaten at every entrance to her house in turn. You would have said -that that day, that hour alone had caught and preserved a few last -fragments of the amorous personality which had once been Swann's, and -that there alone could he now recapture them. For a long time now it had -made no matter to him that Odette had been false to him, and was false -still. And yet he had continued for some years to seek out old servants -of Odette, so strongly in him persisted the painful curiosity to know -whether on that day, so long ago, at six o'clock, Odette had been in bed -with Forcheville. Then that curiosity itself had disappeared, without, -however, his abandoning his investigations. He continued the attempt to -discover what no longer interested him, because his old ego though it -had shrivelled to the extreme of decrepitude still acted mechanically, -following the course of preoccupations so utterly abandoned that Swann -could not now succeed even in forming an idea of that anguish--so -compelling once that he had been unable to foresee his ever being -delivered from it, that only the death of her whom he loved (death -which, as will be shewn later on in this story, by a cruel example, in -no way diminishes the sufferings caused by jealousy) seemed to him -capable of making smooth the road, then insurmountably barred to him, of -his life. - -But to bring to light, some day, those passages in the life of Odette to -which he owed his sufferings had not been Swann's only ambition; he had -in reserve that also of wreaking vengeance for his sufferings when, -being no longer in love with Odette, he should no longer be afraid of -her; and the opportunity of gratifying this second ambition had just -occurred, for Swann was in love with another woman, a woman who gave -him--grounds for jealousy, no, but who did all the same make him -jealous, because he was not capable, now, of altering his way of making -love, and it was the way he had used with Odette that must serve him now -for another. To make Swann's jealousy revive it was not essential that -this woman should be unfaithful, it sufficed that for any reason she was -separated from him, at a party for instance, where she was presumably -enjoying herself. That was enough to reawaken in him the old anguish, -that lamentable and inconsistent excrescence of his love, which held -Swann ever at a distance from what she really was, like a yearning to -attain the impossible (what this young woman really felt for him, the -hidden longing that absorbed her days, the secret places of her heart), -for between Swann and her whom he loved this anguish piled up an -unyielding mass of already existing suspicions, having their cause in -Odette, or in some other perhaps who had preceded Odette, allowing this -now ageing lover to know his mistress of the moment only in the -traditional and collective phantasm of the "woman who made him jealous", -in which he had arbitrarily incarnated his new love. Often, however, -Swann would charge his jealousy with the offence of making him believe -in imaginary infidelities; but then he would remember that he had given -Odette the benefit of the same argument and had in that been wrong. And -so everything that the young woman whom he loved did in those hours when -he was not with her appeared spoiled of its innocence in his eyes. But -whereas at that other time he had made a vow that if ever he ceased to -love her whom he did not then imagine to be his future wife, he would -implacably exhibit to her an indifference that would at length be -sincere, so as to avenge his pride that had so long been trampled upon -by her--of those reprisals which he might now enforce without risk to -himself (for what harm could it do him to be taken at his word and -deprived of those intimate moments with Odette that had been so -necessary to him once), of those reprisals he took no more thought; with -his love had vanished the desire to shew that he was in love no longer. -And he who, when he was suffering at the hands of Odette, would have -looked forward so keenly to letting her see one day that he had fallen -to a rival, now that he was in a position to do so took infinite -precautions lest his wife should suspect the existence of this new love. - - * -* * - -It was not only in those tea-parties, on account of which I had formerly -had the sorrow of seeing Gilberte leave me and go home earlier than -usual, that I was henceforth to take part, but the engagements that she -had with her mother, to go for a walk or to some afternoon party, which -by preventing her from coming to the Champs-Elysées had deprived me of -her, on those days when I loitered alone upon the lawn or stood before -the wooden horses,--to these outings M. and Mme. Swann henceforth -admitted me, I had a seat in their landau, and indeed it was me that -they asked if I would rather go to the theatre, to a dancing lesson at -the house of one of Gilberte's friends, to some social gathering given -by friends of her parents (what Odette called "a little meeting") or to -visit the tombs at Saint-Denis. - -On days when I was going anywhere with the Swanns I would arrive at the -house in time for _déjeuner_, which Mme. Swann called "le lunch"; as -one was not expected before half-past twelve, while my parents in those -days had their meal at a quarter past eleven, it was not until they had -risen from the table that I made my way towards that sumptuous quarter, -deserted enough at any hour, but more particularly just then, when -everyone had gone indoors. Even on winter days of frost, if the weather -held, tightening every few minutes the knot of a gorgeous necktie from -Charvet's and looking to see that my varnished boots were not getting -dirty, I would roam to and fro among the avenues, waiting until -twenty-seven minutes past the hour. I could see from afar in the Swanns' -little garden-plot the sunlight glittering like hoar frost from the -bare-boughed trees. It is true that the garden boasted but a pair of -them. The unusual hour presented the scene in a new light. Into these -pleasures of nature (intensified by the suppression of habit and indeed -by my physical hunger) the thrilling prospect of sitting down to -luncheon with Mme. Swann was infused; it did not diminish them, but -taking command of them trained them to its service; so that if, at this -hour when ordinarily I did not perceive them, I seemed now to be -discovering the fine weather, the cold, the wintry sunlight, it was all -as a sort of preface to the creamed eggs, as a patina, a cool and -coloured glaze applied to the decoration of that mystic chapel which was -the habitation of Mme. Swann, and in the heart of which there were, by -contrast, so much warmth, so many scents and flowers. - -At half-past twelve I would finally make up my mind to enter that house -which, like an immense Christmas stocking, seemed ready to bestow upon -me supernatural delights. (The French name "Noël" was, by the way, -unknown to Mme. Swann and Gilberte, who had substituted for it the -English "Christmas", and would speak of nothing but "Christmas pudding", -what people had given them as "Christmas presents" and of going -away--the thought of which maddened me with grief--"for Christmas". At -home even, I should have thought it degrading to use the word "Noël", -and always said "Christmas", which my father considered extremely -silly.) - -I encountered no one at first but a footman who after leading me through -several large drawing-rooms shewed me into one that was quite small, -empty, its windows beginning to dream already in the blue light of -afternoon; I was left alone there in the company of orchids, roses and -violets, which, like people who are kept waiting in a room beside you -but do not know you, preserved a silence which their individuality as -living things made all the more impressive, and received coldly the -warmth of a glowing fire of coals, preciously displayed behind a screen -of crystal, in a basin of white marble over which it spilled, now and -again, its perilous rubies. - -I had sat down, but I rose hurriedly on hearing the door opened; it was -only another footman, and then a third, and the minute result that their -vainly alarming entrances and exits achieved was to put a little more -coal on the fire or water in the vases. They departed, I found myself -alone, once that door was shut which Mme. Swann was surely soon going to -open. Of a truth, I should have been less ill at ease in a magician's -cave than in this little waiting-room where the fire appeared to me to -be performing alchemical transmutations as in Klingsor's laboratory. -Footsteps sounded afresh, I did not rise, it was sure to be just another -footman; it was M. Swann. "What! All by yourself? What is one to do; -that poor wife of mine has never been able to remember what time means! -Ten minutes to one. She gets later every day. And you'll see, she will -come sailing in without the least hurry, and imagine she's in heaps of -time." And as he was still subject to neuritis, and as he was becoming a -trifle ridiculous, the fact of possessing so unpunctual a wife, who came -in so late from the Bois, forgot everything at her dressmaker's and was -never in time for luncheon made Swann anxious for his digestion but -flattered his self-esteem. - -He shewed me his latest acquisitions and explained their interest to me, -but my emotion, added to the unfamiliarity of being still without food -at this hour, sweeping through my mind left it void, so that while able -to speak I was incapable of hearing. Anyhow, so far as the works of art -in Swann's possession were concerned, it was enough for me that they -were contained in his house, formed a part there of the delicious hour -that preceded luncheon. The Gioconda herself might have appeared there -without giving me any more pleasure than one of Mme. Swann's indoor -gowns, or her scent bottles. - -I continued to wait, alone or with Swann, and often with Gilberte, come -in to keep us company. The arrival of Mme. Swann, prepared for me by all -those majestic apparitions, must (so it seemed to me) be something truly -immense. I strained my ears to catch the slightest sound. But one never -finds quite as high as one has been expecting a cathedral, a wave in a -storm, a dancer's leap in the air; after those liveried footmen, -suggesting the chorus whose processional entry upon the stage leads up -to and at the same time diminishes the final appearance of the queen, -Mme. Swann, creeping furtively in, with a little otter-skin coat, her -veil lowered to cover a nose pink-tipped by the cold, did not fulfil the -promises lavished, while I had been waiting, upon my imagination. - -But if she had stayed at home all morning, when she arrived in the -drawing-room it would be clad in a wrapper of _crêpe-de-Chine_, -brightly coloured, which seemed to me more exquisite than any of her -dresses. - -Sometimes the Swanns decided to remain in the house all afternoon, and -then, as we had had luncheon so late, very soon I must watch setting, -beyond the garden-wall, the sun of that day which had seemed to me bound -to be different from other days; then in vain might the servants bring -in lamps of every size and shape, burning each upon the consecrated -altar of a console, a card-table, a corner-cupboard, a bracket, as -though for the celebration of some strange and secret rite; nothing -extraordinary transpired in the conversation, and I went home -disappointed, as one often is in one's childhood after the midnight -mass. - -But my disappointment was scarcely more than mental. I was radiant with -happiness in this house where Gilberte, when she was still not with us, -was about to appear and would bestow on me in a moment, and for hours to -come, her speech, her smiling and attentive gaze, just as I had caught -it, that first time, at Combray. At the most I was a trifle jealous when -I saw her so often disappear into vast rooms above, reached by a private -staircase. Obliged myself to remain in the drawing-room, like a man in -love with an actress who is confined to his stall "in front" and wonders -anxiously what is going on behind the scenes, in the green-room, I put -to Swann, with regard to this other part of the house questions artfully -veiled, but in a tone from which I could not quite succeed in banishing -the note of uneasiness. He explained to me that the place to which -Gilberte had gone was the linen-room, offered himself to shew it to me, -and promised me that whenever Gilberte had occasion to go there again he -would insist upon her taking me with her. By these last words and the -relief which they brought me Swann at once annihilated for me one of -those terrifying interior perspectives at the end of which a woman with -whom we are in love appears so remote. At that moment I felt for him an -affection which I believed to be deeper than my affection for Gilberte. -For he, being the master over his daughter, was giving her to me, -whereas she, she withheld herself now and then, I had not the same -direct control over her as I had indirectly through Swann. Besides, it -was she whom I loved and could not, therefore look upon without that -disturbance, without that desire for something more which destroys in -us, in the presence of one whom we love, the sensation of loving. - -As a rule, however, we did not stay indoors, we went out. Sometimes, -before going to dress, Mme. Swann would sit down at the piano. Her -lovely hands, escaping from the pink, or white, or, often, vividly -coloured sleeves of her _crêpe-de-Chine_ wrapper, drooped over the keys -with that same melancholy which was in her eyes but was not in her -heart. It was on one of those days that she happened to play me the part -of Vinteuil's sonata that contained the little phrase of which Swann had -been so fond. But often one listens and hears nothing, if it is a piece -of music at all complicated to which one is listening for the first -time. And yet when, later on, this sonata had been played over to me two -or three times I found that I knew it quite well. And so it is not wrong -to speak of hearing a thing for the first time. If one had indeed, as -one supposes, received no impression from the first hearing, the second, -the third would be equally "first hearings" and there would be no reason -why one should understand it any better after the tenth. Probably what -is wanting, the first time, is not comprehension but memory. For our -memory, compared to the complexity of the impressions which it has to -face while we are listening, is infinitesimal, as brief as the memory of -a man who in his sleep thinks of a thousand things and at once forgets -them, or as that of a man in his second childhood who cannot recall, a -minute afterwards, what one has just been saying to him. Of these -multiple impressions our memory is not capable of furnishing us with an -immediate picture. But that picture gradually takes shape, and, with -regard to works which we have heard more than once, we are like the -schoolboy who has read several times over before going to sleep a lesson -which he supposed himself not to know, and finds that he can repeat it -by heart next morning. It was only that I had not, until then, heard a -note of the sonata, and where Swann and his wife could make out a -distinct phrase that was as far beyond the range of my perception as a -name which one endeavours to recall and in place of which one discovers -only a void, a void from which, an hour later, when one is not thinking -about them, will spring of their own accord, in one continuous flight, -the syllables that one has solicited in vain. And not only does one not -seize at once and retain an impression of works that are really great, -but even in the content of any such work (as befell me in the case of -Vinteuil's sonata) it is the least valuable parts that one at first -perceives. Thus it was that I was mistaken not only in thinking that -this work held nothing further in store for me (so that for a long time -I made no effort to hear it again) from the moment in which Mme. Swann -had played over to me its most famous passage; I was in this respect as -stupid as people are who expect to feel no astonishment when they stand -in Venice before the front of Saint Mark's, because photography has -already acquainted them with the outline of its domes. Far more than -that, even when I had heard the sonata played from beginning to end, it -remained almost wholly invisible to me, like a monument of which its -distance or a haze in the atmosphere allows us to catch but a faint and -fragmentary glimpse. Hence the depression inseparable from one's -knowledge of such works, as of everything that acquires reality in time. -When the least obvious beauties of Vinteuil's sonata were revealed to -me, already, borne by the force of habit beyond the reach of my -sensibility, those that I had from die first distinguished and preferred -in it were beginning to escape, to avoid me. Since I was able only in -successive moments to enjoy all the pleasures that this sonata gave me, -I never possessed it in its entirety: it was like life itself. But, less -disappointing than life is, great works of art do not begin by giving us -all their best. In Vinteuil's sonata the beauties that one discovers at -once are those also of which one most soon grows tired, and for the same -reason, no doubt, namely that they are less different from what one -already knows. But when those first apparitions have withdrawn, there is -left for our enjoyment some passage which its composition too new and -strange to offer anything but confusion to our mind, had made -indistinguishable and so preserved intact; and this, which we have been -meeting every day and have not guessed it, which has thus been held in -reserve for us, which by the sheer force of its beauty has become -invisible and has remained unknown, this comes to us last of all. But -this also must be the last that we shall relinquish. And we shall love -it longer than the rest because we have taken longer to get to love it. -The time, moreover, that a person requires--as I required in the matter -of this sonata--to penetrate a work of any depth is merely an epitome, a -symbol, one might say, of the years, the centuries even that must elapse -before the public can begin to cherish a masterpiece that is really new. -So that the man of genius, to shelter himself from the ignorant contempt -of the world, may say to himself that, since one's contemporaries are -incapable of the necessary detachment, works written for posterity -should be read by posterity alone, like certain pictures which one -cannot appreciate when one stands too close to them. But, as it happens, -any such cowardly precaution to avoid false judgments is doomed to -failure; they are inevitable. The reason for which a work of genius is -not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is -extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It was Beethoven's -Quartets themselves (the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth) -that devoted half-a-century to forming, fashioning and enlarging a -public for Beethoven's Quartets, marking in this way, like every great -work of art, an advance if not in artistic merit at least in -intellectual society, largely composed to-day of what was not to be -found when the work first appeared, that is to say of persons capable of -enjoying it. What artists call posterity is the posterity of the work of -art. It is essential that the work (leaving out of account, for -brevity's sake, the contingency that several men of genius may at the -same time be working along parallel lines to create a more instructed -public in the future, a public from which other men of genius shall reap -the benefit) shall create its own posterity. For if the work were held -in reserve, were revealed only to posterity, that audience, for that -particular work, would be not posterity but a group of contemporaries -who were merely living half-a-century later in time. And so it is -essential that the artist (and this is what Vinteuil had done), if he -wishes his work to be free to follow its own course, shall launch it, -wherever he may find sufficient depth, confidently outward bound towards -the future. And yet this interval of time, the true perspective in which -to behold a work of art, if leaving it out of account is the mistake -made by bad judges, taking it into account is at times a dangerous -precaution of the good. No doubt one can easily imagine, by an illusion -similar to that which makes everything on the horizon appear -equidistant, that all the revolutions which have hitherto occurred in -painting or in music did at least shew respect for certain rules, -whereas that which immediately confronts us, be it impressionism, a -striving after discord, an exclusive use of the Chinese scale, cubism, -futurism or what you will, differs outrageously from all that have -occurred before. Simply because those that have occurred before we are -apt to regard as a whole, forgetting that a long process of assimilation -has melted them into a continuous substance, varied of course but, -taking it as a whole, homogeneous, in which Hugo blends with Molière. -Let us try to imagine the shocking incoherence that we should find, if -we did not take into account the future, and the changes that it must -bring about, in a horoscope of our own riper years, drawn and presented -to us in our youth. Only horoscopes are not always accurate, and the -necessity, when judging a work of art, of including the temporal factor -in the sum total of its beauty introduces, to our way of thinking, -something as hazardous, and consequently as barren of interest, as every -prophecy the non-fulfilment of which will not at all imply any -inadequacy on the prophet's part, for the power to summon possibilities -into existence or to exclude them from it is not necessarily within the -competence of genius; one may have had genius and yet not have believed -in the future of railways or of flight, or, although a brilliant -psychologist, in the infidelity of a mistress or of a friend whose -treachery persons far less gifted would have foreseen. - -If I did not understand the sonata, it enchanted me to hear Mme. Swann -play. Her touch appeared to me (like her wrappers, like the scent of her -staircase, her cloaks, her chrysanthemums) to form part of an individual -and mysterious whole, in a world infinitely superior to that in which -the mind is capable of analysing talent. "Attractive, isn't it, that -Vinteuil sonata?" Swann asked me. "The moment when night is darkening -among the trees, when the arpeggios of the violin call down a cooling -dew upon the earth. You must admit that it is rather charming; it shews -all the static side of moonlight, which is the essential part. It is not -surprising that a course of radiant heat such as my wife is taking, -should act on the muscles, since moonlight can prevent the leaves from -stirring. That is what he expresses so well in that little phrase, the -Bois de Boulogne plunged in a cataleptic trance. By the sea it is even -more striking, because you have there the faint response of the waves, -which, of course, you can hear quite distinctly, since nothing else -dares to move. In Paris it is the other way; at the most, you may notice -unfamiliar lights among the old buildings, the sky brightened as though -by a colourless and harmless conflagration, that sort of vast variety -show of which you get a hint here and there. But in Vinteuil's little -phrase, and in the whole sonata for that matter, it is not like that; -the scene is laid in the Bois; in the _gruppetto_ you can distinctly -hear a voice saying: 'I can almost see to read the paper!'" These words -from Swann might have falsified, later on, my impression of the sonata, -music being too little exclusive to inhibit absolutely what other people -suggest that we should find in it. But I understood from other words -which he let fall that this nocturnal foliage was simply that beneath -whose shade in many a restaurant on the outskirts of Paris he had -listened on many an evening to the little phrase. In place of the -profound significance that he had so often sought in it, what it -recalled now to Swann were the leafy boughs, arranged, wreathed, painted -round about it (which it gave him the desire to see again because it -seemed to him to be their inner, their hidden self, as it were their -soul); was the whole of one spring season which he had not been able to -enjoy before, not having had--feverish and moody as he then was--enough -strength of body and mind for its enjoyment, which, as one puts by for -an invalid the dainties that he has not been able to eat, it had kept in -store for him. The charm that he had been made to feel by certain -evenings in the Bois, a charm of which Vinteul's sonata served to remind -him, he could not have recaptured by questioning Odette, although she, -as well as the little phrase, had been his companion there. But Odette -had been merely his companion, by his side, not (as the phrase had been) -within him, and so had seen nothing--nor would she, had she been a -thousand times as comprehending, have seen anything of that vision which -for no one among us (or at least I was long under the impression that -this rule admitted no exception) can be made externally visible. "It is -rather charming, don't you think," Swann continued, "that sound can give -a reflection, like water, or glass. It is curious, too, that Vinteul's -phrase now shews me only the things to which I paid no attention then. -Of my troubles, my loves of those days it recalls nothing, it has -altered all my values." "Charles, I don't think that's very polite to -me, what you're saying." "Not polite? Really, you women are superb! I -was simply trying to explain to this young man that what the music -shews--to me, at least--is not for a moment 'Free-will' or 'In Tune with -the Infinite', but shall we say old Verdurin in his frock coat in the -palm-house at the Jardin d'Acclimatation. Hundreds of times, without my -leaving this room, the little phrase has carried me off to dine with it -at Armenonville. Gad, it is less boring, anyhow, than having to go there -with Mme. de Cambremer." Mme. Swann laughed. "That is a lady who is -supposed to have been violently in love with Charles," she explained, in -the same tone in which, shortly before, when we were speaking of Vermeer -of Delft, of whose existence I had been surprised to find her conscious, -she had answered me with: "I ought to explain that M. Swann was very -much taken up with that painter at the time he was courting me. Isn't -that so, Charles dear?" "You're not to start saying things about Mme. de -Cambremer!" Swann checked her, secretly flattered. "But I'm only -repeating what I've been told. Besides, it seems that she's an extremely -clever woman; I don't know her myself. I believe she's very pushing, -which surprises me rather in a clever woman. But everyone says that she -was quite mad about you; there's no harm in repeating that." Swann -remained silent as a deaf-mute which was in a way a confirmation of what -she had said, and a proof of his own fatuity. "Since what I'm playing -reminds you of the Jardin d'Acclimatation," his wife went on, with a -playful semblance of being offended, "we might take him there some day -in the carriage, if it would amuse him. It's lovely there just now, and -you can recapture your fond impressions! Which reminds me, talking of -the Jardin d'Acclimatation, do you know, this young man thought that we -were devotedly attached to a person whom I cut, as a matter of fact, -whenever I possibly can, Mme. Blatin! I think it is rather crushing for -us, that she should be taken for a friend of ours. Just fancy, dear Dr. -Cottard, who never says a harsh word about anyone, declares that she's -positively contagious." "A frightful woman! The one thing to be said for -her is that she is exactly like Savonarola. She is the very image of -that portrait of Savonarola, by Fra Bartolomeo." This mania which Swann -had for finding likenesses to people in pictures was defensible, for -even what we call individual expression is--as we so painfully discover -when we are in love and would fain believe in the unique reality of the -beloved--something diffused and general, which can be found existing at -different periods. But if one had listened to Swann, the processions of -the Kings of the East, already so anachronistic when Benozzo Gozzoli -introduced in their midst various Medici, would have been even more so, -since they would have included the portraits of a whole crowd of men, -contemporaries not of Gozzoli but of Swann, subsequent, that is to say -not only by fifteen centuries to the Nativity but by four more to the -painter himself. There was not missing from those trains, according to -Swann, a single living Parisian of any note, any more than there was -from that act in one of Sardou's plays, in which, out of friendship for -the author and for the leading lady, and also because it was the -fashion, all the best known men in Paris, famous doctors, politicians, -barristers, amused themselves, each on a different evening, by "walking -on". "But what has she got to do with the Jardin d'Acclimatation?" -"Everything!" "What? You don't suggest that she's got a sky-blue behind, -like the monkeys?" "Charles, you really are too dreadful! I was thinking -of what the Cingalese said to her. Do tell him, Charles; it really is a -gem." "Oh, it's too silly. You know, Mme. Blatin loves asking people -questions, in a tone which she thinks friendly, but which is really -overpowering." "What our good friends on the Thames call 'patronising'," -interrupted Odette. "Exactly. Well, she went the other day to the Jardin -d'Acclimatation, where they have some blackamoors--Cingalese, I think I -heard my wife say; she is much 'better up' in ethnology than I am." -"Now, Charles, you're not to make fun of poor me." "I've no intention of -making fun, I assure you. Well, to continue, she went up to one of these -black fellows with 'Good morning, nigger!' . . ." "Oh, it's too absurd!" -"Anyhow, this classification seems to have displeased the black. 'Me -nigger,' he shouted, (quite furious, don't you know), to Mme. Blatin, -'me nigger; you, old cow!'" "I do think that's so delightful! I adore -that story. Do say it's a good one. Can't you see old Blatin standing -there, and hearing him: 'Me nigger; you, old cow'?" I expressed an -intense desire to go there and see these Cingalese, one of whom had -called Mme. Blatin an old cow. They did not interest me in the least. -But I reflected that in going to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and again -on our way home, we should pass along that Allée des Acacias in which I -had loved so, once, to gaze on Mme. Swann, and that perhaps Coquelin's -mulatto friend, to whom I had never managed to exhibit myself in the act -of saluting her, would see me there, seated at her side, as the victoria -swept by. - -During those minutes in which Gilberte, having gone to "get ready", was -not in the room with us, M. and Mme. Swann would take delight in -revealing to me all the rare virtues of their child. And everything that -I myself observed seemed to prove the truth of what they said. I -remarked that, as her mother had told me, she had not only for her -friends but for the servants, for the poor, the most delicate attentions -carefully thought out, a desire to give pleasure, a fear of causing -annoyance, translated into all sorts of trifling actions which must -often have meant great inconvenience to her. She had done some "work" -for our stall-keeper in the Champs-Elysées, and went out in the snow to -give it to her with her own hands, so as not to lose a day. "You have no -idea how kind-hearted she is, she won't let it be seen," her father -assured me. Young as she was, she appeared far more sensible already -than her parents. When Swann boasted of his wife's grand friends -Gilberte would turn away, and remain silent, but without any air of -reproaching him, for it seemed inconceivable to her that her father -could be subjected to the slightest criticism. One day, when I had -spoken to her of Mlle. Vinteuil, she said to me: - -"I shall never know her, for a very good reason, and that is that she -was not nice to her father, by what one hears, she gave him a lot of -trouble. You can't understand that any more than I, can you; I'm sure -you could no more live without your papa than I could, which is quite -natural after all. How can one ever forget a person one has loved all -one's life?" - -And once when she was making herself particularly endearing to Swann, as -I mentioned this to her when he was out of the room: - -"Yes, poor Papa, it is the anniversary of his father's death, just now. -You can understand what he must be feeling; you do understand, don't -you; you and I feel the same about things like that. So I just try to be -a little less naughty than usual." "But he doesn't ever think you -naughty. He thinks you're quite perfect." "Poor Papa, that's because -he's far too good himself." - -But her parents were not content with singing the praises of -Gilberte--that same Gilberte, who, even before I had set eyes on her, -used to appear to me standing before a church, in a landscape of the -Ile-de-France, and later, awakening in me not dreams now but memories, -was embowered always in a hedge of pink hawthorn, in the little lane -that I took when I was going the Méséglise way. Once when I had asked -Mme. Swann (and had made an effort to assume the indifferent tone of a -friend of the family, curious to know the preferences of a child), which -among all her playmates Gilberte liked the best, Mme. Swann replied: -"But you ought to know a great deal better than I do. You are in her -confidence, her great favourite, her 'chum' as the English say." - -It appears that in a coincidence as perfect as this was, when reality is -folded over to cover the ideal of which we have so long been dreaming, -it completely hides that ideal, absorbing it in itself, as when two -geometrical figures that are congruent are made to coincide, so that -there is but one, whereas we would rather, so as to give its full -significance to our enjoyment, preserve for all those separate points of -our desire, at the very moment in which we succeed in touching them, and -so as to be quite certain that they are indeed themselves, the -distinction of being intangible. And our thought cannot even reconstruct -the old state so as to confront the new with it, for it has no longer a -clear field: the acquaintance that we have made, the memory of those -first, unhoped-for moments, the talk to which we have listened are there -now to block the passage of our consciousness, and as they control the -outlets of our memory far more than those of our imagination, they react -more forcibly upon our past, which we are no longer able to visualise -without taking them into account, than upon the form, still unshaped, of -our future. I had been able to believe, year after year, that the right -to visit Mme. Swann was a vague and fantastic privilege to which I -should never attain; after I had spent a quarter of an hour in her -drawing-room, it was the period in which I did not yet know her that was -become fantastic and vague like a possibility which the realisation of -an alternative possibility has made impossible. How was I ever to dream -again of her dining-room as of an inconceivable place, when I could not -make the least movement in my mind without crossing the path of that -inextinguishable ray cast backwards to infinity, even into my own most -distant past, by the lobster _à l'Américaine_ which I had just been -eating. And Swann must have observed in his own case a similar -phenomenon; for this house in which he entertained me might be regarded -as the place into which had flowed, to coincide and be lost in one -another, not only the ideal dwelling that my imagination had -constructed, but another still, that which his jealous love, as -inventive as any fantasy of mine, had so often depicted to him, that -dwelling common to Odette and himself which had appeared so inaccessible -once, on evenings when Odette had taken him home with Forcheville to -drink orangeade with her; and what had flowed in to be absorbed, for -him, in the walls and furniture of the dining-room in which we now sat -down to luncheon was that unhoped-for paradise in which, in the old -days, he could not without a pang imagine that he would one day be -saying to _their_ butler those very words, "Is Madame ready yet?" which -I now heard him utter with a touch of impatience mingled with -self-satisfaction. No more than, probably, Swann himself could I succeed -in knowing my own happiness, and when Gilberte once broke out: "Who -would ever have said that the little girl you watched playing prisoners' -base, without daring to speak to her, would one day be your greatest -friend, and you would go to her house whenever you liked?" she spoke of -a change the occurrence of which I could verify only by observing it -from without, finding no trace of it within myself, for it was composed -of two separate states on both of which I could not, without their -ceasing to be distinct from one another, succeed in keeping my thoughts -fixed at one and the same time. - -And yet this house, because it had been so passionately desired by -Swann, must have kept for him some of its attraction, if I was to judge -by myself for whom it had not lost all its mystery. That singular charm -in which I had for so long supposed the life of the Swanns to be bathed -I had not completely exorcised from their house on making my own way -into it; I had made it, that charm, recoil, overpowered as it must be by -the sight of the stranger, the pariah that I had been, to whom now Mme. -Swann pushed forward graciously for him to sit in it an armchair -exquisite, hostile, scandalised; but all round me that charm, in my -memory, I can still distinguish. Is it because, on those days on which -M. and Mme. Swann invited me to luncheon, to go out afterwards with them -and Gilberte, I imprinted with my gaze,--while I sat waiting for them -there alone--on the carpet, the sofas, the tables, the screens, the -pictures, the idea engraved upon my mind that Mme. Swann, or her -husband, or Gilberte was about to enter the room? Is it because those -objects have dwelt ever since in my memory side by side with the Swanns, -and have gradually acquired something of their personal character? Is it -because, knowing that the Swanns passed their existence among all those -things, I made of all of them as it were emblems of the private lives, -of those habits of the Swanns from which I had too long been excluded -for them not to continue to appear strange to me, even when I was -allowed the privilege of sharing in them? However it may be, always when -I think of that drawing-room which Swann (not that the criticism implied -on his part any intention to find fault with his wife's taste) found so -incongruous--because, while it was still planned and carried out in the -style, half conservatory half studio, which had been that of the rooms -in which he had first known Odette, she had, none the less, begun to -replace in its medley a quantity of the Chinese ornaments, which she now -felt to be rather gimcrack, a trifle dowdy, by a swarm of little chairs -and stools and things upholstered in old Louis XIV silks; not to mention -the works of art brought by Swann himself from his house on the Quai -d'Orléans--it has kept in my memory, on the contrary, that composite, -heterogeneous room, a cohesion, a unity, an individual charm never -possessed even by the most complete, the least spoiled of such -collections that the past has bequeathed to us, or the most modern, -alive and stamped with the imprint of a living personality; for we alone -can, by our belief that they have an existence of their own, give to -certain of the things that we see a soul which they afterwards keep, -which they develop in our minds. All the ideas that I had formed of the -hours, different from those that exist for other men, passed by the -Swanns in that house which was to their life what the body is to the -soul, and must give expression to its singularity, all those ideas were -rearranged, amalgamated--equally disturbing and indefinite -throughout--in the arrangement of the furniture, the thickness of the -carpets, the position of the windows, the ministrations of the servants. -When, after luncheon, we went in the sunshine to drink our coffee in the -great bay window of the drawing-room, while Mme. Swann was asking me how -many lumps of sugar I took, it was not only the silk-covered stool which -she pushed towards me that emitted, with the agonising charm that I had -long ago felt--first among the pink hawthorn and then beside the clump -of laurels--in the name of Gilberte, the hostility that her parents had -shewn to me, which this little piece of furniture seemed to have so well -understood, to have so completely shared that I felt myself unworthy, -and found myself almost reluctant to set my feet on its defenceless -cushion; a personality, a soul was latent there which linked it secretly -to the light of two o'clock in the afternoon, so different from any -other light, in the gulf in which there played about our feet its -sparkling tide of gold out of which the bluish crags of sofas and -vaporous carpet beaches emerged like enchanted islands; and there was -nothing, even to the painting by Rubens hung above the chimneypiece, -that was not endowed with the same quality and almost the same intensity -of charm as the laced boots of M. Swann, and that hooded cape, the like -of which I had so dearly longed to wear, whereas now Odette would beg -her husband to go and put on another, so as to appear more smart, -whenever I did them the honour of driving out with them. She too went -away to change her dress--not heeding my protestations that no "outdoor" -clothes could be nearly so becoming as the marvellous garment of -_crêpe-de-Chine_ or silk, old rose, cherry-coloured, Tiepolo pink, -white, mauve, green, red or yellow, plain or patterned, in which Mme. -Swann had sat down to luncheon and which she was now going to take off. -When I assured her that she ought to go out in that costume, she -laughed, either in scorn of my ignorance or from delight in my -compliment. She apologised for having so many wrappers, explaining that -they were the only kind of dress in which she felt comfortable, and left -us, to go and array herself in one of those regal toilets which imposed -their majesty on all beholders, and yet among which I was sometimes -summoned to decide which of them I preferred that she should put on. - -In the Jardin d'Acclimatation, how proud I was when we had left the -carriage to be walking by the side of Mme. Swann! While she strolled -carelessly on, letting her cloak stream on the air behind her, I kept -eyeing her with an admiring gaze to which she coquettishly responded in -a lingering smile. And now, were we to meet one or other of Gilberte's -friends, boy or girl, who saluted us from afar, I would in my turn be -looked upon by them as one of those happy creatures whose lot I had -envied, one of those friends of Gilberte who knew her family and had a -share in that other part of her life, the part which was not spent in -the Champs-Elysées. - -Often upon the paths of the Bois or the Jardin we passed, we were -greeted by some great lady who was Swann's friend, whom he perchance did -not see, so that his wife must rally him with a "Charles! Don't you see -Mme. de Montmorency?" And Swann, with that amicable smile, bred of a -long and intimate friendship, bared his head, but with a slow sweeping -gesture, with a grace peculiarly his own. Sometimes the lady would stop, -glad of an opportunity to shew Mme. Swann a courtesy which would involve -no tiresome consequences, by which they all knew that she would never -seek to profit, so thoroughly had Swann trained her in reserve. She had -none the less acquired all the manners of polite society, and however -smart, however stately the lady might be, Mme. Swann was invariably a -match for her; halting for a moment before the friend whom her husband -had recognised and was addressing, she would introduce us, Gilberte and -myself, with so much ease of manner, would remain so free, so tranquil -in her exercise of courtesy, that it would have been hard to say, -looking at them both, which of the two was the aristocrat. The day on -which we went to inspect the Cingalese, on our way home we saw coming in -our direction, and followed by two others who seemed to be acting as her -escort, an elderly but still attractive woman cloaked in a dark mantle -and capped with a little bonnet tied beneath her chin with a pair of -ribbons. "Ah! Here is someone who will interest you!" said Swann. The -old lady, who had come within a few yards of us, now smiled at us with a -caressing sweetness. Swann doffed his hat. Mme. Swann swept to the -ground in a curtsey and made as if to kiss the hand of the lady, who, -standing there like a Winterhalter portrait, drew her up again and -kissed her cheek. "There, there; will you put your hat on, you!" she -scolded Swann in a thick and almost growling voice, speaking like an old -and familiar friend. "I am going to present you to Her Imperial -Highness," Mme. Swann whispered. Swann drew me aside for a moment while -his wife talked of the weather and of the animals recently added to the -Jardin d'Acclimatation, with the Princess. "That is the Princesse -Mathilde;" he told me, "you know who' I mean, the friend of Flaubert, -Sainte-Beuve, Dumas. Just fancy, she's the niece of Napoleon I. She had -offers of marriage from Napoleon III and the Emperor of Russia. Isn't -that interesting? Talk to her a little. But I hope she won't keep us -standing here for an hour!. . . I met Taine the other day," he went on, -addressing the Princess, "and he told me that your Highness was vexed -with him." "He's behaved like a perfect peeg!" she said gruffly, -pronouncing the word _cochon_ as though she referred to Joan of Arc's -contemporary, Bishop Cauchon. "After his article on the Emperor I left -my card on him with p. p. c. on it." I felt the surprise that one feels -on opening the Correspondence of that Duchesse d'Orléans who was by -birth a Princess Palatine. And indeed Princesse Mathilde, animated by -sentiments so entirely French, expressed them with a straightforward -bluntness that recalled the Germany of an older generation, and was -inherited, doubtless, from her Wurtemberg mother. This somewhat rude and -almost masculine frankness she softened, as soon as she began to smile, -with an Italian languor. And the whole person was clothed in a dress so -typically "Second Empire" that--for all that the Princess wore it simply -and solely, no doubt, from attachment to the fashions that she had loved -when she was young--she seemed to have deliberately planned to avoid the -slightest discrepancy in historic colour, and to be satisfying the -expectations of those who looked to her to evoke the memory of another -age. I whispered to Swann to ask her whether she had known Musset. "Very -slightly, sir," was the answer, given in a tone which seemed to feign -annoyance at the question, and of course it was by way of a joke that -she called Swann "Sir", since they were intimate friends. "I had him to -dine once. I had invited him for seven o'clock. At half-past seven, as -he had not appeared, we sat down to dinner. He arrived at eight, bowed -to me, took his seat, never opened his lips, went off after dinner -without letting me hear the sound of his voice. Of course, he was dead -drunk. That hardly encouraged me to make another attempt." We were -standing a little way off, Swann and I. "I hope this little audience is -not going to last much longer," he muttered, "the soles of my feet are -hurting. I cannot think why my wife keeps on making conversation. When -we get home it will be she that complains of being tired, and she knows -I simply cannot go on standing like this." For Mme. Swann, who had had -the news from Mme. Bontemps, was in the course of telling the Princess -that the Government, having at last begun to realise the depth of its -depravity, had decided to send her an invitation to be present on the -platform in a few days' time, when the Tsar Nicholas was to visit the -Invalides. But the Princess who, in spite of appearances, in spite of -the character of her circle, which consisted mainly of artists and -literary people, had remained at heart and shewed herself, whenever she -had to take action, the niece of Napoleon, replied: "Yes, Madame, I -received it this morning, and I sent it back to the Minister, who must -have had it by now. I told him that I had no need of an invitation to go -to the Invalides. If the Government desires my presence there, it will -not be on the platform, it will be in our vault, where the Emperor's -tomb is. I have no need of a card to admit me there. I have my keys. I -go in and out when I choose. The Government has only to let me know -whether it wishes, me to be present or not. But if I do go to the -Invalides, it will be down below there or nowhere at all." At that -moment we were saluted, Mme. Swann and I, by a young man who greeted her -without stopping, and whom I was not aware that she knew; it was Bloch. -I inquired about him, and was told that he had been introduced to her by -Mme. Bontemps, and that he was employed in the Minister's secretariat, -which was news to me. Anyhow, she could not have seen him often--or -perhaps she had not cared to utter the name, hardly "smart" enough for -her liking, of Bloch, for she told me that he was called M. Moreul. I -assured her that she was mistaken, that his name was Bloch. The Princess -gathered up the train that flowed out behind her, while Mme. Swann gazed -at it with admiring eyes. "It is only a fur that the Emperor of Russia -sent me," she explained, "and as I have just been to see him I put it -on, so as to shew him that I'd managed to have it made up as a mantle." -"I hear that Prince Louis has joined the Russian Army; the Princess will -be very sad at losing him," went on Mme. Swann, not noticing her -husband's signals of distress. "That was a fine thing to do. As I said -to him, 'Just because there's been a. soldier, before, in the family, -that's no reason!'" replied the Princess, alluding with this abrupt -simplicity to Napoleon the Great. But Swann could hold out no longer. -"Ma'am, it is I that am going to play the Prince, and ask your -permission to retire; but, you see, my wife has not been so well, and I -do not like her to stand still for any time." Mme. Swann curtseyed -again, and the Princess conferred upon us all a celestial smile, which -she seemed to have summoned out of the past, from among the graces of -her girlhood, from the evenings at Compiègne, a smile which glided, -sweet and unbroken, over her hitherto so sullen face; then she went on -her way, followed by the two ladies in waiting, who had confined -themselves, in the manner of interpreters, of children's or invalids' -nurses, to punctuating our conversation with insignificant sentences and -superfluous explanations. "You should go and write your name in her -book, one day this week," Mme. Swann counselled me. "One doesn't leave -cards upon these 'Royalties', as the English call them, but she will -invite you to her house if you put your name down." - -Sometimes in those last days of winter we would go, before proceeding on -our expedition, into one of the small picture-shows that were being -given at that time, where Swann, as a collector of mark, was greeted -with special deference by the dealers in whose galleries they were held. -And in that still wintry weather the old longing to set out for the -South of France and Venice would be reawakened in me by those rooms in -which a springtime, already well advanced, and a blazing sun cast violet -shadows upon the roseate Alpilles and gave the intense transparency of -emeralds to the Grand Canal. If the weather were inclement, we would go -to a concert or a theatre, and afterwards to one of the fashionable -tea-rooms. There, whenever Mme. Swann had anything to say to me which -she did not wish the people at the next table, or even the waiters who -brought our tea to understand, she would say it in English, as though -that had been a secret language known to our two selves alone. As it -happened everyone in the place knew English--I only had not yet learned -the language, and was obliged to say so to Mme. Swann in order that she -might cease to make, on the people who were drinking tea or were serving -us with it, remarks which I guessed to be uncomplimentary without either -my understanding or the person referred to losing a single word. - -Once, in the matter of an afternoon at the theatre, Gilberte gave me a -great surprise. It was precisely the day of which she had spoken to me -some time back, on which fell the anniversary of her grandfather's -death. We were to go, she and I, with her governess, to hear selections -from an opera, and Gilberte had dressed with a view to attending this -performance, and wore the air of indifference with which she was in the -habit of treating whatever we might be going to do, with the comment -that it might be anything in the world, no matter what, provided that it -amused me and had her parents' approval. Before luncheon, her mother -drew us aside to tell us that her father was vexed at the thought of our -going to a theatre on that day. This seemed to me only natural. Gilberte -remained impassive, but grew pale with an anger which she was unable to -conceal; still she uttered not a word. When M. Swann joined us his wife -took him to the other end of the room and said something in his ear. He -called Gilberte, and they went together into the next room. We could -hear their raised voices. And yet I could not bring myself to believe -that Gilberte, so submissive, so loving, so thoughtful, would resist her -father's appeal, on such a day and for so trifling a matter. At length -Swann reappeared with her, saying: "You heard what I said. Now you may -do as you like." - -Gilberte's features remained compressed in a frown throughout luncheon, -after which we retired to her room. Then suddenly, without hesitating -and as though she had never at any point hesitated over her course of -action: "Two o'clock!" she exclaimed, "You know the concert begins at -half-past." And she told her governess to make haste. - -"But," I reminded her, "won't your father be cross with you?" - -"Not the least little bit!" - -"Surely, he was afraid it would look odd, because of the anniversary." - -"What difference can it make to me what people think? I think it's -perfectly absurd to worry about other people in matters of sentiment. We -feel things for ourselves, not for the public. Mademoiselle has very few -pleasures; she's been looking forward to going to this concert. I am not -going to deprive her of it just to satisfy public opinion." - -"But, Gilberte," I protested, taking her by the arm, "it is not to -satisfy public opinion, it is to please your father." - -"You are not going to pass remarks upon my conduct, I hope," she said -sharply, plucking her arm away. - - * -* * - -A favour still more precious than their taking me with them to the -Jardin d'Acclimatation, the Swanns did not exclude me even from their -friendship with Bergotte, which had been at the root of the attraction -that I had found in them when, before I had even seen Gilberte, I -reflected that her intimacy with that god-like elder would have made her, -for me, the most passionately enthralling of friends, had not the -disdain that I was bound to inspire in her forbidden me to hope that she -would ever take me, in his company, to visit the towns that he loved. -And lo, one day, came an invitation from Mme. Swann to a big -luncheon-party. I did not know who else were to be the guests. On my -arrival I was disconcerted, as I crossed the hall, by an alarming -incident. Mme. Swann seldom missed an opportunity of adopting any of -those customs which pass as fashionable for a season, and then, failing -to find support, are speedily abandoned (as, for instance, many years -before, she had had her "private hansom", or now had, printed in English -upon a card inviting you to luncheon, the words, "To meet", followed by -the name of some more or less important personage). Often enough these -usages implied nothing mysterious and required no initiation. Take, for -instance, a minute innovation of those days, imported from England; -Odette had made her husband have some visiting cards printed on which -the name Charles Swann was preceded by "Mr.". After the first visit that -I paid her, Mme. Swann had left at my door one of these "pasteboards", -as she called them. No one had ever left a card on me before; I felt at -once so much pride, emotion, gratitude that, scraping together all the -money I possessed, I ordered a superb basket of camellias and had it -sent to Mme. Swann. I implored my father to go and leave a card on her, -but first, quickly, to have some printed on which his name should bear -the prefix "Mr.". He vouchsafed neither of my prayers; I was in despair -for some days, and then asked myself whether he might not after all have -been right. But this use of "Mr.", if it meant nothing, was at least -intelligible. Not so with another that was revealed to me on the -occasion of this luncheon-party, but revealed without any indication of -its purport. At the moment when I was about to step from the hall into -the drawing-room the butler handed me a thin, oblong envelope upon which -my name was inscribed. In my surprise I thanked him; but I eyed the -envelope with misgivings. I no more knew what I was expected to do with -it than a foreigner knows what to do with one of those little utensils -that they lay by his place at a Chinese banquet. I noticed that it was -gummed down; I was afraid of appearing indiscreet, were I to open it -then and there; and so I thrust it into my pocket with an air of knowing -all about it. Mme. Swann had written to me a few days before, asking me -to come to luncheon with "just a few people". There were, however, -sixteen of us, among whom I never suspected for a moment that I was to -find Bergotte. Mme. Swann, who had already "named" me, as she called it, -to several of her guests, suddenly, after my name, in the same tone that -she had used in uttering it (in fact, as though we were merely two of -the guests at her party, who ought each to feel equally flattered on -meeting the other), pronounced that of the sweet Singer with the snowy -locks. The name Bergotte made me jump like the sound of a revolver fired -at me point blank, but instinctively, for appearance's sake, I bowed; -there, straight in front of me, as by one of those conjurers whom we see -standing whole and unharmed, in their frock coats, in the smoke of a -pistol shot out of which a pigeon has just fluttered, my salute was -returned by a young common little thick-set peering person, with a red -nose curled like a snail-shell and a black tuft on his chin. I was -cruelly disappointed, for what had just vanished in the dust of the -explosion was not only the feeble old man, of whom no vestige now -remained; there was also the beauty of an immense work which I had -contrived to enshrine in the frail and hallowed organism that I had -constructed, like a temple, expressly for itself, but for which no room -was to be found in the squat figure, packed tight with blood-vessels, -bones, muscles, sinews, of the little man with the snub nose and black -beard who stood before me. All the Bergotte whom I had slowly and -delicately elaborated for myself, drop by drop, like a stalactite, out -of the transparent beauty of his books, ceased (I could see at once) to -be of any use, the moment I was obliged to include in him the -snail-shell nose and to utilise the little black beard; just as we must -reject as worthless the solution of a problem the terms of which we have -not read in full, having failed to observe that the total must amount to -a specified figure. The nose and beard were elements similarly -ineluctable, and all the more aggravating in that, while forcing me to -reconstruct entirely the personage of Bergotte, they seemed further to -imply, to produce, to secrete incessantly a certain quality of mind, -alert and self-satisfied, which was not in the picture, for such a mind -had no connexion whatever with the sort of intelligence that was -diffused throughout those books, so intimately familiar to me, which -were permeated by a gentle and god-like wisdom. Starting from them, I -should never have arrived at that snail-shell nose; but starting from -the nose, which did not appear to be in the slightest degree ashamed of -itself, but stood out alone there like a grotesque ornament fastened on -his face, I must proceed in a diametrically opposite direction from the -work of Bergotte, I must arrive, it would seem, at the mentality of a -busy and preoccupied engineer, of the sort who when you accost them in -the street think it correct to say: "Thanks, and you?" before you have -actually inquired of them how they are, or else, if you assure them that -you have been charmed to make their acquaintance, respond with an -abbreviation which they imagine to be effective, intelligent and -up-to-date, inasmuch as it avoids any waste of precious time on vain -formalities: "Same here!" Names are, no doubt, but whimsical -draughtsmen, giving us of people as well as of places sketches so little -like the reality that we often experience a kind of stupor when we have -before our eyes, in place of the imagined, the visible world (which, for -that matter, is not the true world, our senses being little more endowed -than our imagination with the art of portraiture, so little, indeed, -that the final and approximately lifelike pictures which we manage to -obtain of reality are at least as different from the visible world as -that was from the imagined). But in Bergotte's case, my preconceived -idea of him from his name troubled me far less than my familiarity with -his work, to which I was obliged to attach, as to the cord of a balloon, -the man with the little beard, without knowing whether it would still -have the strength to raise him from the ground. It seemed quite clear, -however, that it really was he who had written the books that I had so -greatly enjoyed, for Mme. Swann having thought it incumbent upon her to -tell him of my admiration for one of these, he shewed no surprise that -she should have mentioned this to him rather than to any other of the -party, nor did he seem to regard her action as due to a misapprehension, -but, swelling out the frock coat which he had put on in honour of all -these distinguished guests with a body distended in anticipation of the -coming meal, while his mind was completely occupied by other, more real -and more important considerations, it was only as at some finished -episode in his early life, as though one had made an allusion to a -costume of the Duc de Guise which he had worn, one season, at a fancy -dress ball, that he smiled as he bore his mind back to the idea of his -books; which at once began to fall in my estimation (dragging down with -them the whole value of Beauty, of the world, of life itself), until -they seemed to have been merely the casual amusement of a man with a -little beard. I told myself that he must have taken great pains over -them, but that, if he had lived upon an island surrounded by beds of -pearl-oysters, he would instead have devoted himself to, and would have -made a fortune out of the pearling trade. His work no longer appeared to -me so inevitable. And then I asked myself whether originality did indeed -prove that great writers were gods, ruling each one over a kingdom that -was his alone, or whether all that was not rather make-believe, whether -the differences between one man's book and another's were not the result -of their respective labours rather than the expression of a radical and -essential difference between two contrasted personalities. - -Meanwhile we had taken our places at the table. By the side of my plate -I found a carnation, the stalk of which was wrapped in silver paper. It -embarrassed me less than the envelope that had been handed to me in the -hall, which, however, I had completely forgotten. This custom, strange -as it was to me, became more intelligible when I saw all the male guests -take up the similar carnations that were lying by their plates and slip -them into the buttonholes of their coats. I did as they had done, with -the air of spontaneity that a free-thinker assumes in church, who is not -familiar with the order of service but rises when everyone else rises -and kneels a moment after everyone else is on his knees. Another usage, -equally strange to me but less ephemeral, disquieted me more. On the -other side of my plate was a smaller plate, on which was heaped a -blackish substance which I did not then know to be caviare. I was -ignorant of what was to be done with it but firmly determined not to let -it enter my mouth. - -Bergotte was sitting not far from me and I could hear quite well -everything that he said. I understood then the impression that M. de -Norpois had formed of him. He had indeed a peculiar "organ"; there is -nothing that so much alters the material qualities of the voice as the -presence of thought behind what one is saying; the resonance of one's -diphthongs, the energy of one's labials are profoundly affected--in -fact, one's whole way of speaking. His seemed to me to differ entirely -from his way of writing, and even the things that he said from those -with which he filled his books. But the voice issues from behind a mask -through which it is not powerful enough to make us recognise, at first -sight, a face which we have seen uncovered in the speaker's literary -style. At certain points in the conversation, when Bergotte, by force of -habit, began to talk in a way which no one but M. de Norpois would have -thought affected or unpleasant, it was a long time before I discovered -an exact correspondence with the parts of his books in which his form -became so poetic and so musical. At those points he could see in what he -was saying a plastic beauty independent of whatever his sentences might -mean, and as human speech reflects the human soul, though without -expressing it as does literary style, Bergotte appeared almost to be -talking nonsense, intoning certain words and, if he were secretly -pursuing, beneath them, a single image, stringing them together -uninterruptedly on one continuous note, with a wearisome monotony. So -that a pretentious, emphatic and monotonous opening was a sign of the -rare aesthetic value of what he was saying, and an effect, in his -conversation, of the same power which, in his books, produced that -harmonious flow of imagery. I had had all the more difficulty in -discovering this at first since what he said at such moments, precisely -because it was the authentic utterance of Bergotte, had not the -appearance of being Bergotte's. It was an abundant crop of clearly -defined ideas, not included in that "Bergotte manner" which so many -story-tellers had appropriated to themselves; and this dissimilarity was -probably but another aspect--made out with difficulty through the stream -of conversation, as an eclipse is seen through a smoked glass--of the -fact that when one read a page of Bergotte it was never just what would -have been written by any of those lifeless imitators who, nevertheless, -in newspapers and in books, adorned their prose with so many -"Bergottish" images and ideas. This difference in style arose from the -fact that what was meant by "Bergottism" was, first and foremost, a -priceless element of truth hidden in the heart of everything, whence it -was extracted by that great writer, by virtue of his genius, and that -this extraction, and not simply the perpetration of "Bergottisms", was -my sweet Singer's aim in writing. Though, it must be added, he continued -to perpetrate them in spite of himself, and because he was Bergotte, so -that, in one sense, every fresh beauty in his work was the little drop -of Bergotte buried at the heart of a thing which he had distilled from -it. But if, for that reason, each of those beauties was related to all -the rest, and had a "family likeness", yet each remained separate and -individual, as was the act of discovery that had brought it to the light -of day; new, and consequently different from what was called the -Bergotte manner, which was a loose synthesis of all the "Bergottisms" -already invented and set forth by him in writing, with no indication by -which men who lacked genius might forecast what would be his next -discovery. So it is with all great writers, the beauty of their language -is as incalculable as that of a woman whom we have never seen; it is -creative, because it is applied to an external object of which, and not -of their language or its beauty, they are thinking, to which they have -not yet given expression. An author of memorials of our time, wishing to -write without too obviously seeming to be writing like Saint-Simon, -might, on occasion, give us the first line of his portrait of Villars: -"He was a rather tall man, dark . . . with an alert, open, expressive -physiognomy," but what law of determinism could bring him to the -discovery of Saint-Simon's next line, which begins with "and, to tell -the truth, a trifle mad"? The true variety is in this abundance of real -and unexpected elements, in the branch loaded with blue flowers which -thrusts itself forward, against all reason, from the spring hedgerow -that seemed already overcharged with blossoms, whereas the purely formal -imitation of variety (and one might advance the same argument for all -the other qualities of style) is but a barren uniformity, that is to say -the very antithesis of variety, and cannot, in the work of imitators, -give the illusion or recall other examples of variety save to a reader -who has not acquired the sense of it from the masters themselves. - -And so--just as Bergotte's way of speaking would no doubt have been -charming if he himself had been merely an amateur repeating imitations -of Bergotte, whereas it was attached to the mind of Bergotte, at work -and in action, by essential ties which the ear did not at once -distinguish--so it was because Bergotte applied that mind with precision -to the reality which pleased him that his language had in it something -positive, something over-rich, disappointing those who expected to hear -him speak only of the "eternal torrent of forms," and of the "mystic -thrills of beauty". Moreover the quality, always rare and new, of what -he wrote was expressed in his conversation by so subtle a manner of -approaching a question, ignoring every aspect of it that was already -familiar, that he appeared to be seizing hold of an unimportant detail, -to be quite wrong about it, to be speaking in paradox, so that his ideas -seemed as often as not to be in confusion, for each of us finds lucidity -only in those ideas which are in the same state of confusion as his own. -Besides, as all novelty depends upon the elimination, first, of the -stereotyped attitude to which we have grown accustomed, and which has -seemed to us to be reality itself, every new conversation, as well as -all original painting and music, must always appear laboured and -tedious. It is founded upon figures of speech with which we are not -familiar, the speaker appears to us to be talking entirely in metaphors; -and this wearies us, and gives us the impression of a want of truth. -(After all, the old forms of speech must in their time have been images -difficult to follow when the listener was not yet cognisant of the -universe which they depicted. But he has long since decided that this -must be the real universe, and so relies confidently upon it.) So when -Bergotte--and his figures appear simple enough to-day--said of Cottard -that he was a mannikin in a bottle, always trying to rise to the -surface, and of Brichot that "to him even more than to Mme. Swann the -arrangement of his hair was a matter for anxious deliberation, because, -in his twofold preoccupation over his profile and his reputation, he had -always to make sure that it was so brushed as to give him the air at -once of a lion and of a philosopher," one immediately felt the strain, -and sought a foothold upon something which one called more concrete, -meaning by that more ordinary. These unintelligible words, issuing from -the mask that I had before my eyes, it was indeed to the writer whom I -admired that they must be attributed, and yet they could not have been -inserted among his books, in the form of a puzzle set in a series of -different puzzles, they occupied another plane and required a -transposition by means of which, one day, when I was repeating to myself -certain phrases that I had heard Bergotte use, I discovered in them the -whole machinery of his literary style, the different elements of which I -was able to recognise and to name in this spoken discourse which had -struck me as being so different. - -From a less immediate point of view the special way, a little too -meticulous, too intense, that he had of pronouncing certain words, -certain adjectives which were constantly recurring in his conversation, -and which he never uttered without a certain emphasis, giving to each of -their syllables a separate force and intoning the last syllable (as for -instance the word _visage_, which he always used in preference to -figure, and enriched with a number of superfluous v's and s's and g's, -which seemed all to explode from his outstretched palm at such moments) -corresponded exactly to the fine passages in which, in his prose, he -brought those favourite words into the light, preceded by a sort of -margin and composed in such a way in the metrical whole of the phrase -that the reader was obliged, if he were not to make a false quantity, to -give to each of them its full value. And yet one did not find in the -speech of Bergotte a certain luminosity which in his books, as in those -of some other writers, often modified in the written phrase the -appearance of its words. This was doubtless because that light issues -from so profound a depth that its rays do not penetrate to our spoken -words in the hours in which, thrown open to others by the act of -conversation, we are to a certain extent closed against ourselves. In -this respect, there were more intonations, there was more accent in his -books than in his talk; an accent independent of the beauty of style, -which the author himself has possibly not perceived, for it is not -separable from his most intimate personality. It was this accent which, -at the moments when, in his books, Bergotte was entirely natural, gave a -rhythm to the words--often at such times quite insignificant--that he -wrote. This accent is not marked on the printed page, there is nothing -there to indicate it, and yet it comes of its own accord to his phrases, -one cannot pronounce them in any other way, it is what was most -ephemeral and at the same time most profound in the writer, and it is -what will bear witness to his true nature, what will say whether, -despite all the austerity that he has expressed he was gentle, despite -all his sensuality sentimental. - -Certain peculiarities of elocution, faint traces of which were to be -found in Bergotte's conversation, were not exclusively his own; for -when, later on, I came to know his brothers and sisters, I found those -peculiarities much more accentuated in their speech. There was something -abrupt and harsh in the closing words of a light and spirited utterance, -something faint and dying at the end of a sad one. Swann, who had known -the Master as a boy, told me that in those days one used to hear on his -lips, just as much as on his brothers' and sisters', those inflexions, -almost a family type, shouts of violent merriment interspersed with -murmurings of a long-drawn melancholy, and that in the room in which -they all played together he used to perform his part, better than any of -them, in their symphonies, alternately deafening and subdued. However -characteristic it may be, the sound that escapes from human lips is -fugitive and does not survive the speaker. But it was not so with the -pronunciation of the Bergotte family. For if it is difficult ever to -understand, even in the _Meistersinger_ how an artist can invent music -by listening to the twittering of birds, yet Bergotte had transposed and -fixed in his written language that manner of dwelling on words which -repeat themselves in shouts of joy, or fall, drop by drop, in melancholy -sighs. There are in his books just such closing phrases where the -accumulated sounds are prolonged (as in the last chords of the overture -of an opera which cannot come to an end, and repeats several times over -its supreme cadence before the conductor finally lays down his baton), -in which, later on, I was to find a musical equivalent for those -phonetic 'brasses' of the Bergotte family. But in his own case, from the -moment in which he transferred them to his books, he ceased -instinctively to make use of them in his speech. From the day on which -he had begun to write--all the more markedly, therefore, in the later -years in which I first knew him--his voice had lost this orchestration -for ever. - -These young Bergottes--the future writer and his brothers and -sisters--were doubtless in no way superior, far from it, to other young -people, more refined, more intellectual than themselves, who found the -Bergottes rather "loud", that is to say a trifle vulgar, irritating one -by the witticisms which characterised the tone, at once pretentious and -puerile, of their household. But genius, and even what is only great -talent, spring less from seeds of intellect and social refinement -superior to those of other people than from the faculty of transposing, -and so transforming them. To heat a liquid over an electric lamp one -requires to have not the strongest lamp possible, but one of which the -current can cease to illuminate, can be diverted so as instead of light -to give heat. To mount the skies it is not necessary to have the most -powerful of motors, one must have a motor which, instead of continuing -to run along the earth's surface, intersecting with a vertical line the -horizontal which it began by following, is capable of converting its -speed into ascending force. Similarly the men who produce works of -genius are not those who live in the most delicate atmosphere, whose -conversation is most brilliant or their culture broadest, but those who -have had the power, ceasing in a moment to live only for themselves, to -make use of their personality as of a mirror, in such a way that their -life, however unimportant it may be socially, and even, in a sense, -intellectually speaking, is reflected by it, genius consisting in the -reflective power of the writer and not in the intrinsic quality of the -scene reflected. The day on which young Bergotte succeeded in shewing to -the world of his readers the tasteless household in which he had passed -his childhood, and the not very amusing conversations between himself -and his brothers, on that day he climbed far above the friends of his -family, more intellectual and more distinguished than himself; they in -their fine Rolls Royces might return home expressing due contempt for -the vulgarity of the Bergottes; but he, with his modest engine which had -at last left the ground, he soared above their heads. - -But there were other characteristics of his elocution which it was not -with the members of his family, but with certain contemporary writers -that he must share. Younger men, who were beginning to repudiate him as -a master and disclaimed any intellectual affinity to him in themselves, -displayed their affinity without knowing it when they made use of the -same adverbs, the same prepositions that he incessantly repeated, when -they constructed their sentences in the same way, spoke in the same -quiescent, lingering tone, by a reaction from the eloquent, easy -language of an earlier generation. Perhaps these young men--we shall -come across some of whom this may be said--had never known Bergotte. But -his way of thinking, inoculated into them, had led them to those -alterations of syntax and of accent which bear a necessary relation to -originality of mind. A relation which, incidentally, requires to be -traced. Thus Bergotte, if he owed nothing to any man for his manner of -writing, derived his manner of speaking from one of his early -associates, a marvellous talker to whose ascendancy he had succumbed, -whom he imitated, unconsciously, in his conversation, but who himself, -being less gifted, had never written any really outstanding book. So -that if one had been in quest of originality in speech, Bergotte must -have been labelled a disciple, a writer at second-hand, whereas, -influenced by his friend only so far as talk went, he had been original -and creative in his writings. Doubtless again, so as to distinguish -himself from the previous generation, too fond as it had been of -abstractions, of weighty commonplaces, when Bergotte wished to speak -favourably of a book, what he would bring into prominence, what he would -quote with approval would always be some scene that furnished the reader -with an image, some picture that had no rational significance. "Ah, -yes!" he would exclaim, "it is quite admirable! There is a little girl -in an orange shawl. It is excellent!" or again, "Oh, yes, there is a -passage in which there is a regiment marching along the street; yes, it -is excellent!" As for style, he was not altogether of his time (though -he remained quite exclusively of his race, abominating Tolstoy, George -Eliot, Ibsen and Dostoievsky), for the word that always came to his lips -when he wished to praise the style of any writer was "mild". "Yes, you -know I like Chateaubriand better in _Atala_ than in _René_; he seems to -me to be 'milder'." He said the word like a doctor who, when his patient -assures him that milk will give him indigestion, answers, "But, you -know, it's very 'mild'." And it is true that there was in Bergotte's -style a kind of harmony similar to that for which the ancients used to -praise certain of their orators in terms which we now find it hard to -understand, accustomed as we are to our own modern tongues in which -effects of that kind are not sought. - -He would say also, with a shy smile, of pages of his own for which some -one had expressed admiration: "I think it is more or less true, more or -less accurate; it may be of some value perhaps," but he would say this -simply from modesty, as a woman to whom one has said that her dress, or -her daughter is charming replies, "It is comfortable," or "She is a good -girl." But the constructive instinct was too deeply implanted in -Bergotte for him not to be aware that the sole proof that he had built -usefully and on the lines of truth lay in the pleasure that his work had -given, to himself first of all and afterwards to his readers. Only many -years later, when he no longer had any talent, whenever he wrote -anything with which he was not satisfied, so as not to have to suppress -it, as he ought to have done, so as to be able to publish it with a -clear conscience he would repeat, but to himself this time: "After all, -it is more or less accurate, it must be of some value to the country." -So that the phrase murmured long ago among his admirers by the insincere -voice of modesty came in the end to be whispered in the secrecy of his -heart by the uneasy tongue of pride. And the same words which had served -Bergotte as an unwanted excuse for the excellence of his earliest works -became as it were an ineffective consolation to him for the hopeless -mediocrity of the latest. - -A kind of austerity of taste which he had, a kind of determination to -write nothing of which he could not say that it was "mild", which had -made people for so many years regard him as a sterile and precious -artist, a chiseller of exquisite trifles, was on the contrary the secret -of his strength, for habit forms the style of the writer just as much as -the character of the man, and the author who has more than once been -patient to attain, in the expression of his thoughts, to a certain kind -of attractiveness, in so doing lays down unalterably the boundaries of -his talent, just as if he yields too often to pleasure, to laziness, to -the fear of being put to trouble, he will find himself describing in -terms which no amount of revision can modify, the forms of his own vices -and the limits of his virtue. - -If, however, despite all the analogies which I was to perceive later on -between the writer and the man, I had not at first sight, in Mme. -Swann's drawing-room, believed that this could be Bergotte, the author -of so many divine books, who stood before me, perhaps I was not -altogether wrong, for he himself did not, in the strict sense of the -word, "believe" it either. He did not believe it because he shewed a -great assiduity in the presence of fashionable people (and yet he was -not a snob), of literary men and journalists who were vastly inferior to -himself. Of course he had long since learned, from the suffrage of his -readers, that he had genius, compared to which social position and -official rank were as nothing. He had learned that he had genius, but he -did not believe it because he continued to simulate deference towards -mediocre writers in order to succeed, shortly, in becoming an -Academician, whereas the Academy and the Faubourg Saint-Germain have no -more to do with that part of the Eternal Mind which is the author of the -works of Bergotte than with the law of causality or the idea of God. -That also he knew, but as a kleptomaniac knows, without profiting by the -knowledge, that it is wrong to steal. And the man with the little beard -and snail-shell nose knew and used all the tricks of the gentleman who -pockets your spoons, in his efforts to reach the coveted academic chair, -I or some duchess or other who could dispose of several votes at the -election, but while on his way to them he would endeavour to make sure -that no one who would consider the pursuit of such an object a vice in -him should see what he was doing. He was only half-successful; one could -hear, alternating with the speech of the true Bergotte, that of the -other Bergotte, ambitious, utterly selfish, who thought it not worth his -while to speak of any but his powerful, rich or noble friends, so as to -enhance his own position, he who in his books, when he was really -himself, had so well portrayed the charm, pure as a mountain spring, of -poverty. - -As for those other vices to which M. de Norpois had alluded, that almost -incestuous love, which was made still worse, people said, by a want of -delicacy in the matter of money, if they contradicted, in a shocking -manner, the tendency of his latest novels, in which he shewed everywhere -a regard for what was right and proper so painfully rigid that the most -innocent pleasures of their heroes were poisoned by it, and that even -the reader found himself turning their pages with a sense of acute -discomfort, and asked himself whether it was possible to go y on living -even the quietest of lives, those vices did not at I all prove, -supposing that they were fairly imputed to Bergotte, that his literature -was a lie and all his sensitiveness mere play-acting. Just as in -pathology certain conditions similar in appearance are due, some to an -excess others to an insufficiency of tension, of secretion and so forth, -so there may be vice arising from supersensitiveness just as much as -from the lack of it. Perhaps it is only in really vicious lives that the -moral problem can arise in all its disquieting strength. And of this -problem the artist finds a solution in the terms not of his own personal -life but of what is for him the true life, a general, a literary -solution. As the great Doctors of the Church began often, without losing -their virtue, by acquainting themselves with the sins of all mankind, -out of which they extracted their own personal sanctity, so great -artists often, while being thoroughly wicked, make use of their vices in -order to arrive at a conception of the moral law that is binding upon us -all. It is the vices (or merely the weaknesses and follies) of the -circle in which they live, the meaningless conversation, the frivolous -or shocking lives of their daughters, the infidelity of their wives, or -their own misdeeds that writers have most often castigated in their -books, without, however, thinking it necessary to alter their domestic -economy or to improve the tone of their households. And this contrast -had never before been so striking as it was in Bergotte's time, because, -on the one hand, in proportion as society grew more corrupt, our notions -of morality were increasingly exalted, while on the other hand the -public were now told far more than they had ever hitherto known about -the private lives of literary men; and on certain evenings in the -theatre people would point out the author whom I had so greatly admired -at Combray, sitting at the back of a box the mere composition of which -seemed an oddly humorous, or perhaps keenly ironical commentary upon--a -brazen-faced denial of the thesis which he had just been maintaining in -his latest book. Not that anything which this or that casual informant -could tell me was of much use in helping me to settle the question of -the goodness or wickedness of Bergotte. An intimate friend would furnish -proofs of his hardheartedness; then a stranger would cite some instance -(touching, since he had evidently wished it to remain hidden) of his -real depth of feeling. He had behaved cruelly to his wife. But in a -village inn, where he had gone to spend the night, he had stayed on to -watch over a poor woman who had tried to drown herself, and when he was -obliged to continue his journey had left a large sum of money with the -landlord, so that he should not turn the poor creature out, but see that -she got proper attention. Perhaps the more the great writer was -developed in Bergotte at the expense of the little man with the beard, -so much the more his own personal life was drowned in the flood of all -the lives that he imagined, until he no longer felt himself obliged to -perform certain practical duties, for which he had substituted the duty -of imagining those other lives. But at the same time, because he -imagined the feelings of others as completely as if they had been his -own, whenever he was obliged, for any reason, to talk to some person who -had been unfortunate (that is to say in a casual encounter) he would, in -doing so, take up not his own personal standpoint but that of the -sufferer himself, a standpoint in which he would have been horrified by -the speech of those who continued to think of their own petty concerns -in the presence of another's grief. With the result that he gave rise -everywhere to justifiable rancour and to undying gratitude. - -Above all, he was a man who in his heart of hearts loved nothing really -except certain images and (like a miniature set in the floor of a -casket) the composing and painting of them in words. For a trifle that -some one had sent him, if that trifle gave him the opportunity of -introducing one or two of these images, he would be prodigal in the -expression of his gratitude, while shewing none whatever for an -expensive present. And if he had had to plead before a tribunal, he -would inevitably have chosen his words not for the effect that they -might have on the judge but with an eye to certain images which the -judge would certainly never have perceived. - -That first day on which I met him with Gilberte's parents, I mentioned -to Bergotte that I had recently been to hear Berma in _Phèdre_; and he -told me that in the scene in which she stood with her arm raised to the -level of her shoulder--one of those very scenes that had been greeted -with such applause--she had managed to suggest with great nobility of -art certain classical figures which, quite possibly, she had never even -seen, a Hesperid carved in the same attitude upon a metope at Olympia, -and also the beautiful primitive virgins on the Erechtheum. - -"It may be sheer divination, and yet I fancy that she visits the -museums. It would be interesting to 'establish' that." ("Establish" was -one of those regular Bergotte expressions, and one which various young -men who had never met him had caught from him, speaking like him by some -sort of telepathic suggestion.) - -"Do you mean the Cariatides?" asked Swann. - -"No, no," said Bergotte, "except in the scene where she confesses her -passion to Œnone, where she moves her hand exactly like Hegeso on the -stele in the Ceramic, it is a far more primitive art that she revives. I -was referring to the Korai of the old Erechtheum, and I admit that there -is perhaps nothing quite so remote from the art of Racine, but there are -so many things already in _Phèdre_, . . . that one more . . . Oh, and -then, yes, she is really charming, that little sixth century Phaedra, -the rigidity of the arm, the lock of hair 'frozen into marble', yes, you -know, it is wonderful of her to have discovered all that. There is a -great deal more antiquity in it than in most of the books they are -labelling 'antique' this year." - -As Bergotte had in one of his volumes addressed a famous invocation to -these archaic statues, the words that he was now uttering were quite -intelligible to me and gave me a fresh reason for taking an interest in -Berma's acting. I tried to picture her again in my mind, as she had -looked in that scene in which I remembered that she had raised her arm -to the level of her shoulder. And I said to myself, "There we have the -Hesperid of Olympia; there we have the sister of those adorable -suppliants on the Acropolis; there is indeed nobility in art!" But if -these considerations were to enhance for me the beauty of Berma's -gesture, Bergotte should have put them into my head before the -performance. Then, while that attitude of the actress was actually -existing in flesh and blood before my eyes, at that moment in which the -thing that was happening had still the substance of reality, I might -have tried to extract from it the idea of archaic sculpture. But of -Berma in that scene all that I retained was a memory which was no longer -liable to modification, slender as a picture which lacks that abundant -perspective of the present tense where one is free to delve and can -always discover something new, a picture to which one cannot -retrospectively give a meaning that is not subject to verification and -correction from without. At this point Mme. Swann joined in the -conversation, asking me whether Gilberte had remembered to give me what -Bergotte had written about _Phèdre_, and adding, "My daughter is such -a scatter-brain!" Bergotte smiled modestly and protested that they were -only a few pages, of no importance. "But it is perfectly charming, that -little pamphlet, that little 'tract' of yours!" Mme. Swann assured him, -to shew that she was a good hostess, to make the rest of us think that -she had read Bergotte's essay, and also because she liked not merely to -flatter Bergotte, but to make a selection for herself out of what he -wrote, to control his writing. And it must be admitted that she did -inspire him, though not in the way that she supposed. But when all is -said there is, between what constituted the smartness of Mme. Swann's -drawing-room and a whole side of Bergotte's work, so close a -correspondence that either of them might serve, among elderly men -to-day, as a commentary upon the other. - -I let myself go in telling him what my impressions had been. Often -Bergotte disagreed, but he allowed me to go on talking. I told him that -I had liked the green light which was turned on when Phèdre raised her -arm. "Ah! The designer will be glad to hear that; he is a real artist. I -shall tell him you liked it, because he is very proud of that effect. I -must say, myself, that I do not care for it very much, it drowns -everything in a sort of aqueous vapour, little Phèdre standing there -looks too like a branch of coral on the floor of an aquarium. You will -tell me, of course, that it brings out the cosmic aspect of the play. -That is quite true. All the same, it would be more appropriate if the -scene were laid in the Court of Neptune. Oh yes, of course, I know the -Vengeance of Neptune does come into the play. I don't suggest for a -moment that we should think only of Port-Royal, but after all the story -that Racine tells us is not the 'Loves of the Sea-Urchins'. Still, it is -what my friend wished to have, and it is very well done, right or wrong, -and it's really quite pretty when you come to look at it. Yes, so you -liked that, did you; you understood what it meant, of course; we feel -the same about it, don't we, really; it is a trifle unbalanced, what -he's done, you agree with me, but on the whole it is very clever of -him." And so, when Bergotte had to express an opinion which was the -opposite of my own, he in no way reduced me to silence, to the -impossibility of framing any reply, as M. de Norpois would have done. -This does not prove that Bergotte's opinions were of less value than the -Ambassador's; far from it. A powerful idea communicates some of its -strength to him who challenges it. Being itself a part of the riches of -the universal Mind, it makes its way into, grafts itself upon the mind -of him whom it is employed to refute, slips in among the ideas already -there, with the help of which, gaining a little ground, he completes and -corrects it; so that the final utterance is always to some extent the -work of both parties to a discussion. It is to ideas which are not, -properly speaking, ideas at all, to ideas which, founded upon nothing, -can find no support, no kindred spirit among the ideas of the adversary, -that he, grappling with something which, is not there, can find no word -to say in answer. The arguments of M. de Norpois (in the matter of art) -were unanswerable simply because they were without reality. - -Since Bergotte did not sweep aside my objections, I confessed to him -that they had won the scorn of M. de Norpois. "But he's an old parrot!" -was the answer. "He keeps on pecking you because he imagines all the -time that you're a piece of cake, or a slice of cuttle-fish." "What's -that?" asked Swann. "Are you a friend of Norpois?" "He's as dull as a -wet Sunday," interrupted his wife, who had great faith in Bergotte's -judgment, and was no doubt afraid that M. de Norpois might have spoken -ill of her to us. "I tried to make him talk after dinner; I don't know -if it's his age or his indigestion, but I found him too sticky for -words. I really thought I should have to 'dope' him." "Yes, isn't he?" -Bergotte chimed in. "You see, he has to keep his mouth shut half the -time so as not to use up all the stock of inanities that hold his -shirt-front down and his white waistcoat up." "I think that Bergotte and -my wife are both very hard on him," came from Swann, who took the -"line", in his own house, of a plain, sensible man. "I quite see that -Norpois cannot interest you very much, but from another point of view," -(for Swann made a hobby of collecting scraps of "real life") "he is -quite remarkable, quite a remarkable instance of a lover. When he was -Secretary at Rome," he went on, after making sure that Gilberte could -not hear him, "he had, here in Paris, a mistress with whom he was madly -in love, and he found time to make the double journey every week, so as -to see her for a couple of hours. She was, as it happens, a most -intelligent woman, and is quite attractive to this day; she is a dowager -now. And he has had any number of others since then. I'm sure I should -have gone stark mad if the woman I was in love with lived in Paris and I -was kept shut up in Rome. Nervous men ought always to love, as the lower -orders say, 'beneath' them, so that their women have a material -inducement to do what they tell them." As he spoke, Swann realised that -I might be applying this maxim to himself and Odette, and as, even among -superior beings, at the moment when you and they seem to be soaring -together above the plane of life, their personal pride is still basely -human, he was seized by a violent ill-will towards me. But this was made -manifest only in the uneasiness of his glance. He said nothing more to -me at the time. Not that this need surprise us. When Racine (according -to a story the truth of which has been exploded, though the theme of it -may be found recurring every day in Parisian life) made an illusion to -Scarron in front of Louis XIV, the most powerful monarch on earth said -nothing to the poet that evening. It was on the following day, only, -that he fell. - -But as a theory requires to be stated as a whole, Swann, after this -momentary irritation, and after wiping his eyeglass, finished saying -what was in his mind in these words, words which were to assume later on -in my memory the importance of a prophetic warning, which I had not had -the sense to take: "The danger of that kind of love, however, is that -the woman's subjection calms the man's jealousy for a time but also -makes it more exacting. After a little he will force his mistress to -live like one of those prisoners whose cells they keep lighted day and -night, to prevent their escaping. And that generally ends in trouble." - -I reverted to M. de Norpois. "You must never trust him; he has the most -wicked tongue!" said Mme. Swann in an accent which seemed to me to -indicate that M. de Norpois had been "saying things" about her, -especially as Swann looked across at his wife with an air of rebuke, as -though to stop her before she went too far. - -Meanwhile Gilberte, who had been told to go and get ready for our drive, -stayed to listen to the conversation, and hovered between her mother and -her father, leaning affectionately against his shoulder. Nothing, at -first sight, could be in greater contrast to Mme. Swann, who was dark, -than this child with her red hair and golden skin. But after looking at -them both for a moment one saw in Gilberte many of the features--for -instance, the nose cut short with a sharp, unfaltering decision by the -unseen sculptor whose chisel repeats its work upon successive -generations--the expression, the movements of her mother; to take an -illustration from another form of art, she made one think of a portrait -that was not a good likeness of Mme. Swann, whom the painter, to carry -out some whim of colouring, had posed in a partial disguise, dressed to -go out to a party in Venetian "character". And as not merely was she -wearing a fair wig, but every atom of a swarthier complexion had been -discharged from her flesh which, stripped of its veil of brownness, -seemed more naked, covered simply in rays of light shed by an internal -sun, this "make-up" was not just superficial but was incarnate in her; -Gilberte had the appearance of embodying some fabulous animal or of -having assumed a mythological disguise. This reddish skin was so exactly -that of her father that nature seemed to have had, when Gilberte was -being created, to solve the problem of how to reconstruct Mme. Swann -piecemeal, without any material at her disposal save the skin of M. -Swann. And nature had utilised this to perfection, like a master carver -who makes a point of leaving the grain, the knots of his wood in -evidence. On Gilberte's face, at the corner of a perfect reproduction of -Odette's nose, the skin was raised so as to preserve intact the two -beauty spots of M. Swann. It was a new variety of Mme. Swann that was -thus obtained, growing there by her side like a white lilac-tree beside -a purple. At the same time it did not do to imagine the boundary line -between these two likenesses as definitely fixed. Now and then, when -Gilberte smiled, one could distinguish the oval of her father's cheek -upon her mother's face, as though some one had mixed them together to -see what would result from the blend; this oval grew distinct, as an -embryo grows into a living shape, it lengthened obliquely, expanded, and -a moment later had disappeared. In Gilberte's eyes there was the frank -and honest gaze of her father; this was how she had looked at me when -she gave me the agate marble and said "Keep it, to remind yourself of -our friendship." But were one to put a question to Gilberte, to ask her -what she had been doing, then one saw in those same eyes the -embarrassment, the uncertainty, the prevarication, the misery that -Odette used in the old days to shew, when Swann asked her where she had -been and she gave him one of those lying answers which, in those days, -drove the lover to despair and now made him abruptly change the -conversation, as an incurious and prudent husband. Often in the -Champs-Elysées I was disturbed by seeing this look on Gilberte's face. -But as a rule my fears were unfounded. For in her, a purely physical -survival of her mother, this look (if nothing else) had ceased to have -any meaning. It was when she had been to her classes, when she must go -home for some lesson that Gilberte's pupils executed that movement -which, in time past, in the eyes of Odette, had been caused by the fear -of disclosing that she had, during the day, opened the door to one of -her lovers, or was at that moment in a hurry to be at some -trysting-place. So one could see the two natures of M. and Mme. Swann -ebb and flow, encroaching alternately one upon the other in the body of -this Melusine. - -It is, of course, common knowledge that a child takes after both its -father and its mother. And yet the distribution of the merits and -defects which it inherits is so oddly planned that, of two good -qualities which seemed inseparable in one of the parents you will find -but one in the child, and allied to that very fault in the other parent -which seemed most irreconcilable with it. Indeed, the incarnation of a -good moral quality in an incompatible physical blemish is often one of -the laws of filial resemblance. Of two sisters, one will combine with -the proud bearing of her father the mean little soul of her mother; the -other, abundantly endowed with the paternal intelligence, will present -it to the world in the aspect which her mother has made familiar; her -mother's shapeless nose and scraggy bosom are become the bodily covering -of talents which you had learned to distinguish beneath a superb -presence. With the result that of each of the sisters one can say with -equal justification that it is she who takes more after one or other of -her parents. It is true that Gilberte was an only child, but there were, -at the least, two Gilbertes. The two natures, her father's and her -mother's, did more than just blend themselves in her; they disputed the -possession of her--and yet one cannot exactly say that, which would let -it be thought that a third Gilberte was in the meantime suffering by -being the prey of the two others. Whereas Gilberte was alternately one -and the other, and at any given moment no more than one of the two, that -is to say incapable, when she was not being good, of suffering -accordingly, the better Gilberte not being able at the time, on account -of her momentary absence, to detect the other's lapse from virtue. And -so the less good of the two was free to enjoy pleasures of an ignoble -kind. When the other spoke to you from the heart of her father, she held -broad views, you would have liked to engage with her upon a fine and -beneficent enterprise; you told her so, but, just as your arrangements -were being completed, her mother's heart would already have resumed its -control; hers was the voice that answered; and you were disappointed and -vexed--almost baffled, as in the face of a substitution of one person -for another--by an unworthy thought, an in sincere laugh, in which -Gilberte saw no harm, for they sprang from what she herself at that -moment was. Indeed, the disparity was at times so great between these -two Gilbertes that you asked yourself, though without finding an answer, -what on earth you could have said or done to her, last time, to find her -now so different. When she herself had arranged to meet you somewhere, -not only did she fail to appear, and offer no excuse afterwards, but, -whatever the influence might have been that had made her change her -mind, she shewed herself in so different a character when you did meet -her that you might well have supposed that, taken in by a likeness such -as forms the plot of the _Menaechmi_, you were now talking to some one -not the person who had so politely expressed her desire to see you, had -she not shewn signs of an ill-humour which revealed that she felt -herself to be in the wrong, and wished to avoid the necessity of an -explanation. - -"Now then, run along and get ready; you're keeping us waiting," her -mother reminded her. - -"I'm so happy here with my little Papa; I want to stay just for a -minute," replied Gilberte, burying her head beneath the arm of her -father, who passed his fingers lovingly through her bright hair. - -Swann was one of those men who, having lived for a long time amid the -illusions of love, have seen the prosperity that they themselves brought -to numberless women increase the happiness of those women without -exciting in them any gratitude, any tenderness towards their -benefactors; but in their child they believe that they can feel an -affection which, being incarnate in their own name, will enable them to -remain in the world after their death. When there should no longer be -any Charles Swann, there would still be a Mlle. Swann, or a Mme. -something else, née Swann, who would continue to love the vanished -father. Indeed, to love him too well, perhaps, Swann may have been -thinking, for he acknowledged Gilberte's caress with a "Good girl!" in -that tone, made tender by our apprehension, to which, when we think of -the future, we are prompted by the too passionate affection of a -creature who is destined to survive us. To conceal his emotion, he -joined in our talk about Berma. He pointed out to me, but in a detached, -a listless tone, as though he wished to remain to some extent -unconcerned in what he was saying, with what intelligence, with what an -astonishing fitness the actress said to Œnone, "You knew it!" He was -right. That intonation at least had a value that was really -intelligible, and might therefore have satisfied my desire to find -incontestable reasons for admiring Berma. But it was by the very fact of -its clarity that it did not at all content me. Her intonation was so -ingenious so definite in intention and in its meaning, that it seemed to -exist by itself, so that any intelligent actress might have learned to -use it. It was a fine idea; but whoever else should conceive it as fully -must possess it equally. It remained to Berma's credit that she had -discovered it, but is one entitled to use the word "discover" when the -object in question is something that would not be different if one had -been given it, something that does not belong essentially to one's own -nature seeing that some one else may afterwards reproduce it? - -"Upon my soul, your presence among us does raise the tone of the -conversation!" Swann observed to me, as though to excuse himself to -Bergotte; for he had formed the habit, in the Guermantes set, of -entertaining great artists as if they were just ordinary friends whom -one seeks only to make eat the dishes that they like, play the games, -or, in the country, indulge in whatever form of sport they please. "It -seems to me that we're talking a great deal of art," he went on. "But -it's so nice, I do love it!" said Mme. Swann, throwing me a look of -gratitude, as well from good nature as because she had not abandoned her -old aspirations towards a more intellectual form of conversation. After -this it was to others of the party, and principally to Gilberte that -Bergotte addressed himself. I had told him everything that I felt with a -freedom which had astonished me, and was due to the fact that, having -acquired with him, years before (in the course of all those hours of -solitary reading, in which he was to me merely the better part of -myself), the habit of sincerity, of frankness, of confidence, I was less -frightened by him than by a person with whom I should have been talking -for the first time. And yet, for the same reason, I was greatly -disturbed by the thought of the impression that I must have been making -on him, the contempt that I had supposed he would feel for my ideas -dating not from that afternoon but from the already distant time in -which I had begun to read his books in our garden at Combray. And yet I -ought perhaps to have reminded myself that, since it was in all -sincerity, abandoning myself to the train of my thoughts, that I had -felt, on the one hand, so intensely in sympathy with the work of -Bergotte and on the other hand, in the theatre, a disappointment the -reason of which I did not know, those two instinctive movements which -had both carried me away could not be so very different from one -another, but must be obedient to the same laws; and that that mind of -Bergotte which I had loved in his books could not be anything entirely -foreign and hostile to my disappointment and to my inability to express -it. For my intelligence must be a uniform thing, perhaps indeed there -exists but a single intelligence, in which everyone in the world -participates, towards which each of us from the position of his own -separate body turns his eyes, as in a theatre where, if everyone has his -own separate seat, there is on the other hand but a single stage. Of -course, the ideas which I was tempted to seek to disentangle were -probably not those whose depths Bergotte usually sounded in his books. -But if it were one and the same intelligence which we had, he and I, at -our disposal, he must, when he heard me express those ideas, be reminded -of them, cherish them, smile upon them, keeping probably, in spite of -what I supposed, before his mind's eye a whole world of intelligence -other than that an excerpt of which had passed into his books, an -excerpt upon which I had based my imagination of his whole mental -universe. Just as priests, having the widest experience of the human -heart, are best able to pardon the sins which they do not themselves -commit, so genius, having the widest experience of the human -intelligence, can best understand the ideas most directly in opposition -to those which form the foundation of its own writings. I ought to have -told myself all this (though, for that matter, it was none too consoling -a thought, for the benevolent condescension of great minds has as a -corollary the incomprehension and hostility of small; and one derives -far less happiness from the friendliness of a great writer, which one -finds expressed, failing a more intimate association, in his books, than -suffering from the hostility of a woman whom one did not choose for her -intelligence but cannot help loving). I ought to have told myself all -this, but I did not; I was convinced that I had appeared a fool to -Bergotte, when Gilberte whispered in my ear: - -"You can't think how delighted I am, because you have made a conquest of -my great friend Bergotte. He's been telling Mamma that he found you -extremely intelligent." - -"Where are we going?" I asked her. "Oh, wherever you like; you know, -it's all the same to me." But since the incident that had occurred on -the anniversary of her grandfather's death I had begun to ask myself -whether Gilberte's character was not other than I had supposed, whether -that indifference to what was to be done, that wisdom, that calm, that -gentle and constant submission did not indeed conceal passionate -longings which her self-esteem would not allow to be visible and which -she disclosed only by her sudden resistance whenever by any chance they -were frustrated. - -As Bergotte lived in the same neighbourhood as my parents, we left the -house together; in the carriage he spoke to me of my health. "Our -friends were telling me that you had been ill. I am very sorry. And yet, -after all, I am not too sorry, because I can see quite well that you are -able to enjoy the pleasures of the mind, and they are probably what mean -most to you, as to everyone who has known them." - -Alas, what he was saying, how little, I felt, did it apply to myself, -whom all reasoning, however exalted it might be, left cold, who was -happy only in moments of pure idleness, when I was comfortable and well; -I felt how purely material was everything that I desired in life, and -how easily I could dispense with the intellect. As I made no distinction -among my pleasures between those that came to me from different sources, -of varying depth and permanence, I was thinking, when the moment came to -answer him, that I should have liked an existence in which I was on -intimate terms with the Duchesse de Guermantes, and often came across, -as in the old toll-house in the Champs-Elysées, a chilly smell that -would remind me of Combray. But in this ideal existence which I dared -not confide to him the pleasures of the mind found no place. - -"No, sir, the pleasures of the mind count for very little with me; it is -not them that I seek after; indeed I don't even know that I have ever -tasted them." - -"You really think not?" he replied. "Well, it may be, no, wait a minute -now, yes, after all that must be what you like best, I can see it now -dearly, I am certain of it." - -As certainly, he did not succeed in convincing me; and yet I was already -feeling happier, less restricted. After what M. de Norpois had said to -me, I had regarded my moments of dreaming, of enthusiasm, of -self-confidence as purely subjective and barren of truth. But according -to Bergotte, who appeared to understand my case, it seemed that it was -quite the contrary, that the symptom I ought to disregard was, in fact, -my doubts, my disgust with myself. Moreover, what he had said about M. -de Norpois took most of the sting out of a sentence from which I had -supposed that no appeal was possible. - -"Are you being properly looked after?" Bergotte asked me. "Who is -treating you?" I told him that I had seen, and should probably go on -seeing Cottard. "But that's not at all the sort of man you want!" he -told me. "I know nothing about him as a doctor. But I've met him at Mme. -Swann's. The man's an imbecile. Even supposing that that doesn't prevent -his being a good doctor, which I hesitate to believe, it does prevent -his being a good doctor for artists, for men of intelligence. People -like you must have suitable doctors, I would almost go so far as to say -treatment and medicines specially adapted to themselves. Cottard will -bore you, and that alone will prevent his treatment from having any -effect. Besides, the proper course of treatment cannot possibly be the -same for you as for any Tom, Dick or Harry. Nine tenths of the ills from -which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect. They need -at least a doctor who understands their disease. How do you expect that -Cottard should be able to treat you; he has made allowances for the -difficulty of digesting sauces, for gastric trouble, but he has made no -allowance for the effect of reading Shakespeare. So that his -calculations are inaccurate in your case, the balance is upset; you see, -always the little bottle-imp bobbing up again. He will find that you -have a dilated stomach; he has no need to examine you for it, since he -has it already in his eye. You can see it there, reflected in his -glasses." This manner of speaking tired me greatly; I said to myself, -with the stupidity of common sense: "There is no more any dilated -stomach reflected in Professor Cottard's glasses than there are -inanities stored behind the white waistcoat of M. de Norpois." "I should -recommend you, instead," went on Bergotte, "to consult Dr. du Boulbon, -who is quite an intelligent man." "He is a great admirer of your books," -I replied. I saw that Bergotte knew this, and I decided that kindred -spirits soon come together, that one has few really "unknown friends". -What Bergotte had said to me with respect to Cottard impressed me, While -running contrary to everything that I myself believed. I was in no way -disturbed by finding my doctor a bore; I expected of him that, thanks to -an art the laws of which were beyond me, he should pronounce on the -subject of my health an infallible oracle, after consultation of my -entrails. And I did not at all require that, with the aid of an -intellect, in which I easily outstripped him, he should seek to -understand my intellect, which I pictured to myself merely as a means, -of no importance in itself, of trying to attain to certain external -verities. I doubted greatly whether intellectual people required a -different form of hygiene from imbeciles, and I was quite prepared to -submit myself to the latter kind. "I'll tell you who does need a good -doctor, and that is our friend Swann," said Bergotte. And on my asking -whether he was ill, "Well, don't you see, he's typical of the man who -has married a whore, and has to swallow a hundred serpents every day, -from women who refuse to meet his wife, or men who were there before -him. You can see them in his mouth, writhing. Just look, any day you're -there, at the way he lifts his eyebrows when he comes in, to see who's -in the room." The malice with which Bergotte spoke thus to a stranger of -the friends in whose house he had so long been received as a welcome -guest was as new to me as the almost amorous tone which, in that house, -he had constantly been adopting to speak to them. Certainly a person -like my great-aunt, for instance, would have been incapable of treating -any of us with that politeness which I had heard Bergotte lavishing upon -Swann. Even to the people whom she liked, she enjoyed saying -disagreeable things. But behind their backs she would never have uttered -a word to which they might not have listened. There was nothing less -like the social "world" than our society at Combray. The Swanns' house -marked a stage on the way towards it, towards its inconstant tide. If -they had not yet reached the open sea, they were certainly in the -lagoon. "This is all between ourselves," said Bergotte as he left me -outside my own door. A few years later I should have answered: "I never -repeat things." That is the ritual phrase of society, from which the -slanderer always derives a false reassurance. It is what I should have -said then and there to Bergotte, for one does not invent all one's -speeches, especially when, one is acting merely as a card in the social -pack. But I did not yet know the formula. What my great-aunt, on the -other hand, would have said on a similar occasion was: "If you don't -wish it to be repeated, why do you say it?" That is the answer of the -unsociable, of the quarrelsome. I was nothing of that sort: I bowed my -head in silence. - -Men of letters who were in my eyes persons of considerable importance -had had to plot for years before they succeeded in forming with Bergotte -relations which continued to the end to be but dimly literary, and never -emerged beyond the four walls of his study, whereas I, I had now been -installed among the friends of the great writer, at the first attempt -and without any effort, like a man who, instead of standing outside in a -crowd for hours in order to secure a bad seat in a theatre, is shown in -at once to the best, having entered by a door that is closed to the -public. If Swann had thus opened such a door to me, it was doubtless -because, just as a king finds himself naturally inviting his children's -friends into the royal box, or on board the royal yacht, so Gilberte's -parents received their daughter's friends among all the precious things -that they had in their house, and the even more precious intimacies that -were enshrined there. But at that time I thought, and perhaps was right -in thinking that this friendliness on Swann's part was aimed indirectly -at my parents. I seemed to remember having heard once at Combray that he -had suggested to them that, in view of my admiration for Bergotte, he -should take me to dine with him, and that my parents had declined, -saying that I was too young, and too easily excited to "go out" yet. My -parents, no doubt, represented to certain other people (precisely those -who seemed to me the most marvellous) something quite different from -what they were to me, so that, just as when the lady in pink had paid my -father a tribute of which he had shewn himself so unworthy, I should -have wished them to understand what an inestimable present I had just -received, and to testify their gratitude to that generous and courteous -Swann who had offered it to me, or to them rather, without seeming any -more to be conscious of its value than is, in Luini's fresco, the -charming Mage with the arched nose and fair hair, to whom, it appeared, -Swann had at one time been thought to bear a striking resemblance. - -Unfortunately, this favour that Swann had done me, which, as I entered -the house, before I had even taken off my greatcoat, I reported to my -parents, in the hope that it would awaken in their hearts an emotion -equal to my own, and would determine them upon some immense and decisive -act of politeness towards the Swanns, did not appear to be greatly -appreciated by them. "Swann introduced you to Bergotte? An excellent -friend for you, charming society!" cried my father, ironically. "It only -wanted that!" Alas, when I had gone on to say that Bergotte was by no -means inclined to admire M. de Norpois: - -"I dare say!" retorted my father. "That simply proves that he's a -foolish and evil-minded fellow. My poor boy, you never had much common -sense, still, I'm sorry to see you fall among a set that will finish you -off altogether." - -Already the mere fact of my frequenting the Swanns had been far from -delighting my parents. This introduction to Bergotte seemed to them a -fatal but natural consequence of an original mistake, namely their own -weakness in controlling me, which my grandfather would have called a -"want of circumspection". I felt that I had only, in order to complete -their ill-humour, to tell them that this perverse fellow who did not -appreciate M. de Norpois had found me extremely intelligent. For I had -observed that whenever my father decided that anyone, one of my school -friends for instance, was going astray--as I was at that moment--if that -person had the approval of somebody whom my father did not rate high, he -would see in this testimony the confirmation of his own stern judgment. -The evil merely seemed to him more pronounced. I could hear him already -exclaiming, "Of course, it all hangs together," an expression that -terrified me by the vagueness and vastness of the reforms the -introduction of which into my quiet life it seemed to threaten. But -since, were I not to tell them what Bergotte had said of me, even then -nothing could efface the impression my parents had formed, that this -should be made slightly worse mattered little. Besides, they seemed to -me so unfair, so completely mistaken, that not only had I not any hope, -I had scarcely any desire to bring them to a more equitable point of -view. At the same time, feeling, as the words came from my lips, how -alarmed they would be by the thought that I had found favour in the -sight of a person who dismissed clever men as fools and had earned the -contempt of all decent people, praise from whom, since it seemed to me a -thing to be desired, would only encourage me in wrongdoing, it was in -faltering tones and with a slightly shamefaced air that, coming to the -end of my story, I flung them the bouquet of: "He told the Swanns that -he had found me extremely intelligent." Just as a poisoned dog, in a -field, rushes, without knowing why, straight to the grass which is the -precise antidote to the toxin that he has swallowed, so I, without in -the least suspecting it, had said the one thing in the world that was -capable of overcoming in my parents this prejudice with respect to -Bergotte, a prejudice which all the best reasons that I could have -urged, all the tributes that I could have paid him must have proved -powerless to defeat. Instantly the situation changed. - -"Oh! He said that he found you intelligent," repeated my mother. "I am -glad to hear that, because he is a man of talent." - -"What! He said that, did he?" my father joined in. "I don't for a moment -deny his literary distinction, before which the whole world bows; only -it is a pity that he should lead that scarcely reputable existence to -which old Norpois made a guarded allusion, when he was here," he went -on, not seeing that against the sovran virtue of the magic words which I -had just repeated the depravity of Bergotte's morals was little more -able to contend than the falsity of his judgment. - -"But, my dear," Mamma interrupted, "we've no proof that it's true. -People say all sorts of things. Besides, M. de Norpois may have the most -perfect manners in the world, but he's not always very good-natured, -especially about people who are not exactly his sort." - -"That's quite true; I've noticed it myself," my father admitted. - -"And then, too, a great deal ought to be forgiven Bergotte, since he -thinks well of my little son," Mamma went on, stroking my hair with her -fingers and fastening upon me a long and pensive gaze. - -My mother had not, indeed, awaited this verdict from Bergotte before -telling me that I might ask Gilberte to tea whenever I had friends -coming. But I dared not do so for two reasons. The first was that at -Gilberte's there was never anything else to drink but tea. Whereas at -home Mamma insisted on there being a pot of chocolate as well. I was -afraid that Gilberte might regard this as "common"; and so conceive a -great contempt for us. The other reason was a formal difficulty, a -question of procedure which I could never succeed in settling. When I -arrived at Mme. Swann's she used to ask me: "And how is your mother?" I -had made several overtures to Mamma to find out whether she would do the -same when Gilberte came to us, a point which seemed to me more serious -that, at the Court of Louis XIV, the use of "Monseigneur." But Mamma -would not hear of it for a moment. - -"Certainly not. I do not know Mme. Swann." - -"But neither does she know you." - -"I never said she did, but we are not obliged to behave in exactly the -same way about everything. I shall find other ways of being civil to -Gilberte than Mme. Swann has with you." - -But I was unconvinced, and preferred not to invite Gilberte. - -Leaving my parents, I went upstairs to change my clothes and on emptying -my pockets came suddenly upon the envelope which the Swanns' butler had -handed me before shewing me into the drawing-room. I was now alone. I -opened it; inside was a card on which I was told the name of the lady -whom I ought to have "taken in" to luncheon. - -It was about this period that Bloch overthrew my conception of the world -and opened for me fresh possibilities of happiness (which, for that -matter, were to change later on into possibilities of suffering), by -assuring me that, in contradiction of all that I had believed at the -time of my walks along the Méséglise way, women never asked for -anything better than to make love. He added to this service a second, -the value of which I was not to appreciate until much later; it was he -who took me for the first time into a disorderly house. He had indeed -told me that there were any number of pretty women whom one might enjoy. -But I could see them only in a vague outline for which those houses were -to enable me to substitute actual human features. So that if I owed to -Bloch--for his "good tidings" that beauty and the enjoyment of beauty -were not inaccessible things, and that we have acted foolishly in -renouncing them for all time--a debt of gratitude of the same kind that -we owe to an optimistic physician or philosopher who has given us reason -to hope for length of days in this world and not to be entirely cut off -from it when we shall have passed beyond the veil, the houses of -assignation which I began to frequent some years later--by furnishing me -with specimens of beauty, by allowing me to add to the beauty of women -that element which we are powerless to invent, which is something more -than a mere summary of former beauties, that present indeed divine, the -one present that we cannot bestow upon ourselves, before which faint and -fail all the logical creations of our intellect, and which we can seek -from reality alone: an individual charm--deserved to be ranked by me -with those other benefactors more recent in origin but of comparable -utility (before finding which we used to imagine without any warmth the -seductive charms of Mantegna, of Wagner, of Siena, by studying other -painters, hearing other composers, visiting other cities): namely -illustrated editions of the history of painting, symphonic concerts and -handbooks to 'Mediaeval Towns'. But the house to which Bloch led me, -(and which he himself, for that matter, had long ceased to visit) was of -too humble a grade, its denizens were too inconspicuous and too little -varied to be able to satisfy my old or to stimulate new curiosities. The -mistress of this house knew none of the women with whom one asked her to -negotiate, and was always suggesting others whom, one did not want. She -boasted to me of one in particular, one of whom, with a smile full of -promise (as though this; had been a great rarity and a special treat) -she would whisper: "She is a Jewess! Doesn't that make you want to?" -(That, by the way, was probably why the girl's name was Rachel.) And -with a silly and affected excitement which, she hoped, would prove -contagious, and which ended in a hoarse gurgle, almost of sensual -satisfaction: "Think of that, my boy, a Jewess! Wouldn't that be lovely? -Rrrr!" This Rachel, of whom I caught a glimpse without her seeing me, -was dark and not good-looking, but had an air of intelligence, and would -pass the tip of her tongue over her lips as she smiled, with a look of -boundless impertinence at the "boys" who were introduced to her and whom -I could hear making conversation. Her small and narrow face was framed -in short curls of black hair, irregular as though they were outlined in -pen-strokes upon a wash-drawing in Indian ink. Every evening I promised -the old woman who offered her to me with a special insistence, boasting -of her superior intelligence and her education, that I would not fail to -come some day on purpose to make the acquaintance of Rachel, whom I had -nicknamed "Rachel when from the Lord". But the first evening I had heard -her, as she was leaving the house, say to the mistress: "That's settled -then; I shall be free to-morrow, if you have anyone you won't forget to -send for me." - -And these words had prevented me from recognising her as a person -because they had made me classify her at once in a general category of -women whose habit, common to all of them, was to come there in the -evening to see whether there might not be a louis or two to be earned. -She would simply vary her formula, saying indifferently: "If you want -me" or "If you want anybody." - -The mistress, who was not familiar with Halévy's opera, did not know -why I always called the girl "Rachel when from the Lord." But failure to -understand a joke has never yet made anyone find it less amusing, and it -was always with a whole-hearted laugh that she would say to me: - -"Then there's nothing doing to-night? When am I going to fix you up with -'Rachel when from the Lord'? Why do you always say that, 'Rachel when -from the Lord'? Oh, that's very smart, that is. I'm going to make a -match of you two. You won't be sorry for it, you'll see." - -Once I was just making up my mind, but she was "in the press", another -time in the hands of the hairdresser, an elderly gentleman who never did -anything for the women except pour oil on their loosened hair and then -comb it. And I grew tired of waiting, even though several of the humbler -frequenters of the place (working girls, they called themselves, but -they always seemed to be out of work), had come to mix drinks for me and -to hold long conversations to which, despite the gravity of the subjects -discussed, the partial or total nudity of the speakers gave an -attractive simplicity. I ceased moreover to go to this house because, -anxious to present a token of my good-will to the woman who kept it and -was in need of furniture, I had given her several pieces, notably a big -sofa, which I had inherited from my aunt Léonie. I used never to see -them, for want of space had prevented my parents from taking them in at -home, and they were stored in a warehouse. But as soon as I discovered -them again in the house where these women were putting them to their own -uses, all the virtues that one had imbibed in the air of my aunt's room -at Combray became apparent to me, tortured by the cruel contact to which -I had abandoned them in their helplessness! Had I outraged the dead, I -should not have suffered such remorse. I returned no more to visit their -new mistress, for they seemed to me to be alive, and to be appealing to -me, like those objects, apparently inanimate, in a Persian fairy tale, -in which are embodied human souls that are undergoing martyrdom and -plead for deliverance. Besides, as our memory presents things to us, as -a rule, not in their chronological sequence but as it were by a -reflexion in which the order of the parts is reversed, I remembered only -long afterwards that it was upon that same sofa that, many years before, -I had tasted for the first time the sweets of love with one of my girl -cousins, with whom I had not known where to go until she somewhat rashly -suggested our taking advantage of a moment in which aunt Léonie had -left her room. - -A whole lot more of my aunt Léonie's things, and notably a magnificent -set of old silver plate, I sold, in spite of my parents' warnings, so as -to have more money to spend, and to be able to send more flowers to Mme. -Swann who would greet me, after receiving an immense basket of orchids, -with: "If I were your father, I should have you up before the magistrate -for this." How was I to suppose that one day I might regret more than -anything the loss of my silver plate, and rank certain other pleasures -more highly than that (which would have shrunk perhaps into none at all) -of bestowing favours upon Gilberte's parents. Similarly, it was with -Gilberte in my mind, and so as not to be separated from her, that I had -decided not to enter a career of diplomacy abroad. It is always thus, -impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make -our irrevocable decisions. I could scarcely imagine that that strange -substance which was housed in Gilberte, and from her permeated her -parents and her home, leaving me indifferent to all things else, could -be liberated from her, could migrate into another person. The same -substance, unquestionable, and yet one that would have a wholly -different effect on me. For a single malady goes through various -evolutions, and a delicious poison can no longer be taken with the same -impunity when, with the passing of the years, the heart's power of -resistance has diminished. - -My parents meanwhile would have liked to see the intelligence that -Bergotte had discerned in me made manifest in some remarkable -achievement. When I still did not know the Swanns I thought that I was -prevented from working by the state of agitation into which I was -thrown by the impossibility of seeing Gilberte when I chose. But, now -that their door stood open to me, scarcely had I sat down at my desk -than I would rise and run to them. And after I had left them and was at -home again, my isolation was apparent only, my mind was powerless to -swim against the stream of words on which I had allowed myself -mechanically to be borne for hours on end. Sitting alone, I continued to -fashion remarks such as might have pleased or amused the Swanns, and to -make this pastime more entertaining I myself took the parts of those -absent players, I put to myself imagined questions, so chosen that my -brilliant epigrams served merely as happy answers to them. Though -conducted in silence, this exercise was none the less a conversation and -not a meditation, my solitude a mental society in which it was not I -myself but other imaginary speakers who controlled my choice of words, -and in which I felt as I formulated, in place of the thoughts that I -believed to be true, those that came easily to my mind, and involved no -introspection from without, that kind of pleasure, entirely passive, -which sitting still affords to anyone who is burdened with a sluggish -digestion. - -Had I been less firmly resolved upon setting myself definitely to work, -I should perhaps have made an effort to begin at once. But since my -resolution was explicit, since within twenty-four hours, in the empty -frame of that long morrow in which everything was so well arranged -because I myself had not yet entered it, my good intentions would be -realised without difficulty, it was better not to select an evening on -which I was ill-disposed for a beginning for which the following days -were not, alas, to shew themselves any more propitious. But I was -reasonable. It would have been puerile, on the part of one who had -waited now for years, not to put up with a postponement of two or three -days. Confident that by the day after next I should have written several -pages, I said not a word more to my parents of my decision; I preferred -to remain patient for a few hours and then to bring to a convinced and -comforted grandmother a sample of work that was already under way. -Unfortunately the morrow was not that vast, external day to which I in -my fever had looked forward. When it drew to a close, my laziness and my -painful struggle to overcome certain internal obstacles had simply -lasted twenty-four hours longer. And at the end of several days, my -plans not having matured, I had no longer the same hope that they would -be realised at once, no longer the courage, therefore, to subordinate -everything else to their realisation: I began again to keep late hours, -having no longer, to oblige me to go to bed early on any evening, the -certain hope of seeing my work begun next morning. I needed, before I -could recover my creative energy, several days of relaxation, and the -only time that my grandmother ventured, in a gentle and disillusioned -tone, to frame the reproach: "Well, and that work of yours; aren't we -even to speak of it now?" I resented her intrusion, convinced that in -her inability to see that my mind was irrevocably made up, she had -further and perhaps for a long time postponed the execution of my task, -by the shock which her denial of justice to me had given my nerves, -since until I had recovered from that shock I should not feel inclined -to begin my work. She felt that her scepticism had charged blindly into -my intention. She apologised, kissing me: "I am sorry; I shall not say -anything again," and, so that I should not be discouraged, assured me -that, from the day on which I should be quite well again, the work would -come of its own accord from my superfluity of strength. - -Besides, I said to myself, in spending all my time with the Swanns, am I -not doing exactly what Bergotte does? To my parents it seemed almost as -though, idle as I was, I was leading, since it was spent in the same -drawing-room with a great writer, the life most favourable to the growth -of talent. And yet the assumption that anyone can be dispensed from -having to create that talent for himself, from within himself, and can -acquire it from some one else, is as impossible as it would be to -suppose that a man can keep himself in good health, in spite of -neglecting all the rules of hygiene and of indulging in the worst -excesses, merely by dining out often in the company of a physician. The -person, by the way, who was most completely taken in by this illusion, -which misled me as well as my parents, was Mme. Swann. When I explained -to her that I was unable to come, that I must stay at home and work, she -looked as though she were thinking that I made a great fuss about -nothing, that there was something foolish as well as ostentatious in -what I had said. - -"But Bergotte is coming, isn't he? Do you mean that you don't think it -good, what he writes? It will be better still, very soon," she went on, -"for he is more pointed, he concentrates more in newspaper articles than -in his books, where he is apt to spread out too much. I've arranged that -in future he's to do the leading articles in the _Figaro._ He'll be -distinctly the 'right man in the right place' there." And, finally, -"Come! He will tell you, better than anyone, what you ought to do." - -And so, just as one invites a gentleman ranker to meet his colonel, it -was in the interests of my career, and as though masterpieces of -literature arose out of "getting to know" people, that she told me not -to fail to come to dinner with her next day, to meet Bergotte. - -And so there was not from the Swanns any more than from my parents, that -is to say from those who, at different times, had seemed bound to place -obstacles in my way, any further opposition to that pleasant existence -in which I might see Gilberte as often as I chose, with enjoyment if not -with peace of mind. There can be no peace of mind in love, since the -advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point -for further desires. So long as I had not been free to go to her, having -my eyes fixed upon that inaccessible goal of happiness, I could not so -much as imagine the fresh grounds for anxiety that lay in wait for me -there. Once the resistance of her parents was broken, and the problem -solved at last, it began to set itself anew, and always in different -terms. Each evening, on arriving home, I reminded myself that I had -things to say to Gilberte of prime importance, things upon which our -whole friendship hung, and these things were never the same. But at -least I was happy, and no further menace arose to threaten my happiness. -One was to appear, alas, from a quarter in which I had never detected -any peril, namely from Gilberte and myself. And yet I ought to have been -tormented by what, on the contrary, reassured me, by what I mistook for -happiness. We are, when we love, in an abnormal state, capable of giving -at once to an accident, the most simple to all appearance and one that -may at any moment occur, a serious aspect which that accident by itself -would not bear. What makes us so happy is the presence in our heart of -an unstable element which we are perpetually arranging to keep in -position, and of which we cease almost to be aware so long as it is not -displaced. Actually, there is in love a permanent strain of suffering -which happiness neutralises, makes conditional only, procrastinates, but -which may at any moment become what it would long since have been had we -not obtained what we were seeking, sheer agony. - -On several occasions I felt that Gilberte was anxious to put off my -visits. It is true that when I was at all anxious to see her I had only -to get myself invited by her parents who were increasingly persuaded of -my excellent influence over her. "Thanks to them," I used to think, "my -love is running no risk; the moment I have them on my side, I can set my -mind at rest; they have full authority over Gilberte." Until, alas, I -detected certain signs of impatience which she allowed to escape her -when her father made me come to the house, almost against her will, and -asked myself whether what I had regarded as a protection for my -happiness was not in fact the secret reason why that happiness could not -endure. - -The last time that I called to see Gilberte, it was raining; she had -been asked to a dancing lesson in the house of some people whom she knew -too slightly to be able to take me there with her. In view of the -dampness of the air I had taken rather more caffeine than usual. Perhaps -on account of the weather, or because she had some objection to the -house in which this party was being given, Mme. Swann, as her daughter -was leaving the room, called her back in the sharpest of tones: -"Gilberte!" and pointed to me, to indicate that I had come there to see -her and that she ought to stay with me. This "Gilberte!" had been -uttered, or shouted rather, with the best of intentions towards myself, -but from the way in which Gilberte shrugged her shoulders as she took -off her outdoor clothes I divined that her mother had unwittingly -hastened the gradual evolution, which until then it had perhaps been -possible to arrest, which was gradually drawing away from me my friend. -"You don't need to go out dancing every day," Odette told her daughter, -with a sagacity acquired, no doubt, in earlier days, from Swann. Then, -becoming once more Odette, she began speaking to her daughter in -English. At once it was as though a wall had sprung up to hide from me a -part of the life of Gilberte, as though an evil genius had spirited my -friend far away. In a language that we know, we have substituted for the -opacity of sounds, the perspicuity of ideas. But a language which we do -not know is a fortress sealed, within whose walls she whom we love is -free to play us false, while we, standing without, desperately alert in -our impotence, can see, can prevent nothing. So this conversation in -English, at which, a month earlier, I should merely have smiled, -interspersed with a few proper names in French which did not fail to -accentuate, to give a point to my uneasiness, had, when conducted within -a few feet of me by two motionless persons, the same degree of cruelty, -left me as much abandoned and alone as the forcible abduction of my -companion. At length Mme. Swann left us. That day, perhaps from -resentment against myself, the unwilling cause of her not going out to -enjoy herself, perhaps also because, guessing her to be angry with me, I -was precautionally colder than usual with her, the face of Gilberte, -divested of every sign of joy, bleak, bare, pillaged, seemed all -afternoon to be devoting a melancholy regret to the pas-de-quatre in -which my arrival had prevented her from going to take part, and to be -defying every living creature, beginning with myself, to understand the -subtle reasons that had determined in her a sentimental attachment to -the boston. She confined herself to exchanging with me, now and again, -on the weather, the increasing violence of the rain, the fastness of the -clock, a conversation punctuated with silences and monosyllables, in -which I lashed myself on, with a sort of desperate rage, to the -destruction of those moments which we might have devoted to friendship -and happiness. And on each of our remarks was stamped, as it were, a -supreme harshness, by the paroxysm of their stupefying unimportance, -which at the same time consoled me, for it prevented Gilberte from being -taken in by the banality of my observations and the indifference of my -tone. In vain was my polite: "I thought, the other day, that the clock -was slow, if anything;" she evidently understood me to mean: "How -tiresome you are being!" Obstinately as I might protract, over the whole -length of that rain-sodden afternoon, the dull cloud of words through -which no fitful ray shone, I knew that my coldness was not so -unalterably fixed as I pretended, and that Gilberte must be fully aware -that if, after already saying it to her three times, I had hazarded a -fourth repetition of the statement that the evenings were drawing in, I -should have had difficulty in restraining myself from bursting into -tears. When she was like that, when no smile filled her eyes or unveiled -her face, I cannot describe the devastating monotony that stamped her -melancholy eyes and sullen features. Her face, grown almost livid, -reminded me then of those dreary beaches where the sea, ebbing far out, -wearies one with its faint shimmering, everywhere the same, fixed in an -immutable and low horizon. At length, as I saw no sign in Gilberte of -the happy change for which I had been waiting now for some hours, I told -her that she was not being nice. "It is you that are not being nice," -was her answer. "Oh, but surely---" I asked myself what I could have -done, and, finding no answer, put the question to her. "Naturally, you -think yourself nice!" she said to me with a laugh, and went on laughing. -Whereupon I felt all the anguish that there was for me in not being able -to attain to that other, less perceptible plane of her mind which her -laughter indicated. It seemed, that laughter, to mean: "No, no, I'm not -going to let myself be moved by anything that you say, I know you're -madly in love with me, but that leaves me neither hot nor cold, for I -don't care a rap for you." But I told myself that, after all, laughter -was not a language so well defined that I could be certain of -understanding what this laugh really meant. And Gilberte's words were -affectionate. "But how am I not being nice," I asked her, "tell me; I -will do anything you want." "No; that wouldn't be any good. I can't -explain." For a moment I was afraid that she thought that I did not love -her, and this was for me a fresh agony, no less keen, but one that -required treatment by a different conversational method. "If you knew -how much you were hurting me you would tell me." But this pain which, -had she doubted my love for her, must have rejoiced her, seemed instead -to make her more angry. Then, realising my mistake, making up my mind to -pay no more attention to what she said, letting her (without bothering -to believe her) assure me: "I do love you, indeed I do; you will see one -day," (that day on which the guilty are convinced that their innocence -will be made clear, and which, for some mysterious reason, never happens -to be the day on which their evidence is taken), I had the courage to -make a sudden resolution not to see her again, and without telling her -of it yet since she would not have believed me. - -Grief that is caused one by a person with whom one is in love can be -bitter, even when it is interpolated among preoccupations, occupations, -pleasures in which that person is not directly involved and from which -our attention is diverted only now and again to return to it. But when -such a grief has its birth--as was now happening--at a moment when the -happiness of seeing that person fills us to the exclusion of all else, -the sharp depression that then affects our spirits, sunny hitherto, -sustained and calm, lets loose in us a raging tempest against which we -know not whether we are capable of struggling to the end. The tempest -that was blowing in my heart was so violent that I made my way home -baffled, battered, feeling that I could recover my breath only by -retracing my steps, by returning, upon whatever pretext, into Gilberte's -presence. But she would have said to herself: "Back again! Evidently I -can go to any length with him; he will come back every time, and the -more wretched he is when he leaves me the more docile he'll be." -Besides, I was irresistibly drawn towards her in thought, and those -alternative orientations, that mad careering between them of the -compass-needle within me persisted after I had reached home, and -expressed themselves in the mutually contradictory letters to Gilberte -which I began to draft. I was about to pass through one of those -difficult crises which we generally find that we have to face at various -stages in life, and which, for all that there has been no change in our -character, in our nature (that nature which itself creates our loves, -and almost creates the women whom we love, even to their faults), we do -not face in the same way on each occasion, that is to say at every age. -At such moments our life is divided, and so to speak distributed over a -pair of scales, in two counterpoised pans which between them contain it -all. In one there is our desire not to displease, not to appear too -humble to the creature whom we love without managing to understand her, -but whom we find it more convenient at times to appear almost to -disregard, so that she shall not have that sense of her own -indispensability which may turn her from us; in the other scale there is -a feeling of pain--and one that is not localised and partial only--which -cannot be set at rest unless, abandoning every thought of pleasing the -woman and of making her believe that we can dispense with her, we go at -once to find her. When we withdraw from the pan in which our pride lies -a small quantity of the will-power which we have weakly allowed to -exhaust itself with increasing age, when we add to the pan that holds -our suffering a physical pain which we have acquired and have let grow, -then, instead of the courageous solution that would have carried the day -at one-and-twenty, it is the other, grown too heavy and insufficiently -balanced, that crushes us down at fifty. All the more because -situations, while repeating themselves, tend to alter, and there is -every likelihood that, in middle life or in old age, we shall have had -the grim satisfaction of complicating our love by an intrusion of habit -which adolescence, repressed by other demands upon it, less master of -itself, has never known. - -I had just written Gilberte a letter in which I allowed the tempest of -my wrath to thunder, not however without throwing her the lifebuoy of a -few words disposed as though by accident on the page, by clinging to -which my friend might be brought to a reconciliation; a moment later, -the wind having changed, they were phrases full of love that I addressed -to her, chosen for the sweetness of certain forlorn expressions, those -"nevermores" so touching to those who pen them, so wearisome to her who -will have to read them, whether she believe them to be false and -translate "nevermore" by "this very evening, if you want me," or believe -them to be true and so to be breaking the news to her of one of those -final separations which make so little difference to our lives when the -other person is one with whom we are not in love. But since we are -incapable, while we are in love, of acting as fit predecessors of the -next persons whom we shall presently have become, and who will then be -in love no longer, how are we to imagine the actual state of mind of a -woman whom, even when we are conscious that we are of no account to her, -we have perpetually represented in our musings as uttering, so as to -lull us into a happy dream or to console us for a great sorrow, the same -speeches that she would make if she loved us. When we come to examine -the thoughts, the actions of a woman whom we love, we are as completely -at a loss as must have been, face to face with the phenomena of nature, -the world's first natural philosophers, before their science had been -elaborated and had cast a ray of light over the unknown. Or, worse -still, we are like a person in whose mind the law of causality barely -exists, a person who would be incapable, therefore, of establishing any -connexion between one phenomenon and another, to whose eyes the -spectacle of the world would appear unstable as a dream. Of course I -made efforts to emerge from this incoherence, to find reasons for -things. I tried even to be "objective" and, to that end, to bear well in -mind the disproportion that existed between the importance which -Gilberte had in my eyes and that, not only which I had in hers, but -which she herself had in the eyes of other people, a disproportion -which, had I failed to remark it, would have involved my mistaking mere -friendliness on my friend's part for a passionate avowal, and a -grotesque and debasing display on my own for the simple and graceful -movement with which we are attracted towards a pretty face. But I was -afraid also of falling into the contrary error, in which I should have -seen in Gilberte's unpunctuality in keeping an appointment an -irremediable hostility. I tried to discover between these two -perspectives, equally distorting, a third which would enable me to see -things as they really were; the calculations I was obliged to make with -that object helped to take my mind off my sufferings; and whether in -obedience to the laws of arithmetic or because I had made them give me -the answer that I desired, I made up my mind that next day I would go to -the Swanns', happy, but happy in the same way as people who, having long -been tormented by the thought of a journey which they have not wished to -make, go no farther than to the Station and return home to unpack their -boxes. And since, while one is hesitating, the bare idea of a possible -resolution (unless one has rendered that idea sterile by deciding that -one will make no resolution) develops, like a seed in the ground, the -lineaments, every detail of the emotions that will be born from the -performance of the action, I told myself that it had been quite absurd -of me to be as much hurt by the suggestion that I should not see -Gilberte again as if I had really been about to put that suggestion into -practice, and that since, on the contrary, I was to end by returning to -her side, I might have saved myself the expense of all those vain -longings and painful acceptances. But this resumption of friendly -relations lasted only so long as it took me to reach the Swanns'; not -because their butler, who was really fond of me, told me that Gilberte -had gone out (a statement the truth of which was confirmed, as it -happened, the same evening, by people who had seen her somewhere), but -because of the manner in which he said it. "Sir, the young lady is not -at home; I can assure you, sir, that I am speaking the truth. If you -wish to make any inquiries I can fetch the young lady's maid. You know -very well, sir, that I would do everything in my power to oblige you, -and that if the young lady was at home I would take you to her at once." -These words being of the only kind that is really important, that is to -say spontaneous, the kind that gives us a radiograph shewing the main -points, at any rate, of the unimaginable reality which would be wholly -concealed beneath a prepared speech, proved that in Gilberte's household -there was an impression that I bothered her with my visits; and so, -scarcely had the man uttered them before they had aroused in me a hatred -of which I preferred to make him rather than Gilberte the victim; he -drew upon his own head all the angry feelings that I might have had for -my friend; freed from these complications, thanks to his words, my love -subsisted alone; but his words had, at the same time, shewn me that I -must cease for the present to attempt to see Gilberte. She would be -certain to write to me, to apologise. In spite of which, I should not -return at once to see her, so as to prove to her that I was capable of -living without her. Besides, once I had received her letter, Gilberte's -society was a thing with which I should be more easily able to dispense -for a time, since I should be certain of finding her ready to receive me -whenever I chose. All that I needed in order to support with less pain -the burden of a voluntary separation was to feel that my heart was rid -of the terrible uncertainty whether we were not irreconcilably sundered, -whether she had not promised herself to another, left Paris, been taken -away by force. The days that followed resembled the first week of that -old New Year which I had had to spend alone, without Gilberte. But when -that week had dragged to its end, then for one thing my friend would be -coming again to the Champs-Elysées, I should be seeing her as before; I -had been sure of that; for another thing, I had known with no less -certainty that so long as the New Year holidays lasted it would not be -worth my while to go to the Champs-Elysées, which meant that during -that miserable week, which was already ancient history, I had endured my -wretchedness with a quiet mind because there was blended in it neither -fear nor hope. Now, on the other hand, it was the latter of these which, -almost as much as my fear of what might happen, rendered intolerable the -burden of my grief. Not having had any letter from Gilberte that -evening, I had attributed this to her carelessness, to her other -occupations, I did not doubt that I should find something from her in -the morning's post. This I awaited, every day, with a beating heart -which subsided, leaving me utterly prostrate, when I had found in it -only letters from people who were not Gilberte, or else nothing at all, -which was no worse, the proofs of another's friendship making all the -more cruel those of her indifference. I transferred my hopes to the -afternoon post. Even between the times at which letters were delivered -I dared not leave the house, for she might be sending hers by a -messenger. Then, the time coming at last when neither the postman nor a -footman from the Swanns' could possibly appear that night, I must -procrastinate my hope of being set at rest, and thus, because I believed -that my sufferings were not destined to last, I was obliged, so to -speak, incessantly to renew them. My disappointment was perhaps the -same, but instead of just uniformly prolonging, as in the old days, an -initial emotion, it began again several times daily, starting each time -with an emotion so frequently renewed that it ended--it, so purely -physical, so instantaneous a state--by becoming stabilised, so -consistently that the strain of waiting having hardly time to relax -before a fresh reason for waiting supervened, there was no longer a -single minute in the day in which I was not in that state of anxiety -which it is so difficult to bear even for an hour. So my punishment was -infinitely more cruel than in those New Year holidays long ago, because -this time there was in me, instead of the acceptance, pure and simple, -of that punishment, the hope, at every moment, of seeing it come to an -end. And yet at this state of acceptance I ultimately arrived; then I -understood that it must be final, and I renounced Gilberte for ever, in -the interests of my love itself and because I hoped above all that she -would not retain any contemptuous memory of me. Indeed, from that -moment, so that she should not be led to suppose any sort of lover's -spite on my part, when she made appointments for me to see her I used -often to accept them and then, at the last moment, write to her that I -was prevented from coming, but with the same protestations of my -disappointment that I should have made to anyone whom I had not wished -to see. These expressions of regret, which we keep as a rule for people -who do not matter, would do more, I imagined, to persuade Gilberte of my -indifference than would the tone of indifference which we affect only to -those whom we love. When, better than by mere words, by a course of -action indefinitely repeated, I should have proved to her that I had no -appetite for seeing her, perhaps she would discover once again an -appetite for seeing me. Alas! I was doomed to failure; to attempt, by -ceasing to see her, to reawaken in her that inclination to see me was to -lose her for ever; first of all, because, when it began to revive, if I -wished it to last I must not give way to it at once; besides, the most -agonising hours would then have passed; it was at this very moment that -she was indispensable to me, and I should have liked to be able to warn -her that what presently she would have to assuage, by the act of seeing -me again, would be a grief so far diminished as to be no longer (what a -moment ago it would still have been), nor the thought of putting an end -to it, a motive towards surrender, reconciliation, further meetings. And -then again, later on, when I should at last be able safely to confess to -Gilberte (so far would her liking for me have regained its strength) my -liking for her, the latter, not having been able to resist the strain of -so long a separation, would have ceased to exist; Gilberte would have -become immaterial to me. I knew this, but I could not explain it to her; -she would have assumed that if I was pretending that I should cease to -love her if I remained for too long without seeing her, that was solely -in order that she might summon me back to her at once. In the meantime, -what made it easier for me to sentence myself to this separation was the -fact that (in order to make it quite clear to her that despite my -protestations to the contrary it was my own free-will and not any -conflicting engagement, not the state of my health that prevented me -from seeing her), whenever I knew beforehand that Gilberte would not be -in the house, was going out somewhere with a friend and would not be -home for dinner, I went to see Mme. Swann who had once more become to me -what she had been at the time when I had such difficulty in seeing her -daughter and (on days when the latter was not coming to the -Champs-Elysées) used to repair to the Allée des Acacias. In this way I -should be hearing about Gilberte, and could be certain that she would in -due course hear about me, and in terms which would shew her that I was -not interested in her. And I found, as all those who suffer find, that -my melancholy condition might have been worse. For being free at any -time to enter the habitation in which Gilberte dwelt, I constantly -reminded myself, for all that I was firmly resolved to make no use of -that privilege, that if ever my pain grew too sharp there was a way of -making it cease. I was not unhappy, save only from day to day. And even -that is an exaggeration. How many times in an hour (but now without that -anxious expectancy which had strained every nerve of me in the first -weeks after our quarrel, before I had gone again to the Swanns') did I -not repeat to myself the words of the letter which, one day soon, -Gilberte would surely send, would perhaps even bring to me herself. The -perpetual vision of that imagined happiness helped me to endure the -desolation of my real happiness. With women who do not love us, as with -the "missing", the knowledge that there is no hope left does not prevent -our continuing to wait for news. We live on tenter-hooks, starting at the -slightest sound; the mother whose son has gone to sea on some perilous -voyage of discovery sees him in imagination every moment, long after the -fact of his having perished has been established, striding into the -room, saved by a miracle and in the best of health. And this strain of -waiting, according to the strength of her memory and the resistance of -her bodily organs, either helps her on her journey through the years, at -the end of which she will be able to endure the knowledge that her son -is no more, to forget gradually and to survive his loss, or else it -kills her. - -On the other hand, my grief found consolation in the idea that my love -must profit by it. Each visit that I paid to Mme. Swann without seeing -Gilberte was a cruel punishment, but I felt that it correspondingly -enhanced the idea that Gilberte had of me. - -Besides, if I always took care, before going to see Mme. Swann, that -there should be no risk of her daughter's appearing, that arose, it is -true, from my determination to break with her, but no less perhaps from -that hope of reconciliation which overlay my intention to renounce her -(very few of such intentions are absolute, at least in a continuous -form, in this human soul of ours, one of whose laws, confirmed by the -unlooked-for wealth of illustration that memory supplies, is -intermittence), and hid from me all that in it was unbearably cruel. As -for that hope, I saw clearly how far it was chimerical. I was like a -pauper who moistens his dry crust with fewer tears if he assures himself -that, at any moment, a total stranger is perhaps going to leave him the -whole of his fortune. We are all of us obliged, if we are to make -reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves. Now my -hope remained more intact--while at the same time our separation became -more effectual--if I refrained from meeting Gilberte. If I had found -myself face to face with her in her mother's drawing-room, we might -perhaps have uttered irrevocable words which would have rendered our -breach final, killed my hope and, on the other hand, by creating a fresh -anxiety, reawakened my love and made resignation harder. - -Ever so long ago, before I had even thought of breaking with her -daughter, Mme. Swann had said to me: "It is all very well your coming to -see Gilberte; I should like you to come sometimes for my sake, not to my -'kettledrums', which would bore you because there is such a crowd, but -on the other days, when you will always find me at home if you come -fairly late." So that I might be thought, when I came to see her, to be -yielding only after a long resistance to a desire which she had -expressed in the past. And very late in the afternoon, when it was quite -dark, almost at the hour at which my parents would be sitting down to -dinner, I would set out to pay Mme. Swann a visit, in the course of -which I knew that I should not see Gilberte, and yet should be thinking -only of her. In that quarter, then looked upon as remote, of a Paris -darker than Paris is to-day, where even in the centre there was no -electric light in the public thoroughfares and very little in private -houses, the lamps of a drawing-room situated on the ground level, or but -slightly raised above it, as were the rooms in which Mme. Swann -generally received her visitors, were enough to lighten the street, and -to make the passer-by raise his eyes, connecting with their glow, as -with its apparent though hidden cause, the presence outside the door of -a string of smart broughams. This passer-by was led to believe, not -without a certain emotion, that a modification had been effected in this -mysterious cause, when he saw one of the carriages begin to move; but it -was merely a coachman who, afraid of his horses' catching cold, started -them now and again on a brisk walk, all the more impressive because the -rubber-tired wheels gave the sound of their hooves a background of -silence from which it stood out more distinct and more explicit. - -The "winter-garden", of which in those days the passer-by generally -caught a glimpse, in whatever street he might be walking, if the -drawing-room did not stand too high above the pavement, is to be seen -to-day only in photogravures in the gift-books of P. J. Stahl, where, in -contrast to the infrequent floral decorations of the Louis XVI -drawing-rooms now in fashion--a single rose or a Japanese iris in a -long-necked vase of crystal into which it would be impossible to squeeze -a second--it seems, because of the profusion of indoor plants which -people had then, and of the absolute want of style in their arrangement, -as though it must have responded in the ladies whose houses it adorned -to some living and delicious passion for botany rather than to any cold -concern for lifeless decoration. It suggested to one, only on a larger -scale, in the houses of those days, those tiny, portable hothouses laid -out on New Year's morning beneath the lighted lamp--for the children -were always too impatient to wait for daylight--among all the other New -Year's presents but the loveliest of them all, consoling them with its -real plants which they could tend as they grew for the bareness of the -winter soil; and even more than those little houses themselves, those -winter gardens were like the hot-house that the children could see there -at the same time, portrayed in a delightful book, another of their -presents, and one which, for all that it was given not to them but to -Mlle. Lili, the heroine of the story, enchanted them to such a pitch -that even now, when they are almost old men and women, they ask -themselves whether, in those fortunate years, winter was not the -loveliest of the seasons. And inside there, beyond the winter-garden, -through the various kinds of arborescence which from the street made the -lighted window appear like the glass front of one of those children's -playthings, pictured or real, the passer-by, drawing himself up on -tiptoe, would generally observe a man in a frock coat, a gardenia or a -carnation in his buttonhole, standing before a seated lady, both vaguely -outlined, like two intaglios cut in a topaz, in the depths of the -drawing-room atmosphere clouded by the samovar--then a recent -importation--with steam which may very possibly be escaping from it -still to-day, but to which, if it does, we are grown so accustomed now -that no one notices it. Mme. Swann attached great importance to her -"tea"; she thought that she shewed her originality and expressed her -charm when she said to a man, "You will find me at home any day, fairly -late; come to tea!" so that she allowed a sweet and delicate smile to -accompany the words which she pronounced with a fleeting trace of -English accent, and which her listener duly noted, bowing solemnly in -acceptance, as though the invitation had been something important and -uncommon which commanded deference and required attention. There was -another reason, apart from those given already, for the flowers' having -more than a merely ornamental part in Mme. Swann's drawing-room, and -this reason pertained not to the period, but, in some degree, to the -former life of Odette. A great courtesan, such as she had been, lives -largely for her lovers, that is to say at home, which means that she -comes in time to live for her home. The things that one sees in the -house of a "respectable" woman, things which may of course appear to her -also to be of importance, are those which are in any event of the utmost -importance to the courtesan. The culminating point of her day is not the -moment in which she dresses herself for all the world to see, but that -in which she undresses herself for a man. She must be as smart in her -wrapper, in her nightgown, as in her outdoor attire. Other women display -their jewels, but as for her, she lives in the intimacy of her pearls. -This kind of existence imposes on her as an obligation and ends by -giving her a fondness for luxury which is secret, that is to say which -comes near to being disinterested. Mme. Swann extended this to include -her flowers. There was always beside her chair an immense bowl of -crystal filled to the brim with Parma violets or with long white -daisy-petals scattered upon the water, which seemed to be testifying, in -the eyes of the arriving guest, to some favourite and interrupted -occupation, such as the cup of tea which Mme. Swann would, for her own -amusement, have been drinking there by herself; an occupation more -intimate still and more mysterious, so much so that one felt oneself -impelled to apologise on seeing the flowers exposed there by her side, -as one would have apologised for looking at the title of the still open -book which would have revealed to one what had just been read by--and -so, perhaps, what was still in the mind of Odette. And unlike the book -the flowers were living things; it was annoying, when one entered the -room to pay Mme. Swann a visit, to discover that she was not alone, or -if one came home with her not to find the room empty, so prominent a -place in it, enigmatic and intimately associated with hours in the life -of their mistress of which one knew nothing, did those flowers assume -which had not been made ready for Odette's visitors but, as it were, -forgotten there by her, had held and would hold with her again private -conversations which one was afraid of disturbing, the secret of which -one tried in vain to read, fastening one's eyes on the moist purple, the -still liquid water-colour of the Parma violets. By the end of October -Odette would begin to come home with the utmost punctuality for tea, -which was still known, at that time, as "five-o'clock tea", having once -heard it said, and being fond of repeating that if Mme. Verdurin had -been able to form a salon it was because people were always certain of -finding her at home at the same hour. She imagined that she herself had -one also, of the same kind, but freer, _senza rigore_ as she used to -say. She saw herself figuring thus as a sort of Lespinasse, and believed -that she had founded a rival salon by taking from the du Deffant of the -little group several of her most attractive men, notably Swann himself, -who had followed her in her secession and into her retirement, according -to a version for which one can understand that she had succeeded in -gaining credit among her more recent friends, ignorant of what had -passed, though without convincing herself. But certain favourite parts -are played by us so often before the public and rehearsed so carefully -when we are alone that we find it easier to refer to their fictitious -testimony than to that of a reality which we have almost entirely -forgotten. On days on which Mme. Swann had not left the house, one found -her in a wrapper of _crêpe-de-Chine_, white as the first snows of -winter, or, it might be, in one of those long pleated garments of -_mousseline-de-soie_, which seemed nothing more than a shower of white -or rosy petals, and would be regarded to-day as hardly suitable for -winter, though quite wrongly. For these light fabrics and soft colours -gave to a woman--in the stifling warmth of the drawing-rooms of those -days, with their heavily curtained doors, rooms of which the most -effective thing that the society novelists of the time could find to say -was that they were "exquisitely cushioned"--the same air of coolness -that they gave to the roses which were able to stay in the room there by -her side, despite the winter, in the glowing flesh tints of their -nudity, as though it were already spring. By reason of the muffling of -all sound in the carpets, and of the remoteness of her cosy retreat, the -lady of the house, not being apprised of your entry as she is to-day, -would continue to read almost until you were standing before her chair, -which enhanced still further that sense of the romantic, that charm of a -sort of secret discovery, which we find to-day in the memory of those -gowns, already out of fashion even then, which Mme. Swann was perhaps -alone in not having discarded, and which give us the feeling that the -woman who wore them must have been the heroine of a novel because most -of us have scarcely set eyes on them outside the pages of certain of -Henry Gréville's tales. Odette had, at this time, in her drawing-room, -when winter began, chrysanthemums of enormous size and of a variety of -colours such as Swann, in the old days, certainly never saw in her -drawing-room in the Rue La Pérouse. My admiration for them--when I went -to pay Mme. Swann one of those melancholy visits during which, prompted -by my sorrow, I discovered in her all the mystical poetry of her -character as the mother of that Gilberte to whom she would say on the -morrow: "Your friend came to see me yesterday,"--sprang, no doubt, from -my sense that, rose-pale like the Louis XIV silk that covered her -chairs, snow white like her _crêpe-de-Chine_ wrapper, or of a metallic -red like her samovar, they superimposed upon the decoration of the room -another, a supplementary scheme of decoration, as rich, as delicate in -its colouring, but one which was alive and would last for a few days -only. But I was touched to find that these chrysanthemums appeared less -ephemeral than, one might almost say, lasting, when I compared them with -the tones, as pink, as coppery, which the setting sun so gorgeously -displays amid the mists of a November afternoon, and which, after seeing -them, before I had entered the house, fade from the sky, I found again -inside, prolonged, transposed on to the flaming palette of the flowers. -Like the fires caught and fixed by a great colourist from the -impermanence of the atmosphere and the sun, so that they should enter -and adorn a human dwelling, they invited me, those chrysanthemums, to -put away all my sorrows and to taste with a greedy rapture during that -"tea-time" the too fleeting joys of November, of which they set ablaze -all around me the intimate and mystical glory. Alas, it was not in the -conversations to which I must listen that I could hope to attain to that -glory; they had but little in common with it. Even with Mme. Cottard, -and although it was growing late, Mme. Swann would assume her most -caressing manner to say: "Oh, no, it's not late, really; you mustn't -look at the clock; that's not the right time; it's stopped; you can't -possibly have anything else to do now, why be in such a hurry?" as she -pressed a final tartlet upon the Professor's wife, who was gripping her -card-case in readiness for flight. - -"One simply can't tear oneself away from this house!" observed Mme. -Bontemps to Mme. Swann, while Mme. Cottard, in her astonishment at -hearing her own thought put into words, exclaimed: "Why, that's just -what I always say myself, what I tell my own little judge, in the court -of conscience!" winning the applause of the gentlemen from the Jockey -Club, who had been profuse in their salutations, as though confounded at -such an honour's being done them, when Mme. Swann had introduced them to -this common and by no means attractive little woman, who kept herself, -when confronted with Odette's brilliant friends, in reserve, if not on -what she herself called "the defensive", for she always used stately -language to describe the simplest happenings. "I should never have -suspected it," was Mme. Swann's comment, "three Wednesdays running -you've played me false." "That's quite true, Odette; it's simply ages, -it's an eternity since I saw you last. You see, I plead guilty; but I -must tell you," she went on with a vague suggestion of outraged modesty, -for although a doctor's wife she would never have dared to speak without -periphrasis of rheumatism or of a chill on the kidneys, "that I have had -a lot of little troubles. As we all have, I dare say. And besides that -I've had a crisis among my masculine domestics. I'm sure, I'm no more -imbued with a sense of my own authority than most ladies; still I've -been obliged, just to make an example you know, to give my Vatel notice; -I believe he was looking out anyhow for a more remunerative place. But -his departure nearly brought about the resignation of my entire -ministry. My own maid refused to stay in the house a moment longer; oh, -we have had some Homeric scenes. However I held fast to the reins -through thick and thin; the whole affair's been a perfect lesson, which -won't be lost on me, I can tell you. I'm afraid I'm boring you with all -these stories about servants, but you know as well as I do what a -business it is when one is obliged to set about rearranging one's -household. - -"Aren't we to see anything of your delicious child?" she wound up. "No, -my delicious child is dining with a friend," replied Mme. Swann, and -then, turning to me: "I believe she's written to you, asking you to come -and see her to-morrow. And your babies?" she went on to Mme. Cottard. I -breathed a sigh of relief. These words by which Mme. Swann proved to me -that I could see Gilberte whenever I chose gave me precisely the comfort -which I had come to seek, and which at that time made my visits to Mme. -Swann so necessary. "No, I'm afraid not; I shall write to her, anyhow, -this evening. Gilberte and I never seem to see one another now," I -added, pretending to attribute our separation to some mysterious agency, -which gave me a further illusion of being in love, supported as well by -the affectionate way in which I spoke of Gilberte and she of me. "You -know, she's simply devoted to you," said Mme. Swann. "Really, you won't -come to-morrow?" Suddenly my heart rose on wings; the thought had just -struck me--"After all, why shouldn't I, since it's her own mother who -suggests it?" But with the thought I fell back into my old depression. I -was afraid now lest, when she saw me again, Gilberte might think that my -indifference of late had been feigned, and it seemed wiser to prolong -our separation. During these asides Mme. Bontemps had been complaining -of the insufferable dulness of politicians' wives, for she pretended to -find everyone too deadly or too stupid for words, and to deplore her -husband's official position. "Do you mean to say you can shake hands -with fifty doctors' wives, like that, one after the other?" she -exclaimed to Mme. Cottard, who, unlike her, was full of the kindest -feelings for everybody and of determination to do her duty in every -respect. "Ah! you're a law-abiding woman! You see, in my case, at the -Ministry, don't you know, I simply have to keep it up, of course. It's -too much for me, I can tell you; you know what those officials' wives -are like, it's all I can do not to put my tongue out at them. And my -niece Albertine is just like me. You really wouldn't believe the -impudence that girl has. Last week, on my 'day', I had the wife of the -Under Secretary of State for Finance, who told us that she knew nothing -at all about cooking. 'But surely, ma'am,' my niece chipped in with her -most winning smile, 'you ought to know everything about it, after all -the dishes your father had to wash.'" "Oh, I do love that story; I think -it's simply exquisite!" cried Mme. Swann. "But certainly on the Doctor's -consultation days you should make a point of being 'at home', among your -flowers and books and all your pretty things," she urged Mme. Cottard. -"Straight out like that! Bang! Right in the face; bang! She made no -bones about it, I can tell you! And she'd never said a word to me about -it, the little wretch; she's as cunning as a monkey. You are lucky to be -able to control yourself; I do envy people who can hide what is in their -minds." "But I've no need to do that, Mme. Bontemps, I'm not so hard to -please," Mme. Cottard gently expostulated. "For one thing, I'm not in -such a privileged position," she went on, slightly raising her voice as -was her custom, as though she were underlining the point of her remark, -whenever she slipped into the conversation any of those delicate -courtesies, those skilful flatteries which won her the admiration and -assisted the career of her husband. "And besides I'm only too glad to do -anything that can be of use to the Professor." - -"But, my dear, it isn't what one's glad to do; it's what one is able to -do! I expect you're not nervous. Do you know, whenever I see the War -Minister's wife making faces, I start copying her at once. It's a -dreadful thing to have a temperament like mine." - -"To be sure, yes," said Mme. Cottard, "I've heard people say that she -had a twitch; my husband knows someone else who occupies a very high -position, and it's only natural, when gentlemen get talking together..." - -"And then, don't you know, it's just the same with the Chief of the -Registry; he's a hunchback. Whenever he comes to see me, before he's -been in the room five minutes my fingers are itching to stroke his hump. -My husband says I'll cost him his place. What if I do! A fig for the -Ministry! Yes, a fig for the Ministry! I should like to have that -printed as a motto on my note-paper. I can see I am shocking you; you're -so frightfully proper, but I must say there's nothing amuses me like a -little devilry now and then. Life would be dreadfully monotonous without -it." - -And she went on talking about the Ministry all the time, as though it -had been Mount Olympus. To change the conversation, Mme. Swann turned to -Mme. Cottard: "But you're looking very smart to-day. Redfern _fecit_?" - -"No, you know, I always swear by Rauthnitz. Besides, it's only an old -thing I've had done up." "Not really! It's charming!" - -"Guess how much. . . . No, change the first figure!" - -"You don't say so! Why, that's nothing; it's given away! Three times -that at least, I should have said." "You see how history comes to be -written," apostrophised the doctor's wife. And pointing to a neck-ribbon -which had been a present from Mme. Swann; "Look, Odette! Do you -recognise this?" - -Through the gap between a pair of curtains a head peeped with -ceremonious deference, making a playful pretence of being afraid of -disturbing the party; it was Swann. "Odette, the Prince d'Agrigente is -with me in the study. He wants to know if he may pay his respects to -you. What am I to tell him?" "Why, that I shall be delighted," Odette -would reply, secretly flattered, but without losing anything of the -composure which came to her all the more easily since she had always, -even in her "fast" days, been accustomed to entertain men of fashion. -Swann disappeared to deliver the message, and would presently return -with the Prince, unless in the meantime Mme. Verdurin had arrived. When -he married Odette Swann had insisted on her ceasing to frequent the -little clan. (He had several good reasons for this stipulation, though, -had he had none, he would have made it just the same in obedience to a -law of ingratitude which admits no exception, and proves that every -"go-between" is either lacking in foresight or else singularly -disinterested.) He had conceded only that Odette and Mme. Verdurin might -exchange visits once a year, and even this seemed excessive to some of -the "faithful", indignant at the insult offered to the "Mistress" who -for so many years had treated Odette and even Swann himself as the -spoiled children of her house. For if it contained false brethren who -"failed" upon certain evenings in order that they might secretly accept -an invitation from Odette, ready, in the event of discovery, with the -excuse that they were curious to meet Bergotte (although the Mistress -assured them that he never went to the Swanns', and even if he did had -no vestige of talent, really--in spite of which she was making the most -strenuous efforts, to quote one of her favourite expressions, to -"attract" him), the little group had its "die-hards" also. And these, -though ignorant of those conventional refinements which often dissuade -people from the extreme attitude one would have liked to see them adopt -in order to annoy some one else, would have wished Mme. Verdurin, but -had never managed to prevail upon her to sever all connexion with -Odette, and thus deprive her of the satisfaction of saying, with a -mocking laugh: "We go to the Mistress's very seldom now, since the -Schism. It was all very well while my husband was still a bachelor, but -when one is married, you know, it isn't always so easy. . . . If you -must know, M. Swann can't abide old Ma Verdurin, and he wouldn't much -like the idea of my going there regularly, as I used to. And I, as a -dutiful spouse, don't you see . . .?" Swann would accompany his wife to -their annual evening there but would take care not to be in the room -when Mme. Verdurin came to call. And so, if the "Mistress" was in the -drawing-room, the Prince d'Agrigente would enter it alone. Alone, too, -he was presented to her by Odette, who preferred that Mme. Verdurin -should be left in ignorance of the names of her humbler guests, and so -might, seeing more than one strange face in the room, be led to believe -that she was mixing with the cream of the aristocracy, a device which -proved so far successful that Mme. Verdurin said to her husband, that -evening, with profound contempt: "Charming people, her friends! I met -all the fine flower of the Reaction!" Odette was living, with respect to -Mme. Verdurin, under a converse illusion. Not that the latter's salon -had ever begun, at that time, to develop into what we shall one day see -it to have become. Mme. Verdurin had not yet reached the period of -incubation in which one dispenses with one's big parties, where the few -brilliant specimens recently acquired would be lost in too numerous a -crowd, and prefers to wait until the generative force of the ten -righteous whom one has succeeded in attracting shall have multiplied -those ten seventy-fold. As Odette was not to be long now in doing, Mme. -Verdurin did indeed entertain the idea of "Society" as her final -objective, but her zone of attack was as yet so restricted, and moreover -so remote from that in which Odette had some chance of arriving at an -identical goal, of breaking the line of defence, that the latter -remained absolutely ignorant of the strategic plans which the "Mistress" -was elaborating. And it was with the most perfect sincerity that Odette, -when anyone spoke to her of Mme. Verdurin as a snob, would answer, -laughing, "Oh, no, quite the opposite! For one thing, she never gets a -chance of being a snob; she doesn't know anyone. And then, to do her -justice, I must say that she seems quite pleased not to know anyone. No, -what she likes are her Wednesdays, and people who talk well." And in her -hearts of hearts she envied Mme. Verdurin (for all that she did not -despair of having herself, in so eminent a school, succeeded in -acquiring them) those arts to which the "Mistress" attached such -paramount importance, albeit they did but discriminate between shades of -the Non-existent, sculpture the void, and were, properly speaking, the -Arts of Nonentity: to wit those, in the lady of a house, of knowing how -to "bring people together", how to "group", to "draw out", to "keep in -the background", to act as a "connecting link". - -In any case, Mme. Swann's friends were impressed when they saw in her -house a lady of whom they were accustomed to think only as in her own, -in an inseparable setting of her guests, amid the whole of her little -group which they were astonished to behold thus suggested, summarised, -assembled, packed into a single armchair in the bodily form of the -"Mistress", the hostess turned visitor, muffled in her cloak with its -grebe trimming, as shaggy as the white skins that carpeted that -drawing-room embowered in which Mme. Verdurin was a drawing-room in -herself. The more timid among the women thought it prudent to retire, -and using the plural, as people do when they mean to hint to the rest of -the room that it is wiser not to tire a convalescent who is out of bed -for the first time: "Odette," they murmured, "we are going to leave -you." They envied Mme. Cottard, whom the "Mistress" called by her -Christian name. "Can I drop you anywhere?" Mme. Verdurin asked her, -unable to bear the thought that one of the faithful was going to remain -behind instead of following her from the room. "Oh, but this lady has -been so very kind as to say, she'll take me," replied Mme. Cottard, not -wishing to appear to be forgetting, when approached by a more -illustrious personage, that she had accepted the offer which Mme. -Bontemps had made of driving her home behind her cockaded coachman. "I -must say that I am always specially grateful to the friends who are so -kind as to take me with them in their vehicles. It is a regular godsend -to me, who have no Automedon." "Especially," broke in the "Mistress", -who felt that she must say something, since she knew Mme. Bontemps -slightly and had just invited her to her Wednesdays, "as at Mme. de -Crécy's house you're not very near home. Oh, good gracious, I shall -never get into the way of saying Mme. Swann!" It was a recognised -pleasantry in the little clan, among those who were not over endowed -with wit, to pretend that they could never grow used to saying "Mme. -Swann." "I have been so accustomed to saying Mme. de Crécy that I -nearly went wrong again!" Only Mme. Verdurin, when she spoke to Odette, -was not content with the nearly, but went wrong on purpose. "Don't you -feel afraid, Odette, living out in the wilds like this? I'm sure I -shouldn't feel at all comfortable, coming home after dark. Besides, it's -so damp. It can't be at all good for your husband's eczema. You haven't -rats in the house, I hope!" "Oh, dear no. What a horrid idea!" "That's a -good thing; I was told you had. I'm glad to know it's not true, because -I have a perfect horror of the creatures, and I should never have come -to see you again. Good-bye, my dear child, we shall meet again soon; you -know what a pleasure it is to me to see you. You don't know how to put -your chrysanthemums in water," she went on, as she prepared to leave the -room, Mme. Swann having risen to escort her. "They are Japanese flowers; -you must arrange them the same way as the Japanese." "I do not agree -with Mme. Verdurin, although she is the Law and the Prophets to me in -all things! There's no one like you, Odette, for finding such lovely -chrysanthemums, or chrysanthema rather, for it seems that's what we -ought to call them now," declared Mme. Cottard as soon as the "Mistress" -had shut the door behind her. "Dear Mme. Verdurin is not always very -kind about other people's flowers," said Odette sweetly. "Whom do you go -to, Odette," asked Mme. Cottard, to forestall any further criticism of -the "Mistress". "Lemaître? I must confess, the other day in Lemaître's -window I saw a huge, great pink bush which made me do something quite -mad." But modesty forbade her to give any more precise details as to the -price of the bush, and she said merely that the Professor, "and you -know, he's not at all a quick-tempered man," had "waved his sword in the -air" and told her that she "didn't know what money meant." "No, no, I've -no regular florist except Debac." "Nor have I," said Mme. Cottard, "but -I confess that I am unfaithful to him now and then with Lachaume." "Oh, -you forsake him for Lachaume, do you; I must tell Debac that," retorted -Odette, always anxious to shew her wit, and to lead the conversation in -her own house, where she felt more at her ease than in the little clan. -"Besides, Lachaume is really becoming too dear; his prices are quite -excessive, don't you know; I find his prices impossible!" she added, -laughing. - -Meanwhile Mme. Bontemps, who had been heard a hundred times to declare -that nothing would induce her to go to the Verdurins', delighted at -being asked to the famous Wednesdays, was planning in her own mind how -she could manage to attend as many of them as possible. She was not -aware that Mme. Verdurin liked people not to miss a single one; also she -was one of those people whose company is but little sought, who, when a -hostess invites them to a series of parties, do not accept and go to -them without more ado, like those who know that if is always a pleasure -to see them, whenever they have a moment to spare and feel inclined to -go out; people of her type deny themselves it may be the first evening -and the third, imagining that their absence will be noticed, and save -themselves up for the second and fourth, unless it should happen that, -having heard from a trustworthy source that the third is to be a -particularly brilliant party, they reverse the original order, assuring -their hostess that "most unfortunately, we had another engagement last -week." So Mme. Bontemps was calculating how many Wednesdays there could -still be left before Easter, and by what means she might manage to -secure one extra, and yet not appear to be thrusting herself upon her -hostess. She relied upon Mme. Cottard, whom she would have with her in -the carriage going home, to give her a few hints. "Oh, Mme. Bontemps, I -see you getting up to go; it is very bad of you to give the signal for -flight like that! You owe me some compensation for not turning up last -Thursday. . . . Come, sit down again, just for a minute. You can't -possibly be going anywhere else before dinner. Really, you won't let -yourself be tempted?" went on Mme. Swann, and, as she held out a plate -of cakes, "You know, they're not at all bad, these little horrors. They -don't look nice, but just taste one, I know you'll like it." "On the -contrary, they look quite delicious," broke in Mme. Cottard. "In your -house, Odette, one is never short of victuals. I have no need to ask to -see the trade-mark; I know you get everything from Rebattet. I must say -that I am more eclectic. For sweet biscuits and everything of that sort -I repair, as often as not, to Bourbonneux. But I agree that they simply -don't know what an ice means. Rebattet for everything iced, and syrups -and sorbets; they're past-masters. As my husband would say, they're the -_ne plus ultra,_" "Oh, but we just make these in the house. You won't, -really?" "I shan't be able to eat a scrap of dinner," pleaded Mme. -Bontemps, "but I will just sit down again for a moment; you know, I -adore talking to a clever woman like you." "You will think me highly -indiscreet, Odette, but I should so like to know what you thought of the -hat Mme. Trombert had on. I know, of course, that big hats are the -fashion just now. All the same, wasn't it just the least little bit -exaggerated? And compared to the hat she came to see me in the other -day, the one she had on just now was microscopic!" "Oh no, I am not at -all clever," said Odette, thinking that this sounded well. "I am a -perfect simpleton, I believe everything people say, and worry myself to -death over the least thing." And she insinuated that she had, just at -first, suffered terribly from the thought of having married a man like -Swann, who had a separate life of his own and was unfaithful to her. -Meanwhile the Prince d'Agrigente, having caught the words "I am not at -all clever", thought it incumbent on him to protest; unfortunately he -had not the knack of repartee. "Tut, tut, tut, tut!" cried Mme. -Bontemps, "Not clever; you!" "That's just what I was saying to -myself--'What do I hear?'," the Prince clutched at this straw, "My ears -must have played me false!" "No, I assure you," went on Odette, "I am -really just an ordinary woman, very easily shocked, full of prejudices, -living in my own little groove and dreadfully ignorant." And then, in -case he had any news of the Baron de Charlus, "Have you seen our dear -Baronet?" she asked him. "You, ignorant!" cried Mme. Bontemps. "Then I -wonder what you'd say of the official world, all those wives of -Excellencies who can talk of nothing but their frocks. . . . Listen to -this, my friend; not more than a week ago I happened to mention -_Lohengrin_ to the Education Minister's wife. She stared at me, and said -'_Lohengrin?_ Oh, yes, the new review at the Folies-Bergères. I hear -it's a perfect scream!' What do you say to that, eh? You can't help -yourself; when people say things like that it makes your blood boil. I -could have struck her. Because I have a bit of a temper of my own. What -do you say, sir;" she turned to me, "was I not right?" "Listen," said -Mme. Cottard, "people can't help answering a little off the mark when -they're asked a thing like that point blank, without any warning. I know -something about it, because Mme. Verdurin also has a habit of putting a -pistol to your head." "Speaking of Mme. Verdurin," Mme. Bontemps asked -Mme. Cottard, "do you know who will be there on Wednesday? Oh, I've just -remembered that we've accepted an invitation for next Wednesday. You -wouldn't care to dine with us on Wednesday week? We could go on together -to Mme. Verdurin's. I should never dare to go there by myself; I don't -know why it is, that great lady always terrifies me." "I'll tell you -what it is," replied Mme. Cottard, "what frightens you about Mme. -Verdurin is her organ. But you see everyone can't have such a charming -organ as Mme. Swann. Once you've found your tongue, as the 'Mistress' -says, the ice will soon be broken. For she's a very easy person, really, -to get on with. But I can quite understand what you feel; it's never -pleasant to find oneself for the first time in a strange country." -"Won't you dine with us, too?" said Mme. Bontemps to Mme. Swann. "After -dinner we could all go to the Verdurins together, 'do a Verdurin'; and -even if it means that the 'Mistress' will stare me out of countenance -and never ask me to the house again, once we are there we'll just sit by -ourselves and have a quiet talk, I'm sure that's what I should like -best." But this assertion can hardly have been quite truthful, for Mme. -Bontemps went on to ask: "Who do you think will be there on Wednesday -week? What will they be doing? There won't be too big a crowd, I hope!" -"I certainly shan't be there," said Odette. "We shall just look in for -a minute on the last Wednesday of all. If you don't mind waiting till -then----" But Mme. Bontemps did not appear to be tempted by the -proposal. - -Granted that the intellectual distinction of a house and its smartness -are generally in inverse rather than direct ratio, one must suppose, -since Swann found Mme. Bontemps attractive, that any forfeiture of -position once accepted has the consequence of making us less particular -with regard to the people among whom we have resigned ourselves to -finding entertainment, less particular with regard to their intelligence -as to everything else about them. And if this be true, men, like -nations, must see their culture and even their language disappear with -their independence. One of the effects of this indulgence is to -aggravate the tendency which after a certain age we have towards finding -pleasure in speeches that are a homage to our own turn of mind, to our -weaknesses, an encouragement to us to yield to them; that is the age at -which a great artist prefers to the company of original minds that of -pupils who have nothing in common with him save the letter of his -doctrine, who listen to him and offer incense; at which a man or woman -of mark, who is living entirely for love, will find that the most -intelligent person in a gathering is one perhaps of no distinction, but -one who has shewn by some utterance that he can understand and approve -what is meant by an existence devoted to gallantry, and has thus -pleasantly excited the voluptuous instincts of the lover or mistress; it -was the age, too, at which Swann, in so far as he had become the husband -of Odette, enjoyed hearing Mme. Bontemps say how silly it was to have -nobody in one's house but duchesses (concluding from that, quite the -contrary of what he would have decided in the old days at the -Verdurins', that she was a good creature, extremely sensible and not at -all a snob) and telling her stories which made her "die, laughing" -because she had not heard them before, although she always "saw the -point" at once, liked flattering her for his own amusement. "Then the -Doctor is not mad about flowers, like you?" Mme. Swann asked Mme. -Cottard. "Oh, well, you know, my husband is a sage; he practises -moderation in all things. Yes, I must admit, he has a passion." Her eye -aflame with malice, joy, curiosity, "And what is that, pray?" inquired -Mme. Bontemps. Quite simply Mme. Cottard answered her, "Reading." "Oh, -that's a very restful passion in a husband!" cried Mme. Bontemps -suppressing an impish laugh. "When the Doctor gets a book in his hands, -you know!" "Well, that needn't alarm you much . . ." "But it does, for -his eyesight. I must go now and look after him, Odette, and I shall come -back on the very first opportunity and knock at your door. Talking of -eyesight, have you heard that the new house Mme. Verdurin has just -bought is to be lighted by electricity? I didn't get that from my own -little secret service, you know, but from quite a different source; it -was the electrician himself, Mildé, who told me. You see, I quote my -authorities! Even the bedrooms, he says, are to have electric lamps with -shades which will filter the light. It is evidently a charming luxury, -for those who can afford it. But it seems that our contemporaries must -absolutely have the newest thing if it's the only one of its kind in the -world. Just fancy, the sister-in-law of a friend of mine has had the -telephone installed in her house! She can order things from her -tradesmen without having to go out of doors! I confess that I've made -the most bare-faced stratagems to get permission to go there one day, -just to speak into the instrument. It's very tempting, but more in a -friend's house than at home. I don't think I should like to have the -telephone in my establishment. Once the first excitement is over, it -must be a perfect racket going on all the time. Now, Odette, I must be -off; you're not to keep Mme. Bontemps any longer, she's looking after -me. I must absolutely tear myself away; you're making me behave in a -nice way, I shall be getting home after my husband!" - -And for myself also it was time to return home, before I had tasted -those wintry delights of which the chrysanthemums had seemed to me to be -the brilliant envelope. These pleasures had not appeared, and yet Mme. -Swann did not look as though she expected anything more. She allowed the -servants to carry away the tea-things, as who should say "Time, please, -gentlemen!" And at last she did say to me: "Really, must you go? Very -well; good-bye!" I felt that I might have stayed there without -encountering those unknown pleasures, and that my unhappiness was not -the cause of my having to forego them. Were they to be found, then, -situated not upon that beaten track of hours which leads one always to -the moment of departure, but rather upon some cross-road unknown to me -along which I ought to have digressed? At least, the object of my visit -had been attained; Gilberte would know that I had come to see her -parents when she was not at home, and that I had, as Mme. Cottard had -incessantly assured me, "made a complete conquest, first shot, of Mme. -Verdurin," whom, she added, she had never seen "make so much" of anyone. -("You and she must have hooked atoms.") She would know that I had spoken -of her as was fitting, with affection, but that I had not that -incapacity for living without our seeing one another which I believed to -be at the root of the boredom that she had shewn at our last meetings. I -had told Mme. Swann that I should not be able to see Gilberte again. I -had said this as though I had finally decided not to see her any more. -And the letter which I was going to send Gilberte would be framed on -those lines. Only to myself, to fortify my courage, I proposed no more -than a supreme and concentrated effort, lasting a few days only. I said -to myself: "This is the last time that I shall refuse to meet her; I -shall accept the next invitation." To make our separation less difficult -to realise, I did not picture it to myself as final. But I knew very -well that it would be. - -The first of January was exceptionally painful to me that winter. So, no -doubt, is everything that marks a date and an anniversary when we are -unhappy. But if our unhappiness is due to the loss of some dear friend, -our suffering consists merely in an unusually vivid comparison of the -present with the past. There was added to this, in my case, the -unexpressed hope that Gilberte, having intended to leave me to take the -first steps towards a reconciliation, and discovering that I had not -taken them, had been waiting only for the excuse of New Year's Day to -write to me, saying: "What is the matter? I am madly in love with you; -come, and let us explain things properly; I cannot live without seeing -you." As the last days of the old year went by, such a letter began to -seem probable. It was, perhaps, nothing of the sort, but to make us -believe that such a thing is probable the desire, the need that we have -for it suffices. The soldier is convinced that a certain interval of -time, capable of being indefinitely prolonged, will be allowed him -before the bullet finds him, the thief before he is taken, men in -general before they have to die. That is the amulet which preserves -people--and sometimes peoples--not from danger but from the fear of -danger, in reality from the belief in danger, which in certain cases -allows them to brave it without their actually needing to be brave. It -is confidence of this sort, and with as little foundation, that sustains -the lover who is counting upon a reconciliation, upon a letter. For me -to cease to expect a letter it would have sufficed that I should have -ceased to wish for one. However unimportant one may know that one is in -the eyes of her whom one still loves, one attributes to her a series of -thoughts (though their sum total be indifference) the intention to -express those thoughts, a complication of her inner life in which one is -the constant object possibly of her antipathy but certainly of her -attention. But to imagine what was going on in Gilberte's mind I should -have required simply the power to anticipate on that New Year's Day what -I should feel on the first day of any of the years to come, when the -attention or the silence or the affection or the coldness of Gilberte -would pass almost unnoticed by me and I should not dream, should not -even be able to dream of seeking a solution of problems which would have -ceased to perplex me. When we are in love, our love is too big a thing -for us to be able altogether to contain it within us. It radiates -towards the beloved object, finds in her a surface which arrests it, -forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this shock of the -repercussion of our own affection which we call the other's regard for -ourselves, and which pleases us more then than on its outward journey -because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves. New -Year's Day rang out all its hours without there coming to me that letter -from Gilberte. And as I received a few others containing greetings tardy -or retarded by the overburdening of the mails at that season, on the -third and fourth of January I hoped still, but my hope grew hourly more -faint. Upon the days that followed I gazed through a mist of tears. This -undoubtedly meant that, having been less sincere than I thought in my -renunciation of Gilberte, I had kept the hope of a letter from her for -the New Year. And seeing that hope exhausted before I had had time to -shelter myself behind another, I suffered as would an invalid who had -emptied his phial of morphia without having another within his reach. -But perhaps also in my case--and these two explanations are not mutually -exclusive, for a single feeling is often made up of contrary -elements--the hope that I entertained of ultimately receiving a letter -had brought to my mind's eye once again the image of Gilberte, had -reawakened the emotions which the expectation of finding myself in her -presence, the sight of her, her way of treating me had aroused in me -before. The immediate possibility of a reconciliation had suppressed in -me that faculty the immense importance of which we are apt to overlook: -the faculty of resignation. Neurasthenics find it impossible to believe -the friends who assure them that they will gradually recover their peace -of mind if they will stay in bed and receive no letters, read no -newspapers. They imagine that such a course will only exasperate their -twitching nerves. And similarly lovers, who look upon it from their -enclosure in a contrary state of mind, who have not begun yet to make -trial of it, are unable to believe in the healing power of renunciation. - -In consequence of the violence of my palpitations, my doses of caffeine -were reduced; the palpitations ceased. Whereupon I asked myself whether -it was not to some extent the drug that had been responsible for the -anguish that I had felt when I came near to quarrelling with Gilberte, -an anguish which I had attributed, on every recurrence of it, to the -distressing prospect of never seeing my friend again or of running the -risk of seeing her only when she was a prey to the same ill-humour. But -if this medicine had been at the root of the sufferings which my -imagination must in that case have interpreted wrongly (not that there -would be anything extraordinary in that, seeing that, among lovers, the -most acute mental suffering assumes often the physical identity of the -woman with whom they are living), it had been, in that sense, like the -philtre which, long after they have drunk of it, continues to bind -Tristan to Isolde. For the physical improvement which the reduction of -my caffeine effected almost at once did not arrest the evolution of that -grief which my absorption of the toxin had perhaps--if it had not -created it--at any rate contrived to render more acute. - -Only, as the middle of the month of January approached, once my hopes of -a letter on New Year's Day had been disappointed, once the additional -disturbance that had come with their disappointment had grown calm, it -was my old sorrow, that of "before the holidays", which began again. -What was perhaps the most cruel thing about it was that I myself was its -architect, unconscious, wilful, merciless and patient. The one thing -that mattered, my relations with Gilberte, it was I who was labouring to -make them impossible by gradually creating out of this prolonged -separation from my friend, not indeed her indifference, but what would -come to the same thing in the end, my own. It was to a slow and painful -suicide of that part of me which was Gilberte's lover that I was goading -myself with untiring energy, with a clear sense not only of what I was -presently doing but of what must result from it in the future; I knew -not only that after a certain time I should cease to love Gilberte, but -also that she herself would regret it and that the attempts which she -would then make to see me would be as vain as those that she was making -now, no longer because I loved her too well but because I should -certainly be in love with some other woman whom I should continue to -desire, to wait for, through hours of which I should not dare to divert -any particle of a second to Gilberte who would be nothing to me then. -And no doubt at that very moment in which (since I was determined not to -see her again, unless after a formal request for an explanation or a -full confession of love on her part, neither of which was in the least -degree likely to come to me now) I had already lost Gilberte, and loved -her more than ever, and could feel all that she was to me better than in -the previous year when, spending all my afternoons in her company, or as -many as I chose, I believed that no peril threatened our friendship,--no -doubt at that moment the idea that I should one day entertain identical -feelings for another was odious to me, for that idea carried me away -beyond the range of Gilberte, my love and my sufferings. My love, my -sufferings in which through my tears I attempted to discern precisely -what Gilberte was, and was obliged to recognise that they did not -pertain exclusively to her but would, sooner or later, be some other -woman's portion. So that--or such, at least, was my way of thinking -then--we are always detached from our fellow-creatures; when a man loves -one of them he feels that his love is not labelled with their two names, -but may be born again in the future, may have been born already in the -past for another and not for her. And in the time when he is not in -love, if he makes up his mind philosophically as to what it is that is -inconsistent in love, he will find that the love of which he can speak -unmoved he did not, at the moment of speaking, feel, and therefore did -not know, knowledge in these matters being intermittent and not -outlasting the actual presence of the sentiment. That future in which I -should not love Gilberte, which my sufferings helped me to divine -although my imagination was not yet able to form a clear picture of it, -certainly there would still have been time to warn Gilberte that it was -gradually taking shape, that its coming was, if not imminent, at least -inevitable, if she herself, Gilberte, did not come to my rescue and -destroy in the germ my nascent indifference. How often was I not on the -point of writing, or of going to Gilberte to tell her: "Take care. My -mind is made up. What I am doing now is my supreme effort. I am seeing -you now for the last time. Very soon I shall have ceased to love you." -But to what end? By what authority should I have reproached Gilberte for -an indifference which, not that I considered myself guilty on that -count, I too manifested towards everything that was not herself? The -last time! To me, that appeared as something of immense significance, -because I was in love with Gilberte. On her it would doubtless have made -just as much impression as those letters in which our friends ask -whether they may pay us a visit before they finally leave the country, -an offer which, like those made by tiresome women who are in love with -us, we decline because we have pleasures of our own in prospect. The -time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions -that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit -fills up what remains. - -Besides, what good would it have done if I had spoken to Gilberte; she -would not have understood me. We imagine always when we speak that it is -our own ears, our own mind that are listening. My words would have come -to her only in a distorted form, as though they had had to pass through -the moving curtain of a waterfall before they reached my friend, -unrecognisable, giving a foolish sound, having no longer any kind of -meaning. The truth which one puts into one's words does not make a -direct path for itself, is not supported by irresistible evidence. A -considerable time must elapse before a truth of the same order can take -shape in the words themselves. Then the political opponent who, despite -all argument, every proof that he has advanced to damn the votary of the -rival doctrine as a traitor, will himself have come to share the hated -conviction by which he who once sought in vain to disseminate it is no -longer bound. Then the masterpiece of literature which for the admirers -who read it aloud seemed to make self-evident the proofs of its -excellence, while to those who listened it presented only a senseless or -common-place image, will by these too be proclaimed a masterpiece, but -too late for the author to learn of their discovery. Similarly in love -the barriers, do what one may, cannot be broken down from without by him -whom they maddeningly exclude; it is when he is no longer concerned with -them that suddenly, as the result of an effort directed from elsewhere, -accomplished within the heart of her who did not love him, those -barriers which he has charged without success will fall to no advantage. -If I had come to Gilberte to tell her of my future indifference and the -means of preventing it, she would have assumed from my action that my -love for her, the need that I had of her, were even greater than I had -supposed, and her distaste for the sight of me would thereby have been -increased. And incidentally it is quite true that it was that love for -her which helped me, by means of the incongruous states of mind which it -successively produced in me, to foresee, more clearly than she herself -could, the end of that love. And yet some such warning I might perhaps -have addressed, by letter or with my own lips, to Gilberte, after a long -enough interval, which would render her, it is true, less indispensable -to me, but would also have proved to her that she was not so -indispensable. Unfortunately certain persons--of good or evil -intent--spoke of me to her in a fashion which must have led her to think -that they were doing so at my request. Whenever I thus learned that -Cottard, my own mother, even M. de Norpois had by a few ill-chosen words -rendered useless all the sacrifice that I had just been making, wasted -all the advantage of my reserve by giving me, wrongly, the appearance of -having emerged from it, I was doubly angry. In the first place I could -no longer reckon from any date but the present my laborious and fruitful -abstention which these tiresome people had, unknown to me, interrupted -and so brought to nothing. And not only that; I should have less -pleasure in seeing Gilberte, who would think of me now no longer as -containing myself in dignified resignation, but as plotting in the dark -for an interview which she had scorned to grant me. I cursed all the -idle chatter of people who so often, without any intention of hurting us -or of doing us a service, for no reason, for talking's sake, often -because we ourselves have not been able to refrain from talking in their -presence, and because they are indiscreet (as we ourselves are), do us, -at a crucial moment, so much harm. It is true that in the grim operation -performed for the eradication of our love they are far from playing a -part equal to that played by two persons who are in the habit, from -excess of good nature in one and of malice in the other, of undoing -everything at the moment when everything is on the point of being -settled. But against these two persons we bear no such grudge as against -the inopportune Cottards of this world, for the latter of them is the -person whom we love and the former is ourself. - -Meanwhile, since on almost every occasion of my going to see her Mme. -Swann would invite me to come to tea another day, with her daughter, and -tell me to reply directly to her, I was constantly writing to Gilberte, -and in this correspondence I did not choose the expressions which might, -I felt, have won her over, sought only to carve out the easiest channel -for the torrent of my tears. For, like desire, regret seeks not to be -analysed but to be satisfied. When one begins to love, one spends one's -time, not in getting to know what one's love really is, but in making it -possible to meet next day. When one abandons love one seeks not to know -one's grief but to offer to her who is causing it that expression of it -which seems to one the most moving. One says the things which one feels -the need of saying, and which the other will not understand, one speaks -for oneself alone. I wrote; "I had thought that it would not be -possible. Alas, I see now that it is not so difficult." I said also: "I -shall probably not see you again;" I said it while I continued to avoid -shewing a coldness which she might think affected, and the words, as I -wrote them, made me weep because I felt that they expressed not what I -should have liked to believe but what was probably going to happen. For -at the next request for a meeting which she would convey to me I should -have again, as I had now, the courage not to yield, and, what with one -refusal and another, I should gradually come to the moment when, by -virtue of not having seen her again, I should not wish to see her. I -wept, but I found courage enough to sacrifice, I tasted the sweets of -sacrificing the happiness of being with her to the probability of -seeming attractive to her one day, a day when, alas, my seeming -attractive to her would be immaterial to me. Even the supposition, -albeit so far from likely, that at this moment, as she had pretended -during the last visit that I had paid her, she loved me, that what I -took for the boredom which one feels in the company of a person of whom -one has grown tired had been due only to a jealous susceptibility, to a -feint of indifference analogous to my own, only rendered my decision -less painful. It seemed to me that in years to come, when we had -forgotten one another, when I should be able to look back and tell her -that this letter which I was now in course of writing had not been for -one moment sincere, she would answer, "What, you really did love me, did -you? If you had only known how I waited for that letter, how I hoped -that you were coming to see me, how I cried when I read it." The -thought, while I was writing it, immediately on my return from her -mother's house, that I was perhaps helping to bring about that very -misunderstanding, that thought, by the sadness in which it plunged me, -by the pleasure of imagining that I was loved by Gilberte, gave me the -impulse to continue my letter. - -If, at the moment of leaving Mme. Swann, when her tea-party ended, I was -thinking of what I was going to write to her daughter, Mme. Cottard, as -she departed, had been filled with thoughts of a wholly different order. -On her little "tour of inspection" she had not failed to congratulate -Mme. Swann on the new "pieces", the recent "acquisitions" which caught -the eye in her drawing-room. She could see among them some, though only -a very few of the things that Odette had had in the old days in the Rue -La Pérouse, for instance her animals carved in precious stones, her -fetishes. - -For since Mme. Swann had picked up from a friend whose opinion she -valued the word "dowdy"--which had opened to her a new horizon because -it denoted precisely those things which a few years earlier she had -considered "smart"--all those things had, one after another, followed -into retirement the gilded trellis that had served as background to her -chrysanthemums, innumerable boxes of sweets from Giroux's, and the -coroneted note-paper (not to mention the coins of gilt pasteboard -littered about on the mantelpieces, which, even before she had come to -know Swann, a man of taste had advised her to sacrifice). Moreover in -the artistic disorder, the studio-like confusion of the rooms, whose -walls were still painted in sombre colours which made them as different -as possible from the white-enamelled drawing-rooms in which, a little -later, you were to find Mme. Swann installed, the Far East recoiled more -and more before the invading forces of the eighteenth-century; and the -cushions which, to make me "comfortable", Mme. Swann heaped up and -buffeted into position behind my back were sprinkled with Louis XV -garlands and not, as of old, with Chinese dragons. In the room in which -she was usually to be found, and of which she would say, "Yes, I like -this room; I use it a great deal. I couldn't live with a lot of horrid -vulgar things swearing at me all the time; this is where I do my -work----" though she never stated precisely at what she was working. Was -it a picture? A book, perhaps, for the hobby of writing was beginning to -become common among women who liked to "do something", not to be quite -useless. She was surrounded by Dresden pieces (having a fancy for that -sort of porcelain, which she would name with an English accent, saying -in any connexion: "How pretty that is; it reminds me of Dresden -flowers,"), and dreaded for them even more than in the old days for her -grotesque figures and her flower-pots the ignorant handling of her -servants who must expiate, every now and then, the anxiety that they had -caused her by submitting to outbursts of rage at which Swann, the most -courteous and considerate of masters, looked on without being shocked. -Not that the clear perception of certain weaknesses in those whom we -love in any way diminishes our affection for them; rather that affection -makes us find those weaknesses charming. Rarely nowadays was it in one -of those Japanese wrappers that Odette received her familiars, but -rather in the bright and billowing silk of a Watteau gown whose -flowering foam she made as though to caress where it covered her bosom, -and in which she immersed herself, looked solemn, splashed and sported, -with such an air of comfort, of a cool skin and long-drawn breath, that -she seemed to look on these garments not as something decorative, a mere -setting for herself, but as necessary, in the same way as her "tub" or -her daily "outing", to satisfy the requirements of her style of beauty -and the niceties of hygiene. She used often to say that she would go -without bread rather than give up "art" and "having nice things about -her", and that the burning of the "Gioconda" would distress her -infinitely more than the destruction, by the same element, of "millions" -of the people she knew. Theories which seemed paradoxical to her -friends, but made her pass among them as a superior woman, and qualified -her to receive a visit once a week from the Belgian Minister, so that in -the little world whose sun she was everyone would have been greatly -astonished to learn that elsewhere--at the Verdurins', for instance--she -was reckoned a fool. It was this vivacity of expression that made Mme. -Swann prefer men's society to women's. But when she criticised the -latter it was always from the courtesan's standpoint, singling out the -blemishes that might lower them in the esteem of men, a lumpy figure, a -bad complexion, inability to spell, hairy legs, foul breath, pencilled -eyebrows. But towards a woman who had shewn her kindness or indulgence -in the past she was more lenient, especially if this woman were now in -trouble. She would defend her warmly, saying: "People are not fair to -her. I assure you, she's quite a nice woman really." - -It was not only the furniture of Odette's drawing-room, it was Odette -herself that Mme. Cottard and all those who had frequented the society -of Mme. de Crécy would have found it difficult, if they had not seen -her for some little time, to recognise. She seemed to be so much -younger. No doubt this was partly because she had grown stouter, was in -better condition, seemed at once calmer, more cool, more restful, and -also because the new way in which she braided her hair gave more breadth -to a face which was animated by an application of pink powder, and into -which her eyes and profile, formerly too prominent, seemed now to have -been reabsorbed. But another reason for this change lay in the fact -that, having reached the turning-point of life, Odette had at length -discovered, or invented, a physiognomy of her own, an unalterable -"character", a "style of beauty", and on her incoherent features--which -for so long, exposed to every hazard, every weakness of the flesh, -borrowing for a moment, at the slightest fatigue, from the years to -come, a sort of flickering shadow of anility, had furnished her, well -or ill, according to how she was feeling, how she was looking, with a -countenance dishevelled, inconstant, formless and attractive--had now -set this fixed type, as it were an immortal youthfulness. - -Swann had in his room, instead of the handsome photographs that were now -taken of his wife, in all of which the same cryptic, victorious -expression enabled one to recognise, in whatever dress and hat, her -triumphant face and figure, a little old daguerreotype of her, quite -plain, taken long before the appearance of this new type, so that the -youth and beauty of Odette, which she had not yet discovered when it was -taken, appeared to be missing from it. But it is probable that Swann, -having remained constant, or having reverted to a different conception -of her, enjoyed in the slender young woman with pensive eyes and tired -features, caught in a pose between rest and motion, a more Botticellian -charm. For he still liked to recognise in his wife one of Botticelli's -figures. Odette, who on the other hand sought not to bring out but to -make up for, to cover and conceal the points in herself that did not -please her, what might perhaps to an artist express her "character" but -in her woman's eyes were merely blemishes, would not have that painter -mentioned in her presence. Swann had a wonderful scarf of oriental silk, -blue and pink, which he had bought because it was exactly that worn by -Our Lady in the _Magnificat._ But Mme. Swann refused to wear it. Once -only she allowed her husband to order her a dress covered all over with -daisies, cornflowers, forget-me-nots and campanulas, like that of the -Primavera. And sometimes in the evening, when she was tired, he would -quietly draw my attention to the way in which she was giving, quite -unconsciously, to her pensive hands the uncontrolled, almost distraught -movement of the Virgin who dips her pen into the inkpot that the angel -holds out to her, before writing upon the sacred page on which is -already traced the word "_Magnificat_". But he added, "Whatever you do, -don't say anything about it to her; if she knew she was doing it, she -would change her pose at once." - -Save at these moments of involuntary relaxation, in which Swann essayed -to recapture the melancholy cadence of Botticelli, Odette seemed now to -be cut out in a single figure, wholly confined within a line which, -following the contours of the woman, had abandoned the winding paths, -the capricious re-entrants and salients, the radial points, the -elaborate dispersions of the fashions of former days, but also, where it -was her anatomy that went wrong by making unnecessary digressions within -or without the ideal circumference traced for it, was able to rectify, -by a bold stroke, the errors of nature, to make up, along a whole -section of its course, for the failure as well of the human as of the -textile element. The pads, the preposterous "bustle" had disappeared, as -well as those tailed corsets which, projecting under the skirt and -stiffened by rods of whalebone, had so long amplified Odette with an -artificial stomach and had given her the appearance of being composed of -several incongruous pieces which there was no individuality to bind -together. The vertical fall of fringes, the curve of trimmings had made -way for the inflexion of a body which made silk palpitate as a siren -stirs the waves, gave to cambric a human expression now that it had been -liberated, like a creature that had taken shape and drawn breath, from -the long chaos and nebulous envelopment of fashions at length dethroned. -But Mme. Swann had chosen, had contrived to preserve some vestiges of -certain of these, in the very thick of the more recent fashions that had -supplanted them. When in the evening, finding myself unable to work and -feeling certain that Gilberte had gone to the theatre with friends, I -paid a surprise visit to her parents, I used often to find Mme. Swann in -an elegant dishabille the skirt of which, of one of those rich dark -colours, blood-red or orange, which seemed always as though they meant -something very special, because they were no longer the fashion, was -crossed diagonally, though not concealed, by a broad band of black lace -which recalled the flounces of an earlier day. When on a still chilly -afternoon in Spring she had taken me (before my rupture with her -daughter) to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, under her coat, which she -opened or buttoned up according as the exercise made her feel warm, the -dog-toothed border of her blouse suggested a glimpse of the lapel of -some non-existent waistcoat such as she had been accustomed to wear, -some years earlier, when she had liked their edges to have the same -slight indentations; and her scarf--of that same "Scotch tartan" to -which she had remained faithful, but whose tones she had so far -softened, red becoming pink and blue lilac, that one might almost have -taken it for one of those pigeon's-breast taffetas which were the latest -novelty--was knotted in such a way under her chin, without one's being -able to make out where it was fastened, that one could not help being -reminded of those bonnet-strings which were now no longer worn. She need -only "hold out" like this for a little longer and young men attempting -to understand her theory of dress would say: "Mme. Swann is quite a -period in herself, isn't she?" As in a fine literary style which -overlays with its different forms and so strengthens a tradition which -lies concealed among them, so in Mme. Swann's attire those half-hinted -memories of waistcoats or of ringlets, sometimes a tendency, at once -repressed, towards the "all aboard", or even a distant and vague -allusion to the "chase me" kept alive beneath the concrete form the -unfinished likeness of other, older forms which you would not have -succeeded, now, in making a tailor or a dressmaker reproduce, but about -which your thoughts incessantly hovered, and enwrapped Mme. Swann in a -cloak of nobility--perhaps because the sheer uselessness of these -fripperies made them seem meant to serve some more than utilitarian -purpose, perhaps because of the traces they preserved of vanished years, -or else because there was a sort of personality permeating this lady's -wardrobe, which gave to the most dissimilar of her costumes a distinct -family likeness. One felt that she did not dress simply for the comfort -or the adornment of her body; she was surrounded by her garments as by -the delicate and spiritualised machinery of a whole form of -civilisation. - -When Gilberte, who, as a rule, gave her tea-parties on the days when her -mother was "at home", had for some reason to go out, and I was therefore -free to attend Mme. Swann's "kettledrum", I would find her dressed in -one of her lovely gowns, some of which were of taffeta, others of -grosgrain, or of velvet, or of _crêpe-de-Chine_, or satin or silk, -gowns which, not being loose like those that she generally wore in the -house but buttoned up tight as though she were just going out in them, -gave to her stay-at-home laziness on those afternoons something alert -and energetic. And no doubt the daring simplicity of their cut was -singularly appropriate to her figure and to her movements, which her -sleeves appeared to be symbolising in colours that varied from day to -day: one would have said that there was a sudden determination in the -blue velvet, an easy-going good-humour in the white taffeta, and that a -sort of supreme discretion full of dignity in her way of holding out her -arm had, in order to become visible, put on the appearance, dazzling -with the smile of one who had made great sacrifices, of the black -_crêpe-de-Chine._ But at the same time these animated gowns took from -the complication of their trimmings, none of which had any practical -value or served any conceivable purpose, something detached, pensive, -secret, in harmony with the melancholy which Mme. Swann never failed to -shew, at least in the shadows under her eyes and the drooping arches of -her hands. Beneath the profusion of sapphire charms, enamelled four-leaf -clovers, silver medals, gold medallions, turquoise amulets, ruby chains -and topaz chestnuts there would be, on the dress itself, some design -carried out in colour which pursued across the surface of an inserted -panel a preconceived existence of its own, some row of little satin -buttons, which buttoned nothing and could not be unbuttoned, a strip of -braid that sought to please the eye with the minuteness, the discretion -of a delicate reminder; and these, as well as the trinkets, had the -effect--for otherwise there would have been no possible justification of -their presence--of disclosing a secret intention, being a pledge of -affection, keeping a secret, ministering to a superstition, -commemorating a recovery from sickness, a granted wish, a love affair or -a "philippine". And now and then in the blue velvet of the bodice a hint -of "slashes", in the Henri II style, in the gown of black satin a slight -swelling which, if it was in the sleeves, just below the shoulders, made -one think of the "leg of mutton" sleeves of 1830, or if, on the other -hand, it was beneath the skirt, with its Louis XV paniers, gave the -dress a just perceptible air of being "fancy dress" and at all events, -by insinuating beneath the life of the present day a vague reminiscence -of the past, blended with the person of Mme. Swann the charm of certain -heroines of history or romance. And if I were to draw her attention to -this: "I don't play golf," she would answer, "like so many of my -friends. So I should have no excuse for going about, as they do, in -sweaters." - -In the confusion of her drawing-room, on her way from shewing out one -visitor, or with a plateful of cakes to "tempt" another, Mme. Swann as -she passed by me would take me aside for a moment: "I have special -instructions from Gilberte that you are to come to luncheon the day -after to-morrow. As I wasn't sure of seeing you here, I was going to -write to you if you hadn't come." I continued to resist. And this -resistance was costing me steadily less and less, because, however much -one may love the poison that is destroying one, when one has -compulsorily to do without it, and has had to do without it for some -time past, one cannot help attaching a certain value to the peace of -mind which one had ceased to know, to the absence of emotion and -suffering. If one is not altogether sincere in assuring oneself that one -does not wish ever to see again her whom one loves, one would not be a -whit more sincere in saying that one would like to see her. For no doubt -one can endure her absence only when one promises oneself that it shall -not be for long, and thinks of the day on which one shall see her again, -but at the same time one feels how much less painful are those daily -recurring dreams of a meeting immediate and incessantly postponed than -would be an interview which might be followed by a spasm of jealousy, -with the result that the news that one is shortly to see her whom one -loves would cause a disturbance which would be none too pleasant. What -one procrastinates now from day to day is no longer the end of the -intolerable anxiety caused by separation, it is the dreaded renewal of -emotions which can lead to nothing. How infinitely one prefers to any -such interview the docile memory which one can supplement at one's -pleasure with dreams, in which she who in reality does not love one -seems, far from that, to be making protestations of her love for one, -when one is by oneself; that memory which one can contrive, by blending -gradually with it a portion of what one desires, to render as pleasing -as one may choose, how infinitely one prefers it to the avoided -interview in which one would have to deal with a creature to whom one -could no longer dictate at one's pleasure the words that one would like -to hear on her lips, but from whom one would meet with fresh coldness, -unlooked-for violence. We know, all of us, when we no longer love, that -forgetfulness, that even a vague memory do not cause us so much -suffering as an ill-starred love. It was of such forgetfulness that in -anticipation I preferred, without acknowledging it to myself, the -reposeful tranquillity. - -Moreover, whatever discomfort there may be in such a course of psychical -detachment and isolation grows steadily less for another reason, namely -that it weakens while it is in process of healing that fixed obsession -which is a state of love. Mine was still strong enough for me to be able -to count upon recapturing my old position in Gilberte's estimation, -which in view of my deliberate abstention must, it seemed to me, be -steadily increasing; in other words each of those calm and melancholy -days on which I did not see her, coming one after the other without -interruption, continuing too without prescription (unless some busy-body -were to meddle in my affairs), was a day not lost but gained. Gained to -no purpose, it might be, for presently they would be able to pronounce -that I was healed. Resignation, modulating our habits, allows certain -elements of our strength to be indefinitely increased. Those--so -wretchedly inadequate--that I had had to support my grief, on the first -evening of my rupture with Gilberte, had since multiplied to an -incalculable power. Only, the tendency which everything that exists has -to prolong its own existence is sometimes interrupted by sudden impulses -to which we give way with all the fewer scruples over letting ourselves -go since we know for how many days, for how many months even we have -been able, and might still be able to abstain. And often it is when the -purse in which we hoard our savings is nearly full that we undo and -empty it, it is without waiting for the result of our medical treatment -and when we have succeeded in growing accustomed to it that we abandon -it. So, one day, when Mme. Swann was repeating her familiar statement of -what a pleasure it would be to Gilberte to see me, thus putting the -happiness of which I had now for so long been depriving myself, as it -were within arm's length, I was stupefied by the realisation that it was -still possible for me to enjoy that pleasure, and I could hardly wait -until next day; when I had made up my mind to take Gilberte by surprise, -in the evening, before dinner. - -What helped me to remain patient throughout the long day that followed -was another plan that I had made. From the moment in which everything -was forgotten, in which I was reconciled to Gilberte, I no longer wished -to visit her save as a lover. Every day she should receive from me the -finest flowers that grew. And if Mme. Swann, albeit she had no right to -be too severe a mother, should forbid my making a daily offering of -flowers, I should find other gifts, more precious and less frequent. My -parents did not give me enough money for me to be able to buy expensive -things. I thought of a big bowl of old Chinese porcelain which had been -left to me by aunt Léonie, and of which Mamma prophesied daily that -Françoise would come running to her with an "Oh, it's all come to -pieces!" and that that would be the end of it. Would it not be wiser, in -that case, to part with it, to sell it so as to be able to give Gilberte -all the pleasure I could. I felt sure that I could easily get a thousand -francs for it. I had it tied up in paper; I had grown so used to it that -I had ceased altogether to notice it; parting with it had at least the -advantage of making me realise what it was like. I took it with me as I -started for the Swanns', and, giving the driver their address, told him -to go by the Champs-Elysées, at one end of which was the shop of a big -dealer in oriental things, who knew my father. Greatly to my surprise he -offered me there and then not one thousand but ten thousand francs for -the bowl. I took the notes with rapture. Every day, for a whole year, I -could smother Gilberte in roses and lilac. When I left the shop and got -into my cab again the driver (naturally enough, since the Swanns lived -out by the Bois) instead of taking the ordinary way began to drive me -along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. He had just passed the end of the -Rue de Berri when, in the failing light, I thought I saw, close to the -Swanns' house but going in the other direction, going away from it, -Gilberte, who was walking slowly, though with a firm step, by the side -of a young man with whom she was conversing, but whose face I could not -distinguish. I stood up in the cab, meaning to tell the driver to stop; -then hesitated. The strolling couple were already some way away, and the -parallel lines which their leisurely progress was quietly drawing were -on the verge of disappearing in the Elysian gloom. A moment later, I had -reached Gilberte's door. I was received by Mme. Swann. "Oh! she will be -sorry!" was my greeting, "I can't think why she isn't in. She came home -just now from a lesson, complaining of the heat, and said she was going -out for a little fresh air with another girl." "I fancy I passed her in -the Avenue des Champs-Elysées." "Oh, I don't think it can have been. -Anyhow, don't mention it to her father; he doesn't approve of her going -out at this time of night. Must you go? Good-bye." I left her, told my -driver to go home the same way, but found no trace of the two walking -figures. Where had they been? What were they saying to one another in -the darkness so confidentially? - -I returned home, desperately clutching my windfall of ten thousand -francs, which would have enabled me to arrange so many pleasant -surprises for that Gilberte whom now I had made up my mind never to see -again. No doubt my call at the dealer's had brought me happiness by -allowing me to expect that in future, whenever I saw my friend, she -would be pleased with me and grateful. But if I had not called there, if -my cabman had not taken the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, I should not -have seen Gilberte with that young man. Thus a single action may have -two contradictory effects, and the misfortune that it engenders cancel -the good fortune that it has already brought one. There had befallen me -the opposite of what so frequently happens. We desire some pleasure, and -the material means of obtaining it are lacking. "It is a mistake," -Labruyère tells us, "to be in love without an ample fortune." There is -nothing for it but to attempt a gradual elimination of our desire for -that pleasure. In my case, however, the material means had been -forthcoming, but at the same moment, if not by a logical effect, at any -rate as a fortuitous consequence of that initial success, my pleasure -had been snatched from me. As, for that matter, it seems as though it -must always be. As a rule, however, not on the same evening on which we -have acquired what makes it possible. Usually, we continue to struggle -and to hope for a little longer. But the pleasure can never be realised. -If we succeed in overcoming the force of circumstances, nature at once -shifts the battle-ground, placing it within ourselves, and effects a -gradual change in our heart until it desires something other than what -it is going to obtain. And if this transposition has been so rapid that -our heart has not had time to change, nature does not, on that account, -despair of conquering us, in a manner more gradual, it is true, more -subtle, but no less efficacious. It is then, at the last moment, that -the possession of our happiness is wrested from us, or rather it is that -very possession which nature, with diabolical cleverness, uses to -destroy our happiness. After failure in every quarter of the domain of -life and action, it is a final incapacity, the mental incapacity for -happiness that nature creates in us. The phenomenon of happiness either -fails to appear, or at once gives way to the bitterest of reactions. - -I put my ten thousand francs in a drawer. But they were no longer of any -use to me. I ran through them, as it happened, even sooner than if I had -sent flowers every day to Gilberte, for when evening came I was always -too wretched to stay in the house and used to go and pour out my sorrows -upon the bosoms of women whom I did not love. As for seeking to give any -sort of pleasure to Gilberte, I no longer thought of that; to visit her -house again now could only have added to my sufferings. Even the sight -of Gilberte, which would have been so exquisite a pleasure only -yesterday, would no longer have sufficed me. For I should have been -miserable all the time that I was not actually with her. That is how a -woman, by every fresh torture that she inflicts on us, increases, often -quite unconsciously, her power over us and at the same time our demands -upon her. With each injury that she does us, she encircles us more and -more completely, doubles our chains--but halves the strength of those -which hitherto we had thought adequate to bind her in order that we -might retain our own peace of mind. Only yesterday, had I not been -afraid of annoying Gilberte, I should have been content to ask for no -more than occasional meetings, which now would no longer have contented -me and for which I should now have substituted quite different terms. -For in this respect love is not like war; after the battle is ended we -renew the fight with keener ardour, which we never cease to intensify -the more thoroughly we are defeated, provided always that we are still -in a position to give battle. This was not my position with regard to -Gilberte. Also I preferred, at first, not to see her mother again. I -continued, it is true, to assure myself that Gilberte did not love me, -that I had known this for ever so long, that I could see her again if I -chose, and, if I did not choose, forget her in course of time. But these -ideas, like a remedy which has no effect upon certain complaints, had no -power whatsoever to obliterate those two parallel lines which I kept on -seeing, traced by Gilberte and the young man as they slowly disappeared -along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. This was a fresh misfortune, which -like the rest would gradually lose its force, a fresh image which would -one day present itself to my mind's eye completely purged of every -noxious element that it now contained, like those deadly poisons which -one can handle without danger, or like a crumb of dynamite which one can -use to light one's cigarette without fear of an explosion. Meanwhile -there was in me another force which was striving with all its might to -overpower that unwholesome force which still shewed me, without -alteration, the figure of Gilberte walking in the dusk: to meet and to -break the shock of the renewed assaults of memory, I had, toiling -effectively on the other side, imagination. The former force did indeed -continue to shew me that couple walking in the Champs-Elysées, and -offered me other disagreeable pictures drawn from the past, as for -instance Gilberte shrugging her shoulders when her mother asked her to -stay and entertain me. But the other force, working upon the canvas of -my hopes, outlined a future far more attractively developed than this -poor past which, after all, was so restricted. For one minute in which I -saw Gilberte's sullen face, how many were there in which I planned to my -own satisfaction all the steps that she was to take towards our -reconciliation, perhaps even towards our betrothal. It is true that this -force, which my imagination was concentrating upon the future, it was -drawing, for all that, from the past. I was still in love with her whom, -it is true, I believed that I detested. But whenever anyone told me that -I was looking well, or was nicely dressed, I wished that she could have -been there to see me. I was irritated by the desire that many people -shewed about this time to ask me to their houses, and refused all their -invitations. There was a scene at home because I did not accompany my -father to an official dinner at which the Bontemps were to be present -with their niece Albertine, a young girl still hardly more than a child. -So it is that the different periods of our life overlap one another. We -scornfully decline, because of one whom we love and who will some day be -of so little account, to see another who is of no account to-day, with -whom we shall be in love to-morrow, with whom we might, perhaps, had we -consented to see her now, have fallen in love a little earlier and who -would thus have put a term to our present sufferings, bringing others, -it is true, in their place. Mine were steadily growing less. I had the -surprise of discovering in my own heart one sentiment one day, another -the next, generally inspired by some hope or some fear relative to -Gilberte. To the Gilberte whom I kept within me. I ought to have -reminded myself that the other, the real Gilberte was perhaps entirely -different from mine, knew nothing of the regrets that I ascribed to her, -was thinking probably less about me, not merely than I was thinking -about her but than I made her be thinking about me when I was closeted -alone with my fictitious Gilberte, wondering what really were her -feelings with regard to me and so imagining her attention as constantly -directed towards myself. - -During those periods in which our bitterness of spirit, though steadily -diminishing, still persists, a distinction must be drawn between the -bitterness which comes to us from our constantly thinking of the person -herself and that which is revived by certain memories, some cutting -speech, some word in a letter that we have had from her. The various -forms which that bitterness can assume we shall examine when we come to -deal with another and later love affair; for the present it must suffice -to say that, of these two kinds, the former is infinitely the less -cruel. That is because our conception of the person, since it dwells -always within ourselves, is there adorned with the halo with which we -are bound before long to invest her, and bears the marks if not of the -frequent solace of hope, at any rate of the tranquillity of a permanent -sorrow. (It must also be observed that the image of a person who makes -us suffer counts for little if anything in those complications which -aggravate the unhappiness of love, prolong it and prevent our recovery, -just as in certain maladies the cause is insignificant beyond comparison -with the fever which follows it and the time that must elapse before our -convalescence.) But if the idea of the person whom we love catches and -reflects a ray of light from a mind which is on the whole optimistic, it -is not so with those special memories, those cutting words, that -inimical letter (I received only one that could be so described from -Gilberte); you would say that the person herself dwelt in those -fragments, few and scattered as they were, and dwelt there multiplied to -a power of which she falls ever so far short in the idea which we are -accustomed to form of her as a whole. Because the letter has not--as the -image of the beloved creature has--been contemplated by us in the -melancholy calm of regret; we have read it, devoured it in the fearful -anguish with which we were wrung by an unforeseen misfortune. Sorrows of -this sort come to us in another way; from without; and it is along the -road of the most cruel suffering that they have penetrated to our heart. -The picture of our friend in our mind, which we believe to be old, -original, authentic, has in reality been refashioned by her many times -over. The cruel memory is not itself contemporary with the restored -picture, it is of another age, it is one of the rare witnesses to a -monstrous past. But inasmuch as this past continues to exist, save in -ourself, who have been pleased to substitute for it a miraculous age of -gold, a paradise in which all mankind shall be reconciled, those -memories, those letters carry us back to reality, and cannot but make us -feel, by the sudden pang they give us, what a long way we have been -borne from that reality by the baseless hopes engendered daily while we -waited for something to happen. Not that the said reality is bound -always to remain the same, though that does indeed happen at times. -There are in our life any number of women whom we have never wished to -see again, and who have quite naturally responded to our in no way -calculated silence with a silence as profound. Only in their case as we -never loved them, we have never counted the years spent apart from them, -and this instance, which would invalidate our whole argument, we are -inclined to forget when we are considering the healing effect of -isolation, just as people who believe in presentiments forget all the -occasions on which their own have not "come true". - -But, after a time, absence may prove efficacious. The desire, the -appetite for seeing us again may after all be reborn in the heart which -at present contemns us. Only, we must allow time. Now the demands which -we ourselves make upon time are no less exorbitant than those of a heart -in process of changing. For one thing, time is the very thing that we -are least willing to allow, for our own suffering is keen and we are -anxious to see it brought to an end. And then, too, the interval of time -which the other heart needs to effect its change our own heart will have -spent in changing itself also, so that when the goal which we had -ourselves becomes attainable it will have ceased to count as a goal, or -to seem worth attaining. This idea, however, that it will be attainable, -that what, when it no longer spells any good fortune to us, we shall -ultimately secure is not good fortune, this idea embodies a part, but a -part only of the truth. Our good fortune accrues to us when we have -grown indifferent to it. But the very fact of our indifference will have -made us less exacting, and allow us in retrospect to feel convinced that -we should have been in raptures over our good fortune had it come at a -time when, very probably, it would have seemed to us miserably -inadequate. People are not very hard to satisfy nor are they very good -judges of matters in which they take no interest. The friendly overtures -of a person whom we no longer love, overtures which strike us, in our -indifference to her, as excessive, would perhaps have fallen a long way -short of satisfying our love. Those tender speeches, that invitation or -acceptance, we think only of the pleasure which they would have given -us, and not of all those other speeches and meetings by which we should -have wished to see them immediately followed, which we should, as likely -as not, simply by our avidity for them, have precluded from ever -happening. So that we can never be certain that the good fortune which -comes to us too late, when we are no longer in love, is altogether the -same as that good fortune the want of which made us, at one time, so -unhappy. There is only one person who could decide that; our ego of -those days; he is no longer with us, and were he to reappear, no doubt -that would be quite enough to make our good fortune--whether identical -or not--vanish. - -Pending these posthumous fulfilments of a dream in which I should not, -when the time came, be greatly interested, by dint of my having to -invent, as in the days when I still hardly knew Gilberte, speeches, -letters in which she implored my forgiveness, swore that she had never -loved anyone but myself and besought me to marry her, a series of -pleasant images incessantly renewed came by degrees to hold a larger -place in my mind than the vision of Gilberte and the young man, which -had nothing now to feed upon. At this point I should perhaps have -resumed my visits to Mme. Swann but for a dream that came to me, in -which one of my friends, who was not, however, one that I could -identify, behaved with the utmost treachery towards me and appeared to -believe that I had been treacherous to him. Abruptly awakened by the -pain which this dream had given me, and finding that it persisted after -I was awake, I turned my thoughts back to the dream, racked my brains to -discover who could have been the friend whom I had seen in my sleep, the -sound of whose name--a Spanish name--was no longer distinct in my ears. -Combining Joseph's part with Pharaoh's, I set to work to interpret my -dream. I knew that, when one is interpreting a dream, it is often a -mistake to pay too much attention to the appearance of the people one -saw in it, who may perhaps have been disguised or have exchanged faces, -like those mutilated saints on the walls of cathedrals which ignorant -archaeologists have restored, fitting the body of one to the head of -another and confusing all their attributes and names. Those that people -bear in a dream are apt to mislead us. The person with whom we are in -love is to be recognised only by the intensity of the pain that we -suffer. From mine I learned that, though transformed while I was asleep -into a young man, the person whose recent betrayal still hurt me was -Gilberte. I remembered then that, the last time I had seen her, on the -day when her mother had forbidden her to go out to a dancing lesson, she -had, whether in sincerity or in make-believe, declined, laughing in a -strange manner, to believe in the genuineness of my feeling for her. And -by association this memory brought back to me another. Long before that, -it had been Swann who would not believe in my sincerity, nor that I was -a suitable friend for Gilberte. In vain had I written to him, Gilberte -had brought back my letter and had returned it to me with the same -incomprehensible laugh. She had not returned it to me at once: I -remembered now the whole of that scene behind the clump of laurels. As -soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral. Gilberte's recent antipathy -for me seemed to me a judgment delivered on me by life for my conduct -that afternoon. Such judgments one imagines one can escape because one -looks out for carriages when one is crossing the street, and avoids -obvious dangers. But there are others that take effect within us. The -accident comes from the side to which one has not been looking, from -inside, from the heart. Gilberte's words: "If you like, we might go on -wrestling," made me shudder. I imagined her behaving like that, at home -perhaps, in the linen-room, with the young man whom I had seen escorting -her along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. And so, just as when, a little -time back, I had believed myself to be calmly established in a state of -happiness, it had been fatuous in me, now that I had abandoned all -thought of happiness, to take for granted that at least I had grown and -was going to remain calm. For, so long as our heart keeps enshrined with -any permanence the image of another person, it is not only our happiness -that may at any moment be destroyed; when that happiness has vanished, -when we have suffered, and, later, when we have succeeded in lulling our -sufferings to sleep, the thing then that is as elusive, as precarious as -ever our happiness was is our calm. Mine returned to me in the end, for -the cloud which, lowering our resistance, tempering our desires, has -penetrated, in the train of a dream, the enclosure of our mind, is -bound, in course of time, to dissolve, permanence and stability being -assured to nothing in this world, not even to grief. Besides, those -whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their -own physicians. As consolation can come to them only from the person who -is the cause of their grief, and as their grief is an emanation from -that person, it is there, in their grief itself, that they must in the -end find a remedy: which it will disclose to them at a given moment, for -the longer they turn it over in their minds this grief will continue to -shew them fresh aspects of the loved, the regretted creature, at one -moment so intensely hateful that one has no longer the slightest desire -to see her, since before finding enjoyment in her company one would have -first to make her suffer, at another so pleasant that the pleasantness -in which one has invested her one adds to her own stock of good -qualities and finds in it a fresh reason for hope. But even although the -anguish that had reawakened in me did at length grow calm, I no longer -wished--except just occasionally--to visit Mme. Swann. In the first -place because, among those who love and have been forsaken, the state of -incessant--even if unconfessed--expectancy in which they live undergoes -a spontaneous transformation, and, while to all appearance unchanged, -substitutes for its original elements others that are precisely the -opposite. The first were the consequences of--a reaction from the -painful incidents which had upset us. The tension of waiting for what is -yet to come is mingled with fear, all the more since we desire at such -moments, should no message come to us from her whom we love, to act for -ourselves, and are none too confident of the success of a step which, -once we have taken it, we may find it impossible to follow up. But -presently, without our having noticed any change, this tension, which -still endures, is sustained, we discover, no longer by our recollection -of the past but by anticipation of an imaginary future. From that moment -it is almost pleasant. Besides, the first state, by continuing for some -time, has accustomed us to living in expectation. The suffering that we -felt during those last meetings survives in us still, but is already -lulled to sleep. We are in no haste to arouse it, especially as we do -not see very clearly what to ask for now. The possession of a little -more of the woman whom we love would only make more essential to us the -part that we did not yet possess, which is bound to remain, whatever -happens, since our requirements are begotten of our satisfactions, an -irreducible quantity. - -Another, final reason came later on to reinforce this, and to make me -discontinue altogether my visits to Mme. Swann. This reason, slow in -revealing itself, was not that I had now forgotten Gilberte but that I -must make every effort to forget her as speedily as possible. No doubt, -now that the keen edge of my suffering was dulled, my visits to Mme. -Swann had become once again, for what sorrow remained in me, the -sedative and distraction which had been so precious to me at first. But -what made the sedative efficacious made the distraction impossible, -namely that with these visits the memory of Gilberte was intimately -blended. The distraction would be of no avail to me unless it was -employed to combat a sentiment which the presence of Gilberte no longer -nourished, thoughts, interests, passions in which Gilberte should have -no part. These states of consciousness, to which the person whom we love -remains a stranger, then occupy a place which, however small it may be -at first, is always so much reconquered from the love that has been in -unchallenged possession of our whole soul. We must seek to encourage -these thoughts, to make them grow, while the sentiment which is no more -now than a memory dwindles, so that the new elements introduced into our -mind contest with that sentiment, wrest from it an ever increasing part -of our soul, until at last the victory is complete. I decided that this -was the only way in which my love could be killed, and I was still young -enough, still courageous enough to undertake the attempt, to subject -myself to that most cruel grief which springs from the certainty that, -whatever time one may devote to the effort, it will prove successful in -the end. The reason I now gave in my letters to Gilberte for refusing to -see her was an allusion to some mysterious misunderstanding, wholly -fictitious, which was supposed to have arisen between her and myself, -and as to which I had hoped at first that Gilberte would insist upon my -furnishing her with an explanation. But, as a matter of fact, never, -even in the most insignificant relations in life, does a request for -enlightenment come from a correspondent who knows that an obscure, -untruthful, incriminating sentence has been written on purpose, so that -he shall protest against it, and is only too glad to feel, when he reads -it, that he possesses--and to keep in his own hands--the initiative in -the coming operations. For all the more reason is this so in our more -tender relations, in which love is endowed with so much eloquence, -indifference with so little curiosity. Gilberte having never appeared to -doubt nor sought to learn more about this misunderstanding, it became -for me a real entity, to which I referred anew in every letter. And -there is in these baseless situations, in the affectation of coldness a -sort of fascination which tempts one to persevere in them. By dint of -writing: "Now that our hearts are sundered," so that Gilberte might -answer: "But they are not. Do explain what you mean," I had gradually -come to believe that they were. By constantly repeating, "Life may have -changed for us, it will never destroy the feeling that we had for one -another," in the hope of hearing myself, one day, say: "But there has -been no change, the feeling is stronger now than ever it was," I was -living with the idea that life had indeed changed, that we should keep -only the memory of a feeling which no longer existed, as certain -neurotics, from having at first pretended to be ill, end by becoming -chronic invalids. Now, whenever I had to write to Gilberte, I brought my -mind back to this imagined change, which, being now tacitly admitted by -the silence which she preserved with regard to it in her replies, would -in future subsist between us. Then Gilberte ceased to make a point of -ignoring it. She too adopted my point of view; and, as in the speeches -at official banquets, when the foreign Sovereign who is being -entertained adopts practically the same expressions as have just been -used by the Sovereign who is entertaining him, whenever I wrote to -Gilberte: "Life may have parted us; the memory of the days when we knew -one another will endure," she never failed to respond: "Life may have -parted us; it cannot make us forget those happy hours which will always -be dear to us both," (though we should have found it hard to say why or -how "Life" had parted us, or what change had occurred). My sufferings -were no longer excessive. And yet, one day when I was telling her in a -letter that I had heard of the death of our old barley-sugar woman in -the Champs-Elysées, as I wrote the words: "I felt at once that this -would distress you, in me it awakened a host of memories," I could not -restrain myself from bursting into tears when I saw that I was speaking -in the past tense, as though it were of some dead friend, now almost -forgotten, of this love of which in spite of myself I had never ceased -to think as of a thing still alive, or one that at least might be born -again. Nothing can be more affectionate than this sort of correspondence -between friends who do not wish to see one another any more. Gilberte's -letters to me had all the delicate refinement of those which I used to -write to people who did not matter, and shewed me the same apparent -marks of affection, which it was so pleasant for me to receive from her. - -But, as time went on, every refusal to see her disturbed me less. And as -she became less dear to me, my painful memories were no longer strong -enough to destroy by their incessant return the growing pleasure which I -found in thinking of Florence, or of Venice. I regretted, at such -moments, that I had abandoned the idea of diplomacy and had condemned -myself to a sedentary existence, in order not to be separated from a -girl whom I should not see again and had already almost forgotten. We -construct our house of life to suit another person, and when at length -it is ready to receive her that person does not come; presently she is -dead to us, and we live on, a prisoner within the walls which were -intended only for her. If Venice seemed to my parents to be a long way -off, and its climate treacherous, it was at least quite easy for me to -go, without tiring myself, and settle down at Balbec. But to do that I -should have had to leave Paris, to forego those visits thanks to which, -infrequent as they were, I might sometimes hear Mme. Swann telling me -about her daughter. Besides, I was beginning to find in them various -pleasures in which Gilberte had no part. - -When spring drew round, and with it the cold weather, during an icy Lent -and the hailstorms of Holy Week, as Mme. Swann began to find it cold in -the house, I used often to see her entertaining her guests in her furs, -her shivering hands and shoulders hidden beneath the gleaming white -carpet of an immense rectangular muff and a cape, both of ermine, which -she had not taken off on coming in from her drive, and which suggested -the last patches of the snows of winter, more persistent than the rest, -which neither the heat of the fire nor the advancing season had -succeeded in melting. And the whole truth about these glacial but -already flowering weeks was suggested to me in this drawing-room, which -soon I should be entering no more, by other more intoxicating forms of -whiteness, that for example of the guelder-roses clustering, at the -summits of their tall bare stalks, like the rectilinear trees in -pre-raphaelite paintings, their balls of blossom, divided yet composite, -white as annunciating angels and breathing a fragrance as of lemons. For -the mistress of Tansonville knew that April, even an ice-bound April was -not barren of flowers, that winter, spring, summer are not held apart by -barriers as hermetic as might be supposed by the town-dweller who, until -the first hot day, imagines the world as containing nothing but houses -that stand naked in the rain. That Mme. Swann was content with the -consignments furnished by her Combray gardener, that she did not, by the -intervention of her own "special" florist, fill up the gaps left by an -insufficiently powerful magic with subsidies borrowed from a precocious -Mediterranean shore, I do not for a moment suggest, nor did it worry me -at the time. It was enough to fill me with longing for country scenes -that, overhanging the loose snowdrifts of the muff in which Mme. Swann -kept her hands, the guelder-rose snow-balls (which served very possibly -in the mind of my hostess no other purpose than to compose, on the -advice of Bergotte, a 'Symphony in White' with her furniture and her -garments) reminded me that what the Good Friday music in _Parsifal_ -symbolised was a natural miracle which one could see performed every -year, if one had the sense to look for it, and, assisted by the acid and -heady perfume of the other kinds of blossom, which, although their names -were unknown to me, had brought me so often to a standstill to gaze at -them on my walks round Combray, made Mme. Swann's drawing-room as -virginal, as candidly "in bloom", without the least vestige of greenery, -as overladen with genuine scents of flowers as was the little lane by -Tansonville. - -But it was still more than I could endure that these memories should be -recalled to me. There was a risk of their reviving what little remained -of my love for Gilberte. Besides, albeit I no longer felt the least -distress during these visits to Mme. Swann, I extended the intervals -between them and endeavoured to see as little of her as possible. At -most, since I continued not to go out of Paris, I allowed myself an -occasional walk with her. Fine weather had come at last, and the sun was -hot. As I knew that before luncheon Mme. Swann used to go out every day -for an hour, and would stroll for a little in the Avenue du Bois, near -the Etoile--a spot which, at that time, because of the people who used -to collect there to gaze at the "swells" whom they knew only by name, -was known as the "Shabby-Genteel Club"--I persuaded my parents, on -Sundays, (for on weekdays I was busy all morning), to let me postpone my -luncheon until long after theirs, until a quarter past one, and go for a -walk before it. During May, that year, I never missed a Sunday, for -Gilberte had gone to stay with friends in the country. I used to reach -the Arc-de-Triomphe about noon. I kept watch at the entrance to the -Avenue, never taking my eyes off the corner of the side-street along -which Mme. Swann, who had only a few yards to walk, would come from her -house. As by this time many of the people who had been strolling there -were going home to luncheon, those who remained were few in number and, -for the most part, fashionably dressed. Suddenly, on the gravelled path, -unhurrying, cool, luxuriant, Mme. Swann appeared, displaying around her -a toilet which was never twice the same, but which I remember as being -typically mauve; then she hoisted and unfurled at the end of its long -stalk, just at the moment when her radiance was most complete, the -silken banner of a wide parasol of a shade that matched the showering -petals of her gown. A whole troop of people escorted her; Swann himself, -four or five fellows from the Club, who had been to call upon her that -morning or whom she had met in the street: and their black or grey -agglomeration, obedient to her every gesture, performing the almost -mechanical movements of a lifeless setting in which Odette was framed, -gave to this woman, in whose eyes alone was there any intensity, the air -of looking out in front of her, from among all those men, as from a -window behind which she had taken her stand, and made her emerge there, -frail but fearless, in the nudity of her delicate colours, like the -apparition of a creature of a different species, of an unknown race, and -of almost martial strength, by virtue of which she seemed by herself a -match for all her multiple escort. Smiling, rejoicing in the fine -weather, in the sunshine which had not yet become trying, with the air -of calm assurance of a creator who has accomplished his task and takes -no thought for anything besides; certain that her clothes--even though -the vulgar herd should fail to appreciate them--were the smartest -anywhere to be seen, she wore them for herself and for her friends, -naturally, without exaggerated attention to them but also without -absolute detachment; not preventing the little bows of ribbon upon her -bodice and skirt from floating buoyantly upon the air before her, like -separate creatures of whose presence there she was not unconscious, but -was indulgent enough to let them play if they chose, keeping their own -rhythm, provided that they accompanied her where she led the way; and -even upon her mauve parasol, which, as often as not, she had not yet -"put up" when she appeared on the scene, she let fall now and then, as -though upon a bunch of Parma violets, a gaze happy and so kindly that, -when it was fastened no longer upon her friends but on some inanimate -object, her eyes still seemed to smile. She thus kept open, she made her -garments occupy that interval of smartness, of which the men with whom -she was on the most familiar terms respected both the existence and its -necessity, not without shewing a certain deference, as of profane -visitors to a shrine, an admission of their own ignorance, an interval -over which they recognised that their friend had (as we recognise that a -sick man has over the special precautions that he has to take, or a -mother over her children's education) a competent jurisdiction. No less -than by the court which encircled her and seemed not to observe the -passers-by, Mme. Swann by the lateness of her appearance there at once -suggested those rooms in which she had spent so long, so leisurely a -morning and to which she must presently return for luncheon; she seemed -to indicate their proximity by the unhurrying ease of her progress, like -the turn that one takes up and down one's own garden of those rooms one -would have said that she was carrying about her still the cool, the -indoor shade. But for that very reason the sight of her gave me only a -stronger sensation of open air and warmth. All the more because, being -assured in my own mind that, in accordance with the liturgy, with the -ritual in which Mme. Swann was so profoundly versed, her clothes were -connected with the time of year and of day by a bond both inevitable and -unique, I felt that the flowers upon the stiff straw brim of her hat, -the baby-ribbons upon her dress had been even more naturally born of the -month of May than the flowers in gardens and in woods; and to learn what -latest change there was in weather or season I had not to raise my eyes -higher than to her parasol, open and outstretched like another, a nearer -sky, round, clement, mobile, blue. For these rites, if they were of -sovereign importance, subjugated their glory (and, consequently, Mme. -Swann her own) in condescending obedience to the day, the spring, the -sun, none of which struck me as being sufficiently flattered that so -elegant a woman had been graciously pleased not to ignore their -existence, and had chosen on their account a gown of a brighter, of a -thinner fabric, suggesting to me, by the opening of its collar and -sleeves, the moist warmness of the throat and wrists that they -exposed,--in a word, had taken for them all the pains that a great -personage takes who, having gaily condescended to pay a visit to common -folk in the country, whom everyone, even the most plebeian, knows, yet -makes a point of donning, for the occasion, suitable attire. On her -arrival I would greet Mme. Swann, she stop me and say (in English) "Good -morning," and smile. We would walk a little way together. And I learned -then that these canons according to which she dressed, it was for her -own satisfaction that she obeyed them, as though yielding to a Superior -Wisdom of which she herself was High Priestess: for if it should happen -that, feeling too warm, she threw open or even took off altogether and -gave me to carry the jacket which she had intended to keep buttoned up, -I would discover in the blouse beneath it a thousand details of -execution which had had every chance of remaining there unperceived, -like those parts of an orchestral score to which the composer has -devoted infinite labour albeit they may never reach the ears of the -public: or in the sleeves of the jacket that lay folded across my arm I -would see, I would drink in slowly, for my own pleasure or from -affection for its wearer, some exquisite detail, a deliciously tinted -strip, a lining of mauve satinette which, ordinarily concealed from -every eye, was yet just as delicately fashioned as the outer parts, like -those gothic carvings on a cathedral, hidden on the inside of a -balustrade eighty feet from the ground, as perfect as are the -bas-reliefs over the main porch, and yet never seen by any living man -until, happening to pass that way upon his travels, an artist obtains -leave to climb up there among them, to stroll in the open air, sweeping -the whole town with a comprehensive gaze, between the soaring towers. - -What enhanced this impression that Mme. Swann was walking in the Avenue -as though along the paths of her own garden, was--for people ignorant of -her habit of "taking exercise"--that she had come there on foot, without -any carriage following, she whom, once May had begun, they were -accustomed to see, behind the most brilliant "turn-out", the smartest -liveries in Paris, gently and majestically seated, like a goddess, in -the balmy air of an immense victoria on eight springs. On foot Mme. -Swann had the appearance--especially as her pace began to slacken in the -heat of the sun--of having yielded to curiosity, of committing an -"exclusive" breach of all the rules of her code, like those Crowned -Heads who, without consulting anyone, accompanied by the slightly -scandalised admiration of a suite which dares not venture any criticism, -step out of their boxes during a gala performance and visit the lobby of -the theatre, mingling for a moment or two with the rest of the audience. -So between Mme. Swann and themselves the crowd felt that there existed -those barriers of a certain kind of opulence which seem to them the most -insurmountable that there are. The Faubourg Saint-Germain may have its -barriers also, but these are less "telling" to the eyes and imagination -of the "shabby-genteel". These latter, when in the presence of a real -personage, more simple, more easily mistaken for the wife of a small -professional or business man, less remote from the people, will not feel -the same sense of their own inequality, almost of their unworthiness, as -dismays them when they encounter Mme. Swann. Of course women of that -sort are not themselves dazzled, as the crowd are, by the brilliance of -their apparel, they have ceased to pay any attention to it, but only -because they have grown used to it, that is to say have come to look -upon it more and more as natural and necessary, to judge their fellow -creatures according as they are more or less initiated into these -luxurious ways: so that (the grandeur which they allow themselves to -display or discover in others being wholly material, easily verified, -slowly acquired, the lack of it hard to compensate) if such women place -a passer-by in the lowest rank of society, it is by the same instinctive -process that has made them appear to him as in the highest, that is to -say instinctively, at first sight, and without possibility of appeal. -Perhaps that special class of society which included in those days women -like Lady Israels, who mixed with the women of the aristocracy, and Mme. -Swann, who was to get to know them later on, that intermediate class, -inferior to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, since it "ran after" the -denizens of that quarter, but superior to everything that was not of the -Faubourg Saint-Germain, possessing this peculiarity that, while already -detached from the world of the merely rich, it was riches still that it -represented, but riches that had been canalised, serving a purpose, -swayed by an idea that were artistic, malleable gold, chased with a -poetic design, taught to smile; perhaps that class--in the same form, at -least, and with the same charm--exists no longer. In any event, the -women who were its members would not satisfy to-day what was the primary -condition on which they reigned, since with advancing age they have -lost--almost all of them--their beauty. Whereas it was (just as much as -from the pinnacle of her noble fortune) from the glorious zenith of her -ripe and still so fragrant summer that Mme. Swann, majestic, smiling, -kind, as she advanced along the Avenue du Bois, saw like Hypatia, -beneath the slow tread of her feet, worlds revolving. Various young men -as they passed looked at her anxiously, not knowing whether their vague -acquaintance with her (especially since, having been introduced only -once, at the most, to Swann, they were afraid that he might not remember -them) was sufficient excuse for their venturing to take off their hats. -And they trembled to think of the consequences as they made up their -minds, asking themselves whether the gesture, so bold, so sacrilegious a -tempting of providence, would not let loose the catastrophic forces of -nature or bring down upon them the vengeance of a jealous god. It -provoked only, like the winding of a piece of clockwork, a series of -gesticulations from little, responsive bowing figures, who were none -other than Odette's escort, beginning with Swann himself, who raised his -tall hat lined in green leather with an exquisite courtesy, which he had -acquired in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, but to which was no longer -wedded the indifference that he would at one time have shewn. Its place -was now taken (as though he had been to some extent permeated by -Odette's prejudices) at once by irritation at having to acknowledge the -salute of a person who was none too well dressed and by satisfaction at -his wife's knowing so many people, a mixed sensation to which he gave -expression by saying to the smart friends who walked by his side: "What! -another! Upon my word, I can't imagine where my wife picks all these -fellows up!" Meanwhile, having greeted with a slight movement of her -head the terrified youth, who had already passed out of sight though his -heart was still beating furiously, Mme. Swann turned to me: "Then it's -all over?" she put it to me, "You aren't ever coming to see Gilberte -again? I'm glad you make an exception of me, and are not going to 'drop' -me straight away. I like seeing you, but I used to like also the -influence you had over my daughter. I'm sure she's very sorry about it, -too. However, I mustn't bully you, or you'll make up your mind at once -that you never want to set eyes on me again." "Odette, Sagan's trying to -speak to you!" Swann called his wife's attention. And there, indeed, was -the Prince, as in some transformation scene at the close of a play, or -in a circus, or an old painting, wheeling his horse round so as to face -her, in a magnificent heroic pose, and doffing his hat with a sweeping -theatrical and, so to speak, allegorical flourish in which he displayed -all the chivalrous courtesy of a great noble bowing in token of his -respect for Woman, were she incarnate in a woman whom it was impossible -for his mother or his sister to know. And at every moment, recognised in -the depths of the liquid transparency and of the luminous glaze of the -shadow which her parasol cast over her, Mme. Swann was receiving the -salutations of the last belated horsemen, who passed as though in a -cinematograph taken as they galloped in the blinding glare of the -Avenue, men from the clubs, whose names of whom, which meant only -celebrities to the public, Antoine de Castellane, Adalbert de -Montmorency and the rest--were for Mme. Swann the familiar names of -friends. And as the average span of life, the relative longevity of our -memories of poetical sensations is much greater than that of our -memories of what the heart has suffered, long after the sorrows that I -once felt on Gilberte's account have faded and vanished, there has -survived them the pleasure that I still derive--whenever I close my eyes -and read, as it were upon the face of a sundial, the minutes that are -recorded between a quarter past twelve and one o'clock in the month of -May--from seeing myself once again strolling and talking thus with Mme. -Swann beneath her parasol, as though in the coloured shade of a wistaria -bower. - - - - -_PLACE-NAMES: THE PLACE_ - - -I had arrived at a state almost of complete indifference to Gilberte -when, two years later, I went with my grandmother to Balbec. When I -succumbed to the attraction of a strange face, when it was with the help -of some other girl that I hoped to discover gothic cathedrals, the -palaces and gardens of Italy, I said to myself sadly that this love of -ours, in so far as it is love for one particular creature, is not -perhaps a very real thing, since if the association of pleasant or -unpleasant trains of thought can attach it for a time to a woman so as -to make us believe that it has been inspired by her, in a necessary -sequence of effect to cause, yet when we detach ourselves, deliberately -or unconsciously, from those associations, this love, as though it were -indeed a spontaneous thing and sprang from ourselves alone, will revive -in order to bestow itself on another woman. At the time, however, of my -departure for Balbec, and during the earlier part of my stay there, my -indifference was still only intermittent. Often, our life being so -careless of chronology, interpolating so many anachronisms in the -sequence of our days, I lived still among those--far older days than -yesterday or last week--in which I loved Gilberte. And at once not -seeing her became as exquisite a torture to me as it had been then. The -self that had loved her, which another self had already almost entirely -supplanted, rose again in me, stimulated far more often by a trivial -than by an important event. For instance, if I may anticipate for a -moment my arrival in Normandy, I heard some one who passed me on the -sea-front at Balbec refer to the "Secretary to the Ministry of Posts and -his family". Now, seeing that as yet I knew nothing of the influence -which that family was to exercise over my life, this remark ought to -have passed unheeded; instead, it gave me at once an acute twinge, which -a self that had for the most part long since been outgrown in me felt at -being parted from Gilberte. Because I had never given another thought to -a conversation which Gilberte had had with her father in my hearing, in -which allusion was made to the Secretary to the Ministry of Posts and -his family. Now our love memories present no exception to the general -rules of memory, which in turn are governed by the still more general -rules of Habit. And as Habit weakens every impression, what a person -recalls to us most vividly is precisely what we had forgotten, because -it was of no importance, and had therefore left in full possession of -its strength. That is why the better part of our memory exists outside -ourself, in a blatter of rain, in the smell of an unaired room or of the -first crackling brushwood fire in a cold grate: wherever, in short, we -happen upon what our mind, having no use for it, had rejected, the last -treasure that the past has in store, the richest, that which when all -our flow of tears seems to have dried at the source can make us weep -again. Outside ourself, did I say; rather within ourself, but hidden -from our eyes in an oblivion more or less prolonged. It is thanks to -this oblivion alone that we can from time to time recover the creature -that we were, range ourself face to face with past events as that -creature had to face them, suffer afresh because we are no longer -ourself but he, and because he loved what leaves us now indifferent. In -the broad daylight of our ordinary memory the images of the past turn -gradually pale and fade out of sight, nothing remains of them, we shall -never find them again. Or rather we should never find them again had not -a few words (such as this "Secretary to the Ministry of Posts") been -carefully locked away in oblivion, just as an author deposits in the -National Library a copy of a book which might otherwise become -unobtainable. - -But this suffering and this recrudescence of my love for Gilberte lasted -no longer than such things last in a dream, and this time, on the -contrary, because at Balbec the old Habit was no longer there to keep -them alive. And if these two effects of Habit appear to be incompatible, -that is because Habit is bound by a diversity of laws. In Paris I had -grown more and more indifferent to Gilberte, thanks to Habit. The change -of habit, that is to say the temporary cessation of Habit, completed -Habit's task when I started for Balbec. It weakens, but it stabilises; -it leads to disintegration but it makes the scattered elements last -indefinitely. Day after day, for years past, I had begun by modelling my -state of mind, more or less effectively, upon that of the day before. At -Balbec, a strange bed, to the side of which a tray was brought in the -morning that differed from my Paris breakfast tray, could not, -obviously, sustain the fancies upon which my love for Gilberte had fed: -there are cases (though not, I admit, commonly) in which, one's days -being paralysed by a sedentary life, the best way to save time is to -change one's place of residence. My journey to Balbec was like the first -outing of a convalescent who needed only that to convince him that he -was cured. - -The journey was one that would now be made, probably, in a motor-car, -which would be supposed to render it more interesting. We shall see too -that, accomplished in such a way, it would even be in a sense more -genuine, since one would be following more nearly, in a closer intimacy, -the various contours by which the surface of the earth is wrinkled. But -after all the special attraction of the journey lies not in our being -able to alight at places on the way and to stop altogether as soon as we -grow tired, but in its making the difference between departure and -arrival not as imperceptible but as intense as possible, so that we are -conscious of it in its totality, intact, as it existed in our mind when -imagination bore us from the place in which we were living right to the -very heart of a place we longed to see, in a single sweep which seemed -miraculous to us not so much because it covered a certain distance as -because it united two distinct individualities of the world, took us -from one name to another name; and this difference is accentuated (more -than in a form of locomotion in which, since one can stop and alight -where one chooses, there can scarcely be said to be any point of -arrival) by the mysterious operation that is performed in those peculiar -places, railway stations, which do not constitute, so to speak, a part -of the surrounding town but contain the essence of its personality just -as upon their sign-boards they bear its painted name. - -But in this respect as in every other, our age is infected with a mania -for shewing things only in the environment that properly belongs to -them, thereby suppressing the essential thing, the act of the mind which -isolated them from that environment. A picture is nowadays "presented" -in the midst of furniture, ornaments, hangings of the same period, a -second-hand scheme of decoration in the composition of which in the -houses of to-day excels that same hostess who but yesterday was so -crassly ignorant, but now spends her time poring over records and in -libraries; and among these the masterpiece at which we glance up from -the table while we dine does not give us that exhilarating delight which -we can expect from it only in a public gallery, which symbolises far -better by its bareness, by the absence of all irritating detail, those -innermost spaces into which the artist withdrew to create it. - -Unhappily those marvellous places which are railway stations, from which -one sets out for a remote destination, are tragic places also, for if in -them the miracle is accomplished whereby scenes which hitherto have had -no existence save in our minds are to become the scenes among which we -shall be living, for that very reason we must, as we emerge from the -waiting-room, abandon any thought of finding ourself once again within -the familiar walls which, but a moment ago, were still enclosing us. We -must lay aside all hope of going home to sleep in our own bed, once we -have made up our mind to penetrate into the pestiferous cavern through -which we may have access to the mystery, into one of those vast, -glass-roofed sheds, like that of Saint-Lazare into which I must go to -find the train for Balbec, and which extended over the rent bowels of -the city one of those bleak and boundless skies, heavy with an -accumulation of dramatic menaces, like certain skies painted with an -almost Parisian modernity by Mantegna or Veronese, beneath which could -be accomplished only some solemn and tremendous act, such as a departure -by train or the Elevation of the Cross. - -So long as I had been content to look out from the warmth of my own bed -in Paris at the Persian church of Balbec, shrouded in driving sleet, no -sort of objection to this journey had been offered by my body. Its -objections began only when it had gathered that it would have itself to -take part in the journey, and that on the evening of my arrival I should -be shewn to "my" room which to my body would be unknown. Its revolt was -all the more deep-rooted in that on the very eve of my departure I -learned that my mother would not be coming with us, my father, who would -be kept busy at the Ministry until it was time for him to start for -Spain with M. de Norpois, having preferred to take a house in the -neighbourhood of Paris. On the other hand, the spectacle of Balbec -seemed to me none the less desirable because I must purchase it at the -price of a discomfort which, on the contrary, I felt to indicate and to -guarantee the reality of the impression which I was going there to seek, -an impression the place of which no spectacle of professedly equal -value, no "panorama" which I might have gone to see without being -thereby precluded from returning home to sleep in my own bed, could -possibly have filled. It was not for the first time that I felt that -those who love and those who find pleasure are not always the same. I -believed myself to be longing fully as much for Balbec as the doctor who -was treating me, when he said to me, surprised, on the morning of our -departure, to see me look so unhappy; "I don't mind telling you that if -I could only manage a week to go down and get a blow by the sea, I -shouldn't wait to be asked twice. You'll be having races, regattas; you -don't know what all!" But I had already learned the lesson--long before -I was taken to hear Berma--that, whatever it might be that I loved, it -would never be attained save at the end of a long and heart-rending -pursuit, in the course of which I should have first to sacrifice my own -pleasure to that paramount good instead of seeking it there. - -My grandmother, naturally enough, looked upon our exodus from a somewhat -different point of view, and (for she was still as anxious as ever that -the presents which were made me should take some artistic form) had -planned, so that she might be offering me, of this journey, a "print" -that was, at least, in parts "old", that we should repeat, partly by -rail and partly by road, the itinerary that Mme. de Sévigné followed -when she went from Paris to "L'Orient" by way of Chaulnes and "the -Pont-Audemer". But my grandmother had been obliged to abandon this -project, at the instance of my father who knew, whenever she organised -any expedition with a view to extracting from it the utmost intellectual -benefit that it was capable of yielding, what a tale there would be to -tell of missed trains, lost luggage, sore throats and broken rules. She -was free at least to rejoice in the thought that never, when the time -came for us to sally forth to the beach, should we be exposed to the -risk of being kept indoors by the sudden appearance of what her beloved -Sévigné calls a "beast of a coachload", since we should know not a -soul at Balbec, Legrandin having refrained from offering us a letter of -introduction to his sister. (This abstention had not been so well -appreciated by my aunts Céline and Flora, who, having known as a child -that lady, of whom they had always spoken until then, to commemorate -this early intimacy, as "Renée de Cambremer", and having had from her -and still possessing a number of those little presents which continue to -ornament a room or a conversation but to which the feeling between the -parties no longer corresponds, imagined that they were avenging the -insult offered to us by never uttering again, when they called upon Mme. -Legrandin, the name of her daughter, confining themselves to a mutual -congratulation, once they were safely out of the house: "I made no -reference to you know whom!" "I think that went home!") - -And so we were simply to leave Paris by that one twenty-two train which -I had too often beguiled myself by looking out in the railway -time-table, where its itinerary never failed to give me the emotion, -almost the illusion of starting by it, not to feel that I already knew -it. As the delineation in our mind of the features of any form of -happiness depends more on the nature of the longings that it inspires in -us than the accuracy of the information which we have about it, I felt -that I knew this train in all its details, nor did I doubt that I should -feel, sitting in one of its compartments, a special delight as the day -began to cool, should be contemplating this or that view as the train -approached one or another station; so much so that this train, which -always brought to my mind's eye the images of the same towns, which I -bathed in the sunlight of those post-meridian hours through which it -sped, seemed to me to be different from every other train; and I had -ended--as we are apt to do with a person whom we have never seen but of -whom we like to believe that we have won his friendship--by giving a -distinct and unalterable cast of countenance to the traveller, artistic, -golden-haired, who would thus have taken me with him upon his journey, -and to whom I should bid farewell beneath the Cathedral of Saint-Lô, -before he hastened to overtake the setting sun. - -As my grandmother could not bring herself to do anything so "stupid" as -to go straight to Balbec, she was to break the journey half-way, staying -the night with one of her friends, from whose house I was to proceed the -same evening, so as not to be in the way there and also in order that I -might arrive by daylight and see Balbec church, which, we had learned, -was at some distance from Balbec-Plage, so that I might not have a -chance to visit it later on, when I had begun my course of baths. And -perhaps it was less painful for me to feel that the desirable goal of my -journey stood between me and that cruel first night on which I should -have to enter a new habitation, and consent to dwell there. But I had -had first to leave the old; my mother had arranged to "move in", that -afternoon, at Saint-Cloud, and had made, or pretended to make all the -arrangements for going there directly after she had seen us off at the -station, without needing to call again at our own house to which she was -afraid that I might otherwise feel impelled at the last moment, instead -of going to Balbec, to return with her. In fact, on the pretext of -having so much to see to in the house which she had just taken and of -being pressed for time, but in reality so as to spare me the cruel -ordeal of a long-drawn parting, she had decided not to wait with us -until that moment of the signal to start at which, concealed hitherto -among ineffective comings and goings and preparations that lead to -nothing definite, separation is made suddenly manifest, impossible to -endure when it is no longer possibly to be avoided, concentrated in its -entirety in one enormous instant of impotent and supreme lucidity. - -For the first time I began to feel that it was possible that my mother -might live without me, otherwise than for me, a separate life. She was -going to stay with my father, whose existence it may have seemed to her -that my feeble health, my nervous excitability complicated somewhat and -saddened. This separation made me all the more wretched because I told -myself that it probably marked for my mother an end of the successive -disappointments which I had caused her, of which she had never said a -word to me but which had made her realise the difficulty of our taking -our holidays together; and perhaps also the first trial of a form of -existence to which she was beginning, now, to resign herself for the -future, as the years crept on for my father and herself, an existence in -which I should see less of her, in which (a thing that not even in my -nightmares had yet been revealed to me) she would already have become -something of a stranger, a lady who might be seen going home by herself -to a house in which I should not be, asking the porter whether there was -not a letter for her from me. - -I could scarcely answer the man in the station who offered to take my -bag. My mother, to comfort me, tried the methods which seemed to her -most efficacious. Thinking it to be useless to appear not to notice my -unhappiness, she gently teased me about it: - -"Well, and what would Balbec church say if it knew that people pulled -long faces like that when they were going to see it? Surely this is not -the enraptured tourist Ruskin speaks of. Besides, I shall know if you -rise to the occasion, even when we are miles apart I shall still be with -my little man. You shall have a letter to-morrow from Mamma." - -"My dear," said my grandmother, "I picture you like Mme. de Sévigné, -your eyes glued to the map, and never losing sight of us for an -instant." - -Then Mamma sought to distract my mind, asked me what I thought of having -for dinner, drew my attention to Françoise, complimented her on a hat -and cloak which she did not recognise, in spite of their having -horrified her long ago when she first saw them, new, upon my great-aunt, -one with an immense bird towering over it, the other decorated with a -hideous pattern and jet beads. But the cloak having grown too shabby to -wear, Françoise had had it turned, exposing an "inside" of plain cloth -and quite a good colour. As for the bird, it had long since come to -grief and been thrown away. And just as it is disturbing, sometimes, to -find the effects which the most conscious artists attain only by an -effort occurring in a folk-song, on the wall of some peasant's cottage -where above the door, at the precisely right spot in the composition, -blooms a white or yellow rose--so the velvet band, the loop of ribbon -which would have delighted one in a portrait by Chardin or Whistler, -Françoise had set with a simple but unerring taste upon the hat, which -was now charming. - -To take a parallel from an earlier age, the modesty and integrity which -often gave an air of nobility to the face of our old servant having -spread also to the garments which, as a woman reserved but not humbled, -who knew how to hold her own and to keep her place, she had put on for -the journey so as to be fit to be seen in our company without at the -same time seeming or wishing to make herself conspicuous,--Françoise in -the cherry-coloured cloth, now faded, of her cloak, and the discreet nap -of her fur collar, brought to mind one of those miniatures of Anne of -Brittany painted in Books of Hours by an old master, in which everything -is so exactly in the right place, the sense of the whole is so evenly -distributed throughout the parts that the rich and obsolete singularity -of the costume expresses the same pious gravity as the eyes, lips and -hands. - -Of thought, in relation to Françoise, one could hardly speak. She knew -nothing, in that absolute sense in which to know nothing means to -understand nothing, save the rare truths to which the heart is capable -of directly attaining. The vast world of ideas existed not for her. But -when one studied the clearness of her gaze, the lines of nose and lips, -all those signs lacking from so many people of culture in whom they -would else have signified a supreme distinction, the noble detachment of -a chosen spirit, one was disquieted, as one is by the frank, intelligent -eyes of a dog, to which, nevertheless, one knows that all our human -concepts must be alien, and was led to ask oneself whether there might -not be, among those other humble brethren, our peasant countrymen, -creatures who were, like the great ones of the earth, of simple mind, or -rather, doomed by a harsh fate to live among the simple-minded, deprived -of heavenly light, were yet more naturally, more instinctively akin to -the chosen spirits than most educated people, were, so to speak, all -members, though scattered, straying, robbed of their heritage of reason, -of the celestial family, kinsfolk, that have been lost in infancy, of -the loftiest minds to whom--as is apparent from the unmistakable light -in their eyes, although they can concentrate that light on -nothing--there has been lacking, to endow them with talent, knowledge -only. - -My mother, seeing that I had difficulty in keeping back my tears, said -to me: "'Regulus was in the habit, when things looked grave. . . .' -Besides, it isn't nice for Mamma! What does Mme. de Sévigné say? Your -grandmother will tell you: 'I shall be obliged to draw upon all the -courage that you lack.'" And remembering that affection for another -distracts one's selfish griefs, she endeavoured to beguile me by telling -me that she expected the removal to Saint-Cloud to go without a hitch, -that she liked the cab, which she had kept waiting, that the driver -seemed civil and the seats comfortable. I made an effort to smile at -these trifles, and bowed my head with an air of acquiescence and -satisfaction. But they helped me only to depict to myself with more -accuracy Mamma's imminent departure, and it was with an agonised heart -that I gazed at her as though she were already torn from me, beneath -that wide-brimmed straw hat which she had bought to wear in the country, -in a flimsy dress which she had put on in view of the long drive through -the sweltering midday heat; hat and dress making her some one else, some -one who belonged already to the Villa Montretout, in which I should not -see her. - -To prevent the choking fits which the journey might otherwise give me -the doctor had advised me to take, as we started, a good stiff dose of -beer or brandy, so as to begin the journey in a state of what he called -"euphoria", in which the nervous system is for a time less vulnerable. -I had not yet made up my mind whether I should do this, but I wished at -least that my grandmother should admit that, if I did so decide, I -should have wisdom and authority on my side. I spoke therefore as if my -hesitation were concerned only with where I should go for my drink, to -the bar on the platform or to the restaurant-car on the train. But -immediately, at the air of reproach which my grandmothers face assumed, -an air of not wishing even to entertain such an idea for a moment, -"What!" I said to myself, suddenly determining upon this action of going -out to drink, the performance of which became necessary as a proof of my -independence since the verbal announcement of it had not succeeded in -passing unchallenged, "What! You know how ill I am, you know what the -doctor ordered, and you treat me like this!" - -When I had explained to my grandmother how unwell I felt, her distress, -her kindness were so apparent as she replied, "Run along then, quickly; -get yourself some beer or a liqueur if it will do you any good," that I -flung myself upon her, almost smothering her in kisses. And if after -that I went and drank a great deal too much in the restaurant-car of the -train, that was because I felt that otherwise I should have a more -violent attack than usual, which was just what would vex her most. When -at the first stop I clambered back into our compartment I told my -grandmother how pleased I was to be going to Balbec, that I felt that -everything would go off splendidly, that after all I should soon grow -used to being without Mamma, that the train was most comfortable, the -steward and attendants in the bar so friendly that I should like to make -the journey often so as to have opportunities of seeing them again. My -grandmother, however, did not appear to feel the same joy as myself at -all these good tidings. She answered, without looking me in the face: - -"Why don't you try to get a little sleep?" and turned her gaze to the -window, the blind of which, though we had drawn it, did not completely -cover the glass, so that the sun could and did slip in over the polished -oak of the door and the cloth of the seat (like an advertisement of a -life shared with nature far more persuasive than those posted higher -upon the walls of the compartment, by the railway company, representing -places in the country the names of which I could not make out from where -I sat) the same warm and slumberous light which lies along a forest -glade. - -But when my grandmother thought that my eyes were shut I could see her, -now and again, from among the large black spots on her veil, steal a -glance at me, then withdraw it, and steal back again, like a person -trying to make himself, so as to get into the habit, perform some -exercise that hurts him. - -Thereupon I spoke to her, but that seemed not to please her either. And -yet to myself the sound of my own voice was pleasant, as were the most -imperceptible, the most internal movements of my body. And so I -endeavoured to prolong it. I allowed each of my inflexions to hang -lazily upon its word, I felt each glance from my eyes arrive just at the -spot to which it was directed and stay there beyond the normal period. -"Now, now, sit still and rest," said my grandmother. "If you can't -manage to sleep, read something." And she handed me a volume of Madame -de Sévigné which I opened, while she buried herself in the _Mémoires -de Madame de Beausergent._ She never travelled anywhere without a volume -of each. They were her two favourite authors. With no conscious movement -of my head, feeling a keen pleasure in maintaining a posture after I had -adopted it, I lay back holding in my hands the volume of Madame de -Sévigné which I had allowed to close, without lowering my eyes to it, -or indeed letting them see anything but the blue window-blind. But the -contemplation of this blind appeared to me an admirable thing, and I -should not have troubled to answer anyone who might have sought to -distract me from contemplating it. The blue colour of this blind seemed -to me, not perhaps by its beauty but by its intense vivacity, to efface -so completely all the colours that had passed before my eyes from the -day of my birth up to the moment in which I had gulped down the last of -my drink and it had begun to take effect, that when compared with this -blue they were as drab, as void as must be retrospectively the darkness -in which he has lived to a man born blind whom a subsequent operation -has at length enabled to see and to distinguish colours. An old -ticket-collector came to ask for our tickets. The silvery gleam that -shone from the metal buttons of his jacket charmed me in spite of my -absorption. I wanted to ask him to sit down beside us. But he passed on -to the next carriage, and I thought with longing of the life led by -railwaymen for whom, since they spent all their time on the line, hardly -a day could pass without their seeing this old collector. The pleasure -that I found in staring at the blind, and in feeling that my mouth was -half-open, began at length to diminish. I became more mobile; I even -moved in my seat; I opened the book that my grandmother had given me and -turned its pages casually, reading whatever caught my eye. And as I read -I felt my admiration for Madame de Sévigné grow. - -It is a mistake to let oneself be taken in by the purely formal details, -idioms of the period or social conventions, the effect of which is that -certain people believe that they have caught the Sévigné manner when -they have said: "Tell me, my dear," or "That Count struck me as being a -man of parts," or "Haymaking is the sweetest thing in the world." Mme. -de Simiane imagines already that she is being like her grandmother -because she can write: "M. de la Boulie is bearing wonderfully, Sir, and -is in excellent condition to hear the news of his death," or "Oh, my -dear Marquis, how your letter enchanted me! What can I do but answer -it?" or "Meseems, Sir, that you owe me a letter, and I owe you some -boxes of bergamot. I discharge my debt to the number of eight; others -shall follow. . . . Never has the soil borne so many. Apparently for -your gratification." And she writes in this style also her letter on -bleeding, on lemons and so forth, supposing it to be typical of the -letters of Madame de Sévigné. But my grandmother who had approached -that lady from within, attracted to her by her own love of kinsfolk and -of nature, had taught me to enjoy the real beauties of her -correspondence, which are altogether different. They were presently to -strike me all the more forcibly inasmuch as Madame de Sévigné is a -great artist of the same school as a painter whom I was to meet at -Balbec, where his influence on my way of seeing things was immense. I -realised at Balbec that it was in the same way as he that she presented -things to her readers, in the order of our perception of them, instead -of first having to explain them in relation to their several causes. But -already that afternoon in the railway carriage, as I read over again -that letter in which the moonlight comes: "I cannot resist the -temptation: I put on all my bonnets and veils, though there is no need -of them, I walk along this mall, where the air is as sweet as in my -chamber; I find a thousand phantasms, monks white and black, sisters -grey and white, linen cast here and there on the ground, men enshrouded -upright against the tree-trunks," I was enraptured by what, a little -later, I should have described (for does not she draw landscapes in the -same way as he draws characters?) as the Dostoievsky side of Madame de -Sévigné's Letters. - -When, that evening, after having accompanied my grandmother to her -destination and spent some hours in her friend's house, I had returned -by myself to the train, at any rate I found nothing to distress me in -the night which followed; this was because I had not to spend it in a -room the somnolence of which would have kept me awake; I was surrounded -by the soothing activity of all those movements of the train which kept -me company, offered to stay and converse with me if I could not sleep, -lulled me with their sounds which I wedded--as I had often wedded the -chime of the Combray bells--now to one rhythm now to another (hearing as -the whim took me first four level and equivalent semi-quavers, then one -semi-quaver furiously dashing against a crotchet); they neutralised the -centrifugal force of my insomnia by exercising upon it a contrary -pressure which kept me in equilibrium and on which my immobility and -presently my drowsiness felt themselves to be borne with the same sense -of refreshment that I should have had, had I been resting under the -protecting vigilance of powerful forces, on the breast of nature and of -life, had I been able for a moment to incarnate myself in a fish that -sleeps in the sea, driven unheeding by the currents and the tides, or in -an eagle outstretched upon the air, with no support but the storm. - -Sunrise is a necessary concomitant of long railway journeys, just as are -hard-boiled eggs, illustrated papers, packs of cards, rivers upon which -boats strain but make no progress. At a certain moment, when I was -counting over the thoughts that had filled my mind, in the preceding -minutes, so as to discover whether I had just been asleep or not (and -when the very uncertainty which made me ask myself the question was to -furnish me with an affirmative answer), in the pale square of the -window, over a small black wood I saw some ragged clouds whose fleecy -edges were of a fixed, dead pink, not liable to change, like the colour -that dyes the wing which has grown to wear it, or the sketch upon which -the artists fancy has washed it. But I felt that, unlike them, this -colour was due neither to inertia nor to caprice but to necessity and -life. Presently there gathered behind it reserves of light. It -brightened; the sky turned to a crimson which I strove, glueing my eyes -to the window, to see more clearly, for I felt that it was related -somehow to the most intimate life of Nature, but, the course of the line -altering, the train turned, the morning scene gave place in the frame of -the window to a nocturnal village, its roofs still blue with moonlight, -its pond encrusted with the opalescent nacre of night, beneath a -firmament still powdered with all its stars, and I was lamenting the -loss of my strip of pink sky when I caught sight of it afresh, but red -this time, in the opposite window which it left at a second bend in the -line, so that I spent my time running from one window to the other to -reassemble, to collect on a single canvas the intermittent, antipodean -fragments of my fine, scarlet, ever-changing morning, and to obtain a -comprehensive view of it and a continuous picture. - -The scenery became broken, abrupt, the train stopped at a little station -between two mountains. Far down the gorge, on the edge of a hurrying -stream, one could see only a solitary watch-house, deep-planted in the -water which ran past on a level with its windows. If a person can be the -product of a soil the peculiar charm of which one distinguishes in that -person, more even than the peasant girl whom I had so desperately longed -to see appear when I wandered by myself along the Méséglise way, in -the woods of Roussainville, such a person must be the big girl whom I -now saw emerge from the house and, climbing a path lighted by the first -slanting rays of the sun, come towards the station carrying a jar of -milk. In her valley from which its congregated summits hid the rest of -the world, she could never see anyone save in these trains which stopped -for a moment only. She passed down the line of windows, offering coffee -and milk to a few awakened passengers. Purpled with the glow of morning, -her face was rosier than the sky. I felt in her presence that desire to -live which is reborn in us whenever we become conscious anew of beauty -and of happiness. We invariably forget that these are individual -qualities, and, substituting for them in our mind a conventional type at -which we arrive by striking a sort of mean amongst the different faces -that have taken our fancy, the pleasures we have known, we are left with -mere abstract images which are lifeless and dull because they are -lacking in precisely that element of novelty, different from anything we -have known, that element which is proper to beauty and to happiness. And -we deliver on life a pessimistic judgment which we suppose to be fair, -for we believed that we were taking into account when we formed it -happiness and beauty, whereas in fact we left them out and replaced them -by syntheses in which there is not a single atom of either. So it is -that a well-read man will at once begin to yawn with boredom when anyone -speaks to him of a new "good book", because he imagines a sort of -composite of all the good books that he has read and knows already, -whereas a good book is something special, something incalculable, and is -made up not of the sum of all previous masterpieces but of something -which the most thorough assimilation of every one of them would not -enable him to discover, since it exists not in their sum but beyond it. -Once he has become acquainted with this new work, the well-read man, -till then apathetic, feels his interest awaken in the reality which it -depicts. So, alien to the models of beauty which my fancy was wont to -sketch when I was by myself, this strapping girl gave me at once the -sensation of a certain happiness (the sole form, always different, in -which we may learn the sensation of happiness), of a happiness that -would be realised by my staying and living there by her side. But in -this again the temporary cessation of Habit played a great part. I was -giving the milk-girl the benefit of what was really my own entire being, -ready to taste the keenest joys, which now confronted her. As a rule it -is with our being reduced to a minimum that we live, most of our -faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what -there is to be done and has no need of their services. But on this -morning of travel, the interruption of the routine of my existence, the -change of place and time had made their presence indispensable. My -habits, which were sedentary and not matutinal, played me false, and all -my faculties came hurrying to take their place, viewing with one another -in their zeal, rising, each of them, like waves in a storm, to the same -unaccustomed level, from the basest to the most exalted, from breath, -appetite, the circulation of my blood to receptivity and imagination. I -cannot say whether, so as to make me believe that this girl was unlike -the rest of women, the rugged charm of these barren tracts had been -added to her own, but if so she gave it back to them. Life would have -seemed an exquisite thing to me if only I had been free to spend it, -hour after hour, with her, to go with her to the stream, to the cow, to -the train, to be always at her side, to feel that I was known to her, -had my place in her thoughts. She would have initiated me into the -delights of country life and of the first hours of the day. I signalled -to her to give me some of her coffee. I felt that I must be noticed by -her. She did not see me; I called to her. Above her body, which was of -massive build, the complexion of her face was so burnished and so ruddy -that she appeared almost as though I were looking at her through a -lighted window. She had turned and was coming towards me; I could not -take my eyes from her face which grew larger as she approached, like a -sun which it was somehow possible to arrest in its course and draw -towards one, letting itself be seen at close quarters, blinding the eyes -with its blaze of red and gold. She fastened on me her penetrating -stare, but while the porters ran along the platform shutting doors the -train had begun to move. I saw her leave the station and go down the -hill to her home; it was broad daylight now; I was speeding away from -the dawn. Whether my exaltation had been produced by this girl or had on -the other hand been responsible for most of the pleasure that I had -found in the sight of her, in the sense of her presence, in either event -she was so closely associated with it that my desire to see her again -was really not so much a physical as a mental desire, not to allow this -state of enthusiasm to perish utterly, not to be separated for ever from -the person who, although quite unconsciously, had participated in it. It -was not only because this state was a pleasant one. It was principally -because (just as increased tension upon a cord or accelerated vibration -of a nerve produces a different sound or colour) it gave another -tonality to all that I saw, introduced me as an actor upon the stage of -an unknown and infinitely more interesting universe; that handsome girl -whom I still could see, while the train gathered speed, was like part of -a life other than the life that I knew, separated from it by a clear -boundary, in which the sensations that things produced in me were no -longer the same, from which to return now to my old life would be almost -suicide. To procure myself the pleasure of feeling that I had at least -an attachment to this new life, it would suffice that I should live near -enough to the little station to be able to come to it every morning for -a cup of coffee from the girl. But alas, she must be for ever absent -from the other life towards which I was being borne with ever increasing -swiftness, a life to the prospect of which I resigned myself only by -weaving plans that would enable me to take the same train again some day -and to stop at the same station, a project which would have the further -advantage of providing with subject matter the selfish, active, -practical, mechanical, indolent, centrifugal tendency which is that of -the human mind; for our mind turns readily aside from the effort which -is required if it is to analyse in itself, in a general and -disinterested manner, a pleasant impression which we have received. And -as, on the other hand, we wish to continue to think of that impression, -the mind prefers to imagine it in the future tense, which while it gives -us no clue as to the real nature of the thing, saves us the trouble of -recreating it in our own consciousness and allows us to hope that we may -receive it afresh from without. - -Certain names of towns, Vezelay or Chartres, Bourges or Beauvais, serve -to indicate, by abbreviation, the principal church in those towns. This -partial acceptation, in which we are so accustomed to take the word, -comes at length--if the names in question are those of places that we do -not yet know--to fashion for us a mould of the name as a solid whole, -which from that time onwards, whenever we wish it to convey the idea of -the town--of that town which we have never seen--will impose on it, as -on a cast, the same carved outlines, in the same style of art, will make -of the town a sort of vast cathedral. It was, nevertheless, in a -railway station, above the door of a refreshment-room, that I read the -name--almost Persian in style--of Balbec. I strode buoyantly through the -station and across the avenue that led past it, I asked my way to the -beach so as to see nothing in the place but its church and the sea; -people seemed not to understand what I meant. Old Balbec, -Balbec-en-Terre, at which I had arrived, had neither beach nor harbour. -It was, most certainly, in the sea that the fishermen had found, -according to the legend, the miraculous Christ, of which a window in the -church that stood a few yards from where I now was recorded the -discovery; it was indeed from cliffs battered by the waves that had been -quarried the stone of its nave and towers. But this sea, which for those -reasons I had imagined as flowing up to die at the foot of the window, -was twelve miles away and more, at Balbec-Plage, and, rising beside its -cupola, that steeple, which, because I had read that it was itself a -rugged Norman cliff on which seeds were blown and sprouted, round which -the sea-birds wheeled, I had always pictured to myself as receiving at -its base the last drying foam of the uplifted waves, stood on a Square -from which two lines of tramway diverged, opposite a Café which bore, -written in letters of gold, the word "Billiards"; it stood out against a -background of houses with the roofs of which no upstanding mast was -blended. And the church--entering my mind with the Café, with the -passing stranger of whom I had had to ask my way, with the station to -which presently I should have to return--made part of the general whole, -seemed an accident, a by-product of this summer afternoon, in which its -mellow and distended dome against the sky was like a fruit of which the -same light that bathed the chimneys of the houses was ripening the skin, -pink, glowing, melting-soft. But I wished only to consider the eternal -significance of the carvings when I recognised the Apostles, which I had -seen in casts in the Trocadéro museum, and which on either side of the -Virgin, before the deep bay of the porch, were awaiting me as though to -do me reverence. With their benign, blunt, mild faces and bowed -shoulders they seemed to be advancing upon me with an air of welcome, -singing the Alleluia of a fine day. But it was evident that their -expression was unchanging as that on a dead man's face, and could be -modified only by my turning about to look at them in different aspects. -I said to myself: "Here I am: this is the Church of Balbec. This square, -which looks as though it were conscious of its glory, is the only place -in the world that possesses Balbec Church. All that I have seen so far -have been photographs of this Church--and of these famous Apostles, this -Virgin of the Porch, mere casts only. Now it is the Church itself, the -statue itself; these are they; they, the unique things--this is -something far greater." - -It was something less, perhaps, also. As a young man on the day of an -examination or of a duel feels the question that he has been asked, the -shot that he has fired, to be a very little thing when he thinks of the -reserves of knowledge and of valour that he possesses and would like to -have displayed, so my mind, which had exalted the Virgin of the Porch -far above the reproductions that I had had before my eyes, inaccessible -by the vicissitudes which had power to threaten them, intact although -they were destroyed, ideal, endowed with universal value, was astonished -to see the statue which it had carved a thousand times, reduced now to -its own apparent form in stone, occupying, on the radius of my -outstretched arm, a place in which it had for rivals an election placard -and the point of my stick, fettered to the Square, inseparable from the -head of the main street, powerless to hide from the gaze of the Café -and of the omnibus office, receiving on its face half of that ray of the -setting sun (half, presently, in few hours' time, of the light of the -street lamp) of which the Bank building received the other half, tainted -simultaneously with that branch office of a money-lending establishment -by the smells from the pastry-cook's oven, subjected to the tyranny of -the Individual to such a point that, if I had chosen to scribble my name -upon that stone, it was she, the illustrious Virgin whom until then I -had endowed with a general existence and an intangible beauty, the -Virgin of Balbec, the unique (which meant, alas, the only one) who, on -her body coated with the same soot as defiled the neighbouring houses, -would have displayed--powerless to rid herself of them--to all the -admiring strangers come there to gaze upon her, the marks of my piece of -chalk and the letters of my name; it was she, indeed, the immortal work -of art, so long desired, whom I found, transformed, as was the church -itself, into a little old woman in stone whose height I could measure -and count her wrinkles. But time was passing; I must return to the -station, where I was to wait for my grandmother and Françoise, so that -we should all arrive at Balbec-Plage together. I reminded myself of what -I had read about Balbec, of Swann's saying: "It is exquisite; as fine as -Siena." And casting the blame for my disappointment upon various -accidental causes, such as the state of my health, my exhaustion after -the journey, my incapacity for looking at things properly, I endeavoured -to console myself with the thought that other towns remained still -intact for me, that I might soon, perhaps, be making my way, as into a -shower of pearls, into the cool pattering sound that dripped from -Quimperlé, cross that green water lit by a rosy glow in which Pont-Aven -was bathed; but as for Balbec, no sooner had I set foot in it than it -was as though I had broken open a name which ought to have been kept -hermetically closed, and into which, seizing at once the opportunity -that I had imprudently given them when I expelled all the images that -had been living in it until then, a tramway, a Café, people crossing -the square, the local branch of a Bank, irresistibly propelled by some -external pressure, by a pneumatic force, had come crowding into the -interior of those two syllables which, closing over them, let them now -serve as a border to the porch of the Persian church, and would never -henceforward cease to contain them. - -In the little train of the local railway company which was to take us to -Balbec-Plage I found my grandmother, but found her alone--for, -imagining that she was sending Françoise on ahead of her, so as to have -everything ready before we arrived, but having mixed up her -instructions, she had succeeded only in packing off Françoise in the -wrong direction, who at that moment was being carried down all -unsuspectingly, at full speed, to Nantes, and would probably wake up -next morning at Bordeaux. No sooner had I taken my seat in the carriage, -filled with the fleeting light of sunset and with the lingering heat of -the afternoon (the former enabling me, alas, to see written clearly upon -my grandmother's face how much the latter had tired her), than she -began: "Well, and Balbec?" with a smile so brightly illuminated by her -expectation of the great pleasure which she supposed me to have been -enjoying that I dared not at once confess to her my disappointment. -Besides, the impression which my mind had been seeking occupied it -steadily less as the place drew nearer to which my body would have to -become accustomed. At the end--still more than an hour away--of this -journey I was trying to form a picture of the manager of the hotel at -Balbec, to whom I, at that moment, did not exist, and I should have -liked to be going to present myself to him in more impressive company -than that of my grandmother, who would be certain to ask for a -reduction of his terms. The only thing positive about him was his -haughty condescension; his lineaments were still vague. - -Every few minutes the little train brought us to a standstill in one of -the stations which came before Balbec-Plage, stations the mere names of -which, (Incarville, Marcouville, Doville, Pont-à-Couleuvre, -Arambouville, Saint-Mars-le-Vieux, Hermonville, Maineville) seemed to me -outlandish, whereas if I had come upon them in a book I should at once -have been struck by their affinity to the names of certain places in the -neighbourhood of Combray. But to the trained ear two musical airs, -consisting each of so many notes, several of which are common to them -both, will present no similarity whatever if they differ in the colour -of their harmony and orchestration. So it was that nothing could have -reminded me less than these dreary names, made up of sand, of space too -airy and empty and of salt, out of which the termination "ville" always -escaped, as the "fly" seems to spring out from the end of the word -"butterfly"--nothing could have reminded me less of those other names, -Roussainville or Martinville, which, because I had heard them pronounced -so often by my great-aunt at table, in the dining-room, had acquired a -certain sombre charm in which were blended perhaps extracts of the -flavour of "preserves", the smell of the fire of logs and of the pages -of one of Bergotte's books, the colour of the stony front of the house -opposite, all of which things still to-day when they rise like a gaseous -bubble from the depths of my memory preserve their own specific virtue -through all the successive layers of rival interests which must be -traversed before they reach the surface. - -These were--commanding the distant sea from the crests of their several -dunes or folding themselves already for the night beneath hills of a -crude green colour and uncomfortable shape, like that of the sofa in -one's bedroom in an hotel at which one has just arrived, each composed -of a cluster of villas whose line was extended to include a lawn-tennis -court and now and then a casino, over which a flag would be snapping in -the freshening breeze, like a hollow cough--a series of watering-places -which now let me see for the first time their regular visitors, but let -me see only the external features of those visitors--lawn-tennis players -in white hats, the stationmaster spending all his life there on the spot -among his tamarisks and roses, a lady in a straw "boater" who, following -the everyday routine of an existence which I should never know, was -calling to her dog which had stopped to examine something in the road -before going in to her bungalow where the lamp was already lighted for -her return--which with these strangely usual and slightingly familiar -sights stung my ungreeted eyes and stabbed my exiled heart. But how much -were my sufferings increased when we had finally landed in the hall of -the Grand Hotel at Balbec, and I stood there in front of the monumental -staircase that looked like marble, while my grandmother, regardless of -the growing hostility of the strangers among whom we should have to -live, discussed "terms" with the manager, a sort of nodding mandarin -whose face and voice were alike covered with scars (left by the excision -of countless pustules from one and from the other of the divers accents -acquired from an alien ancestry and in a cosmopolitan upbringing) who -stood there in a smart dinner jacket, with the air of an expert -psychologist, classifying, whenever the "omnibus" discharged a fresh -load, the "nobility and gentry" as "geesers" and the "hotel crooks" as -nobility and gentry. Forgetting, probably, that he himself was not -drawing five hundred francs a month, he had a profound contempt for -people to whom five hundred francs--or, as he preferred to put it, -"twenty-five louis" was "a lot of money", and regarded them as belonging -to a race of pariahs for whom the Grand Hotel was certainly not -intended. It is true that even within its walls there were people who -did not pay very much and yet had not forfeited the manager's esteem, -provided that he was assured that they were watching their expenditure -not from poverty so much as from avarice. For this could in no way lower -their standing since it is a vice and may consequently be found at every -grade of social position. Social position was the one thing by which the -manager was impressed, social position, or rather the signs which seemed -to him to imply that it was exalted, such as not taking one's hat off -when one came into the hall, wearing knickerbockers, or an overcoat with -a waist, and taking a cigar with a band of purple and gold out of a -crushed morocco case--to none of which advantages could I, alas, lay -claim. He would also adorn his business conversation with choice -expressions, to which, as a rule, he gave a wrong meaning. - -While I heard my grandmother, who shewed no sign of annoyance at his -listening to her with his hat on his head and whistling through his -teeth at her, ask him in an artificial voice, "And what are . . . your -charges? . . . Oh! far too high for my little budget," waiting upon a -bench, I sought refuge in the innermost depths of my own consciousness, -strove to migrate to a plane of eternal thoughts--to leave nothing of -myself, nothing that lived and felt on the surface of my body, -anaesthetised as are those of animals which by inhibition feign death -when they are attacked--so as not to suffer too keenly in this place, -with which my total unfamiliarity was made all the more evident to me -when I saw the familiarity that seemed at the same moment to be enjoyed -by a smartly dressed lady for whom the manager shewed his respect by -taking liberties with the little dog that followed her across the hall, -the young "blood" with a feather in his hat who asked, as he came in, -"Any letters?" all these people to whom it was an act of home-coming to -mount those stairs of imitation marble. And at the same time the triple -frown of Minos, Æacus and Rhadamanthus (beneath which I plunged my -naked soul as into an unknown element where there was nothing now to -protect it) was bent sternly upon me by a group of gentlemen who, though -little versed perhaps in the art of receiving, yet bore the title -"Reception Clerks", while beyond them again, through a closed wall of -glass, were people sitting in a reading-room for the description of -which I should have had to borrow from Dante alternately the colours in -which he paints Paradise and Hell, according as I was thinking of the -happiness of the elect who had the right to sit and read there -undisturbed, or of the terror which my grandmother would have inspired -in me if, in her insensibility to this sort of impression, she had asked -me to go in there and wait for her by myself. - -My sense of loneliness was further increased a moment later: when I had -confessed to my grandmother that I did not feel well, that I thought -that we should be obliged to return to Paris, she had offered no -protest, saying merely that she was going out to buy a few things which -would be equally useful whether we left or stayed (and which, I -afterwards learned, were all for my benefit, Françoise having gone off -with certain articles which I might need); while I waited for her I had -taken a turn through the streets, packed with a crowd of people who -imparted to them a sort of indoor warmth, streets in which were still -open the hairdresser's shop and the pastry-cook's, the latter filled -with customers eating ices, opposite the statue of Duguay-Trouin. This -crowd gave me just about as much pleasure as a photograph of it in one -of the "illustrateds" might give a patient who was turning its pages in -the surgeon's waiting-room. I was astonished to find that there were -people so different from myself that this stroll through the town had -actually been recommended to me by the manager as a distraction, and -also that the torture chamber which a new place of residence is could -appear to some people a "continuous amusement", to quote the hotel -prospectus, which might, it was true, exaggerate, but was, for all that, -addressed to a whole army of clients to whose tastes it must appeal. -True, it invoked, to make them come to the Grand Hotel, Balbec, not only -the "exquisite fare" and the "fairy-like view across the Casino -gardens," but also the "ordinances of her Majesty Queen Fashion, which -no one may break with impunity, or without being taken for a Bœotian, -a charge that no well-bred man would willingly incur." The need that I -now had of my grandmother was enhanced by my fear that I had shattered -another of her illusions. She must be feeling discouraged, feeling that -if I could not stand the fatigue of this journey there was no hope that -any change of air could ever do me good. I decided to return to the -hotel and to wait for her there: the manager himself came forward and -pressed a button, and a person whose acquaintance I had not yet made, -labelled "lift" (who at that highest point in the building, which -corresponded to the lantern in a Norman church, was installed like a -photographer in his dark-room or an organist in his loft) came rushing -down towards me with the agility of a squirrel, tamed, active, caged. -Then, sliding upwards again along a steel pillar, he bore me aloft in -his train towards the dome of this temple of Mammon. On each floor, on -either side of a narrow communicating stair, opened out fanwise a range -of shadowy galleries, along one of which, carrying a bolster, a -chambermaid came past. I lent to her face, which the gathering dusk made -featureless, the mask of my most impassioned dreams of beauty, but read -in her eyes as they turned towards me the horror of my own nonentity. -Meanwhile, to dissipate, in the course of this interminable assent, the -mortal anguish which I felt in penetrating thus in silence the mystery -of this chiaroscuro so devoid of poetry, lighted by a single vertical -line of little windows which were those of the solitary water-closet on -each landing, I addressed a few words to the young organist, artificer -of my journey and my partner in captivity, who continued to manipulate -the registers of his instrument and to finger the stops. I apologised -for taking up so much room, for giving him so much trouble, and asked -whether I was not obstructing him in the practice of an art to which, so -as to flatter the performer, I did more than display curiosity, I -confessed my strong attachment. But he vouchsafed no answer, whether -from astonishment at my words, preoccupation with what he was doing, -regard for convention, hardness of hearing, respect for holy ground, -fear of danger, slowness of understanding, or by the manager's orders. - -There is perhaps nothing that gives us so strong an impression of the -reality of the external world as the difference in the positions, -relative to ourself, of even a quite unimportant person before we have -met him and after. I was the same man who had taken, that afternoon, the -little train from Balbec to the coast, I carried in my body the same -consciousness. But on that consciousness, in the place where, at six -o'clock, there had been, with the impossibility of forming any idea of -the manager, the Grand Hotel or its occupants, a vague and timorous -impatience for the moment at which I should reach my destination, were -to be found now the pustules excised from the face of the cosmopolitan -manager (he was, as a matter of fact, a naturalised Monegasque, -although--as he himself put it, for he was always using expressions -which he thought distinguished without noticing that they were -incorrect--"of Rumanian originality"), his action in ringing for the -lift, the lift-boy himself, a whole frieze of puppet-show characters -issuing from that Pandora's box which was the Grand Hotel, undeniable, -irremovable, and, like everything that is realised, sterilising. But at -least this change, which I had done nothing to bring about, proved to me -that something had happened which was external to myself--however devoid -of interest that thing might be--and I was like a traveller who, having -had the sun in his face when he started, concludes that he has been for -so many hours on the road when he finds the sun behind him. I was half -dead with exhaustion, I was burning with fever; I would gladly have gone -to bed, but I had no night-things. I should have liked at least to lie -down for a little while on the bed, but what good would that have done -me, seeing that I should not have been able to find any rest there for -that mass of sensations which is for each of us his sentient if not his -material body, and that the unfamiliar objects which encircled that -body, forcing it to set its perceptions on the permanent footing of a -vigilant and defensive guard, would have kept my sight, my hearing, all -my senses in a position as cramped and comfortless (even if I had -stretched out my legs) as that of Cardinal La Balue in the cage in which -he could neither stand nor sit. It is our noticing them that puts things -in a room, our growing used to them that takes them away again and -clears a space for us. Space there was none for me in my bedroom (mine -in name only) at Balbec; it was full of things which did not know me, -which flung back at me the distrustful look that I had cast at them, -and, without taking any heed of my existence, shewed that I was -interrupting the course of theirs. The clock--whereas at home I heard my -clock tick only a few seconds in a week, when I was coming out of some -profound meditation--continued without a moment's interruption to utter, -in an unknown tongue, a series of observations which must have been most -uncomplimentary to myself, for the violet curtains listened to them -without replying, but in an attitude such as people adopt who shrug -their shoulders to indicate that the sight of a third person irritates -them. They gave to this room with its lofty ceiling a semi-historical -character which might have made it a suitable place for the -assassination of the Duc de Guise, and afterwards for parties of -tourists personally conducted by one of Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son's -guides, but for me to sleep in--no. I was tormented by the presence of -some little bookcases with glass fronts which ran along the walls, but -especially by a large mirror with feet which stood across one corner, -for I felt that until it had left the room there would be no possibility -of rest for me there. I kept raising my eyes--which the things in my -room in Paris disturbed me no more than did my eyelids themselves, for -they were merely extensions of my organs, an enlargement of -myself--towards the fantastically high ceiling of this belvedere planted -upon the summit of the hotel which my grandmother had chosen for me; and -in that region more intimate than those in which we see and hear, that -region in which we test the quality of odours, almost in the very heart -of my inmost self, the smell of flowering grasses next launched its -offensive against my last feeble line of trenches, where I stood up to -it, not without tiring myself still further, with the futile incessant -defence of an anxious sniffing. Having no world, no room, no body now -that was not menaced by the enemies thronging round me, invaded to the -very bones by fever, I was utterly alone; I longed to die. Then my -grandmother came in, and to the expansion of my ebbing heart there -opened at once an infinity of space. - -She was wearing a loose cambric gown which she put on at home whenever -any of us was ill (because she felt more comfortable in it, she used to -say, for she always ascribed to her actions a selfish motive), and which -was, for tending us, for watching by our beds, her servant's livery, her -nurse's uniform, her religious habit. But whereas the trouble that -servants, nurses, religious take, their kindness to us, the merits that -we discover in them and the gratitude that we owe them all go to -increase the impression that we have of being, in their eyes, some one -different, of feeling that we are alone, keeping in our own hands the -control over our thoughts, our will to live, I knew, when I was with my -grandmother, that, however great the misery that there was in me, it -would be received by her with a pity still more vast; that everything -that was mine, my cares, my wishes, would be, in my grandmother, -supported upon a desire to save and prolong my life stronger than was my -own; and my thoughts were continued in her without having to undergo any -deflection, since they passed from my mind into hers without change of -atmosphere or of personality. And--like a man who tries to fasten his -necktie in front of a glass and forgets that the end which he sees -reflected is not on the side to which he raises his hand, or like a dog -that chases along the ground the dancing shadow of an insect in the -air--misled by her appearance in the body as we are apt to be in this -world where we have no direct perception of people's souls, I threw -myself into the arms of my grandmother and clung with my lips to her -face as though I had access thus to that immense heart which she opened -to me. And when I felt my mouth glued to her cheeks, to her brow, I drew -from them something so beneficial, so nourishing that I lay in her arms -as motionless, as solemn, as calmly gluttonous as a babe at the breast. - -At last I let go, and lay and gazed, and could not tire of gazing at her -large face, as clear in its outline as a fine cloud, glowing and serene, -behind which I could discern the radiance of her tender love. And -everything that received, in however slight a degree, any share of her -sensations, everything that could be said to belong in any way to her -was at once so spiritualised, so sanctified that with outstretched hands -I smoothed her dear hair, still hardly grey, with as much respect, -precaution, comfort as if I had actually been touching her goodness. She -found a similar pleasure in taking any trouble that saved me one, and in -a moment of immobility and rest for my weary limbs something so -delicious that when, having seen that she wished to help me with my -undressing and to take my boots off, I made as though to stop her and -began to undress myself, with an imploring gaze she arrested my hands as -they fumbled with the top buttons of my coat and boots. - -"Oh, do let me!" she begged. "It is such a joy for your Granny. And be -sure you knock on the wall if you want anything in the night. My bed is -just on the other side, and the partition is quite thin. Just give a -knock now, as soon as you are ready, so that we shall know where we -are." - -And, sure enough, that evening I gave three knocks--a signal which, the -week after, when I was ill, I repeated every morning for several days, -because my grandmother wanted me to have some milk early. Then, when I -thought that I could hear her stirring, so that she should not be kept -waiting but might, the moment she had brought me the milk, go to sleep -again, I ventured on three little taps, timidly, faintly, but for all -that distinctly, for if I was afraid of disturbing her, supposing that I -had been mistaken and that she was still asleep, I should not have -wished her either to lie awake listening for a summons which she had not -at once caught and which I should not have the courage to repeat. And -scarcely had I given my taps than I heard three others, in a different -intonation from mine, stamped with a calm authority, repeated twice over -so that there should be no mistake, and saying to me plainly: "Don't get -excited; I heard you; I shall be with you in a minute!" and shortly -afterwards my grandmother appeared. I explained to her that I had been -afraid that she would not hear me, or might think that it was some one -in the room beyond who was tapping; at which she smiled: - -"Mistake my poor chick's knocking for anyone else! Why, Granny could -tell it among a thousand! Do you suppose there's anyone else in the -world who's such a silly-billy, with such feverish little knuckles, so -afraid of waking me up and of not making me understand? Even if he just -gave the least scratch, Granny could tell her mouse's sound at once, -especially such a poor miserable little mouse as mine is. I could hear -it just now, trying to make up its mind, and rustling the bedclothes, -and going through all its tricks." - -She pushed open the shutters; where a wing of the hotel jutted out at -right angles to my window, the sun was already installed upon the roof, -like a slater who is up betimes, and starts early and works quietly so -as not to rouse the sleeping town, whose stillness seems to enhance his -activity. She told me what o'clock, what sort of day it was; that it was -not worth while my getting up and coming to the window, that there was a -mist over the sea; if the baker's shop had opened yet; what the vehicle -was that I could hear passing. All that brief, trivial curtain-raiser, -that negligible _introit_ of a new day, performed without any spectator, -a little scrap of life which was only for our two selves, which I should -have no hesitation in repeating, later on, to Françoise or even to -strangers, speaking of the fog "which you could have cut with a knife" -at six o'clock that morning, with the ostentation of one who was -boasting not of a piece of knowledge that he had acquired but of a mark -of affection shewn to himself alone; dear morning moment, opened like a -symphony by the rhythmical dialogue of my three taps, to which the thin -wall of my bedroom, steeped in love and joy, grown melodious, -immaterial, singing like the angelic choir, responded with three other -taps, eagerly awaited, repeated once and again, in which it contrived to -waft to me the soul of my grandmother, whole and perfect, and the -promise of her coming, with a swiftness of annunciation and melodic -accuracy. But on this first night after our arrival, when my grandmother -had left me, I began again to feel as I had felt, the day before, in -Paris, at the moment of leaving home. Perhaps this fear that I had--and -shared with so many of my fellow-men--of sleeping in a strange room, -perhaps this fear is only the most humble, obscure, organic, almost -unconscious form of that great and desperate resistance set up by the -things that constitute the better part of our present life towards our -mentally assuming, by accepting it as true, the formula of a future in -which those things are to have no part; a resistance which was at the -root of the horror that I had so often been made to feel by the thought -that my parents must, one day, die, that the stern necessity of life -might oblige me to live remote from Gilberte, or simply to settle -permanently in a place where I should never see any of my old friends; a -resistance which was also at the root of the difficulty that I found in -imagining my own death, or a survival such as Bergotte used to promise -to mankind in his books, a survival in which I should not be allowed to -take with me my memories, my frailties, my character, which did not -easily resign themselves to the idea of ceasing to be, and desired for -me neither annihilation nor an eternity in which they would have no -part. - -When Swann had said to me, in Paris one day when I felt particularly -unwell: "You ought to go off to one of those glorious islands in the -Pacific; you'd never come back again if you did." I should have liked to -answer: "But then I shall not see your daughter any more; I shall be -living among people and things she has never seen." And yet my better -judgment whispered: "What difference can that make, since you are not -going to be affected by it? When M. Swann tells you that you will not -come back he means by that that you will not want to come back, and if -you don't want to that is because you will be happier out there." For my -judgment was aware that Habit--Habit which was even now setting to work -to make me like this unfamiliar lodging, to change the position of the -mirror, the shade of the curtains, to stop the clock--undertakes as well -to make dear to us the companions whom at first we disliked, to give -another appearance to their faces, to make attractive the sound of their -voices, to modify the inclinations of their hearts. It is true that -these new friendships for places and people are based upon forgetfulness -of the old; but what my better judgment was thinking was simply that I -could look without apprehension along the vista of a life in which I -should be for ever separated from people all memory of whom I should -lose, and it was by way of consolation that my mind was offering to my -heart a promise of oblivion which succeeded only in sharpening the edge -of its despair. Not that the heart also is not bound in time, when -separation incomplete, to feel the anodyne effect of habit; but until -then it will continue to suffer. And our dread of a future in which we -must forego the sight of faces, the sound of voices that we love, -friends from whom we derive to-day our keenest joys, this dread, far -from being dissipated, is intensified, if to the grief of such a -privation we reflect that there will be added what seems to us now in -anticipation an even more cruel grief; not to feel it as a grief at -all--to remain indifferent; for if that should occur, our ego would have -changed, it would then be not merely the attractiveness of our family, -our mistress, our friends that had ceased to environ us, but our -affection for them; it would have been so completely eradicated from our -heart, in which to-day it is a conspicuous element, that we should be -able to enjoy that life apart from them the very thought of which to-day -makes us recoil in horror; so that it would be in a real sense the death -of ourself, a death followed, it is true, by resurrection but in a -different ego, the life, the love of which are beyond the reach of those -elements of the existing ego that are doomed to die. It is they--even -the meanest of them, such as our obscure attachments to the dimensions, -to the atmosphere of a bedroom--that grow stubborn and refuse, in acts -of rebellion which we must recognise to be a secret, partial, tangible -and true aspect of our resistance to death, of the long resistance, -desperate and daily renewed, to a fragmentary and gradual death such as -interpolates itself throughout the whole course of our life, tearing -away from us at every moment a shred of ourself, dead matter on which -new cells will multiply, and grow. And for a neurotic nature such as -mine, one that is to say in which the intermediaries, the nerves, -perform their functions badly--fail to arrest on its way to the -consciousness, allow indeed to penetrate there, distinct, exhausting, -innumerable, agonising, the plaint of those most humble elements of the -personality which are about to disappear--the anxiety and alarm which I -felt as I lay outstretched beneath that strange and too lofty ceiling -were but the protest of an affection that survived in me for a ceiling -that was familiar and low. Doubtless this affection too would disappear, -and another have taken its place (when death, and then another life, -would, in the guise of Habit, have performed their double task); but -until its annihilation, every night it would suffer afresh, and on this -first night especially, confronted with a future already realised in -which there would no longer be any place for it, it rose in revolt, it -tortured me with the sharp sound of its lamentations whenever my -straining eyes, powerless to turn from what was wounding them, -endeavoured to fasten their gaze upon that inaccessible ceiling. - -But next morning!--after a servant had come to call me, and had brought -me hot water, and while I was washing and dressing myself and trying in -vain to find the things that I wanted in my trunk, from which I -extracted, pell-mell, only a lot of things that were of no use whatever, -what a joy it was to me, thinking already of the delights of luncheon -and of a walk along the shore, to see in the window, and in all the -glass fronts of the bookcases as in the portholes of a ship's cabin, the -open sea, naked, unshadowed, and yet with half of its expanse in shadow, -bounded by a thin and fluctuant line, and to follow with my eyes the -waves that came leaping towards me, one behind another, like divers -along a springboard. Every other moment, holding in one hand the -starched, unyielding towel, with the name of the hotel printed upon it, -with which I was making futile efforts to dry myself, I returned to the -window to gaze once more upon that vast amphitheatre, dazzling, -mountainous, and upon the snowy crests of its emerald waves, here and -there polished and translucent, which with a placid violence, a leonine -bending of the brows, let their steep fronts, to which the sun now added -a smile without face or features, run forward to their goal, totter and -melt and be no more. Window in which I was, henceforward, to plant -myself every morning, as at the pane of a mail coach in which one has -slept, to see whether, in the night, a long sought mountain-chain has -come nearer or withdrawn--only here it was those hills of the sea which, -before they come dancing back towards us, are apt to retire so far that -often it was only at the end of a long and sandy plain that I would -distinguish, miles it seemed away, their first undulations upon a -background transparent, vaporous, bluish, like the glaciers that one -sees in the backgrounds of the Tuscan Primitives. On other mornings it -was quite close at hand that the sun was smiling upon those waters of a -green as tender as that preserved in Alpine pastures (among mountains on -which the sun spreads himself here and there like a lazy giant who may -at any moment come leaping gaily down their craggy sides) less by the -moisture of their soil than by the liquid mobility of their light. -Anyhow, in that breach which shore and water between them drive through -all the rest of the world, for the passage, the accumulation there of -light, it is light above all, according to the direction from which it -comes and along which our eyes follow it, it is light that shifts and -fixes the undulations of the sea. Difference of lighting modifies no -less the orientation of a place, constructs no less before our eyes new -goals which it inspires in us the yearning to attain, than would a -distance in space actually traversed in the course of a long journey. -When, in the morning, the sun came from behind the hotel, disclosing to -me the sands bathed in light as far as the first bastions of the sea, it -seemed to be shewing me another side of the picture, and to be engaging -me on the pursuit, along the winding path of its rays, of a journey -motionless but ever varied amid all the fairest scenes of the -diversified landscape of the hours. And on this first morning the sun -pointed out to me far off with a jovial finger those blue peaks of the -sea, which bear no name upon any geographer's chart, until, dizzy with -its sublime excursion over the thundering and chaotic surface of their -crests and avalanches, it came back to take shelter from the wind in my -bedroom, swaggering across the unmade bed and scattering its riches over -the splashed surface of the basin-stand, and into my open trunk, where -by its very splendour and ill-matched luxury it added still further to -the general effect of disorder. Alas, that wind from the sea; an hour -later, in the great dining-room--while we were having our luncheon, and -from the leathern gourd of a lemon were sprinkling a few golden drops on -to a pair of soles which presently left on our plates the plumes of -their picked skeletons, curled like stiff feathers and resonant as -citherns,--it seemed to my grandmother a cruel deprivation not to be -able to feel its life-giving breath on her cheek, on account of the -window, transparent but closed, which like the front of a glass case in -a museum divided us from the beach while allowing us to look out upon -its whole extent, and into which the sky entered so completely that its -azure had the effect of being the colour of the windows and its white -clouds only so many flaws in the glass. Imagining that I was "seated -upon the mole" or at rest in the "boudoir" of which Baudelaire speaks I -asked myself whether his "Sun's rays upon the sea" were not--a very -different thing from the evening ray, simple and superficial as the -wavering stroke of a golden pencil--just what at that moment was -scorching the sea topaz-brown, fermenting it, turning it pale and milky -like foaming beer, like milk, while now and then there hovered over it -great blue shadows which some god seemed, for his pastime, to be -shifting to and fro by moving a mirror in the sky. Unfortunately, it was -not only in its outlook that it differed from our room at Combray, -giving upon the houses over the way, this dining-room at Balbec, -bare-walled, filled with a sunlight green as the water in a marble font, -while a few feet away the full tide and broad daylight erected as though -before the gates of the heavenly city an indestructible and moving -rampart of emerald and gold. At Combray, since we were known to -everyone, I took heed of no one. In life at the seaside one knows only -one's own party. I was not yet old enough, I was still too sensitive to -have outgrown the desire to find favour in the sight of other people and -to possess their hearts. Nor had I acquired the more noble indifference -which a man of the world would have felt, with regard to the people who -were eating their luncheon in the room, nor to the boys and girls who -strolled past the window, with whom I was pained by the thought that I -should never be allowed to go on expeditions, though not so much pained -as if my grandmother, contemptuous of social formalities and concerned -about nothing but my health, had gone to them with the request, -humiliating for me to overhear, that they would consent to let me -accompany them. Whether they were returning to some villa beyond my ken, -or had emerged from it, racquet in hand, on their way to some -lawn-tennis court, or were mounted on horses whose hooves trampled and -tore my heart, I gazed at them with a passionate curiosity, in that -blinding light of the beach by which social distinctions are altered, I -followed all their movements through the transparency of that great bay -of glass which allowed so much light to flood the room. But it -intercepted the wind, and this seemed wrong to my grandmother, who, -unable to endure the thought that I was losing the benefit of an hour in -the open air, surreptitiously unlatched a pane and at once set flying, -with the bills of fare, the newspapers, veils and hats of all the people -at the other tables; she herself, fortified by the breath of heaven, -remained calm and smiling like Saint Blandina, amid the torrent of -invective which, increasing my sense of isolation and misery, those -scornful, dishevelled, furious visitors combined to pour on us. - -To a certain extent--and this, at Balbec, gave to the population, as a -rule monotonously rich and cosmopolitan, of that sort of smart and -"exclusive" hotel, a quite distinctive local character--they were -composed of eminent persons from the departmental capitals of that -region of France, a chief magistrate from Caen, a leader of the -Cherbourg bar, a big solicitor from Le Mans, who annually, when the -holidays came round, starting from the various points over which, -throughout the working year, they were scattered like snipers in a -battle or draughtsmen upon a board, concentrated their forces upon this -hotel. They always reserved the same rooms, and with their wives, who -had pretensions to aristocracy, formed a little group, which was joined -by a leading barrister and a leading doctor from Paris, who on the day -of their departure would say to the others: - -"Oh, yes, of course; you don't go by our train. You are fortunate, you -will be home in time for luncheon." - -"Fortunate, do you say? You, who live in the Capital, in 'Paris, the -great town', while I have to live in a wretched county town of a hundred -thousand souls (it is true, we managed to muster a hundred and two -thousand at the last census, but what is that compared to your two and a -half millions?) going back, too, to asphalt streets and all the bustle -and gaiety of Paris life." - -They said this with a rustic burring of their 'r's, but without -bitterness, for they were leading lights each in his own province, who -could like other people have gone to Paris had they chosen--the chief -magistrate of Caen had several times been offered a judgeship in the -Court of Appeal--but had preferred to stay where they were, from love of -their native towns or of obscurity or of fame, or because they were -reactionaries, and enjoyed being on friendly terms with the country -houses of the neighbourhood. Besides several of them were not going back -at once to their county towns. - -For--inasmuch as the Bay of Balbec was a little world apart in the midst -of a great world, a basketful of the seasons in which were clustered in -a ring good days and bad, and the months in their order, so that not -only, on days when one could make out Rivebelle, which was in itself a -sign of coming storms, could one see the sunlight on the houses there -while Balbec was plunged in darkness, but later on, when the cold -weather had reached Balbec, one could be certain of finding on that -opposite shore two or three supplementary months of warmth--those of the -regular visitors to the Grand Hotel whose holidays began late or lasted -long, gave orders, when rain and fog came and Autumn was in the air, for -their boxes to be packed and embarked, and set sail across the Bay to -find summer again at Rivebelle or Costedor. This little group in the -Balbec hotel looked with distrust upon each new arrival, and while -affecting to take not the least interest in him, hastened, all of them, -to ply with questions their friend the head waiter. For it was the same -head waiter--Aimé--who returned every year for the season, and kept -their tables for them; and their good ladies, having heard that his wife -was "expecting", would sit after meals working each at one of the -"little things", stopping only to put up their glasses and stare at us, -my grandmother and myself, because we were eating hard-boiled eggs in -salad, which was considered common, and was, in fact, "not done" in the -best society of Alençon. They affected an attitude of contemptuous -irony with regard to a Frenchman who was called "His Majesty" and had -indeed proclaimed himself King of a small island in the South Seas, -inhabited by a few savages. He was staying in the hotel with his pretty -mistress, whom, as she crossed the beach to bathe, the little boys would -greet with "Three cheers for the Queen!" because she would reward them -with a shower of small silver. The chief magistrate and the barrister -went so far as to pretend not to see her, and if any of their friends -happened to look at her, felt bound to warn him that she was only a -little shop-girl. - -"But I was told that at Ostend they used the royal bathing machine." - -"Well, and why not? It's on hire for twenty francs. You can take it -yourself, if you care for that sort of thing. Anyhow, I know for a fact -that the fellow asked for an audience, when he was there, with the King, -who sent back word that he took no cognisance of any Pantomime Princes." - -"Really, that's interesting! What queer people there are in the world, -to be sure!" - -And I dare say it was all quite true: but it was also from resentment of -the thought that, to many of their fellow-visitors, they were themselves -simply respectable but rather common people who did not know this King -and Queen so prodigal with their small change, that the solicitor, the -magistrate, the barrister, when what they were pleased to call the -"Carnival" went by, felt so much annoyance, and expressed aloud an -indignation that was quite understood by their friend the head waiter -who, obliged to shew proper civility to these generous if not authentic -Sovereigns, still, while he took their orders, would dart from afar at -his old patrons a covert but speaking glance. Perhaps there was also -something of the same resentment at being erroneously supposed to be -less and unable to explain that they were more smart, underlining the -"fine specimen" with which they qualified a young "blood", the -consumptive and dissipated son of an industrial magnate, who appeared -every day in a new suit of clothes with an orchid in his buttonhole, -drank champagne at luncheon, and then strolled out of the hotel, pale, -impassive, a smile of complete indifference on his lips, to the casino -to throw away at the baccarat table enormous sums, "which he could ill -afford to lose," as the solicitor said with a resigned air to the chief -magistrate, whose wife had it "on good authority" that this -"detrimental" young man was bringing his parents' grey hair in sorrow to -the grave. - -On the other hand, the barrister and his friends could not exhaust their -flow of sarcasm on the subject of a wealthy old lady of title, because -she never moved any where without taking her whole household with her. -Whenever the wives of the solicitor and the magistrate saw her in the -dining-room at meal-times they put up their glasses and gave her an -insolent scrutiny, as minute and distrustful as if she had been some -dish with a pretentious name but a suspicious appearance which, after -the negative result of a systematic study, must be sent away with a -lofty wave of the hand and a grimace of disgust. - -No doubt by this behaviour they meant only to shew that, if there were -things in the world which they themselves lacked--in this instance, -certain prerogatives which the old lady enjoyed, and the privilege of -her acquaintance--it was not because they could not, but because they -did not choose to acquire them. But they had succeeded in convincing -themselves that this really was what they felt; and it was the -suppression of all desire for, of all curiosity as to forms of life -which were unfamiliar, of all hope of pleasing new people (for which, in -the women, had been substituted a feigned contempt, an artificial -brightness) that had the awkward result of obliging them to label their -discontent satisfaction, and lie everlastingly to themselves, for which -they were greatly to be pitied. But everyone else in the hotel was no -doubt behaving in a similar fashion, though his behaviour might take a -different form, and sacrificing, if not to self-importance, at any rate -to certain inculcated principles and mental habits the thrilling delight -of mixing in a strange kind of life. Of course, the atmosphere of the -microcosm in which the old lady isolated herself was not poisoned with -virulent bitterness, as was that of the group in which the wives of the -solicitor and magistrate sat chattering with impotent rage. It was -indeed embalmed with a delicate and old world fragrance which, however, -was none the less artificial. For at heart the old lady would probably -have found in attracting, in attaching to herself (and, with that -object, recreating herself) the mysterious sympathy of new friends a -charm which is altogether lacking from the pleasure that is to be -derived from mixing only with the people of one's own world, and -reminding oneself that, one's own being the best of all possible worlds, -the ill-informed contempt of "outsiders" may be disregarded. Perhaps she -felt that--were she to arrive _incognito_ at the Grand Hotel, Balbec, -she would, in her black stuff gown and old-fashioned bonnet, bring a -smile to the lips of some old reprobate, who from the depths of his -rocking chair would glance up and murmur, "What a scarecrow!" or, still -worse, to those of some man of repute who had, like the magistrate, kept -between his pepper-and-salt whiskers a rosy complexion and a pair of -sparkling eyes such as she liked to see, and would at once bring the -magnifying lens of the conjugal glasses to bear upon so quaint a -phenomenon; and perhaps it was in unconfessed dread of those first few -minutes, which, though one knows that they will be but a few minutes, -are none the less terrifying, like the first plunge of one's head under -water, that this old lady sent down in advance a servant, who would -inform the hotel of the personality and habits of his mistress, and, -cutting short the manager's greetings, made, with an abruptness in which -there was more timidity than pride, for her room, where her own -curtains, substituted for those that draped the hotel windows, her own -screens and photographs set up so effectively between her and the -outside world, to which otherwise she would have had to adapt herself, -the barrier of her private life that it was her home (in which she had -comfortably stayed) that travelled rather than herself. - -Thenceforward, having placed between herself, on the one hand, and the -staff of the hotel and its decorators on the other the servants who bore -instead of her the shock of contact with all this strange humanity, and -kept up around their mistress her familiar atmosphere, having set her -prejudices between herself and the other visitors, indifferent whether -or not she gave offence to people whom her friends would not have had in -their houses, it was in her own world that she continued to live, by -correspondence with her friends, by memories, by her intimate sense of -and confidence in her own position, the quality of her manners, the -competence of her politeness. And every day, when she came downstairs to -go for a drive in her own carriage, the lady's maid who came after her -carrying her wraps, the footman who preceded her seemed like sentries -who, at the gate of an embassy, flying the flag of the country to which -she belonged, assured to her upon foreign soil the privilege of -extra-territoriality. She did not leave her room until late in the -afternoon on the day following our arrival, so that we did not see her -in the dining-room, into which the manager, since we were strangers -there, conducted us, taking us under his wing, as a corporal takes a -squad of recruits to the master-tailor, to have them fitted; we did see -however, a moment later, a country gentleman and his daughter, of an -obscure but very ancient Breton family, M. and Mlle. de Stermaria, whose -table had been allotted to us, in the belief that they had gone out and -would not be back until the evening. Having come to Balbec only to see -various country magnates whom they knew in that neighbourhood, they -spent in the hotel dining-room, what with the invitations they accepted -and the visits they paid, only such time as was strictly unavoidable. It -was their stiffness that preserved them intact from all human sympathy, -from interesting at all the strangers seated round about them, among -whom M. de Stermaria kept up the glacial, preoccupied, distant, rude, -punctilious and distrustful air that we assume in a railway -refreshment-room, among fellow-passengers whom we have never seen before -and will never see again, and with whom we can conceive of no other -relations than to defend from their onslaught our "portion" of cold -chicken and our corner seat in the train. No sooner had we begun our -luncheon than we were asked to leave the table, on the instructions of -M. de Stermaria who had just arrived and, without the faintest attempt -at an apology to us, requested the head waiter, in our hearing to "see -that such a mistake did not occur again," for it was repugnant to him -that "people whom he did not know" should have taken his table. - -And certainly into the feeling which impelled a young actress (better -known, though, for her smart clothes, her smart sayings, her collection -of German porcelain, than in the occasional parts that she had played at -the Odéon), her lover, an immensely rich young man for whose sake she -had acquired her culture, and two sprigs of aristocracy at that time -much in the public eye to form a little band apart, to travel only -together, to come down to luncheon--when at Balbec--very late, after -everyone had finished; to spend the whole day in their sitting-room -playing cards, there entered no sort of ill-humour against the rest of -us but simply the requirements of the taste that they had formed for a -certain type of conversation, for certain refinements of good living, -which made them find pleasure in spending their time, in taking their -meals only by themselves, and would have rendered intolerable a life in -common with people who had not been initiated into those mysteries. Even -at a dinner or a card-table, each of them had to be certain that, in the -diner or partner who sat opposite to him, there was, latent and not yet -made use of, a certain brand of knowledge which would enable him to -identify the rubbish with which so many houses in Paris were littered as -genuine mediaeval or renaissance "pieces" and, whatever the subject of -discussion, to apply the critical standards common to all their party -whereby they distinguished good work from bad. Probably it was only--at -such moments--by some infrequent, amusing interruption flung into the -general silence of meal or game, or by the new and charming frock which -the young actress had put on for luncheon or for poker, that the special -kind of existence in which these four friends desired, above all things, -to remain plunged was made apparent. But by engulfing them thus in a -system of habits which they knew by heart it sufficed to protect them -from the mystery of the life that was going on all round them. All the -long afternoon, the sea was suspended there before their eyes only as a -canvas of attractive colouring might hang on the wall of a wealthy -bachelor's flat and it was only in the intervals between the "hands" -that one of the players, finding nothing better to do, raised his eyes -to it to seek from it some indication of the weather or the time, and to -remind the others that tea was ready. And at night they did not dine in -the hotel, where, hidden springs of electricity flooding the great -dining-room with light, it became as it were an immense and wonderful -aquarium against whose wall of glass the working population of Balbec, -the fishermen and also the tradesmen's families, clustering invisibly in -the outer darkness, pressed their faces to watch, gently floating upon -the golden eddies within, the luxurious life of its occupants, a thing -as extraordinary to the poor as the life of strange fishes or molluscs -(an important social question, this; whether the wall of glass will -always protect the wonderful creatures at their feasting, whether the -obscure folk who watch them hungrily out of the night will not break in -some day to gather them from their aquarium and devour them). Meanwhile -there may have been, perhaps, among the gazing crowd, a motionless, -formless mass there in the dark, some writer, some student of human -ichthyology who, as he watched the jaws of old feminine monstrosities -close over a mouthful of food which they proceeded then to absorb, was -amusing himself by classifying them according to their race, by their -innate characteristics as well as by those acquired characteristics -which bring it about that an old Serbian lady whose buccal protuberance -is that of a great sea-fish, because from her earliest years she has -moved in the fresh waters of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, eats her salad -for all the world like a La Rochefoucauld. - -At that hour one could see the three young men in dinner-jackets, -waiting for the young woman, who was as usual late but presently, -wearing a dress that was almost always different and one of a series of -scarves, chosen to gratify some special instinct in her lover, after -having from her landing rung for the lift, would emerge from it like a -doll coming out of its box. And then all four, because they found that -the international phenomenon of the "Palace", planted on Balbec soil, -had blossomed there in material splendour rather than in food that was -fit to eat, bundled into a carriage and went to dine, a mile off, in a -little restaurant that was well spoken of, where they held with the cook -himself endless discussions of the composition of their meal and the -cooking of its various dishes. During their drive, the road bordered -with apple-trees that led out of Balbec was no more to them than the -distance that must be traversed--barely distinguishable in the darkness -from that which separated their homes in Paris from the Café Anglais or -the Tour d'Argent--before they could arrive at the fashionable little -restaurant where, while the young man's friends envied him because he -had such a smartly dressed mistress, the latter's scarves were spread -about the little company like a fragrant, flowing veil, but one that -kept it apart from the outer world. - -Alas for my peace of mind, I had none of the detachment that all these -people shewed. To many of them I gave constant thought; I should have -liked not to pass unobserved by a man with a receding brow and eyes that -dodged between the blinkers of his prejudices and his education, the -great nobleman of the district, who was none other than the -brother-in-law of Legrandin, and came every now and then to see somebody -at Balbec and on Sundays, by reason of the weekly garden-party that his -wife and he gave, robbed the hotel of a large number of its occupants, -because one or two of them were invited to these entertainments and the -others, so as not to appear to have been not invited, chose that day for -an expedition to some distant spot. He had had, as it happened, an -exceedingly bad reception at the hotel on the first day of the season, -when the staff, freshly imported from the Riviera, did not yet know who -or what he was. Not only was he not wearing white flannels, but, with -old-fashioned French courtesy and in his ignorance of the ways of smart -hotels, on coming into the hall in which there were ladies sitting, he -had taken off his hat at the door, the effect of which had been that the -manager did not so much as raise a finger to his own in acknowledgment, -concluding that this must be some one of the most humble extraction, -what he called "sprung from the ordinary." The solicitor's wife, alone, -had felt herself attracted by the stranger, who exhaled all the starched -vulgarity of the really respectable, and had declared, with the unerring -discernment and the indisputable authority of a person from whom the -highest society of Le Mans held no secrets, that one could see at a -glance that one was in the presence of a gentleman of great distinction, -of perfect breeding, a striking contrast to the sort of people one -usually saw at Balbec, whom she condemned as impossible to know so long -as she did not know them. This favourable judgment which she had -pronounced on Legrandin's brother-in-law was based perhaps on the -spiritless appearance of a man about whom there was nothing to -intimidate anyone; perhaps also she had recognised in this gentleman -farmer with the gait of a sacristan the Masonic signs of her own -inveterate clericalism. - -It made no difference my knowing that the young fellows who went past -the hotel every day on horseback were the sons of the questionably -solvent proprietor of a linen-drapery to whom my father would never have -dreamed of speaking; the glamour of "seaside life" exalted them in my -eyes to equestrian statues of demi-gods, and the best thing that I could -hope for was that they would never allow their proud gaze to fall upon -the wretched boy who was myself, who left the hotel dining-room only to -sit humbly upon the sands. I should have been glad to arouse some -response even from the adventurer who had been king of a desert island -in the South Seas, even of the young consumptive, of whom I liked to -think that he was hiding beneath his insolent exterior a shy and tender -heart, which would perhaps have lavished on me, and on me alone, the -treasures of its affection. Besides (unlike what one generally says of -the people one meets when travelling) just as being seen in certain -company can invest us, in a watering-place to which we shall return -another year, with a coefficient that has no equivalent in our true -social life, so there is nothing--not which we keep so resolutely at a -distance, but--which we cultivate with such assiduity after our return -to Paris as the friendships that we have formed by the sea. I was -anxious about the opinion that might be held of me by all these -temporary or local celebrities whom my tendency to put myself in the -place of other people and to reconstruct what was in their minds had -made me place not in their true rank, that which they would have held in -Paris, for instance, and which would have been quite low, but in that -which they must imagine to be, and which indeed was their rank at -Balbec, where the want of a common denominator gave them a sort of -relative superiority and an individual interest. Alas, none of these -people's contempt for me was so unbearable as that of M. de Stermaria. - -For I had noticed his daughter, the moment she came into the room, her -pretty features, her pallid, almost blue complexion, what there was -peculiar in the carriage of her tall figure, in her gait, which -suggested to me--and rightly--her long descent, her aristocratic -upbringing, all the more vividly because I knew her name, like those -expressive themes composed by musicians of genius which paint in -splendid colours the glow of fire, the rush of water, the peace of -fields and woods, to audiences who, having first let their eyes run over -the programme, have their imaginations trained in the right direction. -The label "Centuries of Breeding", by adding to Mlle. de Stermaria's -charms the idea of their origin, made them more desirable also, -advertising their rarity as a high price enhances the value of a thing -that has already taken our fancy. And its stock of heredity gave to her -complexion, in which so many selected juices had been blended, the -savour of an exotic fruit or of a famous vintage. - -And then mere chance put into our hands, my grandmother's and mine, the -means of giving ourselves an immediate distinction in the eyes of all -the other occupants of the hotel. On that first afternoon, at the moment -when the old lady came downstairs from her room, producing, thanks to -the footman who preceded her, the maid who came running after her with a -book and a rug that had been left behind, a marked effect upon all who -beheld her and arousing in each of them a curiosity from which it was -evident that none was so little immune as M. de Stermaria, the manager -leaned across to my grandmother and, from pure kindness of heart (as one -might point out the Shah, or Queen Ranavalo to an obscure onlooker who -could obviously have no sort of connexion with so mighty a potentate, -but might be interested, all the same, to know that he had been standing -within a few feet of one) whispered in her ear, "The Marquise de -Villeparisis!" while at the same moment the old lady, catching sight of -my grandmother, could not repress a start of pleased surprise. - -It may be imagined that the sudden appearance, in the guise of a little -old woman, of the most powerful of fairies would not have given me so -much pleasure, destitute as I was of any means of access to Mlle. de -Stermaria, in a strange place where I knew no one: no one, that is to -say, for any practical purpose. Aesthetically the number of types of -humanity is so restricted that we must constantly, wherever we may be, -have the pleasure of seeing people we know, even without looking for -them in the works of the old masters, like Swann. Thus it happened that -in the first few days of our visit to Balbec I had succeeded in finding -Legrandin, Swann's hall porter and Mme. Swann herself, transformed into -a waiter, a foreign visitor whom I never saw again and a bathing -superintendent. And a sort of magnetism attracts and retains so -inseparably, one after another, certain characteristics, facial and -mental, that when nature thus introduces a person into a new body she -does not mutilate him unduly. Legrandin turned waiter kept intact his -stature, the outline of his nose, part of his chin; Mme. Swann, in the -masculine gender and the calling of a bathing superintendent, had been -accompanied not only by familiar features, but even by the way she had -of speaking. Only, she could be of little if any more use to me, -standing upon the beach there in the red sash of her office, and -hoisting at the first gust of wind the flag which forbade us to bathe -(for these superintendents are prudent men, and seldom know how to swim) -than she would have been in that fresco of the _Life of Moses_ in which -Swann had long ago identified her in the portrait of Jethro's Daughter. -Whereas this Mme. de Villeparisis was her real self, she had not been -the victim of an enchantment which had deprived her of her power, but -was capable, on the contrary, of putting at the service of my power an -enchantment which would multiply it an hundred fold, and thanks to -which, as though I had been swept through the air on the wings of a -fabulous bird, I was to cross in a few moments the infinitely wide (at -least, at Balbec) social gulf which separated me from Mlle. de -Stermaria. - -Unfortunately, if there was one person in the world who, more than -anyone else, lived shut up in a little world of her own, it was my -grandmother. She would not, indeed, have despised me, she would simply -not have understood what I meant had she been told that I attached -importance to the opinions, that I felt an interest in the persons of -people the very existence of whom she had never noticed and would, when -the time came to leave Balbec, retain no impression of their names. I -dared not confess to her that if these same people had seen her talking -to Mme. de Villeparisis, I should have been immensely gratified, because -I felt that the Marquise counted for much in the hotel and that her -friendship would have given us a position in the eyes of Mlle. de -Stermaria. Not that my grandmother's friend represented to me, in any -sense of the word, a member of the aristocracy: I was too well used to -her name, which had been familiar to my ears before my mind had begun to -consider it, when as a child I had heard it occur in conversation at -home: while her title added to it only a touch of quaintness--as some -uncommon Christian name would have done, or as in the names of streets, -among which we can see nothing more noble in the Rue Lord Byron, in the -plebeian and even squalid Rue Rochechouart, or in the Rue Grammont than -in the Rue Léonce Reynaud or the Rue Hippolyte Lebas. Mme. de -Villeparisis no more made me think of a person who belonged to a special -world than did her cousin MacMahon, whom I did not clearly distinguish -from M. Carnot, likewise President of the Republic, or from Raspail, -whose photograph Françoise had bought with that of Pius IX. It was one -of my grandmother's principles that, when away from home, one should -cease to have any social intercourse, that one did not go to the seaside -to meet people, having plenty of time for that sort of thing in Paris, -that they would make one waste on being merely polite, in pointless -conversation, the precious time which ought all to be spent in the open -air, beside the waves; and finding it convenient to assume that this -view was shared by everyone else, and that it authorised, between old -friends whom chance brought face to face in the same hotel, the fiction -of a mutual incognito, on hearing her friend's name from the manager she -merely looked the other way, and pretended not to see Mme. de -Villeparisis, who, realising that my grandmother did not want to be -recognised, looked also into the void. She went past, and I was left in -my isolation like a shipwrecked mariner who has seen a vessel apparently -coming towards him which has then, without lowering a boat, vanished -under the horizon. - -She, too, had her meals in the dining-room, but at the other end of it. -She knew none of the people who were staying in the hotel, or who came -there to call, not even M. de Cambremer; in fact, I noticed that he gave -her no greeting, one day when, with his wife, he had accepted an -invitation to take luncheon with the barrister, who drunken with the -honour of having the nobleman at his table avoided his friends of every -day, and confined himself to a distant twitch of the eyelid, so as to -draw their attention to this historic event but so discreetly that his -signal could not be interpreted by them as an invitation to join the -party. - -"Well, I hope you've got on your best clothes; I hope you feel smart -enough," was the magistrate's wife's greeting to him that evening. - -"Smart? Why should I?" asked the barrister, concealing his rapture in an -exaggerated astonishment. "Because of my guests, do you mean?" he went -on, feeling that it was impossible to keep up the farce any longer. "But -what is there smart about having a few friends in to luncheon? After -all, they must feed somewhere!" - -"But it is smart! They are the de Cambremers, aren't they? I recognised -them at once. She is a Marquise. And quite genuine, too. Not through the -females." - -"Oh, she's a very simple soul, she is charming, no stand-offishness -about her. I thought you were coming to join us. I was making signals to -you. . . . I would have introduced you!" he asserted, tempering with a -hint of irony the vast generosity of the offer, like Ahasuerus when he -says to Esther: - -Of all my Kingdom must I give you half! - -"No, no, no, no! We lie hidden, like the modest violet." - -"But you were quite wrong, I assure you," replied the barrister, growing -bolder now that the danger point was passed. "They weren't going to eat -you. I say, aren't we going to have our little game of bezique?" - -"Why, of course! We were afraid to suggest it, now that you go about -entertaining Marquises." - -"Oh, get along with you; there's nothing so very wonderful about them. -Why, I'm dining there to-morrow. Would you care to go instead of me? I -mean it. Honestly, I'd just as soon stay here." - -"No, no! I should be removed from the bench as a Reactionary," cried the -chief magistrate, laughing till the tears stood in his eyes at his own -joke. "But you go to Féterne too, don't you?" he went on, turning to -the solicitor. - -"Oh, I go there on Sundays--in at one door and out at the other. But I -don't have them here to luncheon, like the Leader." - -M. de Stermaria was not at Balbec that day, to the barrister's great -regret. But he managed to say a word in season to the head waiter: - -"Aimé, you can tell M. de Stermaria that he's not the only nobleman -you've had in here. You saw the gentleman who was with me to-day at -luncheon? Eh? A small moustache, looked like a military man. Well, that -was the Marquis de Cambremer!" - -"Was it indeed? I'm not surprised to hear it." - -"That will shew him that he's not the only man who's got a title. That -will teach him! It's not a bad thing to take 'em down a peg or two, -those noblemen. I say, Aimé, don't say anything to him unless you like: -I mean to say, it's no business of mine; besides, they know each other -already." - -And next day M. de Stermaria, who remembered that the barrister had once -held a brief for one of his friends, came up and introduced himself. - -"Our friends in common, the de Cambremers, were anxious that we should -meet; the days didn't fit; I don't know quite what went wrong--" -stammered the barrister, who, like most liars, imagined that other -people do not take the trouble to investigate an unimportant detail -which, for all that, may be sufficient (if chance puts you in possession -of the humble facts of the case, and they contradict it) to shew the -liar in his true colours and to inspire a lasting mistrust. - -Then as at all times, but more easily now that her father had left her -and was talking to the barrister, I was gazing at Mlle. de Stermaria. No -less than the bold and always graceful originality of her attitudes, as -when, leaning her elbows on the table, she raised her glass in both -hands over her outstretched arms, the dry flame of a glance at once -extinguished, the ingrained, congenital hardness that one could feel, -ill-concealed by her own personal inflexions, in the sound of her voice, -which had shocked my grandmother; a sort of atavistic starting-point to -which she recoiled whenever, by glance or utterance, she had succeeded -in expressing a thought of her own; all of these qualities carried the -mind of him who watched her back to the line of ancestors who had -bequeathed to her that inadequacy of human sympathy, those blanks in her -sensibility, that short measure of humanity which was at every moment -running out. But from a certain look which flooded for a moment the -wells--instantly dry again--of her eyes, a look in which I could discern -that almost obsequious docility which the predominance of a taste for -sensual pleasures gives to the proudest of women, who will soon come to -recognise but one form of personal distinction, that namely which any -man enjoys who can make her feel those pleasures, an actor, an acrobat -even, for whom, perhaps, she will one day leave her husband;--from a -certain rosy tint, warm and sensual, which flushed her pallid cheeks, -like the colour that stained the hearts of the white water-lilies in the -Vivonne, I thought I could discern that she would readily have consented -to my coming to seek in her the savour of that life of poetry and -romance which she led in Brittany, a life to which, whether from -over-familiarity or from innate superiority, or from disgust at the -penury or the avarice of her family, she seemed not to attach any great -value, but which, for all that, she held enclosed in her body. In the -meagre stock of will-power that had been transmitted to her, and gave an -element of weakness to her expression, she would not perhaps have found -the strength to resist. And, crowned by a feather that was a trifle -old-fashioned and pretentious, the grey felt hat which she invariably -wore at meals made her all the more attractive to me, not because it was -in harmony with her pearly or rosy complexion, but because, by making me -suppose her to be poor, it brought her closer to myself. Obliged by her -father's presence to adopt a conventional attitude, but already bringing -to the perception and classification of the people who passed before her -eyes other principles than his, perhaps she saw in me not my humble -rank, but the right sex and age. If one day M. de Stermaria had gone out -leaving her behind, if, above all, Mme. de Villeparisis, by coming to -sit at our table, had given her an opinion of me which might have -emboldened me to approach her, perhaps then we might have contrived to -exchange a few words, to arrange a meeting, to form a closer tie. And -for a whole month during which she would be left alone, without her -parents, in her romantic Breton castle, we should perhaps have been able -to wander by ourselves at evening, she and I together in the dusk which -would shew in a softer light above the darkening water pink briar roses, -beneath oak trees beaten and stunted by the hammering of the waves. -Together we should have roamed that isle impregnated with so intense a -charm for me because it had enclosed the everyday life of Mlle. de -Stermaria and lay at rest in her remembering eyes. For it seemed to me -that I should not really have possessed her save there, when I should -have traversed those regions which enveloped her in so many memories--a -veil which my desire sought to tear apart, one of those veils which -nature interposes between woman and her pursuers (with the same -intention as when, for all of us, she places the act of reproduction -between ourselves and our keenest pleasure, and for insects, places -before the nectar the pollen which they must carry away with them) in -order that, tricked by the illusion of possessing her thus more -completely, they may be forced to occupy first the scenes among which -she lives, and which, of more service to their imagination than sensual -pleasure can be, yet would not without that pleasure have had the power -to attract them. - -But I was obliged to take my eyes from Mlle. de Stermaria, for already, -considering no doubt that making the acquaintance of an important person -was a brief, inquisitive act which was sufficient in itself, and to -bring out all the interest that was latent in it required only a -handshake and a penetrating stare, without either immediate conversation -or any subsequent relations, her father had taken leave of the barrister -and returned to sit down facing her, rubbing his hands like a man who -has just made a valuable acquisition. As for the barrister, once the -first emotion of this interview had subsided, then, as on other days, he -could be heard every minute addressing the head waiter: - -"But I am not a king, Aimé; go and attend to the king! I say, Chief, -those little trout don't look at all bad, do they? We must ask Aimé to -let us have some. Aimé, that little fish you have over there looks to -me highly commendable: will you bring us some, please, Aimé, and don't -be sparing with it." - -He would repeat the name "Aimé" all day long, one result of which was -that when he had anyone to dinner the guest would remark "I can see, you -are quite at home in this place," and would feel himself obliged to keep -on saying "Aimé" also, from that tendency, combining elements of -timidity, vulgarity and silliness, which many people have, to believe -that it is smart and witty to copy to the letter what is said by the -company in which they may happen to be. The barrister repeated the name -incessantly, but with a smile, for he felt that he was exhibiting at -once the good terms on which he stood with the head waiter and his own -superior station. And the head waiter, whenever he caught the sound of -his own name, smiled too, as though touched and at the same time proud, -shewing that he was conscious of the honour and could appreciate the -pleasantry. - -Terrifying as I always found these meals, in the vast restaurant, -generally full, of the mammoth hotel, they became even more terrifying -when there arrived for a few days the Proprietor (or he may have been -only the General Manager, appointed by a board of directors) not only of -this "palace" but of seven or eight more besides, situated at all the -four corners of France, in each of which, travelling continuously, he -would spend a week now and again. Then, just after dinner had begun, -there appeared every evening in the doorway of the dining-room this -small man with white hair and a red nose, astonishingly neat and -impassive, who was known, it appeared, as well in London as at Monte -Carlo, as one of the leading hotelkeepers in Europe. Once when I had -gone out for a moment at the beginning of dinner, as I came in again I -passed close by him, and he bowed to me, but with a coldness in which I -could not distinguish whether it should be attributed to the reserve of -a man who could never forget what he was, or to his contempt for a -customer of so little importance. To those whose importance was -considerable the Managing Director would bow, with quite as much -coldness but more deeply, lowering his eyelids with a reverence that was -almost offended modesty, as though he had found himself confronted, at a -funeral, with the father of the deceased or with the Blessed Sacrament. -Except for these icy and infrequent salutations, he made not the -slightest movement, as if to shew that his glittering eyes, which -appeared to be starting out of his head, saw everything, controlled -everything, assured to us in the "Hotel dinner" perfection in every -detail as well as a general harmony. He felt, evidently, that he was -more than the producer of a play, than the conductor of an orchestra, -nothing less than a general in supreme command. Having decided that a -contemplation carried to its utmost intensity would suffice to assure -him that everything was in readiness, that no mistake had been made -which could lead to disaster,--to invest him, in a word, with full -responsibility, he abstained not merely from any gesture but even from -moving his eyes, which, petrified by the intensity of their gaze, took -in and directed everything that was going on. I felt that even the -movements of my spoon did not escape him, and were he to vanish after -the soup, for the whole of dinner the review that he had held would have -taken away my appetite. His own was exceedingly good, as one could see -at luncheon, which he took like an ordinary guest of the hotel at a -table that anyone else might have had in the public dining-room. His -table had this peculiarity only, that by his side, while he was eating, -the other manager, the resident one, remained standing all the time to -make conversation. For being subordinate to this Managing Director he -was anxious to please a man of whom he lived in constant fear. My fear -of him diminished during these luncheons, for being then lost in the -crowd of visitors he would exercise the discretion of a general sitting -in a restaurant where there are also private soldiers, in not seeming to -take any notice of them. Nevertheless when the porter, from among a -cluster of pages, announced to me: "He leaves to-morrow morning for -Dinard. Then he's going down to Biarritz, and after that to Cannes," I -began to breathe more freely. - -My life in the hotel was rendered not only dull because I had no friends -there but uncomfortable because Françoise had made so many. It might be -thought that they would have made things easier for us in various -respects. Quite the contrary. The proletariat, if they succeeded only -with great difficulty in being treated as people she knew by Françoise, -and could not succeed at all unless they fulfilled the condition of -shewing the utmost politeness to her, were, on the other hand, once they -had reached the position, the only people who "counted". Her -time-honoured code taught her that she was in no way bound to the -friends of her employers, that she might, if she was busy, shut the door -without ceremony in the face of a lady who had come to call on my -grandmother. But towards her own acquaintance, that is to say, the -select handful of the lower orders whom she admitted to an unconquerable -intimacy, her actions were regulated by the most subtle and most -stringent of protocols. Thus Françoise having made the acquaintance of -the man in the coffee-shop and of a little maid who did dressmaking for -a Belgian lady, no longer came upstairs immediately after luncheon to -get my grandmother's things ready, but came an hour later, because the -coffee man had wanted to make her a cup of coffee or a tisane in his -shop, or the maid had invited her to go and watch her sew, and to refuse -either of them would have been impossible, and one of the things that -were not done. Moreover, particular attention was due to the little -sewing-maid, who was an orphan and had been brought up by strangers to -whom she still went occasionally for a few days' holiday. Her unusual -situation aroused Françoise's pity, and also a benevolent contempt. -She, who had a family, a little house that had come to her from her -parents, with a field in which her brother kept his cows, how could she -regard so uprooted a creature as her equal? And since this girl hoped, -on Assumption Day, to be allowed to pay her benefactors a visit, -Françoise kept on repeating: "She does make me laugh! She says, 'I hope -to be going home for the Assumption.' 'Home!' says she! It isn't just -that it's not her own place, they're people who took her in from -nowhere, and the creature says 'home' just as if it really was her home. -Poor girl! What a wretched state she must be in, not to know what it is -to have a home." Still, if Françoise had associated only with the -ladies'-maids brought to the hotel by other visitors, who fed with her -in the "service" quarters and, seeing her grand lace cap and her -handsome profile, took her perhaps for some lady of noble birth, whom -"reduced circumstances", or a personal attachment had driven to serve as -companion to my grandmother, if in a word Françoise had known only -people who did not belong to the hotel, no great harm would have been -done, since she could not have prevented them from doing us any service, -for the simple reason that in no circumstances, even without her -knowledge, would it have been possible for them to serve us at all. But -she had formed connexions also with one of the wine waiters, with a man -in the kitchen, and with the head chambermaid of our landing. And the -result of this in our every day life was that Françoise, who on the day -of her arrival, when she still did not know anyone, would set all the -bells jangling for the slightest thing, at an hour when my grandmother -and I would never have dared to ring, and if we offered some gentle -admonition answered: "Well, we're paying enough for it, aren't we?" as -though it were she herself that would have to pay; nowadays, since she -had made friends with a personage in the kitchen, which had appeared to -us to augur well for our future comfort, were my grandmother or I to -complain of cold feet, Françoise, even at an hour that was quite -normal, dared not ring; she assured us that it would give offence -because they would have to light the furnace again, or because it would -interrupt the servants' dinner and they would be annoyed. And she ended -with a formula that, in spite of the ambiguous way in which she uttered -it, was none the less clear, and put us plainly in the wrong: "The fact -is . . ." We did not insist, for fear of bringing upon ourselves -another, far more serious: "It's a matter . . .!" So that it amounted -to this, that we could no longer have any hot water because Françoise -had become a friend of the man who would have to heat it. - -In the end we too formed a connexion, in spite of but through my -grandmother, for she and Mme. de Villeparisis came in collision one -morning in a doorway and were obliged to accost each other, not without -having first exchanged gestures of surprise and hesitation, performed -movements of recoil and uncertainty, and finally uttered protestations -of joy and greeting, as in some of Molière's plays, where two actors -who have been delivering long soliloquies from opposite sides of the -stage, a few feet apart, are supposed not to have seen each other yet, -and then suddenly catch sight of each other, cannot believe their eyes, -break off what they are saying and finally address each other (the -chorus having meanwhile kept the dialogue going) and fall into each -other's arms. Mme. de Villeparisis was tactful, and made as if to leave -my grandmother to herself after the first greetings, but my grandmother -insisted on her staying to talk to her until luncheon, being anxious to -discover how her friend managed to get her letters sent up to her -earlier than we got ours, and to get such nice grilled things (for Mme. -de Villeparisis, a great epicure, had the poorest opinion of the hotel -kitchen which served us with meals that my grandmother, still quoting -Mme. de Sévigné, described as "of a magnificence to make you die of -hunger.") And the Marquise formed the habit of coming every day, until -her own meal was ready, to sit down for a moment at our table in the -dining-room, insisting that we should not rise from our chairs or in any -way put ourselves out. At the most we would linger, as often as not, in -the room after finishing our luncheon, to talk to her, at that sordid -moment when the knives are left littering the tablecloth among crumpled -napkins. For my own part, so as to preserve (in order that I might be -able to enjoy Balbec) the idea that I was on the uttermost promontory of -the earth I compelled myself to look farther afield, to notice only the -sea, to seek in it the effects described by Baudelaire and to let my -gaze fall upon our table only on days when there was set on it some -gigantic fish, some marine monster, which unlike the knives and forks -was contemporary with the primitive epochs in which the Ocean first -began to teem with life, in the Cimmerians' time, a fish whose body with -its numberless vertebrae, its blue veins and red, had been constructed -by nature, but according to an architectural plan, like a polychrome -cathedral of the deep. - -As a barber, seeing an officer whom he is accustomed to shave with -special deference and care recognise a customer who has just entered the -shop and stop for a moment to talk to him, rejoices in the thought that -these are two men of the same social order, and cannot help smiling as -he goes to fetch the bowl of soap, for he knows that in his -establishment, to the vulgar routine of a mere barber's shop, are being -added social, not to say aristocratic pleasures, so Aimé, seeing that -Mme. de Villeparisis had found in us old friends, went to fetch our -finger-bowls with precisely the smile, proudly modest and knowingly -discreet, of a hostess who knows when to leave her guests to themselves. -He suggested also a pleased and loving father who looks on, without -interfering, at the happy pair who have plighted their troth at his -hospitable board. Besides, it was enough merely to utter the name of a -person of title for Aimé to appear pleased, unlike Françoise, before -whom you could not mention Count So-and-so without her face darkening -and her speech becoming dry and sharp, all of which meant that she -worshipped the aristocracy not less than Aimé but far more. But then -Françoise had that quality which in others she condemned as the worst -possible fault; she was proud. She was not of that friendly and -good-humoured race to which Aimé belonged. They feel, they exhibit an -intense delight when you tell them a piece of news which may be more or -less sensational but is at any rate new, and not to be found in the -papers. Françoise declined to appear surprised. You might have -announced in her hearing that the Archduke Rudolf--not that she had the -least suspicion of his having ever existed--was not, as was generally -supposed, dead, but "alive and kicking"; she would have answered only -"Yes," as though she had known it all the time. It may, however, have -been that if even from our own lips, from us whom she so meekly called -her masters, who had so nearly succeeded in taming her, she could not, -without having to check an angry start, hear the name of a noble, that -was because the family from which she had sprung occupied in its own -village a comfortable and independent position, and was not to be -threatened in the consideration which it enjoyed save by those same -nobles, in whose households, meanwhile, from his boyhood, an Aimé would -have been domiciled as a servant, if not actually brought up by their -charity. Of Françoise, then, Mme. de Villeparisis must ask pardon, -first, for her nobility. But (in France, at any rate) that is precisely -the talent, in fact the sole occupation of our great gentlemen and -ladies. Françoise, following the common tendency of servants, who pick -up incessantly from the conversation of their masters with other people -fragmentary observations from which they are apt to draw erroneous -inductions, as the human race generally does with respect to the habits -of animals, was constantly discovering that somebody had "failed" us, a -conclusion to which she was easily led, not so much, perhaps, by her -extravagant love for us, as by the delight that she took in being -disagreeable to us. But having once established, without possibility of -error, the endless little attentions paid to us, and paid to herself -also by Mme. de Villeparisis, Françoise forgave her for being a -Marquise, and, as she had never ceased to be proud of her because she -was one, preferred her thenceforward to all our other friends. It must -be added that no one else took the trouble to be so continually nice to -us. Whenever my grandmother remarked on a book that Mme. de Villeparisis -was reading, or said she had been admiring the fruit which some one had -just sent to our friend, within an hour the footman would come to our -rooms with book or fruit. And the next time we saw her, in response to -our thanks, she would say only, seeming to seek some excuse for the -meagreness of her present in some special use to which it might be put: -"It's nothing wonderful, but the newspapers come so late here, one must -have something to read." Or, "It is always wiser to have fruit one can -be quite certain of, at the seaside."--"But I don't believe I've ever -seen you eating oysters," she said to us, increasing the sense of -disgust which I felt at that moment, for the living flesh of the oyster -revolted me even more than the gumminess of the stranded jellyfish -defiled for me the beach at Balbec; "they are delicious down here! Oh, -let me tell my maid to fetch your letters when she goes for mine. What, -your daughter writes _every day?_ But what on earth can you find to say -to each other?" My grandmother was silent, but it may be assumed that -her silence was due to scorn, in her who used to repeat, when she wrote -to Mamma, the words of Mme. de Sévigné: "As soon as I have received a -letter, I want another at once; I cannot breathe until it comes. There -are few who are worthy to understand what I mean." And I was afraid of -her applying to Mme. de Villeparisis the conclusion: "I seek out those -who are of the chosen few, and I avoid the rest." She fell back upon -praise of the fruit which Mme. de Villeparisis had sent us the day -before. And this had been, indeed, so fine that the manager, in spite of -the jealousy aroused by our neglect of his official offerings, had said -to me: "I am like you; I'm madder about fruit than any other kind of -dessert." My grandmother told her friend that she had enjoyed them all -the more because the fruit which we got in the hotel was generally -horrid. "I cannot," she went on, "say, like Mme. de Sévigné, that if -we should take a sudden fancy for bad fruit we should be obliged to -order it from Paris." "Oh yes, of course, you read Mme. de Sévigné. I -saw you with her letters the day you came." (She forgot that she had -never officially seen my grandmother in the hotel until their collision -in the doorway.) "Don't you find it rather exaggerated, her constant -anxiety about her daughter? She refers to it too often to be really -sincere. She is not natural." My grandmother felt that any discussion -would be futile, and so as not to be obliged to speak of the things she -loved to a person incapable of understanding them, concealed by laying -her bag upon them the _Mémoires de Mme. de Beausergent._ - -Were she to encounter Françoise at the moment (which Françoise called -"the noon") when, wearing her fine cap and surrounded with every mark of -respect, she was coming downstairs to "feed with the service", Mme. -Villeparisis would stop her to ask after us. And Françoise, when -transmitting to us the Marquise's message: "She said to me, 'You'll be -sure and bid them good day,' she said," counterfeited the voice of Mme. -de Villeparisis, whose exact words she imagined herself to be quoting -textually, whereas she was really corrupting them no less than Plato -corrupts the words of Socrates or Saint John the words of Jesus. -Françoise, as was natural, was deeply touched by these attentions. Only -she did not believe my grandmother, but supposed that she must be lying -in the interest of her class (the rich always combining thus to support -one another) when she assured us that Mme. de Villeparisis had been -lovely as a young woman. It was true that of this loveliness only the -faintest trace remained, from which no one--unless he happened to be a -great deal more of an artist than Françoise--would have been able to -restore her ruined beauty. For in order to understand how beautiful an -elderly woman can once have been one must not only study but interpret -every line of her face. - -"I must remember, some time, to ask her whether I'm not right, after -all, in thinking that there is some connexion with the Guermantes," said -my grandmother, to my great indignation. How could I be expected to -believe in a common origin uniting two names which had entered my -consciousness, one through the low and shameful gate of experience, the -other by the golden gate of imagination? - -We had several times, in the last few days, seen driving past us in a -stately equipage, tall, auburn, handsome, with a rather prominent nose, -the Princesse de Luxembourg, who was staying in the neighbourhood for a -few weeks. Her carriage had stopped outside the hotel, a footman had -come in and spoken to the manager, had gone back to the carriage and had -reappeared with the most amazing armful of fruit (which combined in a -single basket, like the bay itself, different seasons) with a card: "La -Princesse de Luxembourg", on which were scrawled a few words in pencil. -For what princely traveller sojourning here incognito, could they be -intended, those glaucous plums, luminous and spherical as was at that -moment the circumfluent sea, transparent grapes clustering on a -shrivelled stick, like a fine day in autumn, pears of a heavenly -ultramarine? For it could not be on my grandmother's friend that the -Princess had meant to pay a call. And yet on the following evening Mme. -de Villeparisis sent us the bunch of grapes, cool, liquid, golden; plums -too and pears which we remembered, though the plums had changed, like -the sea at our dinner-hour, to a dull purple, and on the ultramarine -surface of the pears there floated the forms of a few rosy clouds. A few -days later we met Mme. de Villeparisis as we came away from the symphony -concert that was given every morning on the beach. Convinced that the -music to which I had been listening (the Prelude to _Lohengrin_, the -Overture to _Tannhäuser_ and suchlike) expressed the loftiest of -truths, I was trying to elevate myself, as far as I could, so as to -attain to a comprehension of them, I was extracting from myself so as to -understand them, and was attributing to them, all that was best and most -profound in my own nature at that time. - -Well, as we came out of the concert, and, on our way back to the hotel, -had stopped for a moment on the front, my grandmother and I, for a few -words with Mme. de Villeparisis who told us that she had ordered some -_croque-monsieurs_ and a dish of creamed eggs for us at the hotel, I -saw, a long way away, coming in our direction, the Princesse de -Luxembourg, half leaning upon a parasol in such a way as to impart to -her tall and wonderful form that slight inclination, to make it trace -that arabesque dear to the women who had been beautiful under the -Empire, and knew how, with drooping shoulders, arched backs, concave -hips and bent limbs, to make their bodies float as gently as a silken -scarf about the rigidity of the invisible stem which might be supposed -to have been passed diagonally through them. She went out every morning -for a turn on the beach almost at the time when everyone else, after -bathing, was climbing home to luncheon, and as hers was not until half -past one she did not return to her villa until long after the hungry -bathers had left the scorching "front" a desert. Mme. de Villeparisis -presented my grandmother and would have presented me, but had first to -ask me my name, which she could not remember. She had, perhaps, never -known it, or if she had must have forgotten years ago to whom my -grandmother had married her daughter. My name, when she did hear it, -appeared to impress Mme. de Villeparisis considerably. Meanwhile the -Princesse de Luxembourg had given us her hand and, now and again, while -she conversed with the Marquise, turned to bestow a kindly glance on my -grandmother and myself, with that embryonic kiss which we put into our -smiles when they are addressed to a baby out with its "Nana". Indeed, in -her anxiety not to appear to be a denizen of a higher sphere than ours, -she had probably miscalculated the distance there was indeed between us, -for by an error in adjustment she made her eyes beam with such -benevolence that I could see the moment approaching when she would put -out her hand and stroke us, as if we were two nice beasts and had poked -our heads out at her through the bars of our cage in the Gardens. And, -immediately, as it happened, this idea of caged animals and the Bois de -Boulogne received striking confirmation. It was the time of day at which -the beach is crowded by itinerant and clamorous vendors, hawking cakes -and sweets and biscuits. Not knowing quite what to do to shew her -affection for us, the Princess hailed the next that came by; he had -nothing left but one rye-cake, of the kind one throws to the ducks. The -Princess took it and said to me: "For your grandmother." And yet it was -to me that she held it out, saying with a friendly smile, "You shall -give it to her yourself!" thinking that my pleasure would thus be more -complete if there were no intermediary between myself and the animals. -Other vendors came up; she stuffed my pockets with everything that they -had, tied up in packets, comfits, sponge-cakes, sugar-sticks. "You will -eat some yourself," she told me, "and give some to your grandmother," -and she had the vendors paid by the little negro page, dressed in red -satin, who followed her everywhere and was a nine days' wonder upon the -beach. Then she said good-bye to Mme. de Villeparisis and held out her -hand to us with the intention of treating us in the same way as she -treated her friend, as people whom she knew, and of bringing herself -within our reach. But this time she must have reckoned our level as not -quite so low in the scale of creation, for her and our equality was -indicated by the Princess to my grandmother by that tender and maternal -smile which a woman gives a little boy when she says good-bye to him as -though to a grown-up person. By a miraculous stride in evolution, my -grandmother was no longer a duck or an antelope, but had already become -what the anglophil Mme. Swann would have called a "baby". Finally, -having taken leave of us all, the Princess resumed her stroll along the -basking "front", curving her splendid shape which, like a serpent coiled -about a wand, was interlaced with the white parasol patterned in blue -which Mme. de Luxembourg held, unopened, in her hand. She was my first -Royalty--I say my first, for strictly speaking Princesse Mathilde did -not count. The second, as we shall see in due course, was to astonish me -no less by her indulgence. One of the ways in which our great nobles, -kindly intermediaries between commoners and kings, can befriend us was -revealed to me next day when Mme. de Villeparisis reported: "She thought -you quite charming. She is a woman of the soundest judgment, the warmest -heart. Not like so many Queens and people! She has real merit." And Mme. -de Villeparisis went on in a tone of conviction, and quite thrilled to -be able to say it to us: "I am sure she would be delighted to see you -again." - -But on that previous morning, after we had parted from the Princesse de -Luxembourg, Mme. de Villeparisis said a thing which impressed me far -more and was not prompted merely by friendly feeling. - -"Are you," she had asked me, "the son of the Permanent Secretary at the -Ministry? Indeed! I am told your father is a most charming man. He is -having a splendid holiday just now." - -A few days earlier we had heard, in a letter from Mamma, that my father -and his friend M. de Norpois had lost their luggage. - -"It has been found; as a matter of fact, it was never really lost, I can -tell you what happened," explained Mme. de Villeparisis, who, without -our knowing how, seemed to be far better informed than ourselves of the -course of my father's travels. "I think your father is now planning to -come home earlier, next week, in fact, as he will probably give up the -idea of going to Algeçiras. But he is anxious to devote a day longer to -Toledo; it seems, he is an admirer of a pupil of Titian,--I forget the -name--whose work can only be seen properly there." - -I asked myself by what strange accident, in the impartial glass through -which Mme. de Villeparisis considered, from a safe distance, the -bustling, tiny, purposeless agitation of the crowd of people whom she -knew, there had come to be inserted at the spot through which she -observed my father a fragment of prodigious magnifying power which made -her see in such high relief and in the fullest detail everything that -there was attractive about him, the contingencies that were obliging him -to return home, his difficulties with the customs, his admiration for El -Greco, and, altering the scale of her vision, shewed her this one man so -large among all the rest quite small, like that Jupiter to whom Gustave -Moreau gave, when he portrayed him by the side of a weak mortal, a -superhuman stature. - -My grandmother bade Mme. de Villeparisis good-bye, so that we might stay -and imbibe the fresh air for a little while longer outside the hotel, -until they signalled to us through the glazed partition that our -luncheon was ready. There were sounds of tumult. The young mistress of -the King of the Cannibal Island had been down to bathe and was now -coming back to the hotel. - -"Really and truly, it's a perfect plague: it's enough to make one decide -to emigrate!" cried the barrister, who had happened to cross her path, -in a towering rage. - -Meanwhile the solicitor's wife was following the bogus Queen with eyes -that seemed ready to start from their sockets. - -"I can't tell you how angry Mme. Blandais makes me when she stares at -those people like that," said the barrister to the chief magistrate, "I -feel I want to slap her. That is just the way to make the wretches -appear important; and of course that's the very thing they want, that -people should take an interest in them. Do ask her husband to tell her -what a fool she's making of herself. I swear I won't go out with them -again if they stop and gape at those masqueraders." - -As to the coming of the Princesse de Luxembourg, whose carriage, on the -day on which she left the fruit, had drawn up outside the hotel, it had -not passed unobserved by the little group of wives, the solicitor's, the -barrister's and the magistrate's, who had for some time past been most -concerned to know whether she was a genuine Marquise and not an -adventuress, that Mme. de Villeparisis whom everyone treated with so -much respect, which all these ladies were burning to hear that she did -not deserve. Whenever Mme. de Villeparisis passed through the hall the -chief magistrate's wife, who scented irregularities everywhere, would -raise her eyes from her "work" and stare at the intruder in a way that -made her friends die with laughter. - -"Oh, well, you know," she explained with lofty condescension, "I always -begin by believing the worst. I will never admit that a woman is -properly married until she has shewn me her birth certificate and her -marriage lines. But there's no need to alarm yourselves; just wait till -I've finished my little investigation." - -And so, day after day the ladies would come together, and, laughingly, -ask one another: "Any news?" - -But on the evening after the Princesse de Luxembourg's call the -magistrate's wife laid a finger on her lips. - -"I've discovered something." - -"Oh, isn't Mme. Poncin simply wonderful? I never saw anyone. . . . But -do tell us! What has happened?" - -"Just listen to this. A woman with yellow hair and six inches of paint -on her face and a carriage like a--you could _smell_ it a mile off; which -only a creature like that would dare to have--came here to-day to call -on the Marquise, by way of!" - -"Oh-yow-yow! Tut-tut-tut-tut. Did you ever! Why, it must be that woman -we saw--you remember, Leader,--we said at the time we didn't at all like -the look of her, but we didn't know that it was the 'Marquise' she'd -come to see. A woman with a nigger-boy, you mean?" - -"That's the one." - -"D'you mean to say so? You don't happen to know her name?" - -"Yes, I made a mistake on purpose; I picked up her card; she _trades_ -under the name of the 'Princesse de Luxembourg'! Wasn't I right to have -my doubts about her? It's a nice thing to have to mix promiscuously with -a Baronne d'Ange like that?" The barrister quoted Mathurin Régnier's -_Macette_ to the chief magistrate. - -It must not, however, be supposed that this misunderstanding was merely -temporary, like those that occur in the second act of a farce to be -cleared up before the final curtain. Mme. de Luxembourg, a niece of the -King of England and of the Emperor of Austria, and Mme. de Villeparisis, -when one called to take the other for a drive, did look like nothing but -two "old trots" of the kind one has always such difficulty in avoiding -at a watering-place. Nine tenths of the men of the Faubourg -Saint-Germain appear to the average man of the middle class simply as -alcoholic wasters (which, individually, they not infrequently are) whom, -therefore, no respectable person would dream of asking to dinner. The -middle class fixes its standard, in this respect, too high, for the -feelings of these men would never prevent their being received with -every mark of esteem in houses which it, the middle class, may never -enter. And so sincerely do they believe that the middle class knows this -that they affect a simplicity in speaking of their own affairs and a -tone of disparagement of their friends, especially when they are "at the -coast", which make the misunderstanding complete. If, by any chance, a -man of the fashionable world is kept in touch with "business people" -because, having more money than he knows what to do with, he finds -himself elected chairman of all sorts of important financial concerns, -the business man who at last sees a nobleman worthy, he considers, to -rank with "big business", would take his oath that such a man can have -no dealings with the Marquis ruined by gambling whom the said business -man supposes to be all the more destitute of friends the more friendly -he makes himself. And he cannot get over his surprise when the Duke, -Chairman of the Board of Directors of the colossal undertaking, arranges -a marriage for his son with the daughter of that very Marquis, who may -be a gambler but who bears the oldest name in France, just as a -Sovereign would sooner see his son marry the daughter of a dethroned -King than that of a President still in office. That is to say, the two -worlds take as fantastic a view of one another as the inhabitants of a -town situated at one end of Balbec Bay have of the town at the other -end: from Rivebelle you can just see Marcouville l'Orgueilleuse; but -even that is deceptive, for you imagine that you are seen from -Marcouville, where, as a matter of fact, the splendours of Rivebelle are -almost wholly invisible. - - - - -PART II - - - - -_PLACE-NAMES: THE PLACE_ - - -The Balbec doctor, who had been called in to cope with a sudden feverish -attack, having given the opinion that I ought not to stay out all day on -the beach, in the blazing sun, without shelter, and having written out -various prescriptions for my use, my grandmother took his prescriptions -with a show of respect in which I could at once discern her firm resolve -not to have any of them "made up", but did pay attention to his advice -on the matter of hygiene, and accepted an offer from Mme. de -Villeparisis to take us for drives in her carriage. After this I would -spend the mornings, until luncheon, going to and fro between my own room -and my grandmother's. Hers did not look out directly upon the sea, as -mine did, but was lighted from three of its four sides--with views of a -strip of the "front", of a well inside the building, and of the country -inland, and was furnished differently from mine, with armchairs -upholstered in a metallic tissue with red flowers from which seemed to -emanate the cool and pleasant odour that greeted me when I entered the -room. And at that hour when the sun's rays, coming from different -aspects and, as it were, from different hours of the day, broke the -angles of the wall, thrust in a reflexion of the beach, made of the -chest of drawers a festal altar, variegated as a bank of field-flowers, -attached to the wall the wings, folded, quivering, warm, of a radiance -that would, at any moment, resume its flight, warmed like a bath a -square of provincial carpet before the window overlooking the well, -which the sun festooned and patterned like a climbing vine, added to the -charm and complexity of the room's furniture by seeming to pluck and -scatter the petals of the silken flowers on the chairs, and to make -their silver threads stand out from the fabric, this room in which I -lingered for a moment before going to get ready for our drive suggested -a prism in which the colours of the light that shone outside were broken -up, or a hive in which the sweet juices of the day which I was about to -taste were distilled, scattered, intoxicating, visible, a garden of hope -which dissolved in a quivering haze of silver threads and rose leaves. -But before all this I had drawn back my own curtains, impatient to know -what Sea it was that was playing that morning by the shore, like a -Nereid. For none of those Seas ever stayed with us longer than a day. On -the morrow there would be another, which sometimes resembled its -predecessor. But I never saw the same one twice. - -There were some that were of so rare a beauty that my pleasure on -catching sight of them was enhanced by surprise. By what privilege, on -one morning rather than another, did the window on being uncurtained -disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, -gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath -whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured -it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous -by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her -translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like -those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of -marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled. So, in her matchless -colour, she invited us out over those rough terrestrial roads, from -which, seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche, we should -see, all day long and without ever reaching it, the coolness of her -gentle palpitation. - -Mme. de Villeparisis used to order her carriage early, so that we should -have time to reach Saint-Mars-le-Vêtu, or the rocks of Quetteholme, or -some other goal which, for a somewhat lumbering vehicle, was far enough -off to require the whole day. In my joy at the long drive we were going -to take I would be humming some tune that I had heard recently as I -strolled up and down until Mme. de Villeparisis was ready. If it was -Sunday hers would not be the only carriage drawn up outside the hotel; -several hired flies would be waiting there, not only for the people who -had been invited to Féterne by Mme. de Cambremer, but for those who, -rather than stay at home all day, like children in disgrace, declared -that Sunday was always quite impossible at Balbec and started off -immediately after luncheon to hide themselves in some neighbouring -watering-place or to visit one of the "sights" of the district. And -indeed whenever (which was often) anyone asked Mme. Blandais if she had -been to the Cambremers', she would answer peremptorily: "No; we went to -the Falls of the Bec," as though that were the sole reason for her not -having spent the day at Féterne. And the barrister would be charitable, -and say: - -"I envy you. I wish I had gone there instead; they must be well worth -seeing." - -Beside the row of carriages, in front of the porch in which I stood -waiting, was planted, like some shrub of a rare species, a young page -who attracted the eye no less by the unusual and effective colouring of -his hair than by his plant-like epidermis. Inside, in the hall, -corresponding to the narthex, or Church of the Catechumens in a -primitive basilica, through which persons who were not staying in the -hotel were entitled to pass, the comrades of this "outside" page did not -indeed work much harder than he but did at least execute certain drilled -movements. It is probable that in the early morning they helped with the -cleaning. But in the afternoon they stood there only like a Chorus who, -even when there is nothing for them to do, remain upon the stage in -order to strengthen the cast. The General Manager, the same who had so -terrified me, reckoned on increasing their number considerably next -year, for he had "big ideas". And this prospect greatly afflicted the -manager of the hotel, who found that all these boys about the place only -"created a nuisance", by which he meant that they got in the visitors' -way and were of no use to anyone. But between luncheon and dinner at -least, between the exits and entrances of the visitors, they did fill an -otherwise empty stage, like those pupils of Mme. de Maintenon who, in -the garb of young Israelites, carry on the action whenever Esther or -Joad "goes off". But the outside page, with his delicate tints, his -tall, slender, fragile trunk, in proximity to whom I stood waiting for -the Marquise to come downstairs, preserved an immobility into which a -certain melancholy entered, for his elder brothers had left the hotel -for more brilliant careers elsewhere, and he felt keenly his isolation -upon this alien soil. At last Mme. de Villeparisis appeared. To stand by -her carriage and to help her into it ought perhaps to have been part of -the young page's duties. But he knew on the one hand that a person who -brings her own servants to an hotel expects them to wait on her and is -not as a rule lavish with her "tips", and that generally speaking this -was true also of the nobility of the old Faubourg Saint-Germain. Mme. de -Villeparisis was included in both these categories. The arborescent page -concluded therefore that he need expect nothing from her, and leaving -her own maid and footman to pack her and her belongings into the -carriage, he continued to dream sadly of the enviable lot of his -brothers and preserved his vegetable immobility. - -We would start off; some time after rounding the railway station, we -came into a country road which soon became as familiar to me as the -roads round Combray, from the bend where, like a fish-hook, it was -baited with charming orchards, to the turning at which we left it, with -tilled fields upon either side. Among these we could see here and there -an apple-tree, stripped it was true of its blossom, and bearing no more -now than a fringe of pistils, but sufficient even so to enchant me since -I could imagine, seeing those inimitable leaves, how their broad -expanse, like the ceremonial carpet spread for a wedding that was now -over, had been but the other day swept by the white satin train of their -blushing flowers. - -How often in Paris, during the May of the following year, was I to bring -home a branch of apple-blossom from the florist, and to stay all night -long before its flowers in which bloomed the same creamy essence that -powdered besides and whitened the green unfolding leaves, flowers -between whose snowy cups it seemed almost as though it had been the -salesman who had, in his generosity towards myself, out of his wealth of -invention too and as an effective contrast, added on either side the -supplement of a becoming crimson bud: I sat gazing at them, I grouped -them in the light of my lamp--for so long that I was often still there -when the dawn brought to their whiteness the same flush with which it -must at that moment have been tingeing their sisters on the Balbec -road--and I sought to carry them back in my imagination to that -roadside, to multiply them, to spread them out, so as to fill the frame -prepared for them, on the canvas, all ready, of those closes the outline -of which I knew by heart, which I so longed to see--which one day I must -see again, at the moment when, with the exquisite fervour of genius, -spring was covering their canvas with its colours. - -Before getting into the carriage I had composed the seascape for which I -was going to look out, which I had hoped to see with the "sun radiant", -upon it, and which at Balbec I could distinguish only in too fragmentary -a form, broken by so many vulgar intromissions that had no place in my -dream, bathers, dressing-boxes, pleasure yachts. But when, Mme. de -Villeparisis's carriage having reached high ground, I caught a glimpse -of the sea through the leafy boughs of trees, then no doubt at such a -distance those temporal details which had set the sea, as it were, apart -from nature and history disappeared, and I could as I looked down -towards its waves make myself realise that they were the same which -Leconte de Lisle describes for us in his _Orestie_, where "like a flight -of birds of prey, before the dawn of day" the long-haired warriors of -heroic Hellas "with oars an hundred thousand sweep the huge resounding -deep." But on the other hand I was no longer near enough to the sea -which seemed to me not a living thing now, but fixed; I no longer felt -any power beneath its colours, spread like those of a picture among the -leaves, through which it appeared as inconsistent as the sky and only of -an intenser blue. - -Mme. de Villeparisis, seeing that I was fond of churches, promised me -that we should visit one one day and another another, and especially the -church at Carqueville "quite buried in all its old ivy", as she said -with a wave of the hand which seemed tastefully to be clothing the -absent front in an invisible and delicate screen of foliage. Mme. de -Villeparisis would often, with this little descriptive gesture, find -just the right word to define the attraction and the distinctive -features of an historic building, always avoiding technical terms, but -incapable of concealing her thorough understanding of the things to -which she referred. She appeared to seek an excuse for this erudition in -the fact that one of her father's country houses, the one in which she -had lived as a girl, was situated in a district in which there were -churches similar in style to those round Balbec, so that it would have -been unaccountable if she had not acquired a taste for architecture, -this house being, incidentally, one of the finest examples of that of -the Renaissance. But as it was also a regular museum, as moreover Chopin -and Liszt had played there, Lamartine recited poetry, all the most -famous artists for fully a century had inscribed "sentiments", scored -melodies, made sketches in the family album, Mme. de Villeparisis -ascribed, whether from delicacy, good breeding, true modesty or want of -intelligence, only this purely material origin to her acquaintance with -all the arts, and had come, apparently, to regard painting, music, -literature and philosophy as the appanage of a young lady brought up on -the most aristocratic lines in an historic building that was catalogued -and starred. You would have said, listening to her, that she knew of no -pictures that were not heirlooms. She was pleased that my grandmother -liked a necklace which she wore, and which fell over her dress. It -appeared in the portrait of an ancestress of her own by Titian which had -never left the family. So that one could be certain of its being -genuine. She would not listen to a word about pictures bought, heaven -knew where, by a Croesus, she was convinced before you spoke that they -were forgeries, and had no desire to see them. We knew that she herself -painted flowers in water-colour, and my grandmother, who had heard these -praised, spoke to her of them. Mme. de Villeparisis modestly changed the -subject, but without shewing either surprise or pleasure more than would -an artist whose reputation was established and to whom compliments meant -nothing. She said merely that it was a delightful pastime because, even -if the flowers that sprang from the brush were nothing wonderful, at -least the work made you live in the company of real flowers, of the -beauty of which, especially when you were obliged to study them closely -in order to draw them, you could never grow tired. But at Balbec Mme. de -Villeparisis was giving herself a holiday, so as to spare her eyes. - -We were astonished, my grandmother and I, to find how much more -"Liberal" she was than even the majority of the middle class. She did -not understand how anyone could be scandalised by the expulsion of the -Jesuits, saying that it had always been done, even under the Monarchy, -in Spain even. She took up the defence of the Republic, and against its -anti-clericalism had no more to say than: "I should be equally annoyed -whether they prevented me from hearing mass when I wanted to, or forced -me to hear it when I didn't!" and even startled us with such utterances -as: "Oh! the aristocracy in these days, what does it amount to?" "To my -mind, a man who doesn't work doesn't count!"--perhaps only because she -felt that they gained point and flavour, became memorable, in fact, on -her lips. - -When we heard these advanced opinions--though never so far advanced as -to amount to Socialism, which Mme. de Villeparisis held in -abhorrence--expressed so frequently and with so much frankness precisely -by one of those people in consideration of whose intelligence our -scrupulous and timid impartiality would refuse to condemn outright the -ideas of the Conservatives, we came very near, my grandmother and I, to -believing that in the pleasant companion of our drives was to be found -the measure and the pattern of truth in all things. We took her word for -it when she appreciated her Titians, the colonnade of her country house, -the conversational talent of Louis-Philippe. But--like those mines of -learning who hold us spell-bound when we get them upon Egyptian -paintings or Etruscan inscriptions, and yet talk so tediously about -modern work that we ask ourselves whether we have not been -overestimating the interest of the sciences in which they are versed -since there is not apparent in their treatment of them the mediocrity of -mind which they must have brought to those studies just as much as to -their fatuous essays on Baudelaire--Mme. de Villeparisis, questioned by -me about Chateaubriand, about Balzac, about Victor Hugo, each of whom -had in his day been the guest of her parents, and had been seen and -spoken to by her, smiled at my reverence, told amusing anecdotes of -them, such as she had a moment ago been telling us of dukes and -statesmen, and severely criticised those writers simply because they had -been lacking in that modesty, that self-effacement, that sober art which -is satisfied with a single right line, and lays no stress on it, which -avoids more than anything else the absurdity of grandiloquence, in that -opportuneness, those qualities of moderation, of judgment and simplicity -to which she had been taught that real greatness aspired and attained: -it was evident that she had no hesitation in placing above them men who -might after all, perhaps, by virtue of those qualities, have had the -advantage of a Balzac, a Hugo, a Vigny in a drawing-room, an academy, a -cabinet council, men like Molé, Fontanes, Vitroles, Bersot, Pasquier, -Lebrun, Salvandy or Daru. - -"Like those novels of Stendhal, which you seem to admire. You would have -given him a great surprise, I assure you, if you had spoken to him in -that tone. My father, who used to meet him at M. Mérimée's--now he was -a man of talent, if you like--often told me that Beyle (that was his -real name) was appallingly vulgar, but quite good company at dinner, and -never in the least conceited about his books. Why, you can see for -yourself how he just shrugged his shoulders at the absurdly extravagant -compliments of M. de Balzac. There at least he shewed that he knew how -to behave like a gentleman." She possessed the autographs of all these -great men, and seemed, when she put forward the personal relations which -her family had had with them, to assume that her judgment of them must -be better founded than that of young people who, like myself, had had no -opportunity of meeting them. "I'm sure I have a right to speak, for they -used to come to my father's house; and as M. Sainte-Beuve, who was a -most intelligent man, used to say, in forming an estimate you must take -the word of people who saw them close, and were able to judge more -exactly of their real worth." - -Sometimes as the carriage laboured up a steep road through tilled -country, making the fields more real, adding to them a mark of -authenticity like the precious flower with which certain of the old -masters used to sign their pictures, a few hesitating cornflowers, like -the Combray cornflowers, would stream in our wake. Presently the horses -outdistanced them, but a little way on we would catch sight of another -which while it stayed our coming had pricked up to welcome us amid the -grass its azure star; some made so bold as to come and plant themselves -by the side of the road, and the impression left in my mind was a -nebulous blend of distant memories and of wild flowers grown tame. - -We began to go down hill; and then met, climbing on foot, on a bicycle, -in a cart or carriage, one of those creatures--flowers of a fine day but -unlike the flowers of the field, for each of them secretes something -that is not to be found in another, with the result that we can never -satisfy upon any of her fellows the desire which she has brought to -birth in us--a farm-girl driving her cow or half-lying along a waggon, a -shopkeeper's daughter taking the air, a fashionable young lady erect on -the back-seat of a landau, facing her parents. Certainly Bloch had been -the means of opening a new era and had altered the value of life for me -on the day when he had told me that the dreams which I had entertained -on my solitary walks along the Méséglise way, when I hoped that some -peasant girl might pass whom I could take in my arms, were not a mere -fantasy which corresponded to nothing outside myself, but that all the -girls one met, whether villagers or "young ladies", were alike ready and -willing to give ear to such prayers. And even if I were fated, now that -I was ill and did not go out by myself, never to be able to make love to -them, I was happy all the same, like a child born in a prison or a -hospital, who, having always supposed that the human organism was -capable of digesting only dry bread and "physic", has learned suddenly -that peaches, apricots and grapes are not simply part of the decoration -of the country scene but delicious and easily assimilated food. Even if -his gaoler or his nurse does not allow him to pluck those tempting -fruits, still the world seems to him a better place and existence in it -more clement. For a desire seems to us more attractive, we repose on it -with more confidence, when we know that outside ourself there is a -reality which conforms to it, even if, for us, it is not to be realised. -And we think with more joy of a life in which (on condition that we -eliminate for a moment from our mind the tiny obstacle, accidental and -special, which prevents us personally from doing so) we can imagine -ourself to be assuaging that desire. As to the pretty girls who went -past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be -kissed, I had become curious about their souls. And the universe had -appeared to me more interesting. - -Mme. de Villeparisis's carriage moved fast. Scarcely had I time to see -the girl who was coming in our direction; and yet--as the beauty of -people is not like the beauty of things, as we feel that it is that of -an unique creature, endowed with consciousness and free-will--as soon as -her individuality, a soul still vague, a will unknown to me, presented a -tiny picture of itself, enormously reduced but complete, in the depths -of her indifferent eyes, at once, by a mysterious response of the -pollen ready in me for the pistils that should receive it, I felt -surging through me the embryo, as vague, as minute, of the desire not to -let this girl pass without forcing her mind to become conscious of my -person, without preventing her desires from wandering to some one else, -without coming to fix myself in her dreams and to seize and occupy her -heart. Meanwhile our carriage rolled away from her, the pretty girl was -already left behind, and as she had--of me--none of those notions which -constitute a person in one's mind, her eyes which had barely seen me had -forgotten me already. Was it because I had caught but a fragmentary -glimpse of her that I had found her so attractive? It may have been. In -the first place, the impossibility of stopping when I came to her, the -risk of not meeting her again another day, give at once to such a girl -the same charm as a place derives from the illness or poverty that -prevents us from visiting it, or the so unadventurous days through which -we should otherwise have to live from the battle in which we shall -doubtless fall. So that, if there were no such thing as habit, life must -appear delightful to those of us who would at every moment be threatened -with death--that is to say, to all mankind. Then, if our imagination is -set going by the desire for what we may not possess, its flight is not -limited by a reality completely perceived, in these casual encounters in -which the charms of the passing stranger are generally in direct ratio -to the swiftness of our passage. If only night is falling and the -carriage is moving fast, whether in town or country, there is not a -female torso, mutilated like an antique marble by the speed that tears -us away and the dusk that drowns it, but aims at our heart, from every -turning in the road, from the lighted interior of every shop, the arrows -of Beauty, that Beauty of which we are sometimes tempted to ask -ourselves whether it is, in this world, anything more than the -complementary part that is added to a fragmentary and fugitive stranger -by our imagination over-stimulated by regret. - -Had I been free to stop, to get down from the carriage and to speak to -the girl whom we were passing, should I perhaps have been disillusioned -by some fault in her complexion which from the carriage I had not -distinguished? (After which every effort to penetrate into her life -would have seemed suddenly impossible. For beauty is a sequence of -hypotheses which ugliness cuts short when it bars the way that we could -already see opening into the unknown.) Perhaps a single word which she -might have uttered, a smile would have furnished me with a key, a clue -that I had not expected, to read the expression of her face, to -interpret her bearing, which would at once have ceased to be of any -interest. It is possible, for I have never in real life met any girls so -desirable as on days when I was with some serious person from whom, -despite the myriad pretexts that I invented, I could not tear myself -away: some years after that in which I went for the first time to -Balbec, as I was driving through Paris with a friend of my father, and -had caught sight of a woman walking quickly along the dark street, I -felt that it was unreasonable to forfeit, for a purely conventional -scruple, my share of happiness in what may very well be the only life -there is, and jumping from the carriage without a word of apology I -followed in quest of the stranger; lost her where two streets crossed; -caught her up again in a third, and arrived at last, breathless, beneath -a street lamp, face to face with old Mme. Verdurin whom I had been -carefully avoiding for years, and who, in her delight and surprise, -exclaimed: "But how very nice of you to have run all this way just to -say how d'ye do to me!" - -That year at Balbec, at the moments of such encounters, I would assure -my grandmother and Mme. de Villeparisis that I had so severe a headache -that the best thing for me would be to go home alone on foot. But they -would never let me get out of the carriage. And I must add that the -pretty girl (far harder to find again than an historic building, for she -was nameless and had the power of locomotion) to the collection of all -those whom I promised myself that I would examine more closely at a -later date. One of them, however, happened to pass more than once before -my eyes in circumstances which allowed me to believe that I should be -able to get to know her when I chose. This was a milk-girl who came from -a farm with an additional supply of cream for the hotel. I fancied that -she had recognised me also; and she did, in fact, look at me with an -attentiveness which was perhaps due only to the surprise which my -attentiveness caused her. And next day, a day on which I had been -resting all morning, when Françoise came in about noon to draw my -curtains, she handed me a letter which had been left for me downstairs. -I knew no one at Balbec. I had no doubt that the letter was from the -milk-girl. Alas, it was only from Bergotte who, as he happened to be -passing, had tried to see me, but on hearing that I was asleep had -scribbled a few charming lines for which the lift-boy had addressed an -envelope which I had supposed to have been written by the milk-girl. I -was bitterly disappointed, and the thought that it was more difficult, -and more flattering to myself to get a letter from Bergotte did not in -the least console me for this particular letter's not being from her. As -for the girl, I never came across her again any more than I came across -those whom I had seen only from Mme. de Villeparisis's carriage. Seeing -and then losing them all thus increased the state of agitation in which -I was living, and I found a certain wisdom in the philosophers who -recommend us to set a limit to our desires (if, that is, they refer to -our desire for people, for that is the only kind that ends in anxiety, -having for its object a being at once unknown and unconscious. To -suppose that philosophy could refer to the desire for wealth would be -too silly.) At the same time I was inclined to regard this wisdom as -incomplete, for I said to myself that these encounters made me find even -more beautiful a world which thus caused to grow along all the country -roads flowers at once rare and common, fleeting treasures of the day, -windfalls of the drive, of which the contingent circumstances that would -never, perhaps, recur had alone prevented me from taking advantage, and -which gave a new zest to life. - -But perhaps in hoping that, one day, with greater freedom, I should be -able to find on other roads girls much the same, I was already beginning -to falsify and corrupt what there is exclusively individual in the -desire to live in the company of a woman whom one has found attractive, -and by the mere fact that I admitted the possibility of making this -desire grow artificially, I had implicitly acknowledged my illusion. - -The day on which Mme. de Villeparisis took us to Carqueville, where -there was that church, covered in ivy, of which she had spoken to us, a -church that, built upon rising ground, dominated both its village and -the river that flowed beneath it, and had kept its own little bridge -from the middle ages, my grandmother, thinking that I would like to be -left alone to study the building at my leisure, suggested to her friend -that they should go on and wait for me at the pastry-cook's, in the -village square which was clearly visible from where we were and, in its -mellow bloom in the sunshine, seemed like another part of a Whole that -was all mediaeval. It was arranged that I should join them there later. -In the mass of verdure before which I was left standing I was obliged, -if I was to discover the church, to make a mental effort which involved -my grasping more intensely the idea "Church"; in fact, as happens to -schoolboys who gather more fully the meaning of a sentence when they are -made, by translating or by paraphrasing it, to divest it of the forms to -which they are accustomed, this idea of "Church", which as a rule I -scarcely needed when I stood beneath steeples that were recognisable in -themselves, I was obliged perpetually to recall so as not to forget, -here that the arch in this clump of ivy was that of a pointed window, -there that the projection of the leaves was due to the swelling -underneath of a capital. Then came a breath of wind, and sent a tremor -through the mobile porch, which was overrun by eddies that shot and -quivered like a flood of light; the pointed leaves opened one against -another; and, shuddering, the arboreal front drew after it green -pillars, undulant, caressed and fugitive. - -As I came away from the church I saw by the old bridge a cluster of -girls from the village who, probably because it was Sunday, were -standing about in their best clothes, rallying the young men who went -past. Not so well dressed as the others, but seeming to enjoy some -ascendancy over them--for she scarcely answered when they spoke to -her--with a more serious and a more determined air, there was a tall one -who, hoisted upon the parapet of the bridge with her feet hanging down, -was holding on her lap a small vessel full of fish which she had -presumably just been catching. She had a tanned complexion, gentle eyes -but with a look of contempt for her surroundings, a small nose, -delicately and attractively modelled. My eyes rested upon her skin; and -my lips, had the need arisen, might have believed that they had followed -my eyes. But it was not only to her body that I should have liked to -attain, there was also her person, which abode within her, and with -which there is but one form of contact, namely to attract its attention, -but one sort of penetration, to awaken an idea in it. - -And this inner self of the charming fisher-girl seemed to be still -closed to me, I was doubtful whether I had entered it, even after I had -seen my own image furtively reflect itself in the twin mirrors of her -gaze, following an index of refraction that was as unknown to me as if I -had been placed in the field of vision of a deer. But just as it would -not have sufficed that my lips should find pleasure in hers without -giving pleasure to them also, so I should have wished that the idea of -me which was to enter this creature, was to fasten itself in her, should -attract to me not merely her attention but her admiration, her desire, -and should compel her to keep me in her memory until the day when I -should be able to meet her again. Meanwhile I could see, within a -stone's-throw, the square in which Mme. de Villeparisis's carriage must -be waiting for me. I had not a moment to lose; and already I could feel -that the girls were beginning to laugh at the sight of me thus held -suspended before them. I had a five-franc piece in my pocket. I drew it -out, and, before explaining to the girl the errand on which I proposed -to send her, so as to have a better chance of her listening to me, I -held the coin for a moment before her eyes: - -"Since you seem to belong to the place," I said to her, "I wonder if you -would be so good as to take a message for me. I want you to go to a -pastry-cook's--which is apparently in a square, but I don't know where -that is--where there is a carriage waiting for me. One moment! To make -quite sure, will you ask if the carriage belongs to the Marquise de -Villeparisis? But you can't miss it; it's a carriage and pair." - -That was what I wished her to know, so that she should regard me as -someone of importance. But when I had uttered the words "Marquise" and -"carriage and pair", suddenly I had a great sense of calm. I felt that -the fisher-girl would remember me, and I felt vanishing, with my fear of -not being able to meet her again, part also of my desire to meet her. It -seemed to me that I had succeeded in touching her person with invisible -lips, and that I had pleased her. And this assault and capture of her -mind, this immaterial possession had taken from her part of her mystery, -just as physical possession does. - -We came down towards Hudimesnil; suddenly I was overwhelmed with that -profound happiness which I had not often felt since Combray; happiness -analogous to that which had been given me by--among other things--the -steeples of Martinville. But this time it remained incomplete. I had -just seen, standing a little way back from the steep ridge over which we -were passing, three trees, probably marking the entrance to a shady -avenue, which made a pattern at which I was looking now not for the -first time; I could not succeed in reconstructing the place from which -they had been, as it were, detached, but I felt that it had been -familiar to me once; so that my mind having wavered between some distant -year and the present moment, Balbec and its surroundings began to -dissolve and I asked myself whether the whole of this drive were not a -make-believe, Balbec a place to which I had never gone save in -imagination, Mme. de Villeparisis a character in a story and the three -old trees the reality which one recaptures on raising one's eyes from -the book which one has been reading and which describes an environment -into which one has come to believe that one has been bodily transported. - -I looked at the three trees; I could see them plainly, but my mind felt -that they were concealing something which it had not grasped, as when -things are placed out of our reach, so that our fingers, stretched out -at arm's length, can only touch for a moment their outer surface, and -can take hold of nothing. Then we rest for a little while before -thrusting out our arm with refreshed vigour, and trying to reach an inch -or two farther. But if my mind was thus to collect itself, to gather -strength, I should have to be alone. What would I not have given to be -able to escape as I used to do on those walks along the Guermantes way, -when I detached myself from my parents! It seemed indeed that I ought to -do so now. I recognised that kind of pleasure which requires, it is -true, a certain effort on the part of the mind, but in comparison with -which the attractions of the inertia which inclines us to renounce that -pleasure seem very slight. That pleasure, the object of which I could -but dimly feel, that pleasure which I must create for myself, I -experienced only on rare occasions, but on each of these it seemed to me -that the things which had happened in the interval were of but scant -importance, and that in attaching myself to the reality of that pleasure -alone I could at length begin to lead a new life. I laid my hand for a -moment across my eyes, so as to be able to shut them without Mme. de -Villeparisis's noticing. I sat there, thinking of nothing, then with my -thoughts collected, compressed and strengthened I sprang farther forward -in the direction of the trees, or rather in that inverse direction at -the end of which I could see them growing within myself. I felt again -behind them the same object, known to me and yet vague, which I could -not bring nearer. And yet all three of them, as the carriage moved on, I -could see coming towards me. Where had I looked at them before? There -was no place near Combray where an avenue opened off the road like that. -The site which they recalled to me, there was no room for it either in -the scenery of the place in Germany where I had gone one year with my -grandmother to take the waters. Was I to suppose, then, that they came -from years already so remote in my life that the landscape which -accompanied them had been entirely obliterated from my memory, and that, -like the pages which, with sudden emotion, we recognise in a book which -we imagined that we had never read, they surged up by themselves out of -the forgotten chapter of my earliest infancy? Were they not rather to be -numbered among those dream landscapes, always the same, at least for me -in whom their unfamiliar aspect was but the objectivation in my dreams -of the effort that I had been making while awake either to penetrate the -mystery of a place beneath the outward appearance of which I was dimly -conscious of there being something more, as had so often happened to me -on the Guermantes way, or to succeed in bringing mystery back to a place -which I had longed to know and which, from the day on which I had come -to know it, had seemed to me to be wholly superficial, like Balbec? Or -were they but an image freshly extracted from a dream of the night -before, but already so worn, so altered that it seemed to me to come -from somewhere far more distant? Or had I indeed never seen them before; -did they conceal beneath their surface, like the trees, like the tufts -of grass that I had seen beside the Guermantes way, a meaning as -obscure, as hard to grasp as is a distant past, so that, whereas they -were pleading with me that I would master a new idea, I imagined that I -had to identify something in my memory? Or again were they concealing no -hidden thought, and was it simply my strained vision that made me see -them double in time as one occasionally sees things double in space? I -could not tell. And yet all the time they were coming towards me; -perhaps some fabulous apparition, a ring of witches or of norns who -would propound their oracles to me. I chose rather to believe that they -were phantoms of the past, dear companions of my childhood, vanished -friends who recalled our common memories. Like ghosts they seemed to be -appealing to me to take them with me, to bring them back to life. In -their simple, passionate gesticulation I could discern the helpless -anguish of a beloved person who has lost the power of speech, and feels -that he will never be able to say to us what he wishes to say and we can -never guess. Presently, at a cross-roads, the carriage left them. It was -bearing me away from what alone I believed to be true, what would have -made me truly happy; it was like my life. - -I watched the trees gradually withdraw, waving their despairing arms, -seeming to say to me: "What you fail to learn from us to-day, you will -never know. If you allow us to drop back into the hollow of this road -from which we sought to raise ourselves up to you, a whole part of -yourself which we were bringing to you will fall for ever into the -abyss." And indeed if, in the course of time, I did discover the kind of -pleasure and of disturbance which I had just been feeling once again, -and if one evening--too late, but then for all time--I fastened myself -to it, of those trees themselves I was never to know what they had been -trying to give me nor where else I had seen them. And when, the road -having forked and the carriage with it, I turned my back on them and -ceased to see them, with Mme. de Villeparisis asking me what I was -dreaming about, I was as wretched as though I had just lost a friend, -had died myself, had broken faith with the dead or had denied my God. - -It was time to be thinking of home. Mme. de Villeparisis, who had a -certain feeling for nature, colder than that of my grandmother but -capable of recognising, even outside museums and noblemen's houses, the -simple and majestic beauty of certain old and venerable things, told her -coachman to take us back by the old Balbec road, a road little used but -planted with old elm-trees which we thought quite admirable. - -Once we had got to know this road, for a change we would return--that -is, if we had not taken it on the outward journey--by another which ran -through the woods of Chantereine and Canteloup. The invisibility of the -numberless birds that took up one another's song close beside us in the -trees gave me the same sense of being at rest that one has when one -shuts one's eyes. Chained to my back-seat like Prometheus on his rock I -listened to my Oceanides. And when it so happened that I caught a -glimpse of one of those birds as it passed from one leaf to another, -there was so little apparent connexion between it and the songs that I -heard that I could not believe that I was beholding their cause in that -little body, fluttering, startled and unseeing. - -This road was like many others of the same kind which are to be found in -France, climbing on a fairly steep gradient to its summit and then -gradually falling for the rest of the way. At the time, I found no great -attraction in it, I was only glad to be going home. But it became for me -later on a frequent source of joy by remaining in my memory as a -lodestone to which all the similar roads that I was to take, on walks or -drives or journeys, would at once attach themselves without breach of -continuity and would be able, thanks to it, to communicate directly with -my heart. For as soon as the carriage or the motor-car turned into one -of these roads that seemed to be merely the continuation of the road -along which I had driven with Mme. de Villeparisis, the matter to which -I found my consciousness directly applying itself, as to the most recent -event in my past, would be (all the intervening years being quietly -obliterated) the impressions that I had had on those bright summer -afternoons and evenings, driving round Balbec, when the leaves smelt -good, a mist rose from the ground, and beyond the village close at hand -one could see through the trees the sun setting as though it had been -merely some place farther along the road, a forest place and distant, -which we should not have time to reach that evening. Harmonised with -what I was feeling now in another place, on a similar road, surrounded -by all the accessory sensations of breathing deep draughts of air, of -curiosity, indolence, appetite, lightness of heart which were common to -them both, and excluding all others, these impressions would be -reinforced, would take on the consistency of a particular type of -pleasure, and almost of a setting of life which, as it happened, I -rarely had the luck to come across, but in which these awakened memories -placed, amid the reality that my senses could perceive, no small part of -a reality suggested, dreamed, unseizable, to give me, among those -regions through which I was passing, more than an aesthetic feeling, a -transient but exalted ambition to stay there and to live there always. -How often since then, simply because I could smell green leaves, has not -being seated on a back-seat opposite Mme. de Villeparisis, meeting the -Princesse de Luxembourg who waved a greeting to her from her own -carriage, coming back to dinner at the Grand Hotel appeared to me as one -of those indescribable happinesses which neither the present nor the -future can restore to us, which we may taste once only in a lifetime. - -Often dusk would have fallen before we reached the hotel. Timidly I -would quote to Mme. de Villeparisis, pointing to the moon in the sky, -some memorable expression of Chateaubriand or Vigny or Victor Hugo: -"Shedding abroad that ancient secret of melancholy" or "Weeping like -Diana by the brink of her streams" or "The shadows nuptial, solemn and -august." - -"And so you think that good, do you?" she would ask, "inspired, as you -call it. I must confess that I am always surprised to see people taking -things seriously nowadays which the friends of those gentlemen, while -doing ample justice to their merits, were the first to laugh at. People -weren't so free then with the word 'inspired' as they are now, when if -you say to a writer that he has mere talent he thinks you're insulting -him. You quote me a fine passage from M. de Chateaubriand about -moonlight. You shall see that I have my own reasons for being -refractory. M. de Chateaubriand used constantly to come to see my -father. He was quite a pleasant person when you were alone with him, -because then he was simple and amusing, but the moment he had an -audience he would begin to pose, and then he became absurd; when my -father was in the room, he pretended that he had flung his resignation -in the King's face, and that he had controlled the voting in the -Conclave, forgetting that it was my father whom he had asked to beg the -King to take him back, and that my father had heard him make the most -idiotic forecasts of the Papal election. You ought to have heard M. de -Blacas on that famous Conclave; he was a very different kind of man from -M. de Chateaubriand. As to his fine phrases about the moon, they became -part of our regular programme for entertaining our guests. Whenever -there was any moonlight about the house, if there was anyone staying -with us for the first time he would be told to take M. de Chateaubriand -for a stroll after dinner. When they came in, my father would take his -guest aside and say: 'Well, and was M. de Chateaubriand very -eloquent?'--'Oh, yes.' 'He's been talking about the moon?'--'Yes, how -did you know?'--'One moment, didn't he say----' and then my father would -quote the passage. 'He did; but how in the world . . .?'--'And he spoke -to you of the moonlight on the Roman Campagna?'--'But, my dear sir, -you're a magician.' My father was no magician, but M. de Chateaubriand -had the same little speech about the moon which he served up every -time." - -At the mention of Vigny she laughed: "The man who said: 'I am the Comte -Alfred de Vigny!' One either is a Comte or one isn't; it is not of the -slightest importance." And then perhaps she discovered that it was after -all, of some slight importance, for she went on: "For one thing I am by -no means sure that he was, and in any case he was of the humblest -origin, that gentleman who speaks in his verses of his 'Esquire's -crest'. In such charming taste, is it not, and so interesting to his -readers! Like Musset, a plain Paris cit, who laid so much stress on 'The -golden falcon that surmounts my helm'. As if you would ever hear a real -gentleman say a thing like that! And yet Musset had some talent as a -poet. But except _Cinq-Mars_ I have never been able to read a thing by -M. de Vigny. I get so bored that the book falls from my hands. M. Molé, -who had all the cleverness and tact that were wanting in M. de Vigny, -put him properly in his place when he welcomed him to the Academy. Do -you mean to say you don't know the speech? It is a masterpiece of irony -and impertinence." She found fault with Balzac, whom she was surprised -to see her nephews admire, for having pretended to describe a society -"in which he was never received" and of which his descriptions were -wildly improbable. As for Victor Hugo, she told us that M. de Bouillon, -her father, who had friends among the young leaders of the Romantic -movement, had been taken by some of them to the first performance of -_Hernani_, but that he had been unable to sit through it, so ridiculous -had he found the lines of that talented but extravagant writer who had -acquired the title of "Major Poet" only by virtue of having struck a -bargain, and as a reward for the not disinterested indulgence that he -shewed to the dangerous errors of the Socialists. - -We had now come in sight of the hotel, with its lights, so hostile that -first evening, on our arrival, now protecting and kind, speaking to us -of home. And when the carriage drew up outside the door, the porter, the -pages, the lift-boy, attentive, clumsy, vaguely uneasy at our lateness, -were numbered, now that they had grown familiar, among those beings who -change so many times in the course of our life, as we ourself change, -but by whom, when they are for the time being the mirror of our habits, -we find something attractive in the feeling that we are being faithfully -reflected and in a friendly spirit. We prefer them to friends whom we -have not seen for some time, for they contain more of what we actually -are. Only the outside page, exposed to the sun all day, had been taken -indoors for protection from the cold night air and swaddled in thick -woollen garments which, combined with the orange effulgence of his locks -and the curiously red bloom of his cheeks, made one, seeing him there -through the glass front of the hall, think of a hot-house plant muffled -up for protection from the frost. We got out of the carriage, with the -help of a great many more servants than were required, but they were -conscious of the importance of the scene and each felt obliged to take -some part in it. I was always very hungry. And so, often, so as not to -keep dinner waiting, I would not go upstairs first to the room which had -succeeded in becoming so really mine that to catch sight of its long -violet curtains and low bookcases was to find myself alone again with -that self of which things, like people, gave me a reflected image; but -we would all wait together in the hall until the head waiter came to -tell us that our dinner was ready. And this gave us another opportunity -of listening to Mme. de Villeparisis. - -"But you must be tired of us by now," protested my grandmother. - -"Not at all! Why, I am delighted, what could be nicer?" replied her -friend with a winning smile, drawing out, almost intoning her words in a -way that contrasted markedly with her customary simplicity of speech. - -And indeed at such moments as this she was not natural, her mind -reverted to her early training, to the aristocratic manner in which a -great lady is supposed to shew common people that she is glad to see -them, that she is not at all stiff. And her one and only failure in true -politeness lay in this excess of politeness; which it was easy to -identify as one of the professional "wrinkles" of a lady of the Faubourg -Saint-Germain, who, always seeing in her humbler friends the latent -discontent that she must one day arouse in their bosoms, greedily seizes -every opportunity on which she can possibly, in the ledger in which she -keeps her social account with them, write down a credit balance which -will allow her to enter presently on the opposite page the dinner or -reception to which she will not invite them. And so, having long ago -taken effect in her once and for all, and ignoring the fact that now -both the circumstances and the people concerned were different, that in -Paris she hoped to see us often come to her house, the spirit of her -caste was urging Mme. de Villeparisis on with feverish ardour, and as if -the time that was allowed her for being kind to us was limited, to -multiply, while we were still at Balbec, her gifts of roses and melons, -loans of books, drives in her carriage and verbal effusions. And for -that reason, quite as much as the dazzling glories of the beach, the -many-coloured flamboyance and subaqueous light of the rooms, as much -even as the riding-lessons by which tradesmen's sons were deified like -Alexander of Macedon, the daily kindnesses shewn us by Mme. de -Villeparisis and also the unaccustomed, momentary, holiday ease with -which my grandmother accepted them have remained in my memory as typical -of life at a watering-place. - -"Give them your cloaks to take upstairs." - -My grandmother handed hers to the manager, and because he had been so -nice to me I was distressed by this want of consideration, which seemed -to pain him. - -"I think you've hurt his feelings," said the Marquise. "He probably -fancies himself too great a gentleman to carry your wraps. I remember so -well the Duc de Nemours, when I was still quite little, coming to see my -father who was living then on the top floor of the Bouillon house, with -a fat parcel under his arm of letters and newspapers. I can see the -Prince now, in his blue coat, framed in our doorway, which had such -pretty woodwork round it--I think it was Bagard made it--you know those -fine laths that they used to cut, so supple that the joiner would twist -them sometimes into little shells and flowers, like the ribbons round a -nosegay. 'Here you are, Cyrus,' he said to my father, 'look what your -porter's given me to bring you. He said to me: Since you're going up to -see the Count, it's not worth my while climbing all those stairs; but -take care you don't break the string.'" "Now that you have got rid of -your things, why don't you sit down; look, sit in this seat," she said -to my grandmother, taking her by the hand. - -"Oh, if you don't mind, not in that one! There is not room for two, and -it's too big for me by myself; I shouldn't feel comfortable." - -"You remind me, for it was exactly like this, of a seat that I had for -many years until at last I couldn't keep it any longer because it had -been given to my mother by the poor Duchesse de Praslin. My mother, -though she was the simplest person in the world, really, had ideas that -belonged to another generation, which even in those days I could -scarcely understand; and at first she had not been at all willing to let -herself be introduced to Mme. de Praslin, who had been plain Mlle. -Sebastiani, while she, because she was a Duchess, felt that it was not -for her to be introduced to my mother. And really, you know," Mme. de -Villeparisis went on, forgetting that she herself did not understand -these fine shades of distinction, "even if she had just been Mme. de -Choiseul, there was a good deal to be said for her claim. The Choiseuls -are everything you could want; they spring from a sister of Louis the -Fat; they were ruling princes down in Basigny. I admit that we beat them -in marriages and in distinction, but the precedence is pretty much the -same. This little difficulty gave rise to several amusing incidents, -such as a luncheon-party which was kept waiting a whole hour or more -before one of these ladies could make up her mind to let herself be -introduced to the other. In spite of which they became great friends, -and she gave my mother a seat like that, in which people always refused -to sit, just as you did, until one day my mother heard a carriage drive -into the courtyard. She asked a young servant we had, who it was. 'The -Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld, ma'am.' 'Very well, say that I am at -home.' A quarter of an hour passed; no one came. 'What about the -Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld?' my mother asked, 'where is she?' 'She's -on the stairs, ma'am, getting her breath,' said the young servant, who -had not been long up from the country, where my mother had the excellent -habit of getting all her servants. Often she had seen them born. That's -the only way to get really good ones. And they're the rarest of -luxuries. And sure enough the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld had the -greatest difficulty in getting upstairs, for she was an enormous woman, -so enormous, indeed, that when she did come into the room my mother was -quite at a loss for a moment to know where to put her. And then the seat -that Mme. de Praslin had given her caught her eye. 'Won't you sit down?' -she said, bringing it forward. And the Duchess filled it from side to -side. She was quite a pleasant woman, for all her massiveness. 'She -still creates an effect when she comes in,' one of our friends said -once. 'She certainly creates an effect when she goes out,' said my -mother, who was rather more free in her speech than would be thought -proper nowadays. Even in Mme. de La Rochefoucauld's own drawing-room -people weren't afraid to make fun of her to her face (at which she was -always the first to laugh) over her ample proportions. 'But are you all -alone?' my grandmother once asked M. de La Rochefoucauld, when she had -come to pay a call on the Duchess, and being met at the door by him had -not seen his wife who was at the other end of the room. 'Is Mme. de La -Rochefoucauld not at home? I don't see her.'--'How charming of you!' -replied the Duke, who had about the worst judgment of any man I have -ever known, but was not altogether lacking in humour." - -After dinner, when I had retired upstairs with my grandmother, I said to -her that the qualities which attracted us in Mme. de Villeparisis, her -tact, her shrewdness, her discretion, her modesty in not referring to -herself, were not, perhaps, of very great value since those who -possessed them in the highest degree were simply people like Molé and -Loménie, and that if the want of them can make our social relations -unpleasant yet it did not prevent from becoming Chateaubriand, Vigny, -Hugo, Balzac, a lot of foolish fellows who had no judgment, at whom it -was easy to mock, like Bloch. . . . But at the name of Bloch, my -grandmother cried out in protest. And she began to praise Mme. de -Villeparisis. As we are told that it is the preservation of the species -which guides our individual preferences in love, and, so that the child -may be constituted in the most normal fashion, sends fat men in pursuit -of lean women and _vice versa_, so in some dim way it was the -requirements of my happiness threatened by my disordered nerves, by my -morbid tendency to melancholy, to solitude, that made her allot the -highest place to the qualities of balance and judgment, peculiar not -only to Mme. de Villeparisis but to a society in which our ancestors saw -blossom the minds of a Doudan, a M. de Rémusat, not to mention a -Beausergent, a Joubert, a Sévigné, a type of mind that invests life -with more happiness, with greater dignity than the converse refinements -which brought a Baudelaire, a Poe, a Verlaine, a Rimbaud to sufferings, -to a disrepute such as my grandmother did not wish for her daughter's -child. I interrupted her with a kiss and asked her if she had noticed -some expression which Mme. de Villeparisis had used and which seemed to -point to a woman who thought more of her noble birth than she was -prepared to admit. In this way I used to submit my impressions of life -to my grandmother, for I was never certain what degree of respect was -due to anyone until she had informed me. Every evening I would come to -her with the mental sketches that I had made during the day of all those -non-existent people who were not her. Once I said to her: "I shouldn't -be able to live without you." "But you mustn't speak like that;" her -voice was troubled. "We must harden our hearts more than that, you know. -Or what would become of you if I went away on a journey? But I hope that -you would be quite sensible and quite happy." - -"I could manage to be sensible if you went away for a few days, but I -should count the hours." - -"But if I were to go away for months . . ." (at the bare suggestion of -such a thing my heart was wrung.) ". . . for years . . . for . . ." - -We both remained silent. We dared not look one another in the face. And -yet I was suffering more keenly from her anguish than from my own. And -so I walked across to the window, and said to her, with a studied -clearness of tone but with averted eyes: - -"You know what a creature of habit I am. For the first few days after I -have been parted from the people I love best, I am wretched. But though -I go on loving them just as much, I grow used to their absence; life -becomes calm, bearable, pleasant; I could stand being parted from them -for months, for years . . ." - -I was obliged to stop, and looked straight out of the window. My -grandmother went out of the room for something. But next day I began to -talk to her about philosophy, and, speaking in a tone of complete -indifference, but at the same time taking care that my grandmother -should pay attention to what I was saying, I remarked what a curious -thing it was that, according to the latest scientific discoveries, the -materialist position appeared to be crumbling, and the most likely thing -to be, once again, the survival of the soul and reunion in a life -everlasting. - -Mme. de Villeparisis gave us warning that presently she would not be -able to see so much of us. A young nephew who was preparing for Saumur, -and was meanwhile stationed in the neighbourhood, at Doncières, was -coming to spend a few weeks' furlough with her, and she would be -devoting most of her time to him. In the course of our drives together -she had boasted to us of his extreme cleverness, and above all of his -goodness of heart; already I was imagining that he would have an -instinctive feeling for me, that I was to be his best friend; and when, -before his arrival, his aunt gave my grandmother to understand that he -had unfortunately fallen into the clutches of an appalling woman with -whom he was quite infatuated and who would never let him go, since I -believed that that sort of love was doomed to end in mental aberration, -crime and suicide, thinking how short the time was that was set apart -for our friendship, already so great in my heart, although I had not yet -set eyes on him, I wept for that friendship and for the misfortunes that -were in store for it, as we weep for a person whom we love when some one -has just told us that he is seriously ill and that his days are -numbered. - -One afternoon of scorching heat I was in the dining-room of the hotel, -which they had plunged in semi-darkness, to shield it from the glare, by -drawing the curtains which the sun gilded, while through the gaps -between them I caught flashing blue glimpses of the sea, when along the -central gangway leading inland from the beach to the high road I saw, -tall, slender, his head held proudly erect upon a springing neck, a -young man go past with searching eyes, whose skin was as fair and his -hair as golden as if they had absorbed all the rays of the sun. Dressed -in a clinging, almost white material such as I could never have believed -that any man would have the audacity to wear, the thinness of which -suggested no less vividly than the coolness of the dining-room the heat -and brightness of the glorious day outside, he was walking fast. His -eyes, from one of which a monocle kept dropping, were of the colour of -the sea. Everyone looked at him with interest as he passed, knowing that -this young Marquis de Saint-Loup-en-Bray was famed for the smartness of -his clothes. All the newspapers had described the suit in which he had -recently acted as second to the young Duc d'Uzès in a duel. One felt -that this so special quality of his hair, his eyes, his skin, his -figure, which would have marked him out in a crowd like a precious vein -of opal, azure-shot and luminous, embedded in a mass of coarser -substance, must correspond to a life different from that led by other -men. So that when, before the attachment which Mme. de Villeparisis had -been deploring, the prettiest women in society had disputed the -possession of him, his presence, at a watering-place for instance, in -the company of the beauty of the season to whom he was paying court, not -only made her conspicuous, but attracted every eye fully as much to -himself. Because of his "tone", of his impertinence befitting a young -"lion", and especially of his astonishing good looks, some people even -thought him effeminate, though without attaching any stigma, for -everyone knew bow manly he was and that he was a passionate "womaniser". -This was Mme. de Villeparisis's nephew of whom she had spoken to us. I -was overcome with joy at the thought that I was going to know him and to -see him for several weeks on end, and confident that he would bestow on -me all his affection. He strode rapidly across the hotel, seeming to be -in pursuit of his monocle, which kept darting away in front of him like -a butterfly. He was coming from the beach, and the sea which filled the -lower half of the glass front of the hall gave him a background against -which he was drawn at full length, as in certain portraits whose -painters attempt, without in any way falsifying the most accurate -observation of contemporary life, but by choosing for their sitter -appropriate surroundings, a polo ground, golf links, a race-course, the -bridge of a yacht, to furnish a modern equivalent of those canvases on -which the old masters used to present the human figure in the foreground -of a landscape. A carriage and pair was waiting for him at the door; -and, while his monocle resumed its gambollings in the air of the sunlit -street, with the elegance and mastery which a great pianist contrives to -display in the simplest piece of execution, where it has not appeared -possible that he could shew himself superior to a performer of the -second class, Mme. de Villeparisis's nephew, taking the reins that were -handed him by the groom, jumped on to the box seat by his side and, -while he opened a letter which the manager of the hotel sent out after -him, made his horses start. - -What a disappointment was mine on the days that followed, when, each -time that I met him outside or in the hotel--his head erect, perpetually -balancing the movements of his limbs round the fugitive and dancing -monocle which seemed to be their centre of gravity--I was forced to -admit that he had evidently no desire to make our acquaintance, and saw -that he did not bow to us although he must have known that we were -friends of his aunt. And calling to mind the friendliness that Mme. de -Villeparisis, and before her M. de Norpois had shewn me, I thought that -perhaps they were only of a bogus nobility, and that there might be a -secret section in the laws that govern the aristocracy which allowed -women, perhaps, and certain diplomats to discard, in their relations -with plebeians, for a reason which was beyond me, the stiffness which -must, on the other hand, be pitilessly maintained by a young Marquis. My -intelligence might have told me the opposite. But the characteristic -feature of the silly phase through which I was passing--a phase by no -means irresponsive, indeed highly fertile--is that we do not consult our -intelligence and that the most trivial attributes of other people seem -to us then to form an inseparable part of their personality. In a world -thronged with monsters and with gods, we are barely conscious of -tranquillity. There is hardly one of the actions which we performed in -that phase which we would not give anything, in later life, to be able -to erase from our memory. Whereas what we ought to regret is that we no -longer possess the spontaneity which made us perform them. In later life -we look at things in a more practical way, in full conformity with the -rest of society, but youth was the only time in which we learned -anything. - -This insolence which I surmised in M. de Saint-Loup, and all that it -implied of ingrained severity, received confirmation from his attitude -whenever he passed us, his body as inflexibly erect, his head always -held as high, his gaze as impassive, or rather, I should say, as -implacable, devoid of that vague respect which one has for the rights of -other people, even if they do not know one's aunt, one example of which -was that I did not look in quite the same way at an old lady as at a gas -lamp. These frigid manners were as far removed from the charming letters -which, but a few days since, I had still been imagining him as writing -to tell me of his regard for myself, as is removed from the enthusiasm -of the Chamber and of the populace which he has been picturing himself -as rousing by an imperishable speech, the humble, dull, obscure position -of the dreamer who, after pondering it thus by himself, for himself, -aloud, finds himself, once the imaginary applause has died away, just -the same Tom, Dick or Harry as before. When Mme. de Villeparisis, -doubtless in an attempt to counteract the bad impression that had been -made on us by an exterior indicative of an arrogant and evil nature, -spoke to us again of the inexhaustible goodness of her great-nephew (he -was the son of one of her nieces, and a little older than myself), I -marvelled how the world, with an utter disregard of truth, ascribes -tenderness of heart to people whose hearts are in reality so hard and -dry, provided only that they behave with common courtesy to the -brilliant members of their own sets. Mme. de Villeparisis herself -confirmed, though indirectly, my diagnosis, which was already a -conviction, of the essential points of her nephew's character one day -when I met them both coming along a path so narrow that there was -nothing for it but to introduce me to him. He seemed not to hear that a -person's name was being repeated to him, not a muscle of his face moved; -his eyes, in which there shone not the faintest gleam of human sympathy, -shewed merely in the insensibility, in the inanity of their gaze an -exaggeration failing which there would have been nothing to distinguish -them from lifeless mirrors. Then fastening on me those hard eyes, as -though he wished to make sure of me before returning my salute, by an -abrupt release which seemed to be due rather to a reflex action of his -muscles than to an exercise of will, keeping between himself and me the -greatest possible interval, he stretched his arm out to its full -extension and, at the end of it, offered me his hand. I supposed that it -must mean, at the very least, a duel when, next day, he sent me his -card. But he spoke to me only of literature, declared after a long talk -that he would like immensely to spend several hours with me every day. -He had not only, in this encounter, given proof of an ardent zest for -the things of the spirit, he had shewn a regard for myself which was -little in keeping with his greeting of me the day before. After I had -seen him repeat the same process whenever anyone was introduced to him, -I realised that it was simply a social usage peculiar to his branch of -the family, to which his mother, who had seen to it that he should be -perfectly brought up, had moulded his limbs; he went through those -motions without thinking, any more than he thought about his beautiful -clothes or hair; they were a thing devoid of the moral significance -which I had at first ascribed to them, a thing purely acquired like that -other habit that he had of at once demanding an introduction to the -family of anyone whom he knew, which had become so instinctive in him -that, seeing me again the day after our talk, he fell upon me and -without asking how I did begged me to make him known to my grandmother, -who was with me, with the same feverish haste as if the request had been -due to some instinct of self-preservation, like the act of warding off a -blow, or of shutting one's eyes to avoid a stream of boiling water, -without which precautions it would have been dangerous to stay where one -was a moment longer. - -The first rites of exorcism once performed, as a wicked fairy discards -her outer form and endues all the most enchanting graces, I saw this -disdainful creature become the most friendly, the most considerate young -man that I had ever met. "Good," I said to myself, "I've been mistaken -about him once already; I was taken in by a mirage; but I have corrected -the first only to fall into a second, for he must be a great gentleman -who has grown sick of his nobility and is trying to hide it." As a -matter of fact it was not long before all the exquisite breeding, all -the friendliness of Saint-Loup were indeed to let me see another -creature but one very different from what I had suspected. - -This young man who had the air of a scornful, sporting aristocrat had in -fact no respect, no interest save for and in the things of the spirit, -and especially those modern manifestations of literature and art which -seemed so ridiculous to his aunt; he was imbued, moreover, with what she -called "Socialistic spoutings," was filled with the most profound -contempt for his caste and spent long hours in the study of Nietzsche -and Proudhon. He was one of those intellectuals, quick to admire what is -good, who shut themselves up in a book, and are interested only in pure -thought. Indeed in Saint-Loup the expression of this highly abstract -tendency, which removed him so far from my customary preoccupations, -while it seemed to me touching, also annoyed me not a little. I may say -that when I realised properly who had been his father, on days when I -had been reading memoirs rich in anecdotes of that famous Comte de -Marsantes, in whom were embodied the special graces of a generation -already remote, the mind full of speculation--anxious to obtain fuller -details of the life that M. de Marsantes had led, it used to infuriate -me that Robert de Saint-Loup, instead of being content to be the son of -his father, instead of being able to guide me through the old-fashioned -romance of what had been that father's existence, had trained himself to -enjoy Nietzsche and Proudhon. His father would not have shared my -regret. He had been himself a man of brains, who had transcended the -narrow confines of his life as a man of the world. He had hardly had -time to know his son, but had hoped that his son would prove a better -man than himself. And I really believe that, unlike the rest of the -family, he would have admired his son, would have rejoiced at his -abandoning what had been his own small diversions for austere -meditations, and without saying a word, in his modesty as a great -gentleman endowed with brains, he would have read in secret his son's -favourite authors in order to appreciate how far Robert was superior to -himself. - -There was, however, this rather painful consideration: that if M. de -Marsantes, with his extremely open mind, would have appreciated a son so -different from himself, Robert de Saint-Loup, because he was one of -those who believe that merit is attached only to certain forms of art -and of life, had an affectionate but slightly contemptuous memory of a -father who had spent all his time hunting and racing, who yawned at -Wagner and raved over Offenbach. Saint-Loup had not the intelligence to -see that intellectual worth has nothing to do with adhesion to any one -aesthetic formula, and had for the intellectuality of M. de Marsantes -much the same sort of scorn as might have been felt for Boieldieu or -Labiche by a son of Boieldieu or Labiche who had become adepts in the -most symbolic literature and the most complex music. "I scarcely knew my -father," he used to say. "He seems to have been a charming person. His -tragedy was the deplorable age in which he lived. To have been born in -the Faubourg Saint-Germain and to have to live in the days of La Belle -Hélène would be enough to wreck any existence. Perhaps if he'd been -some little shopkeeper mad about the Ring he'd have turned out quite -different. Indeed they tell me that he was fond of literature. But that -can never be proved, because literature to him meant such utterly -god-forsaken books." And in my own case, if I found Saint-Loup a trifle -earnest, he could not understand why I was not more earnest still. Never -judging anything except by the weight of the intelligence that it -contained, never perceiving the magic appeal to the imagination that I -found in things which he condemned as frivolous, he was astonished that -I--I, to whom he imagined himself to be so utterly inferior--could take -any interest in them. - -From the first Saint-Loup made a conquest of my grandmother, not only by -the incessant acts of kindness which he went out of his way to shew to -us both, but by the naturalness which he put into them as into -everything. For naturalness--doubtless because through the artifice of -man it allows a feeling of nature to permeate--was the quality which my -grandmother preferred to all others, whether in gardens, where she did -not like there to be, as there had been in our Combray garden, too -formal borders, or at table, where she detested those dressed-up dishes -in which you could hardly detect the foodstuff's that had gone to make -them, or in piano-playing, which she did not like to be too finicking, -too laboured, having indeed had a special weakness for the discords, the -wrong notes of Rubinstein. This naturalness she found and enjoyed even -in the clothes that Saint-Loup wore, of a pliant elegance, with nothing -swagger, nothing formal about them, no stiffness or starch. She -appreciated this rich young man still more highly for the free and -careless way that he had of living in luxury without "smelling of -money", without giving himself airs; she even discovered the charm of -this naturalness in the incapacity which Saint-Loup had kept, though as -a rule it is outgrown with childhood, at the same time as certain -physiological peculiarities of that period, for preventing his face from -at once reflecting every emotion. Something, for instance, that he -wanted to have but had not expected, were it no more than a compliment, -reacted in him in a burst of pleasure so quick, so burning, so volatile, -so expansive that it was impossible for him to contain and to conceal -it; a grin of delight seized irresistible hold of his face; the too -delicate skin of his cheeks allowed a vivid glow to shine through them, -his eyes sparkled with confusion and joy; and my grandmother was -infinitely touched by this charming show of innocence and frankness, -which, incidentally, in Saint-Loup--at any rate at the period of our -first friendship--was not misleading. But I have known another person, -and there are many such, in whom the physiological sincerity of that -fleeting blush in no way excluded moral duplicity; as often as not it -proves nothing more than the vivacity with which pleasure is felt--so -that it disarms them and they are forced publicly to confess it--by -natures capable of the vilest treachery. But where my grandmother did -really adore Saint-Loup's naturalness was in his way of admitting, -without any evasion, his affection for me, to give expression to which -he found words than which she herself, she told me, could not have -thought of any more appropriate, more truly loving, words to which -"Sévigné and Beausergent" might have set their signatures. He was not -afraid to make fun of my weaknesses--which he had discerned with an -acuteness that made her smile--but as she herself would have done, -lovingly, at the same time extolling my good qualities with a warmth, an -impulsive freedom that shewed no sign of the reserve, the coldness by -means of which young men of his age are apt to suppose that they give -themselves importance. And he shewed in forestalling every discomfort, -however slight, in covering my legs if the day had turned cold without -my noticing it, in arranging (without telling me) to stay later with me -in the evening if he thought that I was depressed or felt unwell, a -vigilance which, from the point of view of my health, for which a more -hardening discipline would perhaps have been better, my grandmother -found almost excessive, though as a proof of his affection for myself -she was deeply touched by it. - -It was promptly settled between us that he and I were to be great -friends for ever, and he would say "our friendship" as though he were -speaking of some important and delightful thing which had an existence -independent of ourselves, and which he soon called--not counting his -love for his mistress--the great joy of his life. These words made me -rather uncomfortable and I was at a loss for an answer, for I did not -feel when I was with him and talked to him--and no doubt it would have -been the same with everyone else--any of that happiness which it was, on -the other hand, possible for me to experience when I was by myself. For -alone, at times, I felt surging from the depths of my being one or other -of those impressions which gave me a delicious sense of comfort. But as -soon as I was with some one else, when I began to talk to a friend, my -mind at once "turned about", it was towards the listener and not myself -that it directed its thoughts, and when they followed this outward -course they brought me no pleasure. Once I had left Saint-Loup, I -managed, with the help of words, to put more or less in order the -confused minutes that I had spent with him; I told myself that I had a -good friend, that a good friend was a rare thing, and I tasted, when I -felt myself surrounded by "goods" that were difficult to acquire, what -was precisely the opposite of the pleasure that was natural to me, the -opposite of the pleasure of having extracted from myself and brought to -light something that was hidden in my inner darkness. If I had spent two -or three hours in conversation with Saint-Loup, and he had expressed his -admiration of what I had said to him, I felt a sort of remorse, or -regret, or weariness at not having been left alone and ready, at last, -to begin my work. But I told myself that one is not given intelligence -for one's own benefit only, that the greatest of men have longed for -appreciation, that I could not regard as wasted hours in which I had -built up an exalted idea of myself in the mind of my friend; I had no -difficulty in persuading myself that I ought to be happy in consequence, -and I hoped all the more anxiously that this happiness might never be -taken from me simply because I had not yet been conscious of it. We fear -more than the loss of everything else the disappearance of the "goods" -that have remained beyond our reach, because our heart has not taken -possession of them. I felt that I was capable of exemplifying the -virtues of friendship better than most people (because I should always -place the good of my friends before those personal interests to which -other people were devoted but which did not count for me), but not of -finding happiness in a feeling which, instead of multiplying the -differences that there were between my nature and those of other -people--as there are among all of us--would cancel them. At the same -time my mind was distinguishing in Saint-Loup a personality more -collective than his own, that of the "noble"; which like an indwelling -spirit moved his limbs, ordered his gestures and his actions; then, at -such moments, although in his company, I was as much alone as I should -have been gazing at a landscape the harmony of which I could understand. -He was no more then than an object the properties of which, in my musing -contemplations, I sought to explore. The perpetual discovery in him of -this pre-existent, this aeonial creature, this aristocrat who was just -what Robert aspired not to be, gave me a keen delight, but one that was -intellectual and not social. In the moral and physical agility which -gave so much grace to his kindnesses, in the ease with which he offered -my grandmother his carriage and made her get into it, in the alacrity -with which he sprang from the box, when he was afraid that I might be -cold, to spread his own cloak over my shoulders, I felt not only the -inherited litheness of the mighty hunters who had been for generations -the ancestors of this young man who made no pretence save to -intellectuality, their scorn of wealth which, subsisting in him side by -side with his enjoyment of it simply because it enabled him to entertain -his friends more lavishly, made him so carelessly shower his riches at -their feet; I felt in him especially the certainty or the illusion in -the minds of those great lords of being "better than other people", -thanks to which they had not been able to hand down to Saint-Loup that -anxiety to shew that one is "just as good", that dread of seeming -inferior, of which he was indeed wholly unconscious, but which mars with -so much ugliness, so much awkwardness, the most sincere overtures of a -plebeian. Sometimes I found fault with myself for thus taking pleasure -in my friend as in a work of art, that is to say in regarding the play -of all the parts of his being as harmoniously ordered by a general idea -from which they depended but which he did not know, so that it added -nothing to his own good qualities, to that personal value, intellectual -and moral, to which he attached so high a price. - -And yet that idea was to a certain extent their determining cause. It -was because he was a gentleman that that mental activity, those -socialist aspirations, which made him seek the company of young -students, arrogant and ill-dressed, connoted in him something really -pure and disinterested which was not to be found in them. Looking upon -himself as the heir of an ignorant and selfish caste, he was sincerely -anxious that they should forgive in him that aristocratic origin which -they, on the contrary, found irresistibly attractive and on account of -which they sought to know him, though with a show of coldness and indeed -of insolence towards him. He was thus led to make advances to people -from whom my parents, faithful to the sociological theories of Combray, -would have been stupefied at his not turning away in disgust. One day -when we were sitting on the sands, Saint-Loup and I, we heard issuing -from a canvas tent against which we were leaning a torrent of -imprecation against the swarm of Israelites that infested Balbec. "You -can't go a yard without meeting them," said the voice. "I am not in -principle irremediably hostile to the Jewish nation, but here there is a -plethora of them. You hear nothing but, 'I thay, Apraham, I've chust -theen Chacop.' You would think you were in the Rue d'Aboukir." The man -who thus inveighed against Israel emerged at last from the tent; we -raised our eyes to behold this antisemite. It was my old friend Bloch. -Saint-Loup at once begged me to remind him that they had met before the -Board of Examiners, when Bloch had carried off the prize of honour, and -since then at a popular university course. - -At the most I may have smiled now and then, to discover in Robert the -marks of his Jesuit schooling, in the awkwardness which the fear of -hurting people's feelings at once created in him whenever one of his -intellectual friends made a social error, did something silly to which -Saint-Loup himself attached no importance but felt that the other would -have blushed if anybody had noticed it. And it was Robert who used to -blush as though it had been he that was to blame, for instance on the -day when Bloch, after promising to come and see him at the hotel, went -on: - -"As I cannot endure to be kept waiting among all the false splendour of -these great caravanserais, and the Hungarian band would make me ill, you -must tell the 'lighft-boy' to make them shut up, and to let you know at -once." - -Personally, I was not particularly anxious that Bloch should come to the -hotel. He was at Balbec not by himself, unfortunately, but with his -sisters, and they in turn had innumerable relatives and friends staying -there. Now this Jewish colony was more picturesque than pleasant. Balbec -was in this respect like such countries as Russia or Rumania, where the -geography books teach us that the Israelite population does not enjoy -anything approaching the same esteem and has not reached the same stage -of assimilation as, for instance, in Paris. Always together, with no -blend of any other element, when the cousins and uncles of Bloch or -their coreligionists male or female repaired to the Casino, the ladies -to dance, the gentlemen branching off towards the baccarat-tables, they -formed a solid troop, homogeneous within itself, and utterly dissimilar -to the people who watched them go past and found them there again every -year without ever exchanging a word or a sign with them, whether these -were on the Cambremers' list, or the presiding magistrate's little -group, professional or "business" people, or even simple corn-chandlers -from Paris, whose daughters, handsome, proud, derisive and French as the -statues at Rheims, would not care to mix with that horde of ill-bred -tomboys, who carried their zeal for "seaside fashions" so far as to be -always apparently on their way home from shrimping or out to dance the -tango. As for the men, despite the brilliance of their dinner-jackets -and patent-leather shoes, the exaggeration of their type made one think -of what people call the "intelligent research" of painters who, having -to illustrate the Gospels or the Arabian Nights, consider the country in -which the scenes are laid, and give to Saint Peter or to Ali-Baba the -identical features of the heaviest "punter" at the Balbec tables. Bloch -introduced his sisters, who, though he silenced their chatter with the -utmost rudeness, screamed with laughter at the mildest sallies of this -brother, their blindly worshipped idol. So that it is probable that this -set of people contained, like every other, perhaps more than any other, -plenty of attractions, merits and virtues. But in order to experience -these, one had first to penetrate its enclosure. Now it was not popular; -it could feel this; it saw in its unpopularity the mark of an -anti-semitism to which it presented a bold front in a compact and closed -phalanx into which, as it happened, no one ever dreamed of trying to -make his way. - -At his use of the word "lighft" I had all the less reason to be -surprised in that, a few days before, Bloch having asked me why I had -come to Balbec (although it seemed to him perfectly natural that he -himself should be there) and whether it had been "in the hope of making -grand friends", when I had explained to him that this visit was a -fulfilment of one of my earliest longings, though one not so deep as my -longing to see Venice, he had replied: "Yes, of course, to sip iced -drinks with the pretty ladies, while you pretend to be reading the -_Stones of Venighce_, by Lord John Ruskin, a dreary shaver, in fact one -of the most garrulous old barbers that you could find." So that Bloch -evidently thought that in England not only were all the inhabitants of -the male sex called "Lord", but the letter 'i' was invariably pronounced -'igh'. As for Saint-Loup, this mistake in pronunciation seemed to him -all the less serious inasmuch as he saw in it pre-eminently a want of -those almost "society" notions which my new friend despised as fully as -he was versed in them. But the fear lest Bloch, discovering one day that -one says "Venice" and that Ruskin was not a lord, should retrospectively -imagine that Robert had been laughing at him, made the latter feel as -guilty as if he had been found wanting in the indulgence with which, as -we have seen, he overflowed, so that the blush which would no doubt one -day dye the cheek of Bloch on the discovery of his error, Robert -already, by anticipation and reflex action, could feel mounting to his -own. For he fully believed that Bloch attached more importance than he -to this mistake. Which Bloch proved to be true some time later, when he -heard me pronounce the word "lift", by breaking in with: - -"Oh, you say 'lift', do you?" And then, in a dry and lofty tone: "Not -that it is of the slightest importance." A phrase that is like a reflex -action of the body, the same in all men whose self-esteem is great, in -the gravest circumstances as well as in the most trivial, betraying -there as clearly as on this occasion how important the thing in question -seems to him who declares that it is of no importance; a tragic phrase -at times, the first to escape (and then how heart-breaking) the lips of -every man at all proud from whom we have just taken the last hope to -which he still clung by refusing to do him a service. "Oh, well, it's -not of the slightest importance; I shall make some other arrangement:" -the other arrangement which it is not of the slightest importance that -he should be driven to adopt being often suicide. - -Apart from this, Bloch made me the prettiest speeches. He was certainly -anxious to be on the best of terms with me. And yet he asked me: "Is it -because you've taken a fancy to raise yourself to the peerage that you -run after de Saint-Loup-en-Bray? You must be going through a fine crisis -of snobbery. Tell me, are you a snob? I think so, what?" Not that his -desire to be friendly had suddenly changed. But what is called, in not -too correct language, "ill breeding" was his defect, and therefore the -defect which he was bound to overlook, all the more that by which he did -not believe that other people could be shocked. In the human race the -frequency of the virtues that are identical in us all is not more -wonderful than the multiplicity of the defects that are peculiar to each -one of us. Undoubtedly, it is not common sense that is "the commonest -thing in the world"; but human kindness. In the most distant, the most -desolate ends of the earth, we marvel to see it blossom of its own -accord, as in a remote valley a poppy like the poppies in the world -beyond, poppies which it has never seen as it has never known aught but -the wind that, now and again, stirring the folds of its scarlet cloak, -disturbs its solitude. Even if this human kindness, paralysed by -self-interest, is not exercised, it exists none the less, and whenever -any inconstant egoist does not restrain its action, when, for example, -he is reading a novel or a newspaper, it will bud, blossom, grow, even -in the heart of him who, cold-blooded in real life, has retained a -tender heart, as a lover of fiction, for the weak, the righteous and the -persecuted. But the variety of our defects is no less remarkable than -the similarity of our virtues. Each of us has his own, so much so that -to continue loving him we are obliged not to take them into account but -to ignore them and look only to the rest of his character. The most -perfect person in the world has a certain defect which shocks us or -makes us angry. One man is of rare intelligence, sees everything from an -exalted angle, never speaks evil of anyone, but will pocket and forget -letters of supreme importance which it was he himself who asked you to -let him post for you, and will then miss a vital engagement without -offering you any excuse, with a smile, because he prides himself upon -never knowing the time. Another is so refined, so gentle, so delicate in -his conduct that he never says anything about you before your face -except what you are glad to hear; but you feel that he refrains from -uttering, that he keeps buried in his heart, where they grow bitter, -very different opinions, and the pleasure that he derives from seeing -you is so dear to him that he will let you faint with exhaustion sooner -than leave you to yourself. A third has more sincerity, but carries it -so far that he feels bound to let you know, when you have pleaded the -state of your health as an excuse for not having been to see him, that -you were seen going to the theatre and were reported to be looking well, -or else that he has not been able to profit entirely by the action which -you have taken on his behalf, which, by the way, three other of his -friends had already offered to take, so that he is only moderately -indebted to you. In similar circumstances the previous friend would have -pretended not to know that you had gone to the theatre, or that other -people could have done him the same service. But this last friend feels -himself obliged to repeat or to reveal to somebody the very thing that -is most likely to give offence; is delighted with his own frankness and -tells you, emphatically: "I am like that." While others infuriate you by -their exaggerated curiosity, or by a want of curiosity so absolute that -you can speak to them of the most sensational happenings without their -grasping what it is all about; and others again take months to answer -you if your letter has been about something that concerns yourself and -not them, or else, if they write that they are coming to ask you for -something and you dare not leave the house for fear of missing them, do -not appear, but leave you in suspense for weeks because, not having -received from you the answer which their letter did not in the least -"expect", they have concluded that you must be cross with them. And -others, considering their own wishes and not yours, talk to you without -letting you get a word in if they are in good spirits and want to see -you, however urgent the work you may have in hand, but if they feel -exhausted by the weather or out of humour, you cannot get a word out of -them, they meet your efforts with an inert languor and no more take the -trouble to reply, even in monosyllables, to what you say to them than if -they had not heard you. Each of our friends has his defects so markedly -that to continue to love him we are obliged to seek consolation for -those defects--in the thought of his talent, his goodness, his affection -for ourself--or rather to leave them out of account, and for that we -need to display all our good-will. Unfortunately our obliging obstinacy -in refusing to see the defect in our friend is surpassed by the -obstinacy with which he persists in that defect, from his own blindness -to it or the blindness that he attributes to other people. For he does -not notice it himself, or imagines that it is not noticed. Since the -risk of giving offence arises principally from the difficulty of -appreciating what does and what does not pass unperceived, we ought, at -least, from prudence, never to speak of ourself, because that is a -subject on which we may be sure that other people's views are never in -accordance with our own. If we find as many surprises as on visiting a -house of plain exterior which inside is full of hidden treasures, -torture-chambers, skeletons, when we discover the true lives of other -people, the real beneath the apparent universe, we are no less surprised -if, in place of the image that we have made of ourself with the help of -all the things that people have said to us, we learn from the terms in -which they speak of us in our absence what an entirely different image -they have been carrying in their own minds of us and of our life. So -that whenever we have spoken about ourself, we may be sure that our -inoffensive and prudent words, listened to with apparent politeness and -hypocritical approbation, have given rise afterwards to the most -exasperated or the most mirthful, but in either case the least -favourable criticism. The least risk that we run is that of irritating -people by the disproportion that there is between our idea of ourself -and the words that we use, a disproportion which as a rule makes -people's talk about themselves as ludicrous as the performances of those -self-styled music-lovers who when they feel the need to hum a favourite -melody compensate for the inadequacy of their inarticulate murmurings by -a strenuous mimicry and a look of admiration which is hardly justified -by all that they let us hear. And to the bad habit of speaking about -oneself and one's defects there must be added, as part of the same -thing, that habit of denouncing in other people defects precisely -analogous to one's own. For it is always of those defects that people -speak, as though it were a way of speaking about oneself, indirectly, -which added to the pleasure of absolution that of confession. Besides it -seems that our attention, always attracted by what is characteristic of -ourself, notices that more than anything else in other people. One -short-sighted man says of another: "But he can scarcely open his eyes!"; -a consumptive has his doubts as to the pulmonary integrity of the most -robust; an unwashed man speaks only of the baths that other people do -not take; an evil-smelling man insists that other people smell; a -cuckold sees cuckolds everywhere, a light woman light women, a snob -snobs. Then, too, every vice, like every profession, requires and trains -a special knowledge which we are never loath to display. The invert -detects and denounces inverts; the tailor asked out to dine, before he -has begun to talk to you, has passed judgment on the cloth of your coat, -which his fingers are itching to feel, and if after a few words of -conversation you were to ask a dentist what he really thought of you, he -would tell you how many of your teeth wanted filling. To him nothing -appears more important, nor more absurd to you who have noticed his own. -And it is not only when we speak of ourselves that we imagine other -people to be blind; we behave as though they were. On every one of us -there is a special god in attendance who hides from him or promises him -the concealment from other people of his defect, just as he stops the -eyes and nostrils of people who do not wash to the streaks of dirt which -they carry in their ears and the smell of sweat which emanates from -their armpits, and assures them that they can with impunity carry both -of these about a world that will notice nothing. And those who wear -artificial pearls, or give them as presents, imagine that people will -take them to be genuine. Bloch was ill-bred, neurotic, a snob, and, -since he belonged to a family of little repute, had to support, as on -the floor of ocean, the incalculable pressure that was imposed on him -not only by the Christians upon the surface but by all the intervening -layers of Jewish castes superior to his own, each of them crushing with -its contempt the one that was immediately beneath it. To carve his way -through to the open air by raising himself from Jewish family to Jewish -family would have taken Bloch many thousands of years. It was better -worth his while to seek an outlet in another direction. - -When Bloch spoke to me of the crisis of snobbery through which I must be -passing, and bade me confess that I was a snob, I might well have -replied: "If I were, I should not be going about with you." I said -merely that he was not being very polite. Then he tried to apologise, -but in the way that is typical of the ill-bred man who is only too glad -to hark back to whatever it was if he can find an opportunity to -aggravate his offence. "Forgive me," he used now to plead, whenever we -met, "I have vexed you, tormented you; I have been wantonly mischievous. -And yet--man in general and your friend in particular is so singular an -animal--you cannot imagine the affection that I, I who tease you so -cruelly, have for you. It carries me often, when I think of you, to -tears." And he gave an audible sob. - -What astonished me more in Bloch than his bad manners was to find how -the quality of his conversation varied. This youth, so hard to please -that of authors who were at the height of their fame he would say: "He's -a gloomy idiot; he's a sheer imbecile," would every now and then tell, -with immense gusto, stories that were simply not funny or would instance -as a "really remarkable person" some man who was completely -insignificant. This double scale of measuring the wit, the worth, the -interest of people continued to puzzle me until I was introduced to M. -Bloch, senior. - -I had not supposed that we should ever be allowed to know him, for Bloch -junior had spoken ill of me to Saint-Loup and of Saint-Loup to me. In -particular, he had said to Robert that I was (always) a frightful snob. -"Yes, really, he is overjoyed at knowing M. LLLLegrandin." This trick of -isolating a word, was, in Bloch, a sign at once of irony and of -learning. Saint-Loup, who had never heard the name of Legrandin, was -bewildered. "But who is he?" "Oh, he's a bit of all right, he is!" Bloch -laughed, thrusting his hands into his pockets as though for warmth, -convinced that he was at that moment engaged in contemplation of the -picturesque aspect of an extraordinary country gentleman compared to -whom those of Barbey d'Aurevilly were as nothing. He consoled himself -for his inability to portray M. Legrandin by giving him a string of -capital 'L's, smacking his lips over the name as over a wine from the -farthest bin. But these subjective enjoyments remained hidden from other -people. If he spoke ill of me to Saint-Loup he made up for it by -speaking no less ill of Saint-Loup to me. We had each of us learned -these slanders in detail, the next day, not that we repeated them to -each other, a thing which would have seemed to us very wrong, but to -Bloch appeared so natural and almost inevitable that in his natural -anxiety, in the certainty moreover that he would be telling us only what -each of us was bound sooner or later to know, he preferred to anticipate -the disclosure and, taking Saint-Loup aside, admitted that he had spoken -ill of him, on purpose, so that it might be repeated to him, swore to -him "by Zeus Kronion, binder of oaths" that he loved him dearly, that he -would lay down his life for him; and wiped away a tear. The same day, he -contrived to see me alone, made his confession, declared that he had -acted in my interest, because he felt that a certain kind of social -intercourse was fatal to me and that I was "worthy of better things." -Then, clasping me by the hand, with the sentimentality of a drunkard, -albeit his drunkenness was purely nervous: "Believe me," he said, "and -may the black Ker seize me this instant and bear me across the portals -of Hades, hateful to men, if yesterday, when I thought of you, of -Combray, of my boundless affection for you, of afternoon hours in class -which you do not even remember, I did not lie awake weeping all night -long. Yes, all night long, I swear it, and alas, I know--for I know the -human soul--you will not believe me." I did indeed "not believe" him, -and to his words which, I felt, he was making up on the spur of the -moment, and expanding as he went on, his swearing "by Ker" added no -great weight, the Hellenic cult being in Bloch purely literary. Besides, -whenever he began to grow sentimental and wished his hearer to grow -sentimental over a falsehood, he would say: "I swear it", more for the -hysterical satisfaction of lying than to make people think that he was -speaking the truth. I did not believe what he was saying, but I bore him -no ill-will for that, for I had inherited from my mother and grandmother -their incapacity for resentment even of far worse offenders, and their -habit of never condemning anyone. - -Besides, he was not altogether a bad youth, this Bloch; he could be, and -was at times quite charming. And now that the race of Combray, the race -from which sprang creatures absolutely unspoiled like my grandmother and -mother, seems almost extinct, as I have hardly any choice now save -between honest brutes, insensible and loyal, in whom the mere sound of -their voices shews at once that they take absolutely no interest in -one's life--and another kind of men who so long as they are with one -understand one, cherish one, grow sentimental even to tears, take their -revenge a few hours later by making some cruel joke at one's expense, -but return to one, always just as comprehending, as charming, as closely -assimilated, for the moment, to oneself, I think that it is of this -latter sort that I prefer if not the moral worth at any rate the -society. - -"You cannot imagine my grief when I think of you," Bloch went on. "When -you come to think of it, it is a rather Jewish side of my nature," he -added ironically, contracting his pupils as though he had to prepare for -the microscope an infinitesimal quantity of "Jewish blood", and as might -(but never would) have said a great French noble who among his -ancestors, all Christian, might nevertheless have included Samuel -Bernard, or further still, the Blessed Virgin from whom, it is said, the -Lévy family claim descent, "coming out. I rather like," he continued -"to find room among my feelings for the share (not that it is more than -a very tiny share) which may be ascribed to my Jewish origin." He made -this statement because it seemed to him at once clever and courageous to -speak the truth about his race, a truth which at the same time he -managed to water down to a remarkable extent, like misers who decide to -pay their debts but have not the courage to pay more than half. This -kind of deceit which consists in having the boldness to proclaim the -truth, but only after mixing with it an ample measure of lies which -falsify it, is commoner than people think, and even among those who do -not habitually practise it certain crises in life, especially those in -which love is at stake, give them an opportunity of taking to it. - -All these confidential diatribes by Bloch to Saint-Loup against me and -to me against Saint-Loup ended in an invitation to dinner. I am by no -means sure that he did not first make an attempt to secure Saint-Loup by -himself. It would have been so like Bloch to do so that probably he did; -but if so success did not crown his effort, for it was to myself and -Saint-Loup that Bloch said one day: "Dear master, and you, O horseman -beloved of Ares, de Saint-Loup-en-Bray, tamer of horses, since I have -encountered you by the shore of Amphitrite, resounding with foam, hard -by the tents of the swift-shipped Méniers, will both of you come to -dinner any day this week with my illustrious sire, of blameless heart?" -He proffered this invitation because he desired to attach himself more -closely to Saint-Loup who would, he hoped, secure him the right of entry -into aristocratic circles. Formed by me for myself, this ambition would -have seemed to Bloch the mark of the most hideous snobbishness, quite in -keeping with the opinion that he already held of a whole side of my -nature which he did not regard--or at least had not hitherto -regarded--as its most important side; but the same ambition in himself -seemed to him the proof of a finely developed curiosity in a mind -anxious to carry out certain social explorations from which he might -perhaps glean some literary benefit. M. Bloch senior, when his son had -told him that he was going to bring one of his friends in to dinner, and -had in a sarcastic but satisfied tone enunciated the name and title of -that friend: "The Marquis de Saint-Loup-en-Bray", had been thrown into -great commotion. "The Marquis de Saint-Loup-en-Bray! I'll be jiggered!" -he had exclaimed, using the oath which was with him the strongest -indication of social deference. And he cast at a son capable of having -formed such an acquaintance an admiring glance which seemed to say: -"Really, it is astounding. Can this prodigy be indeed a child of mine?" -which gave my friend as much pleasure as if his monthly allowance had -been increased by fifty francs. For Bloch was not in his element at home -and felt that his father treated him like a lost sheep because of his -lifelong admiration for Leconte de Lisle, Heredia and other "Bohemians". -But to have got to know Saint-Loup-en-Bray, whose father had been -chairman of the Suez Canal board ("I'll be jiggered!") was an -indisputable "score". What a pity, indeed, that they had left in Paris, -for fear of its being broken on the journey, the stereoscope. Alone -among men, M. Bloch senior had the art, or at least the right to exhibit -it. He did this, moreover, on rare occasions only, and then to good -purpose, on evenings when there was a full-dress affair, with hired -waiters. So that from these exhibitions of the stereoscope there -emanated, for those who were present, as it were a special distinction, -a privileged position, and for the master of the house who gave them a -reputation such as talent confers on a man--which could not have been -greater had the photographs been taken by M. Bloch himself and the -machine his own invention. "You weren't invited to Solomon's yesterday?" -one of the family would ask another. "No! I was not one of the elect. -What was on?" "Oh, a great how-d'ye-do, the stereoscope, the whole box -of tricks!" "Indeed! If they had the stereoscope I'm sorry I wasn't -there; they say Solomon is quite amazing when he works it."--"It can't -be helped;" said M. Bloch now to his son, "it's a mistake to let him -have everything at once; that would leave him nothing to look forward -to." He had actually thought, in his paternal affection and in the hope -of touching his son's heart, of sending for the instrument. But there -was not time, or rather they had thought there would not be; for we were -obliged to put off the dinner because Saint-Loup could not leave the -hotel, where he was waiting for an uncle who was coming to spend a few -days with Mme. de Villeparisis. Since--for he was greatly addicted to -physical culture, and especially to long walks--it was largely on foot, -spending the night in wayside farms, that this uncle was to make the -journey from the country house in which he was staying, the precise date -of his arrival at Balbec was by no means certain. And Saint-Loup, afraid -to stir out of doors, even entrusted me with the duty of taking to -Incauville, where the nearest telegraph-office was, the messages that he -sent every day to his mistress. The uncle for whom we were waiting was -called Palamède, a name that had come down to him from his ancestors -the Princes of Sicily. And later on when I found, as I read history, -belonging to this or that Podestà or Prince of the Church, the same -Christian name, a fine renaissance medal--some said, a genuine -antique--that had always remained in the family, having passed from -generation to generation, from the Vatican cabinet to the uncle of my -friend, I felt the pleasure that is reserved for those who, unable from -lack of means to start a case of medals, or a picture gallery, look out -for old names (names of localities, instructive and picturesque as an -old map, a bird's eye view, a sign-board or a return of customs; -baptismal names, in which rings out and is plainly heard, in their fine -French endings, the defect of speech, the intonation of a racial -vulgarity, the vicious pronunciation by which our ancestors made Latin -and Saxon words undergo lasting mutilations which in due course became -the august law-givers of our grammar books) and, in short, by drawing -upon their collections of ancient and sonorous words, give themselves -concerts like the people who acquire viols da gamba and viols d'amour so -as to perform the music of days gone by upon old-fashioned instruments. -Saint-Loup told me that even in the most exclusive aristocratic society -his uncle Palamède had the further distinction of being particularly -difficult to approach, contemptuous, double-dyed in his nobility, -forming with his brother's wife and a few other chosen spirits what was -known as the Phoenix Club. There even his insolence was so much dreaded -that it had happened more than once that people of good position who had -been anxious to meet him and had applied to his own brother for an -introduction had met with a refusal: "Really, you mustn't ask me to -introduce you to my brother Palamède. My wife and I, we would all of us -do our best for you, but it would be no good. Besides, there's always -the danger of his being rude to you, and I shouldn't like that." At the -Jockey Club he had, with a few of his friends, marked a list of two -hundred members whom they would never allow to be introduced to them. -And in the Comte de Paris's circle he was known by the nickname of "The -Prince" because of his distinction and his pride. - -Saint-Loup told me about his uncle's early life, now a long time ago. -Every day he used to take women to a bachelor establishment which he -shared with two of his friends, as good-looking as himself, on account -of which they were known as "The Three Graces". - -"One day, a man who just now is very much in the eye, as Balzac would -say, of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, but who at a rather awkward period -of his early life displayed odd tastes, asked my uncle to let him come -to this place. But no sooner had he arrived than it was not to the -ladies but to my uncle Palamède that he began to make overtures. My -uncle pretended not to understand, made an excuse to send for his two -friends; they appeared on the scene, seized the offender, stripped him, -thrashed him till he bled, and then with twenty degrees of frost outside -kicked him into the street where he was found more dead than alive; so -much so that the police started an inquiry which the poor devil had the -greatest difficulty in getting them to abandon. My uncle would never go -in for such drastic methods now, in fact you can't conceive the number -of men of humble position that he, who is so haughty with people in -society, has shewn his affection, taken under his wing, even if he is -paid for it with ingratitude. It may be a servant who has looked after -him in a hotel, for whom he will find a place in Paris, or a -farm-labourer whom he will pay to have taught a trade. That is really -the rather nice side of his character, in contrast to his social side." -Saint-Loup indeed belonged to that type of young men of fashion, -situated at an altitude at which it has been possible to cultivate such -expressions as: "What is really rather nice about him", "His rather nice -side", precious seeds which produce very rapidly a way of looking at -things in which one counts oneself as nothing and the "people" as -everything; the exact opposite, in a word, of plebeian pride. "It seems, -it is quite impossible to imagine how he set the tone, how he laid down -the law for the whole of society when he was a young man. He acted -entirely for himself; in any circumstances he did what seemed pleasing -to himself, what was most convenient, but at once the snobs would start -copying him. If he felt thirsty at the play, and sent out from his box -for a drink, the little sitting-rooms behind all the boxes would be -filled, a week later, with refreshments. One wet summer, when he had a -touch of rheumatism, he ordered an ulster of a loose but warm vicuna -wool, which is used only for travelling rugs, and kept the blue and -orange stripes shewing. The big tailors at once received orders from all -their customers for blue and orange ulsters of rough wool. If he had -some reason for wishing to keep every trace of ceremony out of a dinner -in a country house where he was spending the day, and to point the -distinction had come without evening clothes and sat down to table in -the suit he had been wearing that afternoon, it became the fashion, when -you were dining in the country, not to dress. If he was eating some -special sweet and instead of taking his spoon used a knife, or a special -implement of his own invention which he had had made for him by a -silversmith, or his fingers, it at once became wrong to eat it in any -other way. He wanted once to hear some Beethoven quartets again (for -with all his preposterous ideas he is no fool, mind, he has great gifts) -and arranged for some musicians to come and play them to him and a few -friends once a week. The ultra-fashionable thing that season was to give -quite small parties, with chamber music. I should say he's not done at -all badly out of life. With his looks, he must have had any number of -women! I can't tell you exactly whom, for he is very discreet. But I do -know that he was thoroughly unfaithful to my poor aunt. Not that that -prevented his being always perfectly charming to her, and her adoring -him; he was in mourning for her for years. When he is in Paris, he still -goes to the cemetery nearly every day." - -The morning after Robert had told me all these things about his uncle, -while he waited for him (and waited, as it happened, in vain), as I was -coming by myself past the Casino on my way back to the hotel, I had the -sensation of being watched by somebody who was not far off. I turned my -head and saw a man of about forty, very tall and rather stout, with a -very dark moustache, who, nervously slapping the leg of his trousers -with a switch, kept fastened upon me a pair of eyes dilated with -observation. Every now and then those eyes were shot through by a look -of intense activity such as the sight of a person whom they do not know -excites only in men to whom, for whatever reason, it suggests thoughts -that would not occur to anyone else--madmen, for instance, or spies. He -trained upon me a supreme stare at once bold, prudent, rapid and -profound, like a last shot which one fires at an enemy at the moment -when one turns to flee, and, after first looking all round him, suddenly -adopting an absent and lofty air, by an abrupt revolution of his whole -body turned to examine a playbill on the wall in the reading of which he -became absorbed, while he hummed a tune and fingered the moss-rose in -his buttonhole. He drew from his pocket a note-book in which he appeared -to be taking down the title of the performance that was announced, -looked two or three times at his watch, pulled down over his eyes a -black straw hat the brim of which he extended with his hand held out -over it like a visor, as though to see whether some one were at last -coming, made the perfunctory gesture of annoyance by which people mean -to shew that they have waited long enough, although they never make it -when they are really waiting, then pushing back his hat and exposing a -scalp cropped close except at the sides where he allowed a pair of waved -"pigeon's-wings" to grow quite long, he emitted the loud panting breath -that people give who are not feeling too hot but would like it to be -thought that they were. He gave me the impression of a "hotel crook" who -had been watching my grandmother and myself for some days, and while he -was planning to rob us had just discovered that I had surprised him in -the act of spying; to put me off the scent, perhaps he was seeking only, -by his new attitude, to express boredom and detachment, but it was with -an exaggeration so aggressive that his object appeared to be--at least -as much as the dissipating of the suspicions that I must have had of -him--to avenge a humiliation which quite unconsciously I must have -inflicted on him, to give me the idea not so much that he had not seen -me as that I was an object of too little importance to attract his -attention. He threw back his shoulders with an air of bravado, bit his -lips, pushed up his moustache, and in the lens of his eyes made an -adjustment of something that was indifferent, harsh, almost insulting. -So effectively that the singularity of his expression made me take him -at one moment for a thief and at another for a lunatic. And yet his -scrupulously ordered attire was far more sober and far more simple than -that of any of the summer visitors I saw at Balbec, and gave a -reassurance to my own suit, so often humiliated by the dazzling and -common-place whiteness of their holiday garb. But my grandmother was -coming towards me, we took a turn together, and I was waiting for her, -an hour later, outside the hotel into which she had gone for a moment, -when I saw emerge from it Mme. de Villeparisis with Robert de Saint-Loup -and the stranger who had stared at me so intently outside the Casino. -Swift as a lightning-flash his look shot through me, just as at the -moment when I first noticed him, and returned, as though he had not seen -me, to hover, slightly lowered, before his eyes, dulled, like the -neutral look which feigns to see nothing without and is incapable of -reporting anything to the mind within, the look which expresses merely -the satisfaction of feeling round it the eyelids which it cleaves apart -with its sanctimonious roundness, the devout, the steeped look that we -see on the faces of certain hypocrites, the smug look on those of -certain fools. I saw that he had changed his clothes. The suit he was -wearing was darker even than the other; and no doubt this was because -the true distinction in dress lies nearer to simplicity than the false; -but there was something more; when one came near him one felt that if -colour was almost entirely absent from these garments it was not because -he who had banished it from them was indifferent to it but rather -because for some reason he forbade himself the enjoyment of it. And the -sobriety which they displayed seemed to be of the kind that comes from -obedience to a rule of diet rather than from want of appetite. A dark -green thread harmonised, in the stuff of his trousers, with the clock on -his socks, with a refinement which betrayed the vivacity of a taste that -was everywhere else conquered, to which this single concession had been -made out of tolerance for such a weakness, while a spot of red on his -necktie was imperceptible, like a liberty which one dares not take. - -"How are you? Let me introduce my nephew, the Baron de Guermantes," Mme. -de Villeparisis greeted me, while the stranger without looking at me, -muttering a vague "Charmed!" which he followed with a "H'm, h'm, h'm" to -give his affability an air of having been forced, and doubling back his -little finger, forefinger and thumb, held out to me his middle and ring -fingers, the latter bare of any ring, which I clasped through his suede -glove; then, without lifting his eyes to my face, he turned towards Mme. -de Villeparisis. - -"Good gracious; I shall be forgetting my own name next!" she exclaimed. -"Here am I calling you Baron de Guermantes. Let me introduce the Baron -de Charlus. After all, it's not a very serious mistake," she went on, -"for you're a thorough Guermantes whatever else you are." - -By this time my grandmother had reappeared, and we all set out together. -Saint-Loup's uncle declined to honour me not only with a word, with so -much as a look, even, in my direction. If he stared strangers out of -countenance (and during this short excursion he two or three times -hurled his terrible and searching scrutiny like a sounding lead at -insignificant people of obviously humble extraction who happened to -pass), to make up for that he never for a moment, if I was to judge by -myself, looked at the people whom he did know, just as a detective on -special duty might except his personal friends from his professional -vigilance. Leaving them, my grandmother, Mme. de Villeparisis and him to -talk to one another, I fell behind with Saint-Loup. - -"Tell me, am I right in thinking I heard Mme. de Villeparisis say just -now to your uncle that he was a Guermantes?" - -"Of course he is; Palamède de Guermantes." - -"Not the same Guermantes who have a place near Combray, and claim -descent from Geneviève de Brabant?" - -"Most certainly: my uncle, who is the very last word in heraldry and all -that sort of thing, would tell you that our 'cry', our war-cry, that is -to say, which was changed afterwards to 'Passavant' was originally -'Combraysis'," he said, smiling so as not to appear to be priding -himself on this prerogative of a "cry", which only the semi-royal -houses, the great chiefs of feudal bands enjoyed. "It's his brother who -has the place now." - -And so she was indeed related, and quite closely, to the Guermantes, -this Mme. de Villeparisis who had so long been for me the lady who had -given me a duck filled with chocolates, when I was little, more remote -then from the Guermantes way than if she had been shut up somewhere on -the Méséglise, less brilliant, less highly placed by me than was the -Combray optician, and who now suddenly went through one of those -fantastic rises in value, parallel to the depreciations, no less -unforeseen, of other objects in our possession, which--rise and fall -alike--introduce in our youth and in those periods of our life in which -a trace of youth persists changes as numerous as the Metamorphoses of -Ovid. - -"Haven't they got, down there, the busts of all the old lords of -Guermantes?" - -"Yes; and a lovely sight they are!" Saint-Loup was ironical. "Between -you and me, I look on all that sort of thing as rather a joke. But they -have got at Guermantes, what is a little more interesting, and that is -quite a touching portrait of my aunt by Carrière. It's as fine as -Whistler or Velasquez," went on Saint-Loup, who in his neophyte zeal was -not always very exact about degrees of greatness. "There are also some -moving pictures by Gustave Moreau. My aunt is the niece of your friend -Mme. de Villeparisis; she was brought up by her, and married her cousin, -who was a nephew, too, of my aunt Villeparisis, the present Duc de -Guermantes." - -"Then who is this uncle?" - -"He bears the title of Baron de Charlus. Properly speaking, when my -great-uncle died, my uncle Palamède ought to have taken the title of -Prince des Laumes, which his brother used before he became Duc de -Guermantes, for in that family they change their names as you'ld change -your shirt. But my uncle has peculiar ideas about all that sort of -thing. And as he feels that people are rather apt to overdo the Italian -Prince and Grandee of Spain business nowadays, though he had -half-a-dozen titles of 'Prince' to choose from, he has remained Baron de -Charlus, as a protest, and with an apparent simplicity which really -covers a good deal of pride. 'In these days', he says, 'everybody is -Prince something-or-other; one really must have a title that will -distinguish one; I shall call myself Prince when I wish to travel -incognito.' According to him there is no older title than the Charlus -barony; to prove to you that it is earlier than the Montmorency title, -though they used to claim, quite wrongly, to be the premier barons of -France when they were only premier in the Ile-de-France, where their -fief was, my uncle will explain to you for hours on end and enjoy doing -it, because, although he's a most intelligent man, really gifted, he -regards that sort of thing as quite a live topic of conversation," -Saint-Loup smiled again. "But as I am not like him, you mustn't ask me -to talk pedigrees; I know nothing more deadly, more perishing; really, -life is not long enough." - -I now recognised in the hard look which had made me turn round that -morning outside the Casino the same that I had seen fixed on me at -Tansonville, at the moment when Mme. Swann called Gilberte away. - -"But, I say, all those mistresses that, you told me, your uncle M. de -Charlus had had, wasn't Mme. Swann one of them?" - -"Good lord, no! That is to say, my uncle's a great friend of Swann, and -has always stood up for him. But no one has ever suggested that he was -his wife's lover. You would make a great sensation in Paris society if -people thought you believed that." - -I dared not reply that it would have caused an even greater sensation in -Combray society if people had thought that I did not believe it. - -My grandmother was delighted with M. de Charlus. No doubt he attached an -extreme importance to all questions of birth and social position, and my -grandmother had remarked this, but without any trace of that severity -which as a rule embodies a secret envy and the annoyance of seeing some -one else enjoy an advantage which one would like but cannot oneself -possess. As on the other hand my grandmother, content with her lot and -never for a moment regretting that she did not move in a more brilliant -sphere, employed only her intellect in observing the eccentricities of -M. de Charlus, she spoke of Saint-Loup's uncle with that detached, -smiling, almost affectionate kindness with which we reward the object of -our disinterested study for the pleasure that it has given us, all the -more that this time the object was a person with regard to whom she -found that his if not legitimate, at any rate picturesque pretensions -shewed him in vivid contrast to the people whom she generally had -occasion to see. But it was especially in consideration of his -intelligence and sensibility, qualities which it was easy to see that M. -de Charlus, unlike so many of the people in society whom Saint-Loup -derided, possessed in a marked degree, that my grandmother had so -readily forgiven him his aristocratic prejudice. And yet this had not -been sacrificed by the uncle, as it was by the nephew, to higher -qualities. Rather, M. de Charlus had reconciled it with them. -Possessing, by virtue of his descent from the Ducs de Nemours and -Princes de Lamballe, documents, furniture, tapestries, portraits painted -for his ancestors by Raphael, Velasquez, Boucher, justified in saying -that he was visiting a museum and a matchless library when he was merely -turning over his family relics at home, he placed in the rank from which -his nephew had degraded it the whole heritage of the aristocracy. -Perhaps also, being less metaphysical than Saint-Loup, less satisfied -with words, more of a realist in his study of men, he did not care to -neglect a factor that was essential to his prestige in their eyes and, -if it gave certain disinterested pleasures to his imagination, could -often be a powerfully effective aid to his utilitarian activities. No -agreement can ever be reached between men of his sort and those who obey -the ideal within them which urges them to strip themselves bare of such -advantages so that they may seek only to realise that ideal, similar in -that respect to the painters, the writers who renounce their virtuosity, -the artistic peoples who modernise themselves, warrior peoples who take -the initiative in a move for universal disarmament, absolute governments -which turn democratic and repeal their harsh laws, though as often as -not the sequel fails to reward their noble effort; for the men lose -their talent, the nations their secular predominance; "pacificism" often -multiplies wars and indulgence criminality. If Saint-Loup's efforts -towards sincerity and emancipation were only to be commended as most -noble, to judge by their visible result, one could still be thankful -that they had failed to bear fruit in M. de Charlus, who had transferred -to his own home much of the admirable panelling from the Guermantes -house, instead of substituting, like his nephew, a "modern style" of -decoration, employing Lebourg or Guillaumin. It was none the less true -that M. de Charlus's ideal was highly artificial, and, if the epithet -can be applied to the word ideal, as much social as artistic. In certain -women of great beauty and rare culture whose ancestresses, two centuries -earlier, had shared in all the glory and grace of the old order, he -found a distinction which made him take pleasure only in their society, -and no doubt the admiration for them which he had protested was sincere, -but countless reminiscences, historical and artistic, called forth by -their names, entered into and formed a great part of it, just as -suggestions of classical antiquity are one of the reasons for the -pleasure which a booklover finds in reading an Ode of Horace that is -perhaps inferior to poems of our own day which would leave the same -booklover cold. Any of these women by the side of a pretty commoner was -for him what are, hanging beside a contemporary canvas representing a -procession or a wedding, those old pictures the history of which we -know, from the Pope or King who ordered them, through the hands of -people whose acquisition of them, by gift, purchase, conquest or -inheritance, recalls to us some event or at least some alliance of -historic interest, and consequently some knowledge that we ourselves -have acquired, gives it a fresh utility, increases our sense of the -richness of the possessions of our memory or of our erudition. M. de -Charlus might be thankful that a prejudice similar to his own, by -preventing these several great ladies from mixing with women whose blood -was less pure, presented them for his veneration unspoiled, in their -unaltered nobility, like an eighteenth-century house-front supported on -its flat column of pink marbles, in which the passage of time has -wrought no change. - -M. de Charlus praised the true "nobility" of mind and heart which -characterised these women, playing upon the word in a double sense by -which he himself was taken in, and in which lay the falsehood of this -bastard conception, of this medley of aristocracy, generosity and art, -but also its seductiveness, dangerous to people like my grandmother, to -whom the less refined but more innocent prejudice of a nobleman who -cared only about quarterings and took no thought for anything besides -would have appeared too silly for words, whereas she was defenceless as -soon as a thing presented itself under the externals of a mental -superiority, so much so, indeed, that she regarded Princes as enviable -above all other men because they were able to have a Labruyère, a -Fénelon as their tutors. Outside the Grand Hotel the three Guermantes -left us; they were going to luncheon with the Princesse de Luxembourg. -While my grandmother was saying good-bye to Mme. de Villeparisis and -Saint-Loup to my grandmother, M. de Charlus who, so far, had not uttered -a word to me, drew back a little way from the group and, when he reached -my side, said: "I shall be taking tea this evening after dinner in my -aunt Villeparisis's room; I hope that you will give me the pleasure of -seeing you there, and your grandmother." With which he rejoined the -Marquise. - -Although it was Sunday there were no more carriages waiting outside the -hotel now than at the beginning of the season. The solicitor's wife, in -particular, had decided that it was not worth the expense of hiring one -every time simply because she was not going to the Cambremers', and -contented herself with staying in her room. - -"Is Mme. Blandais not well?" her husband was asked. "We haven't seen her -all day." - -"She has a slight headache; it's the heat, there's thunder coming. The -least thing upsets her; but I expect you will see her this evening; I've -told her she ought to come down. It can't do her any harm." - -I had supposed that in thus inviting us to take tea with his aunt, whom -I never doubted that he would have warned that we were coming, M. de -Charlus wished to make amends for the impoliteness which he had shewn me -during our walk that morning. But when, on our entering Mme. de -Villeparisis's room, I attempted to greet her nephew, even although I -walked right round him, while in shrill accents he was telling a -somewhat spiteful story about one of his relatives, I did not succeed in -catching his eye; I decided to say "Good evening" to him, and fairly -loud, to warn him of my presence; but I realised that he had observed -it, for before ever a word had passed my lips, just as I began to bow to -him, I saw his two fingers stretched out for me to shake without his -having turned to look at me or paused in his story. He had evidently -seen me, without letting it appear that he had, and I noticed then that -his eyes, which were never fixed on the person to whom he was speaking, -strayed perpetually in all directions, like those of certain animals -when they are frightened, or those of street hawkers who, while they are -bawling their patter and displaying their illicit merchandise, keep a -sharp lookout, though without turning their heads, on the different -points of the horizon, from any of which may appear, suddenly, the -police. At the same time I was a little surprised to find that Mme. de -Villeparisis, while glad to see us, did not seem to have been expecting -us, and I was still more surprised to hear M. de Charlus say to my -grandmother: "Ah! that was a capital idea of yours to come and pay us a -visit; charming of them, is it not, my dear aunt?" No doubt he had -noticed his aunt's surprise at our entry and thought, as a man -accustomed to set the tone, to strike the right note, that it would be -enough to transform that surprise into joy were he to shew that he -himself felt it, that it was indeed the feeling which our arrival there -ought to have prompted. In which he calculated wisely; for Mme. de -Villeparisis, who had a high opinion of her nephew and knew how -difficult it was to please him, appeared suddenly to have found new -attractions in my grandmother and continued to make much of her. But I -failed to understand how M. de Charlus could, in the space of a few -hours, have forgotten the invitation--so curt but apparently so -intentional, so premeditated--which he had addressed to me that same -morning, or why he called a "capital idea" on my grandmother's part an -idea that had been entirely his own. With a scruple of accuracy which I -retained until I had reached the age at which I realised that it is not -by asking him questions that one learns the truth of what another man -has had in his mind, and that the risk of a misunderstanding which will -probably pass unobserved is less than that which may come from a -purblind insistence: "But, sir," I reminded him, "you remember, surely, -that it was you who asked me if we would come in this evening?" Not a -sound, not a movement betrayed that M. de Charlus had so much as heard -my question. Seeing which I repeated it, like a diplomat, or like young -men after a misunderstanding who endeavour, with untiring and unrewarded -zeal, to obtain an explanation which their adversary is determined not -to give them. Still M. de Charlus answered me not a word. I seemed to -see hovering upon his lips the smile of those who from a great height -pass judgment on the characters and breeding of their inferiors. - -Since he refused to give any explanation, I tried to provide one for -myself, but succeeded only in hesitating between several, none of which -could be the right one. Perhaps he did not remember, or perhaps it was I -who had failed to understand what he had said to me that morning. . . . -More probably, in his pride, he did not wish to appear to have sought to -attract people whom he despised, and preferred to cast upon them the -responsibility for their intrusion. But then, if he despised us, why had -he been so anxious that we should come, or rather that my grandmother -should come, for of the two of us it was to her alone that he spoke that -evening, and never once to me. Talking with the utmost animation to her, -as also to Mme. de Villeparisis, hiding, so to speak, behind them, as -though he were seated at the back of a theatre-box, he contented -himself, turning from them every now and then the exploring gaze of his -penetrating eyes, with fastening it on my face, with the same gravity, -the same air of preoccupation as if my face had been a manuscript -difficult to decipher. - -No doubt, if he had not had those eyes, the face of M. de Charlus would -have been similar to the faces of many good-looking men. And when -Saint-Loup, speaking to me of various other Guermantes, on a later -occasion, said: "Gad, they've not got that thoroughbred air, of being -gentlemen to their finger-tips, that uncle Palamède has!" confirming my -suspicion that a thoroughbred air and aristocratic distinction were not -anything mysterious and new but consisted in elements which I had -recognised without difficulty and without receiving any particular -impression from them, I was to feel that another of my illusions had -been shattered. But that face, to which a faint layer of powder gave -almost the appearance of a face on the stage, in vain might M. de -Charlus hermetically seal its expression; his eyes were like two -crevices, two loopholes which alone he had failed to stop, and through -which, according to where one stood or sat in relation to him, one felt -suddenly flash across one the glow of some internal engine which seemed -to offer no reassurance even to him who without being altogether master -of it must carry it inside him, at an unstable equilibrium and always on -the point of explosion; and the circumspect and unceasingly restless -expression of those eyes, with all the signs of exhaustion which, -extending from them to a pair of dark rings quite low down upon his -cheeks, were stamped on his face, however carefully he might compose and -regulate it, made one think of some incognito, some disguise assumed by -a powerful man in danger, or merely by a dangerous--but tragic--person. -I should have liked to divine what was this secret which other men did -not carry in their breasts and which had already made M. de Charlus's -gaze so enigmatic to me when I had seen him that morning outside the -Casino. But with what I now knew of his family I could no longer believe -that they were the eyes of a thief, nor, after what I had heard of his -conversation, could I say that they were those of a madman. If he was -cold with me, while making himself agreeable to my grandmother, that -arose perhaps not from a personal antipathy for, generally speaking, -just as he was kindly disposed towards women, of whose faults he used to -speak without, as a rule, any narrowing of the broadest tolerance, so he -shewed with regard to men, and especially young men, a hatred so violent -as to suggest that of certain extreme misogynists for women. Two or -three "carpet-knights", relatives or intimate friends of Saint-Loup who -happened to mention their names, M. de Charlus, with an almost ferocious -expression, in sharp contrast to his usual coldness, called: "Little -cads!" I gathered that the particular fault which he found in the young -men of the period was their extreme effeminacy. "They're absolute -women," he said with scorn. But what life would not have appeared -effeminate beside that which he expected a man to lead, and never found -energetic or virile enough? (He himself, when he walked across country, -after long hours on the road would plunge his heated body into frozen -streams.) He would not even allow a man to wear a single ring. But this -profession of virility did not prevent his having also the most delicate -sensibilities. When Mme. de Villeparisis asked him to describe to my -grandmother some country house in which Mme. de Sévigné had stayed, -adding that she could not help feeling that there was something rather -"literary" about that lady's distress at being parted from "that -tiresome Mme. de Grignan": - -"On the contrary," he retorted, "I can think of nothing more true. -Besides, it was a time in which feelings of that sort were thoroughly -understood. The inhabitant of Lafontaine's Monomotapa, running to see -his friend who had appeared to him in a dream, and had looked sad, the -pigeon finding that the greatest of evils is the absence of the other -pigeon, seem to you perhaps, my dear aunt, as exaggerated as Mme. de -Sévigné's impatience for the moment when she will be alone with her -daughter. It is so fine what she says when she leaves her: 'This parting -gives a pain to my soul which I feel like an ache in my body. In absence -one is liberal with the hours. One anticipates a time for which one is -longing.'" My grandmother was in ecstasies at hearing the Letters thus -spoken of, exactly as she would have spoken of them herself. She was -astonished that a man could understand them so thoroughly. She found in -M. de Charlus a delicacy, a sensibility that were quite feminine. We -said to each other afterwards, when we were by ourselves and began to -discuss him together, that he must have come under the strong influence -of a woman, his mother, or in later life his daughter if he had any -children. "A mistress, perhaps," I thought to myself, remembering the -influence that Saint-Loup's seemed to have had over him, which enabled -me to realise the point to which men can be refined by the women with -whom they live. - -"Once she was with her daughter, she had probably nothing to say to -her," put in Mme. de Villeparisis. - -"Most certainly she had: if it was only what she calls 'things so slight -that nobody else would notice them but you and me.' And anyhow she was -with her. And Labruyère tells us that that is everything. 'To be with -the people one loves, to speak to them, not to speak to them, it is all -the same.' He is right; that is the only form of happiness," added M. de -Charlus in a mournful voice, "and that happiness--alas, life is so ill -arranged that one very rarely tastes it; Mme. de Sévigné was after all -less to be pitied than most of us. She spent a great part of her life -with the person whom she loved." - -"You forget that it was not 'love' in her case; the person was her -daughter." - -"But what matters in life is not whom or what one loves," he went on, in -a judicial, peremptory, almost a cutting tone; "it is the fact of -loving. What Mme. de Sévigné felt for her daughter has a far better -claim to rank with the passion that Racine described in _Andromaque_ or -_Phèdre_ than the common-place relations young Sévigné had with his -mistresses. It's the same with a mystic's love for his God. The hard and -fast lines with which we circumscribe love arise solely from our -complete ignorance of life." - -"You think all that of _Andromaque_ and _Phèdre_, do you?" Saint-Loup -asked his uncle in a faintly contemptuous tone. "There is more truth in -a single tragedy of Racine than in all the dramatic works of Monsieur -Victor Hugo," replied M. de Charlus. "People really are overwhelming," -Saint-Loup murmured in my ear. "Preferring Racine to Victor, you may say -what you like, it's epoch-making!" He was genuinely distressed by his -uncle's words, but the satisfaction of saying "you may say what you -like" and, better still, "epoch-making" consoled him. - -In these reflexions upon the sadness of having to live apart from the -person whom one loves (which were to lead my grandmother to say to me -that Mme. de Villeparisis's nephew understood certain things quite as -well as his aunt, but in a different way, and moreover had something -about him that set him far above the average club man) M. de Charlus not -only allowed a refinement of feeling to appear such as men rarely shew; -his voice itself, like certain contralto voices which have not been -properly trained to the right pitch, so that when they sing it sounds -like a duet between a young man and a woman, singing alternately, -mounted, when he expressed these delicate sentiments, to its higher -notes, took on an unexpected sweetness and seemed to be embodying choirs -of betrothed maidens, of sisters, who poured out the treasures of their -love. But the bevy of young girls, whom M. de Charlus in his horror of -every kind of effeminacy would have been so distressed to learn that he -gave the impression of sheltering thus within his voice, did not confine -themselves to the interpretation, the modulation of scraps of sentiment. -Often while M. de Charlus was talking one could hear their laughter, -shrill, fresh laughter of school-girls or coquettes quizzing their -partners with all the archness of clever tongues and pretty wits. - -He told us how a house that had belonged to his family, in which Marie -Antoinette had slept, with a park laid out by Lenôtre, was now in the -hands of the Israels, the wealthy financiers, who had bought it. -"Israel--at least that is the name these people go by, which seems to me -a generic, a racial term rather than a proper name. One cannot tell; -possibly people of that sort do not have names, and are designated only -by the collective title of the tribe to which they belong. It is of no -importance! But fancy, after being a home of the Guermantes, to belong -to Israels!!!" His voice rose. "It reminds me of a room in the Chateau -of Blois where the caretaker who was shewing me over said: 'This is -where Mary Stuart used to say her prayers; I use it to keep my brooms -in.' Naturally I wish to know nothing more of this house that has let -itself be dishonoured, any more than of my cousin Clara de Chimay after -she left her husband. But I keep a photograph of the house, when it was -still unspoiled, just as I keep one of the Princess before her large -eyes had learned to gaze on anyone but my cousin. A photograph acquires -something of the dignity which it ordinarily lacks when it ceases to be -a reproduction of reality and shews us things that no longer exist. I -could give you a copy, since you are interested in that style of -architecture," he said to my grandmother. At that moment, noticing that -the embroidered handkerchief which he had in his pocket was shewing some -coloured threads, he thrust it sharply down out of sight with the -scandalised air of a prudish but far from innocent lady concealing -attractions which, by an excess of scrupulosity, she regards as -indecent. "Would you believe," he went on, "that the first thing the -creatures did was to destroy Lenôtre's park, which is as bad as -slashing a picture by Poussin? For that alone, these Israels ought to be -in prison. It is true," he added with a smile, after a moment's silence, -"that there are probably plenty of other reasons why they should be -there! In any case, you can imagine the effect, with that architecture -behind it, of an English garden." - -"But the house is in the same style as the Petit Trianon," said Mme. de -Villeparisis, "and Marie Antoinette had an English garden laid out -there." - -"Which, all the same, ruins Gabriel's front;" replied M. de Charlus. -"Obviously, it would be an act of vandalism now to destroy the Hameau. -But whatever may be the spirit of the age, I doubt, all the same, -whether, in that respect, a whim of Mme. Israel has the same importance -as the memory of the Queen." - -Meanwhile my grandmother had been making signs to me to go up to bed, in -spite of the urgent appeals of Saint-Loup who, to my utter confusion, -had alluded in front of M. de Charlus to the depression that used often -to come upon me at night before I went to sleep, which his uncle must -regard as betokening a sad want of virility. I lingered a few moments -still, then went upstairs, and was greatly surprised when, a little -later, having heard a knock at my bedroom door and asked who was there, -I heard the voice of M. de Charlus saying dryly: - -"It is Charlus. May I come in, sir? Sir," he began again in the same -tone as soon as he had shut the door, "my nephew was saying just now -that you were apt to be worried at night before going to sleep, and also -that you were an admirer of Bergotte's books. As I had one here in my -luggage which you probably do not know, I have brought it to help you to -while away these moments in which you are not comfortable." - -I thanked M. de Charlus with some warmth and told him that, on the -contrary, I had been afraid that what Saint-Loup had said to him about -my discomfort when night came would have made me appear in his eyes more -stupid even than I was. - -"No; why?" he answered, in a gentler voice. "You have not, perhaps, any -personal merit; so few of us have! But for a time at least you have -youth, and that is always a charm. Besides, sir, the greatest folly of -all is to laugh at or to condemn in others what one does not happen -oneself to feel. I love the night, and you tell me that you are afraid -of it. I love the scent of roses, and I have a friend whom it throws -into a fever. Do you suppose that I think, for that reason, that he is -inferior to me? I try to understand everything and I take care to -condemn nothing. After all, you must not be too sorry for yourself; I do -not say that these moods of depression are not painful, I know that one -can be made to suffer by things which the world would not understand. -But at least you have placed your affection wisely, in your grandmother. -You see a great deal of her. And besides, that is a legitimate -affection, I mean one that is repaid. There are so many of which one -cannot say that." - -He began walking up and down the room, looking at one thing, taking up -another. I had the impression that he had something to tell me, and -could not find the right words to express it. - -"I have another volume of Bergotte here; I will fetch it for you," he -went on, and rang the bell. Presently a page came. "Go and find me your -head waiter. He is the only person here who is capable of obeying an -order intelligently," said M. de Charlus stiffly. "Monsieur Aimé, sir?" -asked the page. "I cannot tell you his name; yes, I remember now, I did -hear him called Aimé. Run along, I am in a hurry." "He won't be a -minute, sir, I saw him downstairs just now," said the page, anxious to -appear efficient. There was an interval of silence. The page returned. -"Sir, M. Aimé has gone to bed. But I can take your message." "No, you -have only to get him out of bed." "But I can't do that, sir; he doesn't -sleep here." "Then you can leave us alone." "But, sir," I said when the -page had gone, "you are too kind; one volume of Bergotte will be quite -enough." "That is just what I was thinking." M. de Charlus walked up and -down the room. Several minutes passed in this way, then after a -prolonged hesitation, and several false starts, he swung sharply round -and, his voice once more stinging, flung at me: "Good night, sir!" and -left the room. After all the lofty sentiments which I had heard him -express that evening, next day, which was the day of his departure, on -the beach, before noon, when I was on my way down to bathe, and M. de -Charlus had come across to tell me that my grandmother was waiting for -me to join her as soon as I left the water, I was greatly surprised to -hear him say, pinching my neck as he spoke, with a familiarity and a -laugh that were frankly vulgar: - -"But he doesn't give a damn for his old grandmother, does he, eh? Little -rascal!" - -"What, sir! I adore her!" - -"Sir," he said, stepping back a pace, and with a glacial air, "you are -still young; you should profit by your youth to learn two things; first, -to refrain from expressing sentiments that are too natural not to be -taken for granted; and secondly not to dash into speech to reply to -things that are said to you before you have penetrated their meaning. If -you had taken this precaution a moment ago you would have saved yourself -the appearance of speaking at cross-purposes like a deaf man, thereby -adding a second absurdity to that of having anchors embroidered on your -bathing-dress. I have lent you a book by Bergotte which I require. See -that it is brought to me within the next hour by that head waiter with -the silly and inappropriate name, who, I suppose, is not in bed at this -time of day. You make me see that I was premature in speaking to you -last night of the charms of youth; I should have done you a better -service had I pointed out to you its thoughtlessness, its inconsequence, -and its want of comprehension. I hope, sir, that this little douche will -be no less salutary to you than your bathe. But don't let me keep you -standing: you may catch cold. Good day, sir." - -No doubt he was sorry afterwards for this speech, for some time later I -received--in a morocco binding on the front of which was inlaid a panel -of tooled leather representing in demi-relief a spray of -forget-me-not--the book which he had lent me, and I had sent back to -him, not by Aimé who was apparently "off duty", but by the lift-boy. - -M. de Charlus having gone, Robert and I were free at last to dine with -Bloch. And I realised during this little party that the stories too -readily admitted by our friend as funny were favourite stories of M. -Bloch senior, and that the son's "really remarkable person" was always -one of his father's friends whom he had so classified. There are a -certain number of people whom we admire in our boyhood, a father with -better brains than the rest of the family, a teacher who acquires credit -in our eyes from the philosophy he reveals to us, a schoolfellow more -advanced than we are (which was what Bloch had been to me), who despises -the Musset of the _Espoir en Dieu_ when we still admire it, and when we -have reached Leconte or Claudel will be in ecstasies only over: - - -A Saint-Biaise, à la Zuecca -Vous étiez, vous étiez bien aise: - - -with which he will include: - - -Padoue est un fort bel endroit -Où de très grands docteurs en droit. . . . -Mais j'aime mieux la polenta. . . . -Passe dans mon domino noir -La Toppatelle - - -and of all the _Nuits_ will remember only: - - -Au Havre, devant l'Atlantique -A Venise, à l'affreux Lido. -Où vient sur l'herbe d'un tombeau -Mourir la pâle Adriatique. - - -So, whenever we confidently admire anyone, we collect from him, we quote -with admiration sayings vastly inferior to the sort which, left to our -own judgment, we would sternly reject, just as the writer of a novel -puts into it, on the pretext that they are true, things which people -have actually said, which in the living context are like a dead weight, -form the dull part of the work. Saint-Simon's portraits composed by -himself (and very likely without his admiring them himself) are -admirable, whereas what he cites as the charming wit of his clever -friends is frankly dull where it has not become meaningless. He would -have scorned to invent what he reports as so pointed or so coloured when -said by Mme. Cornuel or Louis XIV, a point which is to be remarked also -in many other writers, and is capable of various interpretations, of -which it is enough to note but one for the present: namely, that in the -state of mind in which we "observe" we are a long way below the level to -which we rise when we create. - -There was, then, embedded in my friend Bloch a father Bloch who lagged -forty years behind his son, told impossible stories and laughed as -loudly at them from the heart of my friend as did the separate, visible -and authentic father Bloch, since to the laugh which the latter emitted, -not without several times repeating the last word so that his public -might taste the full flavour of the story, was added the braying laugh -with which the son never failed, at table, to greet his father's -anecdotes. Thus it came about that after saying the most intelligent -things young Bloch, to indicate the portion that he had inherited from -his family, would tell us for the thirtieth time some of the gems which -father Bloch brought out only (with his swallow-tail coat) on the solemn -occasions on which young Bloch brought someone to the house on whom it -was worth while making an impression; one of his masters, a "chum" who -had taken all the prizes, or, this evening, Saint-Loup and myself. For -instance: "A military critic of great insight, who had brilliantly -worked out, supporting them with proofs, the reasons for which, in the -Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese must inevitably be beaten and the -Russians victorious," or else: "He is an eminent gentleman who passes -for a great financier in political circles and for a great politician -among financiers." These stories were interchangeable with one about -Baron de Rothschild and one about Sir Rufus Israels, who were brought -into the conversation in an equivocal manner which might let it be -supposed that M. Bloch knew them personally. - -I was myself taken in, and from the way in which M. Bloch spoke of -Bergotte I assumed that he too was an old friend. But with him as with -all famous people, M. Bloch knew them only "without actually knowing -them", from having seen them at a distance in the theatre or in the -street. He imagined, moreover, that his appearance, his name, his -personality were not unknown to them, and that when they caught sight of -him they had often to repress a stealthy inclination to bow. People in -society, because they know men of talent, original characters, and have -them to dine in their houses, do not on that account understand them any -better. But when one has lived to some extent in society, the silliness -of its inhabitants makes one too anxious to live, suppose too high a -standard of intelligence in the obscure circles in which people know -only "without actually knowing". I was to discover this when I -introduced the topic of Bergotte. M. Bloch was not the only one who was -a social success at home. My friend was even more so with his sisters, -whom he continually questioned in a hectoring tone, burying his face in -his plate, all of which made them laugh until they cried. They had -adopted their brother's language, and spoke it fluently, as if it had -been obligatory and the only form of speech that people of intelligence -might use. When we arrived, the eldest sister said to one of the younger -ones: "Go, tell our sage father and our venerable mother!" "Puppies," -said Bloch, "I present to you the cavalier Saint-Loup, hurler of -javelins, who is come for a few days from Doncières to the dwellings of -polished stone, fruitful in horses." And, since he was as vulgar as he -was literary, his speech ended as a rule in some pleasantry of a less -Homeric kind: "See, draw closer your pepla with fair clasps, what is all -that that I see? Does your mother know you're out?" And the misses Bloch -subsided in a tempest of laughter. I told their brother how much -pleasure he had given me by recommending me to read Bergotte, whose -books I had loved. - -M. Bloch senior, who knew Bergotte only by sight, and Bergotte's life -only from what was common gossip, had a manner quite as indirect of -making the acquaintance of his books, by the help of criticisms that -were apparently literary. He lived in the world of "very nearlies", -where people salute the empty air and arrive at wrong judgments. -Inexactitude, incompetence do not modify their assurance; quite the -contrary. It is the propitious miracle of self-esteem that, since few of -us are in a position to enjoy the society of distinguished people, or to -form intellectual friendships, those to whom they are denied still -believe themselves to be the best endowed of men, because the optics of -our social perspective make every grade of society seem the best to him -who occupies it, and beholds as less favoured than himself, less -fortunate and therefore to be pitied, the greater men whom he names and -calumniates without knowing, judges and despises without understanding -them. Even in cases where the multiplication of his modest personal -advantages by his self-esteem would not suffice to assure a man the dose -of happiness, superior to that accorded to others, which is essential to -him, envy is always there to make up the balance. It is true that if -envy finds expression in scornful phrases, we must translate "I have no -wish to know him" by "I have no means of knowing him." That is the -intellectual sense. But the emotional sense is indeed, "I have no wish -to know him." The speaker knows that it is not true, but he does not, -all the same, say it simply to deceive; he says it because it is what he -feels, and that is sufficient to bridge the gulf between them, that is -to say to make him happy. - -Self-centredness thus enabling every human being to see the universe -spread out in a descending scale beneath himself who is its lord, M. -Bloch afforded himself the luxury of being pitiless when in the morning, -as he drank his chocolate, seeing Bergotte's signature at the foot of an -article in the newspaper which he had scarcely opened, he disdainfully -granted the writer an audience soon cut short, pronounced sentence upon -him, and gave himself the comforting pleasure of repeating after every -mouthful of the scalding brew: "That fellow Bergotte has become -unreadable. My word, what a bore the creature can be. I really must stop -my subscription. How involved it all is, bread and butter nonsense!" And -he helped himself to another slice. - -This illusory importance of M. Bloch senior did, moreover, extend some -little way beyond the radius of his own perceptions. In the first place -his children regarded him as a superior person. Children have always a -tendency either to depreciate or to exalt their parents, and to a good -son his father is always the best of fathers, quite apart from any -objective reason there may be for admiring him. Now, such reasons were -not altogether lacking in the case of M. Bloch, who was an educated man, -shrewd, affectionate towards his family. In his most intimate circle -they were all the more proud of him because, if, in "society", people -are judged by a standard (which is incidentally absurd) and according to -false but fixed rules, by comparison with the aggregate of all the other -fashionable people, in the subdivisions of middle class life, on the -other hand, the dinners, the family parties all turn upon certain people -who are pronounced good company, amusing, and who in "society" would not -survive a second evening. Moreover in such an environment where the -artificial values of the aristocracy do not exist, their place is taken -by distinctions even more stupid. Thus it was that in his family circle, -and even among the remotest branches of the tree, an alleged similarity -in his way of wearing his moustache and in the bridge of his nose led to -M. Bloch's being called "the Duc d'Aumale's double". (In the world of -club pages, the one who wears his cap on one side and his jacket tightly -buttoned, so as to give himself the appearance, he imagines, of a -foreign officer, is he not also a personage of a sort to his comrades?) - -The resemblance was the faintest, but you would have said that it -conferred a title. When he was mentioned, it would always be: "Bloch? -Which one? The Duc d'Aumale?" as people say "Princesse Murat? Which one? -The Queen (of Naples)?" And there were certain other minute marks which -combined to give him, in the eyes of the cousinhood, an acknowledged -claim to distinction. Not going the length of having a carriage of his -own, M. Bloch used on special occasions to hire an open victoria with a -pair of horses from the Company, and would drive through the Bois de -Boulogne, his body sprawling limply from side to side, two fingers -pressed to his brow, other two supporting his chin, and if people who -did not know him concluded that he was an "old nuisance", they were all -convinced, in the family, that for smartness Uncle Solomon could have -taught Gramont-Caderousse a thing or two. He was one of those people who -when they die, because for years they have shared a table in a -restaurant on the boulevard with its news-editor, are described as "well -known Paris figures" in the social column of the _Radical._ M. Bloch -told Saint-Loup and me that Bergotte knew so well why he, M. Bloch, -always cut him that as soon as he caught sight of him, at the theatre or -in the club, he avoided his eye. Saint-Loup blushed, for it had occurred -to him that this club could not be the Jockey, of which his father had -been chairman. On the other hand it must be a fairly exclusive club, for -M. Bloch had said that Bergotte would never have got into it if he had -come up now. So it was not without the fear that he might be -"underrating his adversary" that Saint-Loup asked whether the club in -question were the Rue Royale, which was considered "lowering" by his own -family, and to which he knew that certain Israelites had been admitted. -"No," replied M. Bloch in a tone at once careless, proud and ashamed, -"it is a small club, but far more pleasant than a big one, the Ganaches. -We're very strict there, don't you know." "Isn't Sir Rufus Israels the -chairman?" Bloch junior asked his father, so as to give him the -opportunity for a glorious lie, never suspecting that the financier had -not the same eminence in Saint-Loup's eyes as in his. The fact of the -matter was that the Ganaches club boasted not Sir Rufus Israels but one -of his staff. But as this man was on the best of terms with his -employer, he had at his disposal a stock of the financier's cards, and -would give one to M. Bloch whenever he wished to travel on a line of -which Sir Rufus was a director, the result of which was that old Bloch -would say: "I'm just going round to the Club to ask Sir Rufus for a line -to the Company." And the card enabled him to dazzle the guards on the -trains. The misses Bloch were more interested in Bergotte and, reverting -to him rather than pursue the subject of the Ganaches, the youngest -asked her brother, in the most serious tone imaginable, for she believed -that there existed in the world, for the designation of men of talent, -no other terms than those which he was in the habit of using: "Is he -really an amazing good egg, this Bergotte? Is he in the category of the -great lads, good eggs like Villiers and Catullus?" "I've met him several -times at dress rehearsals," said M. Nissim Bernard. "He is an uncouth -creature, a sort of Schlemihl." There was nothing very serious in this -allusion to Chamisso's story but the epithet "Schlemihl" formed part of -that dialect, half-German, half-Jewish, the use of which delighted M. -Bloch in the family circle, but struck him as vulgar and out of place -before strangers. And so he cast a reproving glance at his uncle. "He -has talent," said Bloch. "Ah!" His sister sighed gravely, as though to -imply that in that case there was some excuse for me. "All writers have -talent," said M. Bloch scornfully. "In fact it appears," went on his -son, raising his fork, and screwing up his eyes with an air of impish -irony, "that he is going to put up for the Academy." "Go on. He hasn't -enough to shew them," replied his father, who seemed not to have for the -Academy the same contempt as his son and daughters. "He's not big -enough." "Besides, the Academy is a salon, and Bergotte has no polish," -declared the uncle (whose heiress Mme. Bloch was), a mild and -inoffensive person whose surname, Bernard, might perhaps by itself have -quickened my grandfather's powers of diagnosis, but would have appeared -too little in harmony with a face which looked as if it had been brought -back from Darius's palace and restored by Mme. Dieulafoy, had not -(chosen by some collector desirous of giving a crowning touch of -orientalism to this figure from Susa) his first name, Nissim, stretched -out above it the pinions of an androcephalous bull from Khorsabad. But -M. Bloch never stopped insulting his uncle, whether it was that he was -excited by the unresisting good-humour of his butt, or that the rent of -the villa being paid by M. Nissim Bernard, the beneficiary wished to -shew that he kept his independence, and, more important still, that he -was not seeking by flattery to make sure of the rich inheritance to -come. What most hurt the old man was being treated so rudely in front of -the manservant. He murmured an unintelligible sentence of which all that -could be made out was: "when the meschores are in the room". -"Meschores", in the Bible, means "the servant of God". In the family -circle the Blochs used the word when they referred to their own -servants, and were always exhilarated by it, because their certainty of -not being understood either by Christians or by the servants themselves -enhanced in M. Nissim Bernard and M. Bloch their twofold distinction of -being "masters" and at the same time "Jews". But this latter source of -satisfaction became a source of displeasure when there was "company". At -such times M. Bloch, hearing his uncle say "meschores", felt that he was -making his oriental side too prominent, just as a light-of-love who has -invited some of her sisters to meet her respectable friends is annoyed -if they allude to their profession or use words that do not sound quite -nice. Therefore, so far from his uncle's request's producing any effect -on M. Bloch, he, beside himself with rage, could contain himself no -longer. He let no opportunity pass of scarifying his wretched uncle. "Of -course, when there is a chance of saying anything stupid, one can be -quite certain that you won't miss it. You would be the first to lick his -boots if he were in the room!" shouted M. Bloch, while M. Nissim Bernard -in sorrow lowered over his plate the ringleted beard of King Sargon. My -friend, when he began to grow his beard, which also was blue-black and -crimped, became very like his great-uncle. - -"What! Are you the son of the Marquis de Marsantes? Why, I knew him very -well," said M. Nissim Bernard to Saint-Loup. I supposed that he meant -the word "knew" in the sense in which Bloch's father had said that he -knew Bergotte, namely by sight. But he went on: "Your father was one of -my best friends." Meanwhile Bloch had turned very red, his father was -looking intensely cross, the misses Bloch were choking with suppressed -laughter. The fact was that in M. Nissim Bernard the love of ostentation -which in M. Bloch and his children was held in check, had engendered the -habit of perpetual lying. For instance, if he was staying in an hotel, -M. Nissim Bernard, as M. Bloch equally might have done, would have his -newspapers brought to him always by his valet in the dining-room, in the -middle of luncheon, when everybody was there, so that they should see -that he travelled with a valet. But to the people with whom he made -friends in the hotel the uncle used to say what the nephew would never -have said, that he was a Senator. He might know quite well that they -would sooner or later discover that the title was usurped; he could not, -at the critical moment, resist the temptation to assume it. M. Bloch -suffered acutely from his uncle's lies and from all the embarrassments -that they led to. "Don't pay any attention to him, he talks a great deal -of nonsense," he whispered to Saint-Loup, whose interest was all the -more whetted, for he was curious to explore the psychology of liars. "A -greater liar even than the Ithacan Odysseus, albeit Athene called him -the greatest liar among mortals," his son completed the indictment. -"Well, upon my word!" cried M. Nissim Bernard, "If I'd only known that I -was going to sit down to dinner with my old friend's son! Why, I have a -photograph still of your father at home, in Paris, and any number of -letters from him. He used always to call me 'uncle', nobody ever knew -why. He was a charming man, sparkling. I remember so well a dinner I -gave at Nice; there were Sardou, Labiche, Augier," "Molière, Racine, -Corneille," M. Bloch added with sarcasm, while his son completed the -tale of guests with "Plautus, Menander, Kalidasa." M. Nissim Bernard, -cut to the quick, stopped short in his reminiscence, and, ascetically -depriving himself of a great pleasure, remained silent until the end of -dinner. - -"Saint-Loup with helm of bronze," said Bloch, "have a piece more of this -duck with thighs heavy with fat, over which the illustrious sacrificer -of birds has spilled numerous libations of red wine." - -As a rule, after bringing out from his store for the entertainment of a -distinguished guest his anecdotes of Sir Rufus Israels and others, M. -Bloch, feeling that he had succeeded in touching and melting his son's -heart, would withdraw, so as not to spoil his effect in the eyes of the -"big pot". If, however, there was an absolutely compelling reason, as -for instance on the night when his son won his fellowship, M. Bloch -would add to the usual string of anecdotes the following ironical -reflexion which he ordinarily reserved for his own personal friends, so -that young Bloch was extremely proud to see it produced for his: "The -Government have acted unpardonably. They have forgotten to consult M. -Coquelin! M. Coquelin has let it be known that he is displeased." (M. -Bloch prided himself on being a reactionary, with a contempt for -theatrical people.) - -But the misses Bloch and their brother reddened to the tips of their -ears, so much impressed were they when Bloch senior, to shew that he -could be regal to the last in his entertainment of his son's two -'chums', gave the order for champagne to be served, and announced -casually that, as a treat for us, he had taken three stalls for the -performance which a company from the Opéra-Comique was giving that -evening at the Casino. He was sorry that he had not been able to get a -box. They had all been taken. However, he had often been in the boxes, -and really one saw and heard better down by the orchestra. All very -well, only, if the defect of his son, that is to say the defect which -his son believed to be invisible to other people, was coarseness, the -father's was avarice. And so it was in a decanter that we were served -with, under the name of champagne, a light sparkling wine, while under -that of orchestra stalls he had taken three in the pit, which cost half -as much, miraculously persuaded by the divine intervention of his defect -that neither at table nor in the theatre (where the boxes were all -empty) would the defect be noticed. When M. Bloch had let us moisten our -lips in the flat glasses which his son dignified with the style and tide -of "craters with deeply hollowed flanks", he made us admire a picture to -which he was so much attached that he had brought it with him to Balbec. -He told us that it was a Rubens. Saint-Loup asked innocently if it was -signed. M. Bloch replied, blushing, that he had had the signature cut -off to make it fit the frame, but that it made no difference, as he had -no intention of selling the picture. Then he hurriedly bade us good -night, in order to bury himself in the _Journal Officiel_, back numbers -of which littered the house, and which, he informed us, he was obliged -to read carefully on account of his "parliamentary position" as to the -precise nature of which, however, he gave us no enlightenment. "I shall -take a muffler," said Bloch, "for Zephyrus and Boreas are disputing to -which of them shall belong the fish-teeming sea, and should we but tarry -a little after the show is over, we shall not be home before the first -flush of Eos, the rosy-fingered. By the way," he asked Saint-Loup when -we were outside, and I trembled, for I realised at once that it was of -M. de Charlus that Bloch was speaking in that tone of irony, "who was -that excellent old card dressed in black that I saw you walking with, -the day before yesterday, on the beach?" "That was my uncle." Saint-Loup -was ruffled. Unfortunately, a "floater" was far from seeming to Bloch a -thing to be avoided. He shook with laughter. "Heartiest congratulations; -I ought to have guessed; he has an excellent style, the most priceless -dial of an old 'gaga' of the highest lineage." "You are absolutely -mistaken; he is an extremely clever man," retorted Saint-Loup, now -furious. "I am sorry about that; it makes him less complete. All the -same, I should like very much to know him, for I flatter myself I could -write some highly adequate pieces about old buffers like that. Just to -see him go by, he's killing. But I should leave out of account the -caricaturale side, which really is hardly worthy of an artist enamoured -of the plastic beauty of phrases, of his mug, which (you'll forgive me) -doubled me up for a moment with joyous laughter, and I should bring into -prominence the aristocratic side of your uncle, who after all has a -distinct bovine effect, and when one has finished laughing does impress -one by his great air of style. But," he went on, addressing myself this -time, "there is also a matter of a very different order about which I -have been meaning to question you, and every time we are together, some -god, blessed denizen of Olympus, makes me completely forget to ask for a -piece of information which might before now have been and is sure some -day to be of the greatest use to me. Tell me, who was the lovely lady I -saw you with in the Jardin d'Acclimatation accompanied by a gentleman -whom I seem to know by sight and a little girl with long hair?" It had -been quite plain to me at the time that Mme. Swann did not remember -Bloch's name, since she had spoken of him by another, and had described -my friend as being on the staff of some Ministry, as to which I had -never since then thought of finding out whether he had joined it. But -how came it that Bloch, who, according to what she then told me, had got -himself introduced to her, was ignorant of her name? I was so much -surprised that I stopped for a moment before answering. "Whoever she -is," he went on, "hearty congratulations; you can't have been bored with -her. I picked her up a few days before that on the Zone railway, where, -speaking of zones, she was so kind, as to undo hers for the benefit of -your humble servant; I have never had such a time in my life, and we -were just going to make arrangements to meet again when somebody she -knew had the bad taste to get in at the last station but one." My -continued silence did not appear to please Bloch. "I was hoping," he -said, "thanks to you, to learn her address, so as to go there several -times a week to taste in her arms the delights of Eros, dear to the -gods; but I do not insist since you seem pledged to discretion with -respect to a professional who gave herself to me three times running, -and in the most refined manner, between Paris and the Point-du-Jour. I -am bound to see her again, some night." - -I called upon Bloch after this dinner; he returned my call, but I was -out and he was seen asking for me by Françoise, who, as it happened, -albeit he had visited us at Combray, had never set eyes on him until -then. So that she knew only that one of "the gentlemen" who were friends -of mine had looked in to see me, she did not know "with what object", -dressed in a nondescript way, which had not made any particular -impression upon her. Now though I knew quite well that certain of -Françoise's social ideas must for ever remain impenetrable by me, ideas -based, perhaps, partly upon confusions between words, between names -which she had once and for all time mistaken for one another, I could -not restrain myself, who had long since abandoned the quest for -enlightenment in such cases, from seeking--and seeking, moreover, in -vain--to discover what could be the immense significance that the name -of Bloch had for Françoise. For no sooner had I mentioned to her that -the young man whom she had seen was M. Bloch than she recoiled several -paces, so great were her stupor and disappointment. "What! Is that M. -Bloch?" she cried, thunderstruck, as if so portentous a personage ought -to have been endowed with an appearance which "made you know" as soon as -you saw him that you were in the presence of one of the great ones of -the earth; and, like some one who has discovered that an historical -character is not "up to" the level of his reputation, she repeated in an -impressed tone, in which I could detect latent, for future growth, the -seeds of a universal scepticism: "What! Is that M. Bloch? Well, really, -you would never think it, to look at him." She seemed also to bear me a -grudge, as if I had always "overdone" the praise of Bloch to her. At the -same time she was kind enough to add: "Well, he may be M. Bloch, and all -that. I'm sure Master can say he's every bit as good." - -She had presently, with respect to Saint-Loup, whom she worshipped, a -disillusionment of a different kind and of less severity: she discovered -that he was a Republican. Now for all that, when speaking, for instance, -of the Queen of Portugal, she would say with that disrespect which is, -among the people, the supreme form of respect: "Amélie, Philippe's -sister," Françoise was a Royalist. But when it came to a Marquis; a -Marquis who had dazzled her at first sight, and who was for the -Republic, seemed no longer real. And she shewed the same ill-humour as -if I had given her a box which she had believed to be made of gold, and -had thanked me for it effusively, and then a jeweller had revealed to -her that it was only plated. She at once withdrew her esteem from -Saint-Loup, but soon afterwards restored it to him, having reflected -that he could not, being the Marquis de Saint-Loup, be a Republican, -that he was just pretending, in his own interest, for with such a -Government as we had it might be a great advantage to him. From that -moment her coldness towards him, her resentment towards myself ceased. -And when she spoke of Saint-Loup she said: "He is a hypocrite," with a -broad and friendly smile which made it clear that she "considered" him -again just as much as when she first knew him, and that she had forgiven -him. - -As a matter of fact, Saint-Loup was absolutely sincere and -disinterested, and it was this intense moral purity which, not being -able to find entire satisfaction in a selfish sentiment such as love, -nor on the other hand meeting in him the impossibility (which existed in -me, for instance) of finding its spiritual nourishment elsewhere than in -himself, rendered him truly capable (just as I was incapable) of -friendship. - -Françoise was no less mistaken about Saint-Loup when she complained -that he had "that sort of" air, as if he did not look down upon the -people, but that it was all just a pretence, and you had only to see him -when he was in a temper with his groom. It had indeed sometimes happened -that Robert would scold his groom with a certain amount of brutality, -which proved that he had the sense not so much of the difference as of -the equality between classes and masses. "But," he said in answer to my -rebuke of his having treated the man rather harshly, "why should I go -out of my way to speak politely to him? Isn't he my equal? Isn't he just -as near to me as any of my uncles and cousins? You seem to think that I -ought to treat him with respect, as an inferior. You talk like an -aristocrat!" he added scornfully. - -And indeed if there was a class to which he shewed himself prejudiced -and hostile, it was the aristocracy, so much so that he found it as hard -to believe in the superior qualities of a man in society as he found it -easy to believe in those of a man of the people. When I mentioned the -Princesse de Luxembourg, whom I had met with his aunt: - -"An old trout," was his comment. "Like all that lot. She's a sort of -cousin of mine, by the way." - -Having a strong prejudice against the people who frequented it, he went -rarely into "Society", and the contemptuous or hostile attitude which he -adopted towards it served to increase, among all his near relatives, the -painful impression made by his intimacy with a woman on the stage, a -connexion which, they declared, would be his ruin, blaming it specially -for having bred in him that spirit of denigration, that bad spirit, and -for having led him astray, after which it was only a matter of time -before he would have dropped out altogether. And so, many easy-going men -of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were without compunction when they spoke -of Robert's mistress. "Those girls do their job," they would say, "they -are as good as anybody else. But that one; no, thank you! We cannot -forgive her. She has done too much harm to a fellow we were fond of." Of -course, he was not the first to be caught in that snare. But the others -amused themselves like men of the world, continued to think like men of -the world about politics, about everything. As for him, his family found -him "soured". They did not bear in mind that, for many young men of -fashion who would otherwise remain uncultivated mentally, rough in their -friendships, without gentleness or taste--it is very often their -mistress who is their real master, and connexions of this sort the only -school of morals in which they are initiated into a superior culture, -and learn the value of disinterested relations. Even among the lower -orders (who, when it comes to coarseness, so often remind us of the -world of fashion) the woman, more sensitive, finer, more leisured, is -driven by curiosity to adopt certain refinements, respects certain -beauties of sentiment and of art which, though she may fail to -understand them, she nevertheless places above what has seemed most -desirable to the man, above money or position. Now whether the mistress -be a young blood's (such as Saint-Loup) or a young workman's -(electricians, for instance, must now be included in our truest order of -Chivalry) her lover has too much admiration and respect for her not to -extend them also to what she herself respects and admires; and for him -the scale of values is thereby reversed. Her sex alone makes her weak; -she suffers from nervous troubles, inexplicable things which in a man, -or even in another woman--a woman whose nephew or cousin he was--would -bring a smile to the lips of this stalwart young man. But he cannot bear -to see her suffer whom he loves. The young nobleman who, like -Saint-Loup, has a mistress acquires the habit, when he takes her out to -dine, of carrying in his pocket the valerian "drops" which she may need, -of ordering the waiter, firmly and with no hint of sarcasm, to see that -he shuts the doors quietly and not to put any damp moss on the table, so -as to spare his companion those discomforts which himself he has never -felt, which compose for him an occult world in whose reality she has -taught him to believe, discomforts for which he now feels pity without -in the least needing to understand them, for which he will still feel -pity when other women than she shall be the sufferers. Saint-Loup's -mistress--as the first monks of the middle ages taught Christendom--had -taught him to be kind to animals, for which she had a passion, never -moving without her dog, her canaries, her love-birds; Saint-Loup looked -after them with motherly devotion and treated as brutes the people who -were not good to dumb creatures. On the other hand, an actress, or -so-called actress, like this one who was living with him,--whether she -were intelligent or not, and as to that I had no knowledge--by making -him find the society of fashionable women boring, and look upon having -to go out to a party as a painful duty, had saved him from snobbishness -and cured him of frivolity. If, thanks to her, his social engagements -filled a smaller place in the life of her young lover, at the same time, -whereas if he had been simply a drawing-room man, vanity or -self-interest would have dictated his choice of friends as rudeness -would have characterised his treatment of them, his mistress had taught -him to bring nobility and refinement into his friendship. With her -feminine instinct, with a keener appreciation in men of certain -qualities of sensibility which her lover might perhaps, without her -guidance, have misunderstood and laughed at them, she had always been -swift to distinguish from among the rest of Saint-Loup's friends, the -one who had a real affection for him, and to make that one her -favourite. She knew how to make him feel grateful to such a friend, shew -his gratitude, notice what things gave his friend pleasure and what -pain. And presently Saint-Loup, without any more need of her to prompt -him, began to think of all these things by himself, and at Balbec, where -she was not with him, for me whom she had never seen, whom he had -perhaps not yet so much as mentioned in his letters to her, of his own -accord would pull up the window of a carriage in which I was sitting, -take out of the room the flowers that made me feel unwell, and when he -had to say good-bye to several people at once manage to do so before it -was actually time for him to go, so as to be left alone and last with -me, to make that distinction between them and me, to treat me -differently from the rest. His mistress had opened his mind to the -invisible, had brought a serious element into his life, delicacy into -his heart, but all this escaped his sorrowing family who repeated: "That -creature will be the death of him; meanwhile she's doing what she can to -disgrace him." It is true that he had succeeded in getting out of her -all the good that she was capable of doing him; and that she now caused -him only incessant suffering, for she had taken an intense dislike to -him and tormented him in every possible way. She had begun, one fine -day, to look upon him as stupid and absurd because the friends that she -had among the younger writers and actors had assured her that he was, -and she duly repeated what they had said with that passion, that want of -reserve which we shew whenever we receive from without and adopt as our -own opinions or customs of which we previously knew nothing. She readily -professed, like her actor friends, that between Saint-Loup and herself -there was a great gulf fixed, and not to be crossed, because they were -of different races, because she was an intellectual and he, whatever he -might pretend, the born enemy of the intellect. This view of him seemed -to her profound, and she sought confirmation of it in the most -insignificant words, the most trivial actions of her lover. But when the -same friends had further convinced her that she was destroying, in -company so ill-suited to her, the great hopes which she had, they said, -aroused in them, that her lover would leave a mark on her, that by -living with him she was spoiling her future as an artist; to her -contempt for Saint-Loup was added the same hatred that she would have -felt for him if he had insisted upon inoculating her with a deadly germ. -She saw him as seldom as possible, at the same time postponing the hour -of a definite rupture, which seemed to me a highly improbable event. -Saint-Loup made such sacrifices for her that unless she was ravishingly -beautiful (but he had always refused to shew me her photograph, saying: -"For one thing, she's not a beauty, and besides she always takes badly. -These are only some snapshots that I took myself with my kodak; they -would give you a wrong idea of her.") it would surely be difficult for -her to find another man who would consent to anything of the sort. I -never reflected that a certain obsession to make a name for oneself, -even when one has no talent, that the admiration, no more than the -privately expressed admiration of people who are imposing on one, can -(although it may not perhaps have been the case with Saint-Loup's -mistress) be, even for a little prostitute, motives more determining -than the pleasure of making money. Saint-Loup who, without quite -understanding what was going on in the mind of his mistress, did not -believe her to be completely sincere either in her unfair reproaches or -in her promises of undying love, had all the same at certain moments the -feeling that she would break with him whenever she could, and -accordingly, impelled no doubt by the instinct of self-preservation -which was part of his love, a love more clear-sighted, possibly, than -Saint-Loup himself, making use, too, of a practical capacity for -business which was compatible in him with the loftiest and blindest -flights of the heart, had refused to settle upon her any capital, had -borrowed an enormous sum so that she should want nothing, but made it -over to her only from day to day. And no doubt, assuming that she really -thought of leaving him, she was calmly waiting until she had feathered -her nest, a process which, with the money given her by Saint-Loup, would -not perhaps take very long, but would all the same require a time which -must be conceded to prolong the happiness of my new friend--or his -misery. - -This dramatic period of their connexion, which had now reached its most -acute stage, the most cruel for Saint-Loup, for she had forbidden him to -remain in Paris, where his presence exasperated her, and had forced him -to spend his leave at Balbec, within easy reach of his regiment--had -begun one evening at the house of one of Saint-Loup's aunts, on whom he -had prevailed to allow his friend to come there, before a large party, -to recite some of the speeches from a symbolical play in which she had -once appeared in an "advanced" theatre, and for which she had made him -share the admiration that she herself professed. - -But when she appeared in the room, with a large lily in her hand, and -wearing a costume copied from the _Ancilia Domini_, which she had -persuaded Saint-Loup was an absolute "vision of beauty", her entrance -had been greeted, in that assemblage of club men and duchesses, with -smiles which the monotonous tone of her chantings, the oddity of certain -words and their frequent recurrence had changed into fits of laughter, -stifled at first but presently so uncontrollable that the wretched -reciter had been unable to go on. Next day Saint-Loup's aunt had been -universally censured for having allowed so grotesque an actress to -appear in her drawing-room. A well-known duke made no bones about telling -her that she had only herself to blame if she found herself criticised. -"Damn it all, people really don't come to see 'turns' like that! If the -woman had talent, even; but she has none and never will have any. 'Pon my -soul, Paris is not such a fool as people make out. Society does not -consist exclusively of imbeciles. This little lady evidently believed -that she was going to take Paris by surprise. But Paris is not so easily -surprised as all that, and there are still some things that they can't -make us swallow." - -As for the actress, she left the house with Saint-Loup, exclaiming: - -"What do you mean by letting me in for those geese, those uneducated -bitches, those dirty corner-boys? I don't mind telling you, there wasn't -a man in the room who didn't make eyes at me or squeeze my foot, and it -was because I wouldn't look at them that they were out for revenge." - -Words which had changed Robert's antipathy for people in society into a -horror that was at once deep and distressing, and was provoked in him -most of all by those who least deserved it, devoted kinsmen who, on -behalf of the family, had sought to persuade Saint-Loup's lady to break -with him, a move which she represented to him as inspired by their -passion for her. Robert, although he had at once ceased to see them, -used to imagine when he was parted from his mistress as he was now, that -they or others like them were profiting by his absence to return to the -charge and had possibly prevailed over her. And when he spoke of the -sensualists who were disloyal to their friends, who sought to seduce -their friends' wives, tried to make them come to houses of assignation, -his whole face would glow with suffering and hatred. - -"I would kill them with less compunction than I would kill a dog, which -is at least a well-behaved beast, and loyal and faithful. There are men -who deserve the guillotine if you like, far more than poor wretches who -have been led into crime by poverty and by the cruelty of the rich." - -He spent the greater part of his time in sending letters and telegrams -to his mistress. Every time that, while still preventing him from -returning to Paris, she found an excuse to quarrel with him by post, I -read the news at once in his evident discomposure. Inasmuch as his -mistress never told him what fault she found with him, suspecting that -possibly if she did not tell him it was because she did not know -herself, and simply had had enough of him, he would still have liked an -explanation and used to write to her: "Tell me what I have done wrong; I -am quite ready to acknowledge my faults," the grief that overpowered him -having the effect of persuading him that he had behaved badly. - -But she kept him waiting indefinitely for her answers which, when they -did come, were meaningless. And so it was almost always with a furrowed -brow, and often with empty hands that I would see Saint-Loup returning -from the post office, where, alone in all the hotel, he and Françoise -went to fetch or to hand in letters, he from a lover's impatience, she -with a servant's mistrust of others. (His telegrams obliged him to take -a much longer journey.) - -When, some days after our dinner with the Blochs, my grandmother told me -with a joyful air that Saint-Loup had just been asking her whether, -before he left Balbec, she would not like him to take a photograph of -her, and when I saw that she had put on her nicest dress on purpose, and -was hesitating between several of her best hats, I felt a little annoyed -by this childishness, which surprised me coming from her. I even went -the length of asking myself whether I had not been mistaken in my -grandmother, whether I did not esteem her too highly, whether she was as -unconcerned as I had always supposed in the adornment of her person, -whether she had not indeed the very weakness that I believed most alien -to her temperament, namely coquetry. - -Unfortunately, this displeasure that I derived from the prospect of a -photographic "sitting", and more particularly from the satisfaction with -which my grandmother appeared to be looking forward to it, I made so -apparent that Françoise remarked it and did her best, unintentionally, -to increase it by making me a sentimental, gushing speech, by which I -refused to appear moved. - -"Oh, Master; my poor Madame will be so pleased at having her likeness -taken, she is going to wear the hat that her old Françoise has trimmed -for her, you must allow her, Master." - -I acquired the conviction that I was not cruel in laughing at -Françoise's sensibility, by reminding myself that my mother and -grandmother, my models in all things, often did the same. But my -grandmother, noticing that I seemed cross, said that if this plan of her -sitting for her photograph offended me in any way she would give it up. -I would not let her; I assured her that I saw no harm in it, and left -her to adorn herself, but, thinking that I shewed my penetration and -strength of mind, I added a few stinging words of sarcasm, intended to -neutralise the pleasure which she seemed to find in being photographed, -so that if I was obliged to see my grandmother's magnificent hat, I -succeeded at least in driving from her face that joyful expression which -ought to have made me glad; but alas, it too often happens, while the -people we love best are still alive, that such expressions appear to us -as the exasperating manifestation of some unworthy freak of fancy rather -than as the precious form of the happiness which we should dearly like -to procure for them. My ill-humour arose more particularly from the fact -that, during the last week, my grandmother had appeared to be avoiding -me, and I had not been able to have her to myself for a moment, either -by night or day. When I came back in the afternoon to be alone with her -for a little I was told that she was not in the hotel; or else she would -shut herself up with Françoise for endless confabulations which I was -not permitted to interrupt. And when, after being out all evening with -Saint-Loup, I had been thinking on the way home of the moment at which I -should be able to go to my grandmother and to kiss her, in vain might I -wait for her to knock on the partition between us the three little taps -which would tell me to go in and say good night to her; I heard nothing; -at length I would go to bed, a little resentful of her for depriving me, -with an indifference so new and strange in her, of a joy on which I had -so much counted, I would lie still for a while, my heart throbbing as in -my childhood, listening to the wall which remained silent, until I cried -myself to sleep. - - * -* * - - - - -_SEASCAPE, -WITH FRIEZE OF GIRLS_ - - -That day, as for some days past, Saint-Loup had been obliged to go to -Doncières, where, until his leave finally expired, he would be on duty -now until late every afternoon. I was sorry that he was not at Balbec. I -had seen alight from carriages and pass, some into the ball-room of the -Casino, others into the ice-cream shop, young women who at a distance -had seemed to me lovely. I was passing through one of those periods of -our youth, unprovided with any one definite love, vacant, in which at -all times and in all places--as a lover the woman by whose charms he is -smitten--we desire, we seek, we see Beauty. Let but a single real -feature--the little that one distinguishes of a woman seen from afar or -from behind--enable us to project the form of beauty before our eyes, we -imagine that we have seen her before, our heart beats, we hasten in -pursuit, and will always remain half-persuaded that it was she, provided -that the woman has vanished: it is only if we manage to overtake her -that we realise our mistake. - -Besides, as I grew more and more delicate, I was inclined to overrate -the simplest pleasures because of the difficulties that sprang up in the -way of my attaining them. Charming women I seemed to see all round me, -because I was too tired, if it was on the beach, too shy if it was in -the Casino or at a pastry-cook's, to go anywhere near them. And yet if I -was soon to die I should have liked first to know the appearance at -close quarters, in reality of the prettiest girls that life had to -offer, even although it should be another than myself or no one at all -who was to take advantage of the offer. (I did not, in fact, appreciate -the desire for possession that underlay my curiosity.) I should have had -the courage to enter the ball-room if Saint-Loup had been with me. Left -by myself, I was simply hanging about in front of the Grand Hotel until -it was time for me to join my grandmother, when, still almost at the far -end of the paved "front" along which they projected in a discordant spot -of colour, I saw coming towards me five or six young girls, as different -in appearance and manner from all the people whom one was accustomed to -see at Balbec as could have been, landed there none knew whence, a -flight of gulls which performed with measured steps upon the sands--the -dawdlers using their wings to overtake the rest--a movement the purpose -of which seems as obscure to the human bathers, whom they do not appear -to see, as it is clearly determined in their own birdish minds. - -One of these strangers was pushing as she came, with one hand, her -bicycle; two others carried golf-clubs; and their attire generally was -in contrast to that of the other girls at Balbec, some of whom, it was -true, went in for games, but without adopting any special outfit. - -It was the hour at which ladies and gentlemen came out every day for a -turn on the "front", exposed to the merciless fire of the long glasses -fastened upon them, as if they had each borne some disfigurement which -she felt it her duty to inspect in its minutest details, by the chief -magistrate's wife, proudly seated there with her back to the band-stand, -in the middle of that dread line of chairs on which presently they too, -actors turned critics, would come and establish themselves, to -scrutinise in their turn those others who would then be filing past -them. All these people who paced up and down the "front", tacking as -violently as if it had been the deck of a ship (for they could not lift -a leg without at the same time waving their arms, turning their heads -and eyes, settling their shoulders, compensating by a balancing movement -on one side for the movement they had just made on the other, and -puffing out their faces), and who, pretending not to see so as to let it -be thought that they were not interested, but covertly watching, for -fear of running against the people who were walking beside or coming -towards them, did, in fact, butt into them, became entangled with them, -because each was mutually the object of the same secret attention veiled -beneath the same apparent disdain; their love--and consequently their -fear--of the crowd being one of the most powerful motives in all men, -whether they seek to please other people or to astonish them, or to shew -them that they despise them. In the case of the solitary, his seclusion, -even when it is absolute and ends only with life itself, has often as -its primary cause a disordered love of the crowd, which so far overrules -every other feeling that, not being able to win, when he goes out, the -admiration of his hall porter, of the passers-by, of the cabman whom he -hails, he prefers not to be seen by them at all, and with that object -abandons every activity that would oblige him to go out of doors. - -Among all these people, some of whom were pursuing a train of thought, -but if so betrayed its instability by spasmodic gestures, a roving gaze -as little in keeping as the circumspect titubation of their neighbours, -the girls whom I had noticed, with that mastery over their limbs which -comes from perfect bodily condition and a sincere contempt for the rest -of humanity, were advancing straight ahead, without hesitation or -stiffness, performing exactly the movements that they wished to perform, -each of their members in full independence of all the rest, the greater -part of their bodies preserving that immobility which is so noticeable -in a good waltzer. They were now quite near me. Although each was a type -absolutely different from the others, they all had beauty; but to tell -the truth I had seen them for so short a time, and without venturing to -look them straight in the face, that I had not yet individualised any of -them. Save one, whom her straight nose, her dark complexion pointed in -contrast among the rest, like (in a renaissance picture of the Epiphany) -a king of Arab cast, they were known to me only, one by a pair of eyes -hard, set and mocking; another by cheeks in which the pink had that -coppery tint which makes one think of geraniums; and even of these -points I had not yet indissolubly attached any one to one of these girls -rather than to another; and when (according to the order in which their -series met the eye, marvellous because the most different aspects came -next one another, because all scales of colours were combined in it, but -confused as a piece of music in which I should not have been able to -isolate and identify at the moment of their passage the successive -phrases, no sooner distinguished than forgotten) I saw emerge a pallid -oval, black eyes, green eyes, I knew not if these were the same that had -already charmed me a moment ago, I could not bring them home to any one -girl whom I might thereby have set apart from the rest and so -identified. And this want, in my vision, of the demarcations which I -should presently establish between them sent flooding over the group a -wave of harmony, the continuous transfusion of a beauty fluid, -collective and mobile. - -It was not perhaps, in this life of ours, mere chance that had, in -forming this group of friends, chosen them all of such beauty; perhaps -these girls (whose attitude was enough to reveal their nature, bold, -frivolous and hard), extremely sensitive to everything that was -ludicrous or ugly, incapable of yielding to an intellectual or moral -attraction, had naturally felt themselves, among companions of their own -age, repelled by all those in whom a pensive or sensitive disposition -was betrayed by shyness, awkwardness, constraint, by what, they would -say, "didn't appeal" to them, and from such had held aloof; while they -attached themselves, on the other hand, to others to whom they were -drawn by a certain blend of grace, suppleness, and physical neatness, -the only form in which they were able to picture the frankness of a -seductive character and the promise of pleasant hours in one another's -company. Perhaps, too, the class to which they belonged, a class which I -should not have found it easy to define, was at that point in its -evolution at which, whether thanks to its growing wealth and leisure, or -thanks to new athletic habits, extended now even to certain plebeian -elements, and a habit of physical culture to which had not yet been -added the culture of the mind, a social atmosphere, comparable to that -of smooth and prolific schools of sculpture, which have not yet gone in -for tortured expressions, produces naturally and in abundance fine -bodies with fine legs, fine hips, wholesome and reposeful faces, with an -air of agility and guile. And were they not noble and calm models of -human beauty that I beheld there, outlined against the sea, like statues -exposed to the sunlight upon a Grecian shore? - -Just as if, in the heart of their band, which progressed along the -"front" like a luminous comet, they had decided that the surrounding -crowd was composed of creatures of another race whose sufferings even -could not awaken in them any sense of fellowship, they appeared not to -see them, forced those who had stopped to talk to step aside, as though -from the path of a machine that had been set going by itself, so that it -was no good waiting for it to get out of their way, their utmost sign of -consciousness being when, if some old gentleman of whom they did not -admit the existence and thrust from them the contact, had fled with a -frightened or furious, but a headlong or ludicrous motion, they looked -at one another and smiled. They had, for whatever did not form part of -their group, no affectation of contempt; their genuine contempt was -sufficient. But they could not set eyes on an obstacle without amusing -themselves by crossing it, either in a running jump or with both feet -together, because they were all filled to the brim, exuberant with that -youth which we need so urgently to spend that even when we are unhappy -or unwell, obedient rather to the necessities of our age than to the -mood of the day, we can never pass anything that can be jumped over or -slid down without indulging ourselves conscientiously, interrupting, -interspersing our slow progress--as Chopin his most melancholy -phrase--with graceful deviations in which caprice is blended with -virtuosity. The wife of an elderly banker, after hesitating between -various possible exposures for her husband, had settled him on a folding -chair, facing the "front", sheltered from wind and sun by the -band-stand. Having seen him comfortably installed there, she had gone to -buy a newspaper which she would read aloud to him, to distract him, one -of her little absences which she never prolonged for more than five -minutes, which seemed long enough to him but which she repeated at -frequent intervals so that this old husband on whom she lavished an -attention that she took care to conceal, should have the impression that -he was still quite alive and like other people and was in no need of -protection. The platform of the band-stand provided, above his head, a -natural and tempting springboard, across which, without a moment's -hesitation, the eldest of the little band began to run; she jumped over -the terrified old man, whose yachting cap was brushed by the nimble -feet, to the great delight of the other girls, especially of a pair of -green eyes in a "dashing" face, which expressed, for that bold act, an -admiration and a merriment in which I seemed to discern a trace of -timidity, a shamefaced and blustering timidity which did not exist in -the others. "Oh, the poor old man; he makes me sick; he looks half -dead;" said a girl with a croaking voice, but with more sarcasm than -sympathy. They walked on a little way, then stopped for a moment in the -middle of the road, with no thought whether they were impeding the -passage of other people, and held a council, a solid body of irregular -shape, compact, unusual and shrill, like birds that gather on the ground -at the moment of flight; then they resumed their leisurely stroll along -the "front", against a background of sea. - -By this time their charming features had ceased to be indistinct and -impersonal. I had dealt them like cards into so many heaps to compose -(failing their names, of which I was still ignorant) the big one who had -jumped over the old banker; the little one who stood out against the -horizon of sea with her plump and rosy cheeks, her green eyes; the one -with the straight nose and dark complexion, in such contrast to all the -rest, another, with a white face like an egg on which a tiny nose -described an arc of a circle like a chicken's beak; yet another, wearing -a hooded cape (which gave her so poverty-stricken an appearance, and so -contradicted the smartness of the figure beneath that the explanation -which suggested itself was that this girl must have parents of high -position who valued their self-esteem so far above the visitors to -Balbec and the sartorial elegance of their own children that it was a -matter of the utmost indifference to them that their daughter should -stroll on the "front" dressed in a way which humbler people would have -considered too modest); a girl with brilliant, laughing eyes and plump, -colourless cheeks, a black polo-cap pulled down over her face, who was -pushing a bicycle with so exaggerated a movement of her hips, with an -air borne out by her language, which was so typically of the gutter and -was being shouted so loud, when I passed her (although among her -expressions I caught that irritating "live my own life") that, -abandoning the hypothesis which her friend's hooded cape had made me -construct, I concluded instead that all these girls belonged to the -population which frequents the racing-cracks, and must be the very -juvenile mistresses of professional bicyclists. In any event, in none of -my suppositions was there any possibility of their being virtuous. At -first sight--in the way in which they looked at one another and smiled, -in the insistent stare of the one with the dull cheeks--I had grasped -that they were not. Besides, my grandmother had always watched over me -with a delicacy too timorous for me not to believe that the sum total of -the things one ought not to do was indivisible or that girls who were -lacking in respect for their elders would suddenly be stopped short by -scruples when there were pleasures at stake more tempting than that of -jumping over an octogenarian. - -Though they were now separately identifiable, still the mutual response -which they gave one another with eyes animated my self-sufficiency and -the spirit of comradeship, in which were kindled at every moment now the -interest now the insolent indifference with which each of them sparkled -according as her glance fell on one of her friends or on passing -strangers, that consciousness, moreover, of knowing one another -intimately enough always to go about together, by making them a 'band -apart' established between their independent and separate bodies, as -slowly they advanced, a bond invisible but harmonious, like a single -warm shadow, a single atmosphere making of them a whole as homogeneous -in its parts as it was different from the crowd through which their -procession gradually wound. - -For an instant, as I passed the dark one with the fat cheeks who was -wheeling a bicycle, I caught her smiling, sidelong glance, aimed from -the centre of that inhuman world which enclosed the life of this little -tribe, an inaccessible, unknown world to which the idea of what I was -could certainly never attain nor find a place in it. Wholly occupied -with what her companions were saying, this young girl in her polo-cap, -pulled down very low over her brow, had she seen me at the moment in -which the dark ray emanating from her eyes had fallen on me? In the -heart of what universe did she distinguish me? It would have been as -hard for me to say as, when certain peculiarities are made visible, -thanks to the telescope, in a neighbouring planet, it is difficult to -arrive at the conclusion that human beings inhabit it, that they can see -us, or to say what ideas the sight of us can have aroused in their -minds. - -If we thought that the eyes of a girl like that were merely two -glittering sequins of mica, we should not be athirst to know her and to -unite her life to ours. But we feel that what shines in those reflecting -discs is not due solely to their material composition; that it is, -unknown to us, the dark shadows of the ideas that the creature is -conceiving, relative to the people and places that she knows--the turf -of racecourses, the sand of cycling tracks over which, pedalling on past -fields and woods, she would have drawn me after her, that little peri, -more seductive to me than she of the Persian paradise--the shadows, too, -of the home to which she will presently return, of the plans that she is -forming or that others have formed for her; and above all that it is -she, with her desires, her sympathies, her revulsions, her obscure and -incessant will. I knew that I should never possess this young cyclist if -I did not possess also what there was in her eyes. And it was -consequently her whole life that filled me with desire; a sorrowful -desire because I felt that it was not to be realised, but exhilarating, -because what had hitherto been my life, having ceased of a sudden to be -my whole life, being no more now than a little part of the space -stretching out before me, which I was burning to cover and which was -composed of the lives of these girls, offered me that prolongation, that -possible multiplication of oneself which is happiness. And no doubt the -fact that we had, these girls and I, not one habit--as we had not one -idea--in common, was to make it more difficult for me to make friends -with them and to please them. But perhaps, also, it was thanks to those -differences, to my consciousness that there did not enter into the -composition of the nature and actions of these girls a single element -that I knew or possessed, that there came in place of my satiety a -thirst--like that with which a dry land burns--for a life which my soul, -because it had never until now received one drop of it, would absorb all -the more greedily in long draughts, with a more perfect imbibition. - -I had looked so closely at the dark cyclist with the bright eyes that -she seemed to notice my attention, and said to the biggest of the girls -something that I could not hear. To be honest, this dark one was not the -one that pleased me most, simply because she was dark and because (since -the day on which, from the little path by Tansonville, I had seen -Gilberte) a girl with reddish hair and a golden skin had remained for me -the inaccessible ideal. But Gilberte herself, had I not loved her -principally because she had appeared to me haloed with that aureole of -being the friend of Bergotte, of going with him to look at old -cathedrals? And in the same way could I not rejoice at having seen this -dark girl look at me (which made me hope that it would be easier for me -to get to know her first), for she would introduce me to the others, to -the pitiless one who had jumped over the old man's head, to the cruel -one who had said "He makes me sick, poor old man!" to all of them in -turn, among whom, moreover, she had the distinction of being their -inseparable companion? And yet the supposition that I might some day be -the friend of one or other of these girls, that their eyes, whose -incomprehensible gaze struck me now and again, playing upon me unawares, -like the play of sunlight upon a wall, might ever, by a miraculous -alchemy, allow to interpenetrate among their ineffable particles the -idea of my existence, some affection for my person, that I myself might -some day take my place among them in the evolution of their course by -the sea's edge--that supposition appeared to me to contain within it a -contradiction as insoluble as if, standing before some classical frieze -or a fresco representing a procession, I had believed it possible for -me, the spectator, to take my place, beloved of them, among the god-like -hierophants. - -The happiness of knowing these girls was, then, not to be realised. -Certainly it would not have been the first of its kind that I had -renounced. I had only to recall the numberless strangers whom, even at -Balbec, the carriage bowling away from them at full speed had forced me -for ever to abandon. And indeed the pleasure that was given me by the -little band, as noble as if it had been composed of Hellenic virgins, -came from some suggestion that there was in it of the flight of passing -figures along a road. This fleetingness of persons who are not known to -us, who force us to put out from the harbour of life, in which the women -whose society we frequent have all, in course of time, laid bare their -blemishes, urges us into that state of pursuit in which there is no -longer anything to arrest the imagination. But to strip our pleasures of -imagination is to reduce them to their own dimensions, that is to say to -nothing. Offered me by one of those procuresses (whose good offices, all -the same, the reader has seen that I by no means scorned), withdrawn -from the element which gave them so many fine shades and such vagueness, -these girls would have enchanted me less. We must have imagination, -awakened by the uncertainty of being able to attain our object, to -create a goal which hides our other goal from us, and by substituting -for sensual pleasures the idea of penetrating into a life prevents us -from recognising that pleasure, from tasting its true savour, from -restricting it to its own range. - -There must be, between us and the fish which, if we saw it for the first -time cooked and served on a table, would not appear worth the endless -trouble, craft and stratagem that are necessary if we are to catch it, -interposed, during our afternoons with the rod, the ripple to whose -surface come wavering, without our quite knowing what we intend to do -with them, the burnished gleam of flesh, the indefiniteness of a form, -in the fluidity of a transparent and flowing azure. - -These girls benefited also by that alteration of social values -characteristic of seaside life. All the advantages which, in our -ordinary environment, extend and magnify our importance, we there find -to have become invisible, in fact to be eliminated; while on the other -hand the people whom we suppose, without reason, to enjoy similar -advantages appear to us amplified to artificial dimensions. This made it -easy for strange women generally, and to-day for these girls in -particular, to acquire an enormous importance in my eyes, and impossible -to make them aware of such importance as I might myself possess. - -But if there was this to be said for the excursion of the little band, -that it was but an excerpt from the innumerable flight of passing women, -which had always disturbed me, their flight was here reduced to a -movement so slow as to approach immobility. Now, precisely because, in a -phase so far from rapid, faces, no longer swept past me in a whirlwind, -but calm and distinct, still appeared beautiful, I was prevented from -thinking as I had so often thought when Mme. de Villeparisis's carriage -bore me away that, at closer quarters, if I had stopped for a moment, -certain details, a pitted skin, drooping nostrils, a silly gape, a -grimace of a smile, an ugly figure might have been substituted, in the -face and body of the woman, for those that I had doubtless imagined; for -there had sufficed a pretty outline, a glimpse of a fresh complexion, -for me to add, in entire good faith, a fascinating shoulder, a delicious -glance of which I carried in my mind for ever a memory or a preconceived -idea, these rapid decipherings of a person whom we see in motion -exposing us thus to the same errors as those too rapid readings in -which, on a single syllable and without waiting to identify the rest, we -base instead of the word that is in the text a wholly different word -with which our memory supplies us. It could not be so with me now. I had -looked well at them all; each of them I had seen, not from every angle -and rarely in full face, but all the same in two or three aspects -different enough to enable me to make either the correction or the -verification, to take a "proof" of the different possibilities of line -and colour that are hazarded at first sight, and to see persist in them, -through a series of expressions, something unalterably material. I could -say to myself with conviction that neither in Paris nor at Balbec, in -the most favourable hypotheses of what might have happened, even if I -had been able to stop and talk to them, the passing women who had caught -my eye, had there ever been one whose appearance, followed by her -disappearance without my having managed to know her, had left me with -more regret than would these, had given me the idea that her friendship -might be a thing so intoxicating. Never, among actresses nor among -peasants nor among girls from a convent school had I beheld anything so -beautiful, impregnated with so much that was unknown, so inestimably -precious, so apparently inaccessible. They were, of the unknown and -potential happiness of life, an illustration so delicious and in so -perfect a state that it was almost for intellectual reasons that I was -desperate with the fear that I might not be able to make, in unique -conditions which left no room for any possibility of error, proper trial -of what is the most mysterious thing that is offered to us by the beauty -which we desire and console ourselves for never possessing, by demanding -pleasure--as Swann had always refused to do before Odette's day--from -women whom we have not desired, so that, indeed, we die without having -ever known what that other pleasure was. No doubt it was possible that -it was not in reality an unknown pleasure, that on a close inspection -its mystery would dissipate and vanish, that it was no more than a -projection, a mirage of desire. But in that case I could blame only the -compulsion of a law of nature,--which if it applied to these girls would -apply to all--and not the imperfection of the object. For it was that -which I should have chosen above all others, feeling quite certain, with -a botanist's satisfaction, that it was not possible to find collected -anywhere rarer specimens than these young flowers who were interrupting -at this moment before my eyes the line of the sea with their slender -hedge, like a bower of Pennsylvania roses adorning a garden on the brink -of a cliff, between which is contained the whole tract of ocean crossed -by some steamer, so slow in gliding along the blue and horizontal line -that stretches from one stem to the next that an idle butterfly, -dawdling in the cup of a flower which the moving hull has long since -passed, can, if it is to fly and be sure of arriving before the vessel, -wait until nothing but the tiniest slice of blue still separates the -questing prow from the first petal of the flower towards which it is -steering. - -I went indoors because I was to dine at Rivebelle with Robert, and my -grandmother insisted that on those evenings, before going out, I must -lie down for an hour on my bed, a rest which the Balbec doctor presently -ordered me to extend to the other evenings also. - -However, there was no need, when one went indoors, to leave the "front" -and to enter the hotel by the hall, that is to say from behind. By -virtue of an alteration of the clock which reminded me of those -Saturdays when, at Combray, we used to have luncheon an hour earlier, -now with summer at the full the days had become so long that the sun was -still high in the heavens, as though it were only tea-time, when the -tables were being laid for dinner in the Grand Hotel. And so the great -sliding windows were kept open from the ground. I had but to step across -a low wooden sill to find myself in the dining-room, through which I -walked and straight across to the lift. - -As I passed the office I addressed a smile to the manager, and with no -shudder of disgust gathered one for myself from his face which, since I -had been at Balbec, my comprehensive study of it was injecting and -transforming, little by little, like a natural history preparation. His -features had become familiar to me, charged with a meaning that was of -no importance but still intelligible, like a script which one can read, -and had ceased in any way to resemble these queer, intolerable -characters which his face had presented to me on that first day, when I -had seen before me a personage now forgotten, or, if I succeeded in -recalling him, unrecognisable, difficult to identify with this -insignificant and polite personality of which the other was but a -caricature, a hideous and rapid sketch. Without either the shyness or -the sadness of the evening of my arrival I rang for the attendant, who -no longer stood in silence while I rose by his side in the lift as in a -mobile thoracic cage propelled upwards along its ascending pillar, but -repeated: - -"There aren't the people now there were a month back. They're beginning -to go now; the days are drawing in." He said this not because there was -any truth in it but because, having an engagement, presently, for a -warmer part of the coast, he would have liked us all to leave, so that -the hotel could be shut up and he have a few days to himself before -"rejoining" in his new place. "Rejoin" and "new" were not, by the way, -incompatible terms, since, for the lift-boy, "rejoin" was the usual form -of the verb "to join". The only thing that surprised me was that he -condescended to say "place", for he belonged to that modern proletariat -which seeks to efface from our language every trace of the rule of -domesticity. A moment later, however, he informed me that in the -"situation" which he was about to "rejoin", he would have a smarter -"tunic" and a better "salary", the words "livery" and "wages" sounding -to him obsolete and unseemly. And as, by an absurd contradiction, the -vocabulary has, through thick and thin, among us "masters", survived the -conception of inequality, I was always failing to understand what the -lift-boy said. For instance, the only thing that interested me was to -know whether my grandmother was in the hotel. Now, forestalling my -questions, the lift-boy would say to me: "That lady has just gone out -from your rooms." I was invariably taken in; I supposed that he meant my -grandmother. "No, that lady; I think she's an employee of yours." As in -the old speech of the middle classes, which ought really to be done away -with, a cook is not called an employee, I thought for a moment: "But he -must be mistaken. We don't own a factory; we haven't any employees." -Suddenly I remembered that the title of "employee" is, like the wearing -of a moustache among waiters, a sop to their self-esteem given to -servants, and realised that this lady who had just gone out must be -Françoise (probably on a visit to the coffee-maker, or to watch the -Belgian lady's little maid at her sewing), though even this sop did not -satisfy the lift-boy, for he would say quite naturally, speaking -pityingly of his own class, "with the working man" or "the small -person", using the same singular form as Racine when he speaks of "the -poor". But as a rule, for my zeal and timidity of the first evening were -now things of the past, I no longer spoke to the lift-boy. It was he now -who stood there and received no answer during the short journey on which -he threaded his way through the hotel, hollowed out inside like a toy, -which extended round about us, floor by floor, the ramifications of its -corridors in the depths of which the light grew velvety, lost its tone, -diminished the communicating doors, the steps of the service stairs -which it transformed into that amber haze, unsubstantial and mysterious -as a twilight, in which Rembrandt picks out here and there a window-sill -or a well-head. And on each landing a golden light reflected from the -carpet indicated the setting sun and the lavatory window. - -I asked myself whether the girls I had just seen lived at Balbec, and -who they could be. When our desire is thus concentrated upon a little -tribe of humanity which it singles out from the rest, everything that -can be associated with that tribe becomes a spring of emotion and then -of reflexion. I had heard a lady say on the "front": "She is a friend of -the little Simonet girl" with that self-important air of inside -knowledge, as who should say: "He is the inseparable companion of young -La Rochefoucauld." And immediately she had detected on the face of the -person to whom she gave this information a curiosity to see more of the -favoured person who was "a friend of the little Simonet". A privilege, -obviously, that did not appear to be granted to all the world. For -aristocracy is a relative state. And there are plenty of inexpensive -little holes and corners where the son of an upholsterer is the arbiter -of fashion and reigns over a court like any young Prince of Wales. I -have often since then sought to recall how it first sounded for me there -on the beach, that name of Simonet, still quite indefinite as to its -form, which I had failed to distinguish, and also as to its -significance, to the designation by it of such and such a person, or -perhaps of some one else; imprinted, in fact, with that vagueness, that -novelty which we find so moving in the sequel, when the name whose -letters are every moment engraved more deeply on our hearts by our -incessant thought of them has become (though this was not to happen to -me with the name of the "little Simonet" until several years had passed) -the first coherent sound that comes to our lips, whether on waking from -sleep or on recovering from a swoon, even before the idea of what -o'clock it is or of where we are, almost before the word "I", as though -the person whom it names were more "we" even than we ourself, and as -though after a brief spell of unconsciousness the phase that is the -first of all to dissolve is that in which we were not thinking of her. I -do not know why I said to myself from the first that the name Simonet -must be that of one of the band of girls; from that moment I never -ceased to ask myself how I could get to know the Simonet family, get to -know them, moreover, through people whom they considered superior to -themselves (which ought not to be difficult if the girls were only -common little "bounders") so that they might not form a disdainful idea -of me. For one cannot have a perfect knowledge, one cannot effect the -complete absorption of a person who disdains one, so long as one has not -overcome her disdain. And since, whenever the idea of women who are so -different from us penetrates our senses, unless we are able to forget it -or the competition of other ideas eliminates it, we know no rest until -we have converted those aliens into something that is compatible with -ourself, our heart being in this respect endowed with the same kind of -reaction and activity as our physical organism, which cannot abide the -infusion of any foreign body into its veins without at once striving to -digest and assimilate it: the little Simonet must be the prettiest of -them all--she who, I felt moreover, might yet become my mistress, for -she was the only one who, two or three times half-turning her head, had -appeared to take cognisance of my fixed stare. I asked the lift-boy -whether he knew of any people at Balbec called Simonet. Not liking to -admit that there was anything which he did not know, he replied that he -seemed to have heard the name somewhere. As we reached the highest -landing I told him to have the latest lists of visitors sent up to me. - -I stepped out of the lift, but instead of going to my room I made my way -farther along the corridor, for before my arrival the valet in charge of -the landing, despite his horror of draughts, had opened the window at -the end, which instead of looking out to the sea faced the hill and -valley inland, but never allowed them to be seen, for its panes, which -were made of clouded glass, were generally closed. I made a short -"station" in front of it, time enough just to pay my devotions to the -view which for once it revealed over the hill against which the back of -the hotel rested, a view that contained but a solitary house, planted in -the middle distance, though the perspective and the evening light in -which I saw it, while preserving its mass, gave it a sculptural beauty -and a velvet background, as though to one of those architectural works -in miniature, tiny temples or chapels wrought in gold and enamels, which -serve as reliquaries and are exposed only on rare and solemn days for -the veneration of the faithful. But this moment of adoration had already -lasted too long, for the valet, who carried in one hand a bunch of keys -and with the other saluted me by touching his verger's skull-cap, though -without raising it, on account of the pure, cool evening air, came and -drew together, like those of a shrine, the two sides of the window, and -so shut off the minute edifice, the glistening relic from my adoring -gaze. I went into my room. Regularly, as the season advanced, the -picture that I found there in my window changed. At first it was broad -daylight, and dark only if the weather was bad: and then, in the -greenish glass which it distended with the curve of its round waves, the -sea, set among the iron uprights of my window like a piece of stained -glass in its leads, ravelled out over all the deep rocky border of the -bay little plumed triangles of an unmoving spray delineated with the -delicacy of a feather or a downy breast from Pisanello's pencil, and -fixed in that white, unalterable, creamy enamel which is used to depict -fallen snow in Gallé's glass. - -Presently the days grew shorter and at the moment when I entered my room -the violet sky seemed branded with the stiff, geometrical, travelling, -effulgent figure of the sun (like the representation of some miraculous -sign, of some mystical apparition) leaning over the sea from the hinge -of the horizon as a sacred picture leans over a high altar, while the -different parts of the western sky exposed in the glass fronts of the -low mahogany bookcases that ran along the walls, which I carried back in -my mind to the marvellous painting from which they had been detached, -seemed like those different scenes which some old master executed long -ago for a confraternity upon a shrine, whose separate panels are now -exhibited side by side upon the wall of a museum gallery, so that the -visitor's imagination alone can restore them to their place on the -predella of the reredos. A few weeks later, when I went upstairs, the -sun had already set. Like the one that I used to see at Combray, behind -the Calvary, when I was coming home from a walk and looking forward to -going down to the kitchen before dinner, a band of red sky over the sea, -compact and clear-cut as a layer of aspic over meat, then, a little -later, over a sea already cold and blue like a grey mullet, a sky of the -same pink as the salmon that we should presently be ordering at -Rivebelle reawakened the pleasure which I was to derive from the act of -dressing to go out to dinner. Over the sea, quite near the shore, were -trying to rise, one beyond another, at wider and wider intervals, -vapours of a pitchy blackness but also of the polish and consistency of -agate, of a visible weight, so much so that the highest among them, -poised at the end of their contorted stem and overreaching the centre of -gravity of the pile that had hitherto supported them, seemed on the -point of bringing down in ruin this lofty structure already half the -height of the sky, and of precipitating it into the sea. The sight of a -ship that was moving away like a nocturnal traveller gave me the same -impression that I had had in the train of being set free from the -necessity of sleep and from confinement in a bedroom. Not that I felt -myself a prisoner in the room in which I now was, since in another hour -I should have left it and be getting into the carriage. I threw myself -down on the bed; and, just as if I had been lying in a berth on board -one of those steamers which I could see quite near to me and which, when -night came, it would be strange to see stealing slowly out into the -darkness, like shadowy and silent but unsleeping swans, I was on all -sides surrounded by pictures of the sea. - -But as often as not they were, indeed, only pictures; I forgot that -below their coloured expanse was hollowed the sad desolation of the -beach, travelled by the restless evening breeze whose breath I had so -anxiously felt on my arrival at Balbec; besides, even in my room, being -wholly taken up with thoughts of the girls whom I had seen go past, I -was no longer in a state of mind calm or disinterested enough to allow -the formation of any really deep impression of beauty. The anticipation -of dinner at Rivebelle made my mood more frivolous still, and my mind, -dwelling at such moments upon the surface of the body which I was going -to dress up so as to try to appear as pleasing as possible in the -feminine eyes which would be scrutinising me in the brilliantly lighted -restaurant, was incapable of putting any depth behind the colour of -things. And if, beneath my window, the unwearying, gentle flight of -sea-martins and swallows had not arisen like a playing fountain, like -living fireworks, joining the intervals between their soaring rockets -with the motionless white streaming lines of long horizontal wakes of -foam, without the charming miracle of this natural and local phenomenon, -which brought into touch with reality the scenes that I had before my -eyes, I might easily have believed that they were no more than a -selection, made afresh every day, of paintings which were shewn quite -arbitrarily in the place in which I happened to be and without having -any necessary connexion with that place: At one time it was an -exhibition of Japanese colour-prints: beside the neat disc of sun, red -and round as the moon, a yellow cloud seemed a lake against which black -swords were outlined like the trees upon its shore; a bar of a tender -pink which I had never seen again after my first paint-box swelled out -into a river on either bank of which boats seemed to be waiting high and -dry for some one to push them down and set them afloat. And with the -contemptuous, bored, frivolous glance of an amateur or a woman hurrying -through a picture gallery between two social engagements, I would say to -myself: "Curious sunset, this; it's different from what they usually are -but after all I've seen them just as fine, just as remarkable as this." -I had more pleasure on evenings when a ship, absorbed and liquefied by -the horizon so much the same in colour as herself (an Impressionist -exhibition this time) that it seemed to be also of the same matter, -appeared as if some one had simply cut out with a pair of scissors her -bows and the rigging in which she tapered into a slender filigree from -the vaporous blue of the sky. Sometimes the ocean filled almost the -whole of my window, when it was enlarged and prolonged by a band of sky -edged at the top only by a line that was of the same blue as the sea, so -that I supposed it all to be still sea, and the change in colour due -only to some effect of light and shade. Another day the sea was painted -only in the lower part of the window, all the rest of which was so -filled with innumerable clouds, packed one against another in horizontal -bands, that its panes seemed to be intended, for some special purpose or -to illustrate a special talent of the artist, to present a "Cloud -Study", while the fronts of the various bookcases shewing similar clouds -but in another part of the horizon and differently coloured by the -light, appeared to be offering as it were the repetition--of which -certain of our contemporaries are so fond--of one and the same effect -always observed at different hours but able now in the immobility of art -to be seen all together in a single room, drawn in pastel and mounted -under glass. And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a rosy touch -would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that -had gone to sleep at the foot of the window seemed to be attaching with -its wings at the corner of this "Harmony in Grey and Pink" in the -Whistler manner the favourite signature of the Chelsea master. The pink -vanished; there was nothing now left to look at. I rose for a moment and -before lying down again drew close the inner curtains. Above them I -could see from my bed the ray of light that still remained, growing -steadily fainter and thinner, but it was without any feeling of sadness, -without any regret for its passing that I thus allowed to die above the -curtains the hour at which, as a rule, I was seated at table, for I knew -that this day was of another kind than ordinary days, longer, like those -arctic days which night interrupts for a few minutes only; I knew that -from the chrysalis of the dusk was preparing to emerge, by a radiant -metamorphosis, the dazzling light of the Rivebelle restaurant. I said to -myself: "It is time"; I stretched myself on the bed, and rose, and -finished dressing; and I found a charm in these idle moments, lightened -of every material burden, in which while down below the others were -dining I was employing the forces accumulated during the inactivity of -this last hour of the day only in drying my washed body, in putting on a -dinner jacket, in tying my tie, in making all those gestures which were -already dictated by the anticipated pleasure of seeing again some woman -whom I had noticed, last time, at Rivebelle, who had seemed to be -watching me, had perhaps left the table for a moment only in the hope -that I would follow her; it was with joy that I enriched myself with all -these attractions so as to give myself, whole, alert, willing, to a new -life, free, without cares, in which I would lean my hesitations upon the -calm strength of Saint-Loup, and would choose from among the different -species of animated nature and the produce of every land those which, -composing the unfamiliar dishes that my companion would at once order, -might have tempted my appetite or my imagination. And then at the end of -the season came the days when I could no longer pass indoors from the -"front" through the dining-room; its windows stood open no more, for it -was night now outside and the swarm of poor folk and curious idlers, -attracted by the blaze of light which they might not reach, hung in -black clusters chilled by the north wind to the luminous sliding walls -of that buzzing hive of glass. - -There was a knock at my door; it was Aimé who had come upstairs in -person with the latest lists of visitors. - -Aimé could not go away without telling me that Dreyfus was guilty a -thousand times over. "It will all come out," he assured me, "not this -year, but next. It was a gentleman who's very thick with the General -Staff, told me. I asked him if they wouldn't decide to bring it all to -light at once, before the year is out. He laid down his cigarette," -Aimé went on, acting the scene for my benefit, and shaking his head and -his forefinger as his informant had done, as much as to say: "We mustn't -expect too much!"--"'Not this year, Aimé,' those were his very words, -putting his hand on my shoulder, 'It isn't possible. But next Easter, -yes!'" And Aimé tapped me gently on my shoulder, saying, "You see, I'm -letting you have it exactly as he told me," whether because he was -flattered at this act of familiarity by a distinguished person or so -that I might better appreciate, with a full knowledge of the facts, the -worth of the arguments and our grounds for hope. - -It was not without a slight throb of the heart that on the first page of -the list I caught sight of the words "Simonet and family." I had in me a -store of old dream-memories which dated from my childhood, and in which -all the tenderness (tenderness that existed in my heart, but, when my -heart felt it, was not distinguishable from anything else) was wafted to -me by a person as different as possible from myself. This person, once -again I fashioned her, utilising for the purpose the name Simonet and -the memory of the harmony that had reigned between the young bodies -which I had seen displaying themselves on the beach, in a sportive -procession worthy of Greek art or of Giotto. I knew not which of these -girls was Mlle. Simonet, if indeed any of them were so named, but I did -know that I was loved by Mlle. Simonet and that I was going, with -Saint-Loup's help, to attempt to know her. Unfortunately, having on that -condition only obtained an extension of his leave, he was obliged to -report for duty every day at Doncières: but to make him forsake his -military duty I had felt that I might count, more even than on his -friendship for myself, on that same curiosity, as a human naturalist, -which I myself had so often felt--even without having seen the person -mentioned, and simply on hearing some one say that there was a pretty -cashier at a fruiterer's--to acquaint myself with a new variety of -feminine beauty. But that curiosity I had been wrong in hoping to excite -in Saint-Loup by speaking to him of my band of girls. For it had been -and would long remain paralysed in him by his love for that actress -whose lover he was. And even if he had felt it lightly stirring him he -would have repressed it, from an almost superstitious belief that on his -own fidelity might depend that of his mistress. And so it was without -any promise from him that he would take an active interest in my girls -that we started out to dine at Rivebelle. - -At first, when we arrived there, the sun used just to have set, but it -was light still; in the garden outside the restaurant, where the lamps -had not yet been lighted, the heat of the day fell and settled, as -though in a vase along the sides of which the transparent, dusky jelly -of the air seemed of such consistency that a tall rose-tree fastened -against the dim wall which it streaked with pink veins, looked like the -arborescence that one sees at the heart of an onyx. Presently night had -always fallen when we left the carriage, often indeed before we started -from Balbec if the evening was wet and we had put off sending for the -carriage in the hope of the weather's improving. But on those days it -was without any sadness that I listened to the wind howling, I knew that -it did not mean the abandonment of my plans, imprisonment in my bedroom; -I knew that in the great dining-room of the restaurant, which we would -enter to the sound of the music of the gipsy band, the innumerable lamps -would triumph easily over darkness and chill, by applying to them their -broad cauteries of molten gold, and I jumped light-heartedly after -Saint-Loup into the closed carriage which stood waiting for us in the -rain. For some time past the words of Bergotte, when he pronounced -himself positive that, in spite of all I might say, I had been created -to enjoy, pre-eminently, the pleasures of the mind, had restored to me, -with regard to what I might succeed in achieving later on, a hope that -was disappointed afresh every day by the boredom that I felt on setting -myself down before a writing-table to start work on a critical essay or -a novel. "After all," I said to myself, "possibly the pleasure that its -author has found in writing it is not the infallible test of the -literary value of a page; it may be only an accessory, one that is often -to be found superadded to that value, but the want of which can have no -prejudicial effect on it. Perhaps some of the greatest masterpieces were -written yawning." My grandmother set my doubts at rest by telling me -that I should be able to work and should enjoy working as soon as my -health improved. And, our doctor having thought it only prudent to warn -me of the grave risks to which my state of health might expose me, and -having outlined all the hygienic precaution that I ought to take to -avoid any accident--I subordinated all my pleasures to an object which I -judged to be infinitely more important than them, that of becoming -strong enough to be able to bring into being the work which I had, -possibly, within me; I had been exercising over myself, ever since I had -come to Balbec, a scrupulous and constant control. Nothing would have -induced me, there, to touch the cup of coffee which would have robbed me -of the night's sleep that was necessary if I was not to be tired next -day. But as soon as we reached Rivebelle, immediately, what with the -excitement of a new pleasure, and finding myself in that different zone -into which the exception to our rule of life takes us after it has cut -the thread, patiently spun throughout so many days, that was guiding us -towards wisdom--as though there were never to be any such thing as -to-morrow, nor any lofty aims to be realised, vanished all that exact -machinery of prudent hygienic measures which had been working to -safeguard them. A waiter was offering to take my coat, whereupon -Saint-Loup asked: "You're sure you won't be cold? Perhaps you'ld better -keep it: it's not very warm in here." - -"No, no," I assured him; and perhaps I did not feel the cold; but -however that might be, I no longer knew the fear of falling ill, the -necessity of not dying, the importance of work. I gave up my coat; we -entered the dining-room to the sound of some warlike march played by the -gipsies, we advanced between two rows of tables laid for dinner as along -an easy path of glory, and, feeling a happy glow imparted to our bodies -by the rhythms of the orchestra which rendered us its military honours, -gave us this unmerited triumph, we concealed it beneath a grave and -frozen mien, beneath a languid, casual gait, so as not to be like those -music-hall "mashers" who, having wedded a ribald verse to a patriotic -air, come running on to the stage with the martial countenance of a -victorious general. - -From that moment I was a new man, who was no longer my grandmother's -grandson and would remember her only when it was time to get up and go, -but the brother, for the time being, of the waiters who were going to -bring us our dinner. - -The dose of beer--all the more, that of champagne--which at Balbec I -should not have ventured to take in a week, albeit to my calm and lucid -consciousness the flavour of those beverages represented a pleasure -clearly appreciable, since it was also one that could easily be -sacrificed, I now imbibed at a sitting, adding to it a few drops of port -wine, too much distracted to be able to taste it, and I gave the -violinist who had just been playing the two louis which I had been -saving up for the last month with a view to buying something, I could -not remember what. Several of the waiters, set going among the tables, -were flying along at full speed, each carrying on his outstretched palms -a dish which it seemed to be the object of this kind of race not to let -fall. And in fact the chocolate _soufflés_ arrived at their destination -unspilled, the potatoes _à l'anglaise_, in spite of the pace which -ought to have sent them flying, came arranged as at the start round the -Pauilhac lamb. I noticed one of these servants, very tall, plumed with -superb black locks, his face dyed in a tint that suggested rather -certain species of rare birds than a human being, who, running without -pause (and, one would have said, without purpose) from one end of the -room to the other, made me think of one of those macaws which fill the -big aviaries in zoological gardens with their gorgeous colouring and -incomprehensible agitation. Presently the spectacle assumed an order, in -my eyes at least, growing at once more noble and more calm. All this -dizzy activity became fixed in a quiet harmony. I looked at the round -tables whose innumerable assemblage filled the restaurant like so many -planets, as planets are represented in old allegorical pictures. -Moreover, there seemed to be some irresistibly attractive force at work -among these divers stars, and at each table the diners had eyes only for -the tables at which they were not sitting, except perhaps some wealthy -amphitryon who, having managed to secure a famous author, was -endeavouring to extract from him, thanks to the magic properties of the -turning table, a few unimportant remarks at which the ladies marvelled. -The harmony of these astral tables did not prevent the incessant -revolution of the countless servants who, because instead of being -seated like the diners they were on their feet, performed their -evolutions in a more exalted sphere. No doubt they were running, one to -fetch the _hors d'œuvre_, another to change the wine or with clean -glasses. But despite these special reasons, their perpetual course among -the round tables yielded, after a time, to the observer the law of its -dizzy but ordered circulation. Seated behind a bank of flowers, two -horrible cashiers, busy with endless calculations, seemed two witches -occupied in forecasting by astrological signs the disasters that might -from time to time occur in this celestial vault fashioned according to -the scientific conceptions of the middle ages. - -And I rather pitied all the diners because I felt that for them the -round tables were not planets and that they had not cut through the -scheme of things one of those sections which deliver us from the bondage -of appearances and enable us to perceive analogies. They thought that -they were dining with this or that person, that the dinner would cost -roughly so much, and that to-morrow they would begin all over again. And -they appeared absolutely unmoved by the progress through their midst of -a train of young assistants who, having probably at that moment no -urgent duty, advanced processionally bearing rolls of bread in baskets. -Some of them, the youngest, stunned by the cuffs which the head waiters -administered to them as they passed, fixed melancholy eyes upon a -distant dream and were consoled only if some visitor from the Balbec -hotel in which they had once been employed, recognising them, said a few -words to them, telling them in person to take away the champagne which -was not fit to drink, an order that filled them with pride. - -I could hear the twingeing of my nerves, in which there was a sense of -comfort independent of the external objects that might have produced it, -a comfort which the least shifting of my body or of my attention was -enough to make me feel, just as to a shut eye a slight pressure gives -the sensation of colour. I had already drunk a good deal of port wine, -and if I now asked for more it was not so much with a view to the -comfort which the additional glasses would bring me as an effect of the -comfort produced by the glasses that had gone before. I allowed the -music itself to guide to each of its notes my pleasure which, meekly -following, rested on each in turn. If, like one of those chemical -industries by means of which are prepared in large quantities bodies -which in a state of nature come together only by accident and very -rarely, this restaurant at Rivebelle united at one and the same moment -more women to tempt me with beckoning vistas of happiness than the -hazard of walks and drives would have made me encounter in a year; on -the other hand, this music that greeted our ears,--arrangements of -waltzes, of German operettas, of music-hall songs, all of them quite new -to me--was itself like an ethereal resort of pleasure superimposed upon -the other and more intoxicating still. For these tunes, each as -individual as a woman, were not keeping, as she would have kept, for -some privileged person, the voluptuous secret which they contained: they -offered me their secrets, ogled me, came up to me with affected or -vulgar movements, accosted me, caressed me as if I had suddenly become -more seductive, more powerful and more rich; I indeed found in these -tunes an element of cruelty; because any such thing as a disinterested -feeling for beauty, a gleam of intelligence was unknown to them; for -them physical pleasures alone existed. And they are the most merciless -of hells, the most gateless and imprisoning for the jealous wretch to -whom they present that pleasure--that pleasure which the woman he loves -is enjoying with another--as the only thing that exists in the world for -her who is all the world to him. But while I was humming softly to -myself the notes of this tune, and returning its kiss, the pleasure -peculiar to itself which it made me feel became so dear to me that I -would have left my father and mother, to follow it through the singular -world which it constructed in the invisible, in lines instinct with -alternate languor and vivacity. Although such a pleasure as this is not -calculated to enhance the value of the person to whom it comes, for it -is perceived by him alone, and although whenever, in the course of our -life, we have failed to attract a woman who has caught sight of us, she -could not tell whether at that moment we possessed this inward and -subjective felicity which, consequently, could in no way have altered -the judgment that she passed on us, I felt myself more powerful, almost -irresistible. It seemed to me that my love was no longer something -unattractive, at which people might smile, but had precisely the -touching beauty, the seductiveness of this music, itself comparable to a -friendly atmosphere in which she whom I loved and I were to meet, -suddenly grown intimate. - -This restaurant was the resort not only of light women; it was -frequented also by people in the very best society, who came there for -afternoon tea or gave big dinner-parties. The tea-parties were held in a -long gallery, glazed and narrow, shaped like a funnel, which led from -the entrance hall to the dining-room and was bounded on one side by the -garden, from which it was separated (save for a few stone pillars) only -by its wall of glass, in which panes would be opened here and there. The -result of which, apart from ubiquitous draughts, was sudden and -intermittent bursts of sunshine, a dazzling light that made it almost -impossible to see the tea-drinkers, so that when they were installed -there, at tables crowded pair after pair the whole way along the narrow -gully, as they were shot with colours at every movement they made in -drinking their tea or in greeting one another, you would have called it -a reservoir, a stewpond in which the fisherman has collected all his -glittering catch, and the fish, half out of water and bathed in -sunlight, dazzle the eye as they mirror an ever-changing iridescence. - -A few hours later, during dinner, which, naturally, was served in the -dining-room, the lights would be turned on, although it was still quite -light out of doors, so that one saw before one's eyes, in the garden, -among summer-houses glimmering in the twilight, like pale spectres of -evening, alleys whose greyish verdure was pierced by the last rays of -the setting sun and, from the lamp-lit room in which we were dining, -appeared through the glass--no longer, as one would have said of the -ladies who had been drinking tea there in the afternoon, along the blue -and gold corridor, caught in a glittering and dripping net--but like the -vegetation of a pale and green aquarium of gigantic size seen by a -supernatural light. People began to rise from table; and if each party -while their dinner lasted, albeit they spent the whole time examining, -recognising, naming the party at the next table, had been held in -perfect cohesion about their own, the attractive force that had kept -them gravitating round their host of the evening lost its power at the -moment when, for coffee, they repaired to the same corridor that had -been used for the tea-parties; it often happened that in its passage -from place to place some party on the march dropped one or more of its -human corpuscles who, having come under the irresistible attraction of -the rival party, detached themselves for a moment from their own, in -which their places were taken by ladies or gentlemen who had come across -to speak to friends before hurrying off with an "I really must fly: I'm -dining with M. So-and-So." And for the moment you would have been -reminded, looking at them, of two separate nosegays that had exchanged a -few of their flowers. Then the corridor too began to empty. Often, since -even after dinner there was still a little light left outside, they left -this long corridor unlighted, and, skirted by the trees that overhung it -on the other side of the glass, it suggested a pleached alley in a -wooded and shady garden. Here and there, in the gloom, a fair diner -lingered. As I passed through this corridor one evening on my way out I -saw, sitting among a group of strangers, the beautiful Princesse de -Luxembourg. I raised my hat without stopping. She remembered me, and -bowed her head with a smile; in the air, far above her bowed head, but -emanating from the movement, rose melodiously a few words addressed to -myself, which must have been a somewhat amplified good evening, intended -not to stop me but simply to complete the gesture, to make it a spoken -greeting. But her words remained so indistinct and the sound which was -all that I caught was prolonged so sweetly and seemed to me so musical -that it seemed as if among the dim branches of the trees a nightingale -had begun to sing. If it so happened that, to finish the evening with a -party of his friends whom we had met, Saint-Loup decided to go on to the -Casino of a neighbouring village, and, taking them with him, put me in -a carriage by myself, I would urge the driver to go as fast as he -possibly could, so that the minutes might pass less slowly which I must -spend without having anyone at hand to dispense me from the obligation -myself to provide my sensibility--reversing the engine, to speak, and -emerging from the passivity in which I was caught and held as in the -teeth of a machine--with those modifications which, since my arrival at -Rivebelle, I had been receiving from other people. The risk of collision -with a carriage coming the other way along those lanes where there was -barely room for one and it was dark as pitch, the insecurity of the -soil, crumbling in many places, at the cliffs edge, the proximity of its -vertical drop to the sea, none of these things exerted on me the slight -stimulus that would have been required to bring the vision and the fear -of danger within the scope of my reasoning. For just as it is not the -desire to become famous but the habit of being laborious that enables us -to produce a finished work, so it is not the activity of the present -moment but wise reflexions from the past that help us to safeguard the -future. But if already, before this point, on my arrival at Rivebelle, I -had flung irretrievably away from me those crutches of reason and -self-control which help our infirmity to follow the right road, if I now -found myself the victim of a sort of moral ataxy, the alcohol that I had -drunk, by unduly straining my nerves, gave to the minutes as they came a -quality, a charm which did not have the result of leaving me more ready, -or indeed more resolute to inhibit them, prevent their coming; for while -it made me prefer them a thousand times to anything else in my life, my -exaltation made me isolate them from everything else; I was confined to -the present, as heroes are or drunkards; eclipsed for the moment, my -past no longer projected before me that shadow of itself which we call -our future; placing the goal of my life no longer in the realisation of -the dreams of that past, but in the felicity of the present moment, I -could see nothing now of what lay beyond it. So that, by a contradiction -which, however, was only apparent, it was at the very moment in which I -was tasting an unfamiliar pleasure, feeling that my life might yet be -happy, in which it should have become more precious in my sight; it was -at this very moment that, delivered from the anxieties which my life had -hitherto contrived to suggest to me, I unhesitatingly abandoned it to -the chance of an accident. After all, I was doing no more than -concentrate in a single evening the carelessness that, for most men, is -diluted throughout their whole existence, in which every day they face, -unnecessarily, the dangers of a sea-voyage, of a trip in an aeroplane or -motor-car, when there is waiting for them at home the creature whose -life their death would shatter, or when there is still stored in the -fragile receptacle of their brain that book the approaching publication -of which is their one object, now, in life. And so too in the Rivebelle -restaurant, on evenings when we just stayed there after dinner, if -anyone had come in with the intention of killing me, as I no longer saw, -save in a distant prospect too remote to have any reality, my -grandmother, my life to come, the books that I was going to write, as I -clung now, body and mind, wholly to the scent of the lady at the next -table, the politeness of the waiters, the outline of the waltz that the -band was playing, as I was glued to my immediate sensation, with no -extension beyond its limits, nor any object other than not to be -separated from it, I should have died in and with that sensation, I -should have let myself be strangled without offering any resistance, -without a movement, a bee drugged with tobacco smoke that had ceased to -take any thought for preserving the accumulation of its labours and the -hopes of its hive. - -I ought here to add that this insignificance into which the most serious -matters subsided, by contrast with the violence of my exaltation, came -in the end to include Mlle. Simonet and her friends. The enterprise of -knowing them seemed to me easy now but hardly worth the trouble, for my -immediate sensation alone, thanks to its extraordinary intensity, to the -joy that its slightest modifications, its mere continuity provoked, had -any importance for me; all the rest, parents, work, pleasures, girls at -Balbec, weighed with me no more than does a flake of foam in a strong -wind that will not let it find a resting place, existed no longer save -in relation to this internal power: intoxication makes real for an hour -or two a subjective idealism, pure phenomenism; nothing is left now but -appearances, nothing exists save as a function of our sublime self. This -is not to say that a genuine love, if we have one, cannot survive in -such conditions. But we feel so unmistakably, as though in a new -atmosphere, that unknown pressures have altered the dimensions of that -sentiment that we can no longer consider it in the old way. It is indeed -still there and we shall find it, but in a different place, no longer -weighing upon us, satisfied by the sensation which the present affords -it, a sensation that is sufficient for us, since for what is not -actually present we take no thought. Unfortunately the coefficient which -thus alters our values alters them only in the hour of intoxication. The -people who had lost all their importance, whom we scattered with our -breath like soap-bubbles, will to-morrow resume their density; we shall -have to try afresh to settle down to work which this evening had ceased -to have any significance. A more serious matter still, these mathematics -of the morrow, the same as those of yesterday, in whose problems we -shall find ourselves inexorably involved, it is they that govern us even -in these hours, and we alone are unconscious of their rule. If there -should happen to be, near us, a woman, virtuous or inimical, that -question so difficult an hour ago--to know whether we should succeed in -finding favour with her--seems to us now a million times easier of -solution without having become easier in any respect, for it is only in -our own sight, in our own inward sight that we have altered. And she is -as much annoyed with us at this moment as we shall be next day at the -thought of our having given a hundred francs to the messenger, and for -the same reason which in our case has merely been delayed in its -operation, namely the absence of intoxication. - -I knew none of the women who were at Rivebelle and, because they formed -a part of my intoxication just as its reflexions form part of a mirror, -appeared to me now a thousand times more to be desired than the less and -less existent Mlle. Simonet. One of them, young, fair, by herself, with -a sad expression on a face framed in a straw hat trimmed with -field-flowers, gazed at me for a moment with a dreamy air and struck me -as being attractive. Then it was the turn of another, and of a third; -finally of a dark one with glowing cheeks. Almost all of them were -known, if not to myself, to Saint-Loup. - -He had, in fact, before he made the acquaintance of his present -mistress, lived so much in the restricted world of amorous adventure -that all the women who would be dining on these evenings at Rivebelle, -where many of them had appeared quite by chance, having come to the -coast some to join their lovers, others in the hope of finding fresh -lovers there, there was scarcely one that he did not know from having -spent--or if not he, one or other of his friends--at least one night in -their company. He did not bow to them if they were with men, and they, -albeit they looked more at him than at anyone else, for the indifference -which he was known to feel towards every woman who was not his actress -gave him in their eyes an exceptional interest, appeared not to know -him. But you could hear them whispering: "That's young Saint-Loup. It -seems he's still quite gone on that girl of his. Got it bad, he has. -What a dear boy! I think he's just wonderful; and what style! Some girls -do have all the luck, don't they? And he's so nice in every way. I saw a -lot of him when I was with d'Orléans. They were quite inseparable, -those two. He was going the pace, that time. But he's given it all up -now, she can't complain. She's had a good run of luck, that she can say. -And I ask you, what in the world can he see in her? He must be a bit of -a chump, when all's said and done. She's got feet like boats, whiskers -like an American, and her undies are filthy. I can tell you, a little -shop girl would be ashamed to be seen in her knickers. Do just look at -his eyes a moment; you would jump into the fire for a man like that. -Hush, don't say a word; he's seen me; look, he's smiling. Oh, he -remembers me all right. Just you mention my name to him, and see what he -says!" Between these girls and him I surprised a glance of mutual -understanding. I should have liked him to introduce me to them, so that -I might ask them for assignations and they give them to me, even if I -had been unable to keep them. For otherwise their appearance would -remain for all time devoid, in my memory, of that part of itself--just -as though it had been hidden by a veil--which varies in every woman, -which we cannot imagine in any woman until we have actually seen it in -her, and which is apparent only in the glance that she directs at us, -that acquiesces in our desire and promises that it shall be satisfied. -And yet, even when thus reduced, their aspect was for me far more than -that of women whom I should have known to be virtuous, and it seemed to -me not to be, like theirs, flat, with nothing behind it, fashioned in -one piece with no solidity. It was not, of course, for me what it must -be for Saint-Loup who, by an act of memory, beneath the indifference, -transparent to him, of the motionless features which affected not to -know him, or beneath the dull formality of the greeting that might -equally well have been addressed to anyone else, could recall, could -see, through dishevelled locks, a swooning mouth, a pair of half-closed -eyes, a whole silent picture like those that painters, to cheat their -visitors' senses, drape with a decent covering. Undoubtedly, for me who -felt that nothing of my personality had penetrated the surface of this -woman or that, or would be borne by her upon the unknown ways which she -would tread through life, those faces remained sealed. But it was quite -enough to know that they did open, for them to seem to me of a price -which I should not have set on them had they been but precious medals, -instead of lockets within which were hidden memories of love. As for -Robert, scarcely able to keep in his place at table, concealing beneath -a courtier's smile his warrior's thirst for action--when I examined him -I could see how closely the vigorous structure of his triangular face -must have been modelled on that of his ancestors' faces, a face devised -rather for an ardent bowman than for a delicate student. Beneath his -fine skin the bold construction, the feudal architecture were apparent. -His head made one think of those old dungeon keeps on which the disused -battlements are still to be seen, although inside they have been -converted into libraries. - -On our way back to Balbec, of those of the fair strangers to whom he had -introduced me I would repeat to myself without a moment's interruption, -and yet almost unconsciously: "What a delightful woman!" as one chimes -in with the refrain of a song. I admit that these words were prompted -rather by the state of my nerves than by any lasting judgment. It was -nevertheless true that if I had had a thousand francs on me and if there -had still been a jeweller's shop open at that hour, I should have bought -the lady a ring. When the successive hours of our life are thus -displayed against too widely dissimilar backgrounds, we find that we -give away too much of ourselves to all sorts of people who next day will -not interest us in the least. But we feel that we are still responsible -for what we said to them overnight, and that we must honour our -promises. - -As on these evenings I came back later than usual to the hotel, it was -with joy that I recognised, in a room no longer hostile, the bed on -which, on the day of my arrival, I had supposed that it would always be -impossible for me to find any rest, whereas now my weary limbs turned to -it for support; so that, in turn, thighs, hips, shoulders burrowed into, -trying to adhere at every angle to the sheets that covered its mattress, -as if my fatigue, like a sculptor, had wished to take a cast of an -entire human body. But I could not go to sleep; I felt the approach of -morning; peace of mind, health of body were no longer mine. In my -distress it seemed that never should I recapture them. I should have had -to sleep for a long time if I were to overtake them. But then, had I -begun to doze, I must in any event be awakened in a couple of hours by -the symphonic concert on the beach. Suddenly I was asleep, I had fallen -into that deep slumber in which are opened to us a return to childhood, -the recapture of past years, of lost feelings, the disincarnation, the -transmigration of the soul, the evoking of the dead, the illusions of -madness, retrogression towards the most elementary of the natural -kingdoms (for we say that we often see animals in our dreams, but we -forget almost always that we are ourself then an animal deprived of that -reasoning power which projects upon things the light of certainty; we -present on the contrary to the spectacle of life only a dubious vision, -destroyed afresh every moment by oblivion, the former reality fading -before that which follows it as one projection of a magic lantern fades -before the next as we change the slide), all those mysteries which we -imagine ourselves not to know and into which we are in reality initiated -almost every night, as we are into the other great mystery of -annihilation and resurrection. Rendered more vagabond by the difficulty -of digesting my Rivebelle dinner, the successive and flickering -illumination of shadowy zones of my past made of me a being whose -supreme happiness would have been that of meeting Legrandin, with whom I -had just been talking in my dream. - -And then, even my own life was entirely hidden from me by a new setting, -like the "drop" lowered right at the front of the stage before which, -while the scene shifters are busy behind, actors appear in a fresh -"turn". The turn in which I was now cast for a part was in the manner of -an Oriental fairy tale; I retained no knowledge of my past or of myself, -on account of the intense proximity of this interpolated scenery; I was -merely a person who received the bastinado and underwent various -punishments for a crime the nature of which I could not distinguish, -though it was actually that of having taken too much port wine. Suddenly -I awoke and discovered that, thanks to a long sleep, I had not heard a -note of the concert. It was already afternoon; I verified this by my -watch after several efforts to sit up in bed, efforts fruitless at first -and interrupted by backward falls on to my pillow, but those short falls -which are a sequel of sleep as of other forms of intoxication, whether -due to wine or to convalescence; besides, before I had so much as looked -at the time, I was certain that it was past midday. Last night I had -been nothing more than an empty vessel, without weight, and (since I -must first have gone to bed to be able to keep still, and have been -asleep to be able to keep silent) had been unable to refrain from moving -about and talking; I had no longer any stability, any centre of gravity, -I was set in motion and it seemed that I might have continued on my -dreary course until I reached the moon. But if, while I slept, my eyes -had not seen the time, my body had nevertheless contrived to calculate -it; had measured the hours; not on a dial superficially marked and -figured, but by the steadily growing weight of all my replenished forces -which, like a powerful clockwork, it had allowed, notch by notch, to -descend from my brain into the rest of my body in which there had risen -now to above my knees the unbroken abundance of their store. If it is -true that the sea was once upon a time our native element, into which we -must plunge our cooling blood if we are to recover our strength, it is -the same with the oblivion, the mental non-existence of sleep; we seem then to -absent ourselves for a few hours from Time, but the forces which we have -gathered in that interval without expending them, measure it by their -quantity as accurately as the pendulum of the clock or the crumbling -pyramid of the sandglass. Nor does one emerge more easily from such -sleep than from a prolonged spell of wakefulness, so strongly does -everything tend to persist; and if it is true that certain narcotics -make us sleep, to have slept for any time is an even stronger narcotic, -after which we have great difficulty in making ourselves wake up. Like a -sailor who sees plainly the harbour in which he can moor his vessel, -still tossed by the waves, I had a quite definite idea of looking at the -time and of getting up, but my body was at every moment cast back upon -the tide of sleep; the landing was difficult, and before I attained a -position in which I could reach my watch and confront with its time that -indicated by the wealth of accumulated material which my stiffened limbs -had at their disposal, I fell back two or three times more upon my -pillow. - -At length I could reach and read it: "Two o'clock in the afternoon!" I -rang; but at once I returned to a slumber which, this time, must have -lasted infinitely longer, if I was to judge by the refreshment, the -vision of an immense night overpassed, which I found on awakening. And -yet as my awakening was caused by the entry of Françoise, and as her -entry had been prompted by my ringing the bell, this second sleep which, -it seemed to me, must have been longer than the other, and had brought -me so much comfort and forgetfulness, could not have lasted for more -than half a minute. - -My grandmother opened the door of my bedroom; I asked her various -questions about the Legrandin family. - -It is not enough to say that I had returned to tranquillity and health, -for it was more than a mere interval of space that had divided them from -me yesterday, I had had all night long to struggle against a contrary -tide, and now I not only found myself again in their presence, they had -once more entered into me. At certain definite and still somewhat -painful points beneath the surface of my empty head which would one day -be broken, letting my ideas escape for all time, those ideas had once -again taken their proper places and resumed that existence by which -hitherto, alas, they had failed to profit. - -Once again I had escaped from the impossibility of sleeping, from the -deluge, the shipwreck of my nervous storms. I feared now not at all the -menaces that had loomed over me the evening before, when I was -dismantled of repose. A new life was opening before me; without making a -single movement, for I was still shattered, although quite alert and -well, I savoured my weariness with a light heart; it had isolated and -broken asunder the bones of my legs and arms, which I could feel -assembled before me, ready to cleave together, and which I was to raise -to life merely by singing, like the builder in the fable. - -Suddenly I thought of the fair girl with the sad expression whom I had -seen at Rivebelle, where she had looked at me for a moment. Many others, -in the course of the evening, had seemed to me attractive; now she alone -arose from the dark places of my memory. I had felt that she noticed me, -had expected one of the waiters to come to me with a whispered message -from her. Saint-Loup did not know her and fancied that she was -respectable. It would be very difficult to see her, to see her -constantly. But I was prepared to make any sacrifice, I thought now only -of her. Philosophy distinguishes often between free and necessary acts. -Perhaps there is none to the necessity of which we are more completely -subjected than that which, by virtue of an ascending power held in check -during the act itself, makes so unfailingly (once our mind is at rest) -spring up a memory that was levelled with other memories by the -distributed pressure of our indifference, and rush to the surface, -because unknown to us it contained, more than any of the others, a charm -of which we do not become aware until the following day. And perhaps -there is not, either, any act so free, for it is still unprompted by -habit, by that sort of mental hallucination which, when we are in love, -facilitates the invariable reappearance of the image of one particular -person. - -This was the day immediately following that on which I had seen file -past me against a background of sea the beautiful procession of young -girls. I put questions about them to a number of the visitors in the -hotel, people who came almost every year to Balbec. They could tell me -nothing. Later on, a photograph shewed me why. Who could ever recognise -now in them, scarcely and yet quite definitely beyond an age in which -one changes so utterly, that amorphous, delicious mass, still wholly -infantine, of little girls who, only a few years back, might have been -seen sitting in a ring on the sand round a tent; a sort of white and -vague constellation in which one would have distinguished a pair of eyes -that sparkled more than the rest, a mischievous face, flaxen hair, only -to lose them again and to confound them almost at once in the indistinct -and milky nebula. - -No doubt, in those earlier years that were still so recent, it was not, -as it had been yesterday when they appeared for the first time before -me, one's impression of the group, but the group itself that had been -lacking in clearness. Then those children, mere babies, had been still -at that elementary stage in their formation when personality has not set -its seal on every face. Like those primitive organisms in which the -individual barely exists by itself, consists in the reef rather than in -the coral insects that compose it, they were still pressed one against -another. Sometimes one pushed her neighbour over, and then a wild laugh, -which seemed the sole manifestation of their personal life, convulsed -them all at once, obliterating, confounding those indefinite, grinning -faces in the congealment of a single cluster, scintillating and -tremulous. In an old photograph of themselves, which they were one day -to give me, and which I have kept ever since, their infantile troop -already presents the same number of participants as, later, their -feminine procession; one can see from it that their presence must, even -then, have made on the beach an unusual mark which forced itself on the -attention; but one cannot recognise them individually in it save by a -process of reasoning, leaving a clear field to all the transformations -possible during girlhood, up to the point at which one reconstructed -form would begin to encroach upon another individuality, which must be -identified also, and whose handsome face, owing to the accessories of a -large build and curly hair, may quite possibly have been, once, that -wizened and impish little grin which the photograph album presents to -us; and the distance traversed in a short interval of time by the -physical characteristics of each of these girls making of them a -criterion too vague to be of any use, whereas what they had in common -and, so to speak, collectively, had at that early date been strongly -marked, it sometimes happened that even their most intimate friends -mistook one for another in this photograph, so much so that the question -could in the last resort be settled only by some detail of costume which -one of them could be certain that she herself, and not any of the -others, had worn. Since those days, so different from the day on which I -had just seen them strolling along the "front", so different and yet so -close in time, they still gave way to fits of laughter, as I had -observed that afternoon, but to laughter of a kind that was no longer -the intermittent and almost automatic laughter of childhood, a spasmodic -discharge which, in those days, had continually sent their heads dipping -out of the circle, as the clusters of minnows in the Vivonne used to -scatter and vanish only to gather again a moment later; each countenance -was now mistress of itself, their eyes were fixed on the goal towards -which they were marching; and it had taken, yesterday, the indecision -and tremulousness of my first impression to make me confuse vaguely (as -their childish hilarity and the old photograph had confused) the spores -now individualised and disjoined of the pale madrepore. - -Repeatedly, I dare say, when pretty girls went by, I had promised myself -that I would see them again. As a rule, people do not appear a second -time; moreover our memory, which speedily forgets their existence, would -find it difficult to recall their appearance; our eyes would not -recognise them, perhaps, and in the mean time we have seen new girls go -by, whom we shall not see again either. But at other times, and this was -what was to happen with the pert little band at Balbec, chance brings -them back insistently before our eyes. Chance seems to us then a good -and useful thing, for we discern in it as it were rudiments of -organisation, of an attempt to arrange our life; and it makes easy to -us, inevitable, and sometimes--after interruptions that have made us -hope that we may cease to remember--cruel, the retention in our minds of -images to the possession of which we shall come in time to believe that -we were predestined, and which but for chance we should from the very -first have managed to forget, like so many others, with so little -difficulty. - -Presently Saint-Loup's visit drew to an end. I had not seen that party -of girls again on the beach. He was too little at Balbec in the -afternoons to have time to bother about them, or to attempt, in my -interest, to make their acquaintance. In the evenings he was more free, -and continued to take me constantly to Rivebelle. There are, in those -restaurants, as there are in public gardens and railway trains, people -embodied in a quite ordinary appearance, whose name astonishes us when, -having happened to ask it, we discover that this is not the mere -inoffensive stranger whom we supposed but nothing less than the Minister -or Duke of whom we have so often heard. Two or three times already, in -the Rivebelle restaurant, we had--Saint-Loup and I--seen come in and sit -down at a table when everyone else was getting ready to go, a man of -large stature, very muscular, with regular features and a grizzled -beard, gazing, with concentrated attention, into the empty air. One -evening, on our asking the landlord who was this obscure, solitary and -belated diner, "What!" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say you don't know -the famous painter Elstir?" Swann had once mentioned his name to me, I -had entirely forgotten in what connexion; but the omission of a -particular memory, like that of part of a sentence when we are reading, -leads sometimes not to uncertainty but to a birth of certainty that is -premature. "He is a friend of Swann, a very well known artist, extremely -good," I told Saint-Loup. Whereupon there passed over us both, like a -wave of emotion, the thought that Elstir was a great artist, a -celebrated man, and that, confounding us with the rest of the diners, he -had no suspicion of the ecstasy into which we were thrown by the idea of -his talent. Doubtless, his unconsciousness of our admiration and of our -acquaintance with Swann would not have troubled us had we not been at -the seaside. But since we were still at an age when enthusiasm cannot -keep silence, and had been transported into a life in which not to be -known is unendurable, we wrote a letter, signed with both our names, in -which we revealed to Elstir in the two diners seated within a few feet -of him two passionate admirers of his talent, two friends of his great -friend Swann, and asked to be allowed to pay our homage to him in -person. A waiter undertook to convey this missive to the celebrity. - -A celebrity Elstir was, perhaps, not yet at this period quite to the -extent claimed by the landlord, though he was to reach the height of his -fame within a very few years. But he had been one of the first to -frequent this restaurant when it was still only a sort of farmhouse, and -had brought to it a whole colony of artists (who had all, as it -happened, migrated elsewhere as soon as the farm-yard in which they used -to feed in the open air, under a lean-to roof, had become a fashionable -centre); Elstir himself had returned to Rivebelle this evening only on -account of a temporary absence of his wife, from the house which he had -taken in the neighbourhood. But great talent, even when its existence is -not yet recognised, will inevitably provoke certain phenomena of -admiration, such as the landlord had managed to detect in the questions -asked by more than one English lady visitor, athirst for information as -to the life led by Elstir, or in the number of letters that he received -from abroad. Then the landlord had further remarked that Elstir did not -like to be disturbed when he was working, that he would rise in the -middle of the night and take a little model down to the water's edge to -pose for him, nude, if the moon was shining; and had told himself that -so much labour was not in vain, nor the admiration of the tourists -unjustified when he had, in one of Elstir's pictures, recognised a -wooden cross which stood by the roadside as you came into Rivebelle. - -"It's all right!" he would repeat with stupefaction, "there are all the -four beams! Oh, he does take a lot of trouble!" - -And he did not know whether a little _Sunrise over the Sea_ which Elstir -had given him might not be worth a fortune. - -We watched him read our letter, put it in his pocket, finish his dinner, -begin to ask for his things, get up to go; and we were so convinced that -we had shocked him by our overture that we would now have hoped (as -keenly as at first we had dreaded) to make our escape without his -noticing us. We did not bear in mind for a single instant a -consideration which should, nevertheless, have seemed to us most -important, namely that our enthusiasm for Elstir, on the sincerity of -which we should not have allowed the least doubt to be cast, which we -could indeed have supported with the evidence of our breathing arrested -by expectancy, our desire to do no matter what that was difficult or -heroic for the great man, was not, as we imagined it to be, admiration, -since neither of us had ever seen anything that he had painted; our -feeling might have as its object the hollow idea of a "great artist", -but not a body of work which was unknown to us. It was, at the most, -admiration in the abstract, the nervous envelope, the sentimental -structure of an admiration without content, that is to say a thing as -indissolubly attached to boyhood as are certain organs which have ceased -to exist in the adult man; we were still boys. Elstir meanwhile was -reaching the door when suddenly he turned and came towards us. I was -transported by a delicious thrill of terror such as I could not have -felt a few years later, because, while age diminishes our capacity, -familiarity with the world has meanwhile destroyed in us any inclination -to provoke such strange encounters, to feel that kind of emotion. - -In the course of the few words that Elstir had come back to say to us, -sitting down at our table, he never gave any answer on the several -occasions on which I spoke to him of Swann. I began to think that he did -not know him. He asked me, nevertheless, to come and see him at his -Balbec studio, an invitation which he did not extend to Saint-Loup, and -which I had earned (as I might not, perhaps, from Swann's -recommendation, had Elstir been intimate with him, for the part played -by disinterested motives is greater than we are inclined to think in -peopled lives) by a few words which made him think that I was devoted to -the arts. He lavished on me a friendliness which was as far above that -of Saint-Loup as that was above the affability of a mere tradesman. -Compared with that of a great artist, the friendliness of a great -gentleman, charming as it may be, has the effect of an actor's playing a -part, of being feigned. Saint-Loup sought to please; Elstir loved to -give, to give himself. Everything that he possessed, ideas, work, and -the rest which he counted for far less, he would have given gladly to -anyone who could understand him. But, failing society that was -endurable, he lived in an isolation, with a savagery which fashionable -people called pose and ill breeding, public authorities a recalcitrant -spirit, his neighbours madness, his family selfishness and pride. - -And no doubt at first he had thought, even in his solitude, with -enjoyment that, thanks to his work, he was addressing, in spite of -distance, he was giving a loftier idea of himself to those who had -misunderstood or hurt him. Perhaps, in those days, he lived alone not -from indifference but from love of his fellows, and, just as I had -renounced Gilberte to appear to her again one day in more attractive -colours, dedicated his work to certain people as a way of approaching -them again, by which without actually seeing him they would be made to -love him, admire him, talk about him; a renunciation is not always -complete from the start, when we decide upon it in our original frame of -mind and before it has reacted upon us, whether it be the renunciation -of an invalid, a monk, an artist or a hero. But if he had wished to -produce with certain people in his mind, in producing he had lived for -himself, remote from the society to which he had become indifferent; the -practice of solitude had given him a love for it, as happens with every -big thing which we have begun by fearing, because we knew it to be -incompatible with smaller things to which we clung, and of which it does -not so much deprive us as it detaches us from them. Before we experience -it, our whole preoccupation is to know to what extent we can reconcile -it with certain pleasures which cease to be pleasures as soon as we have -experienced it. - -Elstir did not stay long talking to us. I made up my mind that I would -go to his studio during the next few days, but on the following -afternoon, when I had accompanied my grandmother right to the point at -which the "front" ended, near the cliffs of Canapville, on our way back, -at the foot of one of the little streets which ran down at right angles -to the beach, we came upon a girl who, with lowered head like an animal -that is being driven reluctant to its stall, and carrying golf-clubs, -was walking in front of a person in authority, in all probability her or -her friends' "Miss", who suggested a portrait of Jeffreys by Hogarth, -with a face as red as if her favourite beverage were gin rather than -tea, on which a dried smear of tobacco at the corner of her mouth -prolonged the curve of a moustache that was grizzled but abundant. The -girl who preceded her was like that one of the little band who, beneath -a black polo-cap, had shewn in an inexpressive chubby face a pair of -laughing eyes. Now, the girl who was now passing me had also a black -polo-cap, but she struck me as being even prettier than the other, the -line of her nose was straighter, the curve of nostril at its base fuller -and more fleshy. Besides, the other had seemed a proud, pale girl, this -one a child well-disciplined and of rosy complexion. And yet, as she was -pushing a bicycle just like the other's, and was wearing the same -reindeer gloves, I concluded that the differences arose perhaps from the -angle and circumstances in which I now saw her, for it was hardly likely -that there could be at Balbec a second girl, with a face that, when all -was said, was so similar and with the same details in her accoutrements. -She cast a rapid glance in my direction; for the next few days, when I -saw the little band again on the beach, and indeed long afterwards when -I knew all the girls who composed it, I could never be absolutely -certain that any of them--even she who among them all was most like her, -the girl with the bicycle--was indeed the one that I had seen that -evening at the end of the "front", where a street ran down to the beach, -a girl who differed hardly at all, but was still just perceptibly -different from her whom I had noticed in the procession. - -From that moment, whereas for the last few days my mind had been -occupied chiefly by the tall one, it was the one with the golf-clubs, -presumed to be Mlle. Simonet, who began once more to absorb my -attention. When walking with the others she would often stop, forcing -her friends, who seemed greatly to respect her, to stop also. Thus it -is, calling a halt, her eyes sparkling beneath her polo-cap, that I see -her again to-day, outlined against the screen which the sea spreads out -behind her, and separated from me by a transparent, azure space, the -interval of time that has elapsed since then, a first impression, faint -and fine in my memory, desired, pursued, then forgotten, then found -again, of a face which I have many times since projected upon the cloud -of the past to be able to say to myself, of a girl who was actually in -my room: "It is she!" - -But it was perhaps yet another, the one with geranium cheeks and green -eyes, whom I should have liked most to know. And yet, whichever of them -it might be, on any given day, that I preferred to see, the others, -without her, were sufficient to excite my desire which, concentrated now -chiefly on one, now on another, continued--as, on the first day, my -confused vision--to combine and blend them, to make of them the little -world apart, animated by a life in common, which for that matter they -doubtless imagined themselves to form; and I should have penetrated, in -becoming a friend of one of them--like a cultivated pagan or a -meticulous Christian going among barbarians--into a rejuvenating society -in which reigned health, unconsciousness of others, sensual pleasures, -cruelty, unintellectuality and joy. - -My grandmother, who had been told of my meeting with Elstir, and -rejoiced at the thought of all the intellectual profit that I might -derive from his friendship, considered it absurd and none too polite of -me not to have gone yet to pay him a visit. But I could think only of -the little band, and being uncertain of the hour at which the girls -would be passing along the front, I dared not absent myself. My -grandmother was astonished, too, at the smartness of my attire, for I -had suddenly remembered suits which had been lying all this time at the -bottom of my trunk. I put on a different one every day, and had even -written to Paris ordering new hats and neckties. - -It adds a great charm to life in a watering-place like Balbec if the -face of a pretty girl, a vendor of shells, cakes or flowers, painted in -vivid colours in our mind, is regularly, from early morning, the purpose -of each of those leisured, luminous days which we spend upon the beach. -They become then, and for that reason, albeit unoccupied by any -business, as alert as working-days, pointed, magnetised, raised slightly -to meet an approaching moment, that in which, while we purchase -sand-cakes, roses, ammonites, we will delight in seeing upon a feminine -face its colours displayed as purely as on a flower. But at least, with -these little traffickers, first of all we can speak to them, which saves -us from having to construct with our imagination their aspects other -than those with which the mere visual perception of them furnishes us, -and to recreate their life, magnifying its charm, as when we stand -before a portrait; moreover, just because we speak to them, we can learn -where and at what time it will be possible to see them again. Now I had -none of these advantages with respect to the little band. Their habits -were unknown to me; when on certain days I failed to catch a glimpse of -them, not knowing the cause of their absence I sought to discover -whether it was something fixed and regular, if they were to be seen only -every other day, or in certain states of the weather, or if there were -days on which no one ever saw them. I imagined myself already friends -with them, and saying: "But you weren't there the other day?" "Weren't -we? Oh, no, of course not; that was because it was a Saturday. On -Saturdays we don't ever come, because . . ." If it were only as simple -as that, to know that on black Saturday it was useless to torment -oneself, that one might range the beach from end to end, sit down -outside the pastry-cook's and pretend to be nibbling an eclair, poke -into the curiosity shop, wait for bathing time, the concert, high tide, -sunset, night, all without seeing the longed-for little band. But the -fatal day did not, perhaps, come once a week. It did not, perhaps, of -necessity fall on Saturdays. Perhaps certain atmospheric conditions -influenced it or were entirely unconnected with it. How many -observations, patient but not at all serene, must one accumulate of the -movements, to all appearance irregular, of those unknown worlds before -being able to be sure that one has not allowed oneself to be led astray -by mere coincidence, that one's forecasts will not be proved wrong, -before one elucidates the certain laws, acquired at the cost of so much -painful experience, of that passionate astronomy. Remembering that I had -not yet seen them on some particular day of the week, I assured myself -that they would not be coming, that it was useless to wait any longer on -the beach. And at that very moment I caught sight of them. And yet on -another day which, so far as I could suppose that there were laws that -guided the return of those constellations, must, I had calculated, prove -an auspicious day, they did not come. But to this primary uncertainty -whether I should see them or not that day, there was added another, more -disquieting: whether I should ever set eyes on them again, for I had no -reason, after all, to know that they were not about to sail for America, -or to return to Paris. This was enough to make me begin to love them. -One can feel an attraction towards a particular person. But to release -that fount of sorrow, that sense of the irreparable, those agonies which -prepare the way for love, there must be--and this is, perhaps, more than -any person can be, the actual object which our passion seeks so -anxiously to embrace--the risk of an impossibility. Thus there were -acting upon me already those influences which recur in the course of our -successive love-affairs, which can, for that matter, be provoked, (but -then rather in the life of cities) by the thought of little working -girls whose half-holiday is we know not on what day, and whom we are -afraid of having missed as they came out of the factory; or which at -least have recurred in mine. Perhaps they are inseparable from love; -perhaps everything that formed a distinctive feature of our first love -attaches itself to those that come after, by recollection, suggestion, -habit, and through the successive periods of our life gives to its -different aspects a general character. - -I seized every pretext for going down to the beach at the hours when I -hoped to succeed in finding them there. Having caught sight of them once -while we were at luncheon, I now invariably came in late for it, waiting -interminably upon the "front" for them to pass; devoting all the short -time that I did spend in the dining-room to interrogating with my eyes -its azure wall of glass; rising long before the dessert, so as not to -miss them should they have gone out at a different hour, and chafing -with irritation at my grandmother, when, with unwitting malevolence, she -made me stay with her past the hour that seemed to me propitious. I -tried to prolong the horizon by setting my chair aslant; if, by chance, -I did catch sight of no matter which of the girls, since they all -partook of the same special essence, it was as if I had seen projected -before my face in a shifting, diabolical hallucination, a little of the -unfriendly and yet passionately coveted dream which, but a moment ago, -had existed only--where it lay stagnant for all time--in my brain. - -I was in love with none of them, loving them all, and yet the -possibility of meeting them was in my daily life the sole element of -delight, alone made to burgeon in me those high hopes by which every -obstacle is surmounted, hopes ending often in fury if I had not seen -them. For the moment, these girls eclipsed my grandmother in my -affection; the longest journey would at once have seemed attractive to -me had it been to a place in which they might be found. It was to them -that my thoughts comfortably clung when I supposed myself to be thinking -of something else or of nothing. But when, even without knowing it, I -thought of them, they, more unconsciously still, were for me the -mountainous blue undulations of the sea, a troop seen passing in outline -against the waves. Our most intensive love for a person is always the -love, really, of something else as well. - -Meanwhile my grandmother was shewing, because now I was keenly -interested in golf and lawn-tennis and was letting slip an opportunity -of seeing at work and hearing talk an artist whom she knew to be one of -the greatest of his time, a disapproval which seemed to me to be based -on somewhat narrow views. I had guessed long ago in the Champs-Elysées, -and had since established to my own satisfaction, that when we are in -love with a woman we simply project into her a state of our own soul, -that the important thing is, therefore, not the worth of the woman but -the depth of the state; and that the emotions which a young girl of no -kind of distinction arouses in us can enable us to bring to the surface -of our consciousness some of the most intimate parts of our being, more -personal, more remote, more essential than would be reached by the -pleasure that we derive from the conversation of a great man or even -from the admiring contemplation of his work. - -I was to end by complying with my grandmother's wishes, all the more -reluctantly in that Elstir lived at some distance from the "front" in -one of the newest of Balbec's avenues. The heat of the day obliged me to -take the tramway which passed along the Rue de la Plage, and I made an -effort (so as still to believe that I was in the ancient realm of the -Cimmerians, in the country it might be, of King Mark, or upon the site -of the Forest of Broceliande) not to see the gimcrack splendour of the -buildings that extended on either hand, among which Elstir's villa was -perhaps the most sumptuously hideous, in spite of which he had taken it, -because, of all that there were to be had at Balbec, it was the only one -that provided him with a really big studio. - -It was also with averted eyes that I crossed the garden, which had a -lawn--in miniature, like any little suburban villa round Paris--a -statuette of an amorous gardener, glass balls in which one saw one's -distorted reflexion, beds of begonias and a little arbour, beneath which -rocking chairs were drawn up round an iron table. But after all these -preliminaries hall-marked with philistine ugliness, I took no notice of -the chocolate mouldings on the plinths once I was in the studio; I felt -perfectly happy, for, with the help of all the sketches and studies that -surrounded me, I foresaw the possibility of raising myself to a poetical -understanding, rich in delights, of many forms which I had not, -hitherto, isolated from the general spectacle of reality. And Elstir's -studio appeared to me as the laboratory of a sort of new creation of the -world in which, from the chaos that is all the things we see, he had -extracted, by painting them on various rectangles of canvas that were -hung everywhere about the room, here a wave of the sea crushing angrily -on the sand its lilac foam, there a young man in a suit of white linen, -leaning upon the rail of a vessel. His jacket and the spattering wave -had acquired fresh dignity from the fact that they continued to exist, -even although they were deprived of those qualities in which they might -be supposed to consist, the wave being no longer able to splash nor the -jacket to clothe anyone. - -At the moment at which I entered, the creator was just finishing, with -the brush which he had in his hand, the form of the sun at its setting. - -The shutters were closed almost everywhere round the studio, which was -fairly cool and, except in one place where daylight laid against the -wall its brilliant but fleeting decoration, dark; there was open only -one little rectangular window embowered in honeysuckle, which, over a -strip of garden, gave on an avenue; so that the atmosphere of the -greater part of the studio was dusky, transparent and compact in the -mass, but liquid and sparkling at the rifts where the golden clasp of -sunlight banded it, like a lump of rock crystal of which one surface, -already cut and polished, here and there, gleams like a mirror with -iridescent rays. While Elstir, at my request, went on painting, I -wandered about in the half-light, stopping to examine first one picture, -then another. - -Most of those that covered the walls were not what I should chiefly have -liked to see of his work, paintings in what an English art journal which -lay about on the reading-room table in the Grand Hotel called his first -and second manners, the mythological manner and the manner in which he -shewed signs of Japanese influence, both admirably exemplified, the -article said, in the collection of Mme. de Guermantes. Naturally enough, -what he had in his studio were almost all seascapes done here, at -Balbec. But I was able to discern from these that the charm of each of -them lay in a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented in it, -analogous to what in poetry we call metaphor, and that, if God the -Father had created things by naming them, it was by taking away their -names or giving them other names that Elstir created them anew. The -names which denote things correspond invariably to an intellectual -notion, alien to our true impressions, and compelling us to eliminate -from them everything that is not in keeping with itself. - -Sometimes in my window in the hotel at Balbec, in the morning when -Françoise undid the fastenings of the curtains that shut out the light, -in the evening when I was waiting until it should be time to go out with -Saint-Loup, I had been led by some effect of sunlight to mistake what -was only a darker stretch of sea for a distant coast-line, or to gaze at -a belt of liquid azure without knowing whether it belonged to sea or -sky. But presently my reason would re-establish between the elements -that distinction which in my first impression I had overlooked. In the -same way I used, in Paris, in my bedroom, to hear a dispute, almost a -riot, in the street below, until I had referred back to its cause--a -carriage for instance that was rattling towards me--this noise, from -which I now eliminated the shrill and discordant vociferations which my -ear had really heard but which my reason knew that wheels did not -produce. But the rare moments in which we see nature as she is, with -poetic vision, it was from those that Elstir's work was taken. One of -his metaphors that occurred most commonly in the seascapes which he had -round him was precisely that which, comparing land with sea, suppressed -every line of demarcation between them. It was this comparison, tacitly -and untiringly repeated on a single canvas, which gave it that multiform -and powerful unity, the cause (not always clearly perceived by -themselves) of the enthusiasm which Elstir's work aroused in certain -collectors. - -It was, for instance, for a metaphor of this sort--in a picture of the -harbour of Carquethuit, a picture which he had finished a few days -earlier and at which I now stood gazing my fill--that Elstir had -prepared the mind of the spectator by employing, for the little town, -only marine terms, and urban terms for the sea. Whether its houses -concealed a part of the harbour, a dry dock, or perhaps the sea itself -came cranking in among the land, as constantly happened on the Balbec -coast, on the other side of the promontory on which the town was built -the roofs were overtopped (as it had been by mill-chimneys or -church-steeples) by masts which had the effect of making the vessels to -which they belonged appear town-bred, built on land, an impression which -was strengthened by the sight of other boats, moored along the jetty but -in such serried ranks that you could see men talking across from one -deck to another without being able to distinguish the dividing line, the -chink of water between them, so that this fishing fleet seemed less to -belong to the water than, for instance, the churches of Criquebec which, -in the far distance, surrounded by water on every side because you saw -them without seeing the town, in a powdery haze of sunlight and -crumbling waves, seemed to be emerging from the waters, blown in -alabaster or in sea-foam, and, enclosed in the band of a particoloured -rainbow, to form an unreal, a mystical picture. On the beach in the -foreground the painter had arranged that the eye should discover no -fixed boundary, no absolute line of demarcation between earth and ocean. -The men who were pushing down their boats into the sea were running as -much through the waves as along the sand, which, being wet, reflected -their hulls as if they were already in the water. The sea itself did not -come up in an even line but followed the irregularities of the shore, -which the perspective of the picture increased still further, so that a -ship actually at sea, half-hidden by the projecting works of the -arsenal, seemed to be sailing across the middle of the town; women who -were gathering shrimps among the rocks had the appearance, because they -were surrounded by water and because of the depression which, after the -ringlike barrier of rocks, brought the beach (on the side nearest the -land) down to sea-level, of being in a marine grotto overhung by ships -and waves, open yet unharmed in the path of a miraculously averted tide. -If the whole picture gave this impression of harbours in which the sea -entered into the land, in which the land was already subaqueous and the -population amphibian, the strength of the marine element was everywhere -apparent; and round about the rocks, at the mouth of the harbour, where -the sea was rough, you felt from the muscular efforts of the fishermen -and the obliquity of the boats leaning over at an acute angle, compared -with the calm erectness of the warehouse on the harbour, the church, the -houses of the town to which some of the figures were returning while -others were coming out to fish, that they were riding bareback on the -water, as it might be a swift and fiery animal whose rearing, but for -their skill, must have unseated them. A party of holiday makers were -putting gaily out to sea in a boat that tossed like a jaunting-car on a -rough road; their boatman, blithe but attentive, also, to what he was -doing, trimmed the bellying sail, every one kept in his place, so that -the weight should not be all on one side of the boat, which might -capsize, and so they went racing over sunlit fields into shadowy places, -dashing down into the troughs of waves. It was a fine morning in spite -of the recent storm. Indeed, one could still feel the powerful -activities that must first be neutralised in order to attain the easy -balance of the boats that lay motionless, enjoying sunshine and breeze, -in parts where the sea was so calm that its reflexions had almost more -solidity and reality than the floating hulls, vaporised by an effect of -the sunlight, parts which the perspective of the picture dovetailed in -among others. Or rather you would not have called them other parts of -the sea. For between those parts there was as much difference as there -was between one of them and the church rising from the water, or the -ships behind the town. Your reason then set to work and made a single -element of what was here black beneath a gathering storm, a little -farther all of one colour with the sky and as brightly burnished, and -elsewhere so bleached by sunshine, haze and foam, so compact, so -terrestrial, so circumscribed with houses that you thought of some white -stone causeway or of a field of snow, up the surface of which it was -quite frightening to see a ship go climbing high and dry, as a carriage -climbs dripping from a ford, but which a moment later, when you saw on -the raised and broken surface of the solid plain boats drunkenly -heaving, you understood, identical in all these different aspects, to be -still the sea. - -Although we are justified in saying that there can be no progress, no -discovery in art, but only in the sciences, and that the artist who -begins afresh upon his own account an individual effort cannot be either -helped or hindered by the efforts of all the others, we must -nevertheless admit that, in so far as art brings into prominence certain -laws, once an industry has taken those laws and vulgarised them, the art -that was first in the field loses, in retrospect, a little of its -originality. Since Elstir began to paint, we have grown familiar with -what are called "admirable" photographs of scenery and towns. If we -press for a definition of what their admirers mean by the epithet, we -shall find that it is generally applied to some unusual picture of a -familiar object, a picture different from those that we are accustomed -to see, unusual and yet true to nature, and for that reason doubly -impressive to us because it startles us, makes us emerge from our habits -and at the same time brings us back to ourselves by recalling to us an -earlier impression. For instance, one of these "magnificent" photographs -will illustrate a law of perspective, will shew us some cathedral which -we are accustomed to see in the middle of a town, taken instead from a -selected point of view from which it will appear to be thirty times the -height of the houses and to be thrusting a spur out from the bank of the -river, from which it is actually a long way off. Now the effort made by -Elstir to reproduce things not as he knew them to be but according to -the optical illusions of which our first sight of them is composed, had -led him exactly to this point; he gave special emphasis to certain of -these laws of perspective, which were thus all the more striking, since -his art had been their first interpreter. A river, because of the -windings of its course, a bay because of the apparent contact of the -cliffs on either side of it, would look as though there had been -hollowed out in the heart of the plain or of the mountains a lake -absolutely landlocked on every side. In a picture of a view from Balbec -painted upon a scorching day in summer an inlet of the sea appeared to -be enclosed in walls of pink granite, not to be the sea, which began -farther out. The continuity of the ocean was suggested only by the gulls -which, wheeling over what, when one looked at the picture, seemed to be -solid rock, were as a matter of fact inhaling the moist vapour of the -shifting tide. Other laws were discernible in the same canvas, as, at -the foot of immense cliffs, the lilliputian grace of white sails on the -blue mirror on whose surface they looked like butterflies asleep, and -certain contrasts between the depth of the shadows and the pallidity of -the light. This play of light and shade, which also photography has -rendered common-place, had interested Elstir so much that at one time he -had painted what were almost mirages, in which a castle crowned with a -tower appeared as a perfect circle of castle prolonged by a tower at its -summit, and at its foot by an inverted tower, whether because the -exceptional purity of the atmosphere on a fine day gave the shadow -reflected in the water the hardness and brightness of the stone, or -because the morning mists rendered the stone as vaporous as the shadow. -And similarly, beyond the sea, behind a line of woods, began another sea -roseate with the light of the setting sun, which was, in fact, the sky. -The light, as it were precipitating new solids, thrust back the hull of -the boat on which it fell behind the other hull that was still in -shadow, and rearranged like the steps of a crystal staircase what was -materially a plane surface, but was broken up by the play of light and -shade upon the morning sea. A river running beneath the bridges of a -town was caught from a certain point of view so that it appeared -entirely dislocated, now broadened into a lake, now narrowed into a -rivulet, broken elsewhere by the interruption of a hill crowned with -trees among which the burgher would repair at evening to taste the -refreshing breeze; and the rhythm of this disintegrated town was assured -only by the inflexible uprightness of the steeples which did not rise -but rather, following the plumb line of the pendulum marking its cadence -as in a triumphal march, seemed to hold in suspense beneath them all the -confused mass of houses that rose vaguely in the mist along the banks of -the crushed, disjointed stream. And (since Elstir's earliest work -belonged to the time in which a painter would make his landscape -attractive by inserting a human figure), on the cliff's edge or among -the mountains, the road, that half human part of nature, underwent, like -river or ocean, the eclipses of perspective. And whether a sheer wall of -mountain, or the mist blown from a torrent, or the sea prevented the eye -from following the continuity of the path, visible to the traveller but -not to us, the little human personage in old-fashioned attire seemed -often to be stopped short on the edge of an abyss, the path which he had -been following ending there, while, a thousand feet above him in those -pine-forests, it was with a melting eye and comforted heart that we saw -reappear the threadlike whiteness of its dusty surface, hospitable to -the wayfaring foot, whereas from us the side of the mountain had hidden, -where it turned to avoid waterfall or gully, the intervening bends. - -The effort made by Elstir to strip himself, when face to face with -reality, of every intellectual concept, was all the more admirable in -that this man who, before sitting down to paint, made himself -deliberately ignorant, forgot, in his honesty of purpose, everything -that he knew, since what one knows ceases to exist by itself, had in -reality an exceptionally cultivated mind. When I confessed to him the -disappointment that I had felt upon seeing the porch at Balbec: "What!" -he had exclaimed, "you were disappointed by the porch! Why, it's the -finest illustrated Bible that the people have ever had. That Virgin, and -all the bas-reliefs telling the story of her life, they are the most -loving, the most inspired expression of that endless poem of adoration -and praise in which the middle ages extolled the glory of the Madonna. -If you only knew, side by side with the most scrupulous accuracy in -rendering the sacred text, what exquisite ideas the old carver had, what -profound thoughts, what delicious poetry! - -"A wonderful idea, that great sheet in which the angels are carrying the -body of the Virgin, too sacred for them to venture to touch it with -their hands"; (I mentioned to him that this theme had been treated also -at Saint-André-des-Champs; he had seen photographs of the porch there, -and agreed, but pointed out that the bustling activity of those little -peasant figures, all hurrying at once towards the Virgin, was not the -same thing as the gravity of those two great angels, almost Italian, so -springing, so gentle) "the angel who is carrying the Virgin's soul, to -reunite it with her body; in the meeting of the Virgin with Elizabeth, -Elizabeth's gesture when she touches the Virgin's Womb and marvels to -feel that it is great with child; and the bandaged arm of the midwife -who had refused, unless she touched, to believe the Immaculate -Conception; and the linen cloth thrown by the Virgin to Saint Thomas to -give him a proof of the Resurrection; that veil, too, which the Virgin -tears from her own bosom to cover the nakedness of her Son, from Whose -Side the Church receives in a chalice the Wine of the Sacrament, while, -on His other side the Synagogue, whose kingdom is at an end, has its -eyes bandaged, holds a half-broken sceptre and lets fall, with the crown -that is slipping from its head, the tables of the old law; and the -husband who, on the Day of Judgment, as he helps his young wife to rise -from her grave, lays her hand against his own heart to reassure her, to -prove to her that it is indeed beating, is that such a trumpery idea, do -you think, so stale and common-place? And the angel who is taking away -the sun and the moon, henceforth useless, since it is written that the -Light of the Cross shall be seven times brighter than the light of the -firmament; and the one who is dipping his hand in the water of the -Child's bath, to see whether it is warm enough; and the one emerging -from the clouds to place the crown upon the Virgin's brow, and all the -angels who are leaning from the vault of heaven, between the balusters -of the New Jerusalem, and throwing up their arms with terror or joy at -the sight of the torments of the wicked or the bliss of the elect! For -it is all the circles of heaven, a whole gigantic poem full of theology -and symbolism that you have before you there. It is fantastic, mad, -divine, a thousand times better than anything you will see in Italy, -where for that matter this very tympanum has been carefully copied by -sculptors with far less genius. There never was a time when genius was -universal; that is all nonsense; it would be going beyond the age of -gold. The fellow who carved that front, you may make up your mind that -he was every bit as great, that he had just as profound ideas as the men -you admire most at the present day. I could shew you what I mean if we -went there together. There are certain passages from the Office of the -Assumption which have been rendered with a subtilty of expression that -Redon himself has never equalled." - -This vast celestial vision of which he spoke to me, this gigantic -theological poem which, I understood, had been inscribed there in stone, -yet when my eyes, big with desire, had opened to gaze upon the front of -Balbec church, it was not these things that I had seen. I spoke to him -of those great statues of saints, which, mounted on scaffolds, formed a -sort of avenue on either side. - -"It starts from the mists of antiquity to end in Jesus Christ," he -explained. "You see on one side His ancestors after the spirit, on the -other the Kings of Judah, His ancestors after the flesh. All the ages -are there. And if you had looked more closely at what you took for -scaffolds you would have been able to give names to the figures standing -on them. At the feet of Moses you would have recognised the calf of -gold, at Abraham's the ram and at Joseph's the demon counselling -Potiphar's wife." - -I told him also that I had gone there expecting to find an almost -Persian building, and that this had doubtless been one of the chief -factors in my disappointment. "Indeed, no," he assured me, "it is -perfectly true. Some parts of it are quite oriental; one of the capitals -reproduces so exactly a Persian subject that you cannot account for it -by the persistence of Oriental traditions. The carver must have copied -some casket brought from the East by explorers." And he did indeed shew -me, later on, the photograph of a capital on which I saw dragons that -were almost Chinese devouring one another, but at Balbec this little -piece of carving had passed unnoticed by me in the general effect of the -building which did not conform to the pattern traced in my mind by the -words, "an almost Persian church". - -The intellectual pleasures which I enjoyed in this studio did not in the -least prevent me from feeling, although they enveloped us as it were in -spite of ourselves, the warm polish, the sparkling gloom of the place -itself and, through the little window framed in honeysuckle, in the -avenue that was quite rustic, the resisting dryness of the sun-parched -earth, screened only by the diaphanous gauze woven of distance and of a -tree-cast shade. Perhaps the unaccountable feeling of comfort which this -summer day was giving me came like a tributary to swell the flood of joy -that had surged in me at the sight of Elstir's _Carquethuit Harbour._ - -I had supposed Elstir to be a modest man, but I realised my mistake on -seeing his face cloud with melancholy when, in a little speech of -thanks, I uttered the word "fame". Men who believe that their work will -last--as was the case with Elstir--form the habit of placing that work -in a period when they themselves will have crumbled into dust. And thus, -by obliging them to reflect on their own extinction, the thought of fame -saddens them because it is inseparable from the thought of death. I -changed the conversation in the hope of driving away the cloud of -ambitious melancholy with which unwittingly I had loaded Elstir's brow. -"Some one advised me once," I began, thinking of the conversation we had -had with Legrandin at Combray, as to which I was glad of an opportunity -of learning Elstir's views, "not to visit Brittany, because it would not -be wholesome for a mind with a natural tendency to dream." "Not at all;" -he replied. "When the mind has a tendency to dream, it is a mistake to -keep dreams away from it, to ration its dreams. So long as you distract -your mind from its dreams, it will not know them for what they are; you -will always be being taken in by the appearance of things, because you -will not have grasped their true nature. If a little dreaming is -dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to -dream all the time. One must have a thorough understanding of one's -dreams if one is not to be troubled by them; there is a way of -separating one's dreams from one's life which so often produces good -results that I ask myself whether one ought not, at all costs, to try -it, simply as a preventive, just as certain surgeons make out that we -ought, to avoid the risk of appendicitis later on, to have all our -appendices taken out when we are children." - -Elstir and I had meanwhile been walking about the studio, and had -reached the window that looked across the garden on to a narrow avenue, -a side-street that was almost a country lane. We had gone there to -breathe the cooler air of the late afternoon. I supposed myself to be -nowhere near the girls of the little band, and it was only by -sacrificing for once the hope of seeing them that I had yielded to my -grandmother's prayers and had gone to see Elstir. For where the thing is -to be found that we are seeking we never know, and often we steadily, -for a long time, avoid the place to which, for quite different reasons, -everyone has been asking us to go. But we never suspect that we shall -there see the very person of whom we are thinking. I looked out vaguely -over the country road which, outside the studio, passed quite close to -it but did not belong to Elstir. Suddenly there appeared on it, coming -along it at a rapid pace, the young bicyclist of the little band, with, -over her dark hair, her polo-cap pulled down towards her plump cheeks, -her eyes merry and almost importunate; and on that auspicious path, -miraculously filled with promise of delights, I saw her beneath the -trees throw to Elstir the smiling greeting of a friend, a rainbow that -bridged the gulf for me between our terraqueous world and regions which -I had hitherto regarded as inaccessible. She even came up to give her -hand to the painter, though without stopping, and I could see that she -had a tiny beauty spot on her chin. "Do you know that girl, sir?" I -asked Elstir, realising that he could if he chose make me known to her, -could invite us both to the house. And this peaceful studio with its -rural horizon was at once filled with a surfeit of delight such as a -child might feel in a house where he was already happily playing when he -learned that, in addition, out of that bounteousness which enables -lovely things and noble hosts to increase their gifts beyond all -measure, there was being prepared for him a sumptuous repast. Elstir -told me that she was called Albertine Simonet, and gave me the names -also of her friends, whom I described to him with sufficient accuracy -for him to identify them almost without hesitation. I had, with regard -to their social position, made a mistake, but not the mistake that I -usually made at Balbec. I was always ready to take for princes the sons -of shopkeepers when they appeared on horseback. This time I had placed -in an interloping class the daughters of a set of respectable people, -extremely rich, belonging to the world of industry and business. It was -the class which, on first thoughts, interested me least, since it held -for me neither the mystery of the lower orders nor that of a society -such as the Guermantes frequented. And no doubt if an inherent quality, -a rank which they could never forfeit had not been conferred on them, in -my dazzled eyes, by the glaring vacuity of the seaside life all round -them, I should perhaps not have succeeded in resisting and overcoming -the idea that they were the daughters of prosperous merchants. I could -not help marvelling to see how the French middle class was a wonderful -studio full of sculpture of the noblest and most varied kind. What -unimagined types, what richness of invention in the character of their -faces, what firmness, what freshness, what simplicity in their features. -The shrewd old money-changers from whose loins these Dianas and these -nymphs had sprung seemed to me to have been the greatest of statuaries. -Before I had time to register the social metamorphosis of these -girls--so are these discoveries of a mistake, these modifications -of the notion one has of a person instantaneous as a chemical -combination--there was already installed behind their faces, so -street-arab in type that I had taken them for the mistresses of racing -bicyclists, of boxing champions, the idea that they might easily be -connected with the family of some lawyer or other whom we knew. I was -barely conscious of what was meant by Albertine Simonet; she had -certainly no conception of what she was one day to mean to me. Even the -name, Simonet, which I had already heard spoken on the beach, if I had -been asked to write it down I should have spelt with a double 'n' never -dreaming of the importance which this family attached to there being but -one in their name. In proportion as we descend the social scale our -snobbishness fastens on to mere nothings which are perhaps no more null -than the distinctions observed by the aristocracy, but, being more -obscure, more peculiar to the individual, take us more by surprise. -Possibly there had been Simonets who had done badly in business, or -something worse still even. The fact remains that the Simonets never -failed, it appeared, to be annoyed if anyone doubled their 'n'. They -wore the air of being the only Simonets in the world with one 'n' -instead of two, and were as proud of it, perhaps, as the Montmorency -family were of being the premier barons of France. I asked Elstir -whether these girls lived at Balbec; yes, he told me, some of them at -any rate. The villa in which one of them lived was at that very spot, -right at the end of the beach, where the cliffs of Canapville began. As -this girl was a great friend of Albertine Simonet, this was another -reason for me to believe that it was indeed the latter whom I had met -that day when I was with my grandmother. There were of course so many of -those little streets running down to the beach, and all at the same -angle, that I could not have pointed out exactly which of them it had -been. One would like always to remember a thing accurately, but at the -time one's vision was clouded. And yet that Albertine and the girl whom -I had seen going to her friend's house were one and the same person was -a practical certainty. In spite of which, whereas the countless images -that have since been furnished me by the dark young golfer, however -different they may have been from one another, have overlaid one another -(because I now know that they all belong to her), and if I retrace the -thread of my memories I can, under cover of that identity, and as though -along a tunnelled passage, pass through all those images in turn without -losing my consciousness of the same person behind them all, if, on the -other hand, I wish to revert to the girl whom I passed that day when I -was with my grandmother, I must escape first into freer air. I am -convinced that it is Albertine whom I find there, the same girl as her -who would often stop dead among her moving comrades, in her walk along -the foreground of the sea; but all those more recent images remain -separate from that earlier one because I am unable to confer on her -retrospectively an identity which she had not for me at the moment in -which she caught my eye; whatever assurance I may derive from the law of -probabilities, that girl with plump cheeks who stared at me so boldly -from the angle of the little street and the beach, and by whom I believe -that I might have been loved, I have never, in the strict sense of the -words, seen again. - -My hesitation between the different girls of the little band, all of -whom retained something of the collective charm which had at first -disturbed me, combined with the reasons already given to allow me later -on, even at the time of my greater--my second--passion for Albertine, a -sort of intermittent and very brief liberty to abstain from loving her. -From having strayed among all her friends before it finally concentrated -itself on her, my love kept, now and then, between itself and the image -of Albertine a certain "play" of light and shade which enabled it, like -a badly fitted lamp, to flit over the surface of each of the others -before settling its focus upon her; the connexion between the pain which -I felt in my heart and the memory of Albertine did not seem to me -necessary; I might perhaps have managed to coordinate it with the image -of another person. Which enabled me, in a momentary flash, to banish -reality altogether, not only external reality, as in my love for -Gilberte (which I had recognised to be an internal state in which I drew -from myself alone the particular quality, the special character of the -person whom I loved, everything that rendered her indispensable to my -happiness), but even the other reality, internal and purely subjective. - -"Not a day passes but one or the other of them comes by here, and looks -in for a minute or two," Elstir told me, plunging me in despair when I -thought that if I had gone to see him at once, when my grandmother had -begged me to do so, I should, in all probability, long since have made -Albertine's acquaintance. - -She had passed on; from the studio she was no longer in sight. I -supposed that she had gone to join her friends on the "front". Could I -have appeared there suddenly with Elstir, I should have got to know them -all. I thought of endless pretexts for inducing him to take a turn with -me on the beach. I had no longer the same peace of mind as before the -apparition of the girl in the frame of the little window; so charming -until then in its fringe of honeysuckle, and now so drearily empty. -Elstir caused me a joy that was tormenting also when he said that he -would go a little way with me, but that he must first finish the piece -of work on which he was engaged. It was a flower study but not one of -any of the flowers, portraits of which I would rather have commissioned -him to paint than the portrait of a person, so that I might learn from -the revelation of his genius what I had so often sought in vain from the -flowers themselves--hawthorn white, and pink, cornflowers, -apple-blossom. Elstir as he worked talked botany to me, but I scarcely -listened; he was no longer sufficient in himself, he was now only the -necessary intermediary between these girls and me; the distinction -which, only a few moments ago, his talent had still given him in my eyes -was now worthless save in so far as it might confer a little on me also -in the eyes of the little band to whom I should be presented by him. - -I paced up and down the room, impatient for him to finish what he was -doing; I picked up and examined various sketches, any number of which -were stacked against the walls. In this way I happened to bring to light -a water-colour which evidently belonged to a much earlier period in -Elstir's life, and gave me that particular kind of enchantment which is -diffused by works of art not only deliciously executed but representing -a subject so singular and so seductive that it is to it that we -attribute a great deal of their charm, as if the charm were something -that the painter had merely to uncover, to observe, realised already in -a material form by nature, and to reproduce in art. That such objects -can exist, beautiful quite apart from the painter's interpretation of -them, satisfies a sort of innate materialism in us, against which our -reason contends and acts as a counterpoise to the abstractions of -aesthetics. It was--this water-colour--the portrait of a young woman, by -no means beautiful but of a curious type, in a close-fitting mob-cap not -unlike a "billy-cock" hat, trimmed with a ribbon of cherry-coloured -silk; in one of her mittened hands was a lighted cigarette, while the -other held, level with her knee, a sort of broad-brimmed garden hat, -nothing more than a fire-screen of plaited straw to keep off the sun. On -a table by her side, a tall vase filled with pink carnations. Often (and -it was the case here) the singularity of such works is due principally -to their having been executed in special conditions for which we do not -at first sight make proper allowance, if, for instance, the strange -attire of a feminine model is her costume for a masked ball, or -conversely the scarlet cloak which an elderly man looks as though he had -put on to humour some whim in the painter is his gown as a professor or -alderman or his cardinal's cassock. The ambiguous character of the -person whose portrait now confronted me arose, without my understanding -it, from the fact that she was a young actress of an earlier generation -half dressed for a part. But the cap or hat, beneath which the hair -stuck out but was cut short, the velvet coat opening without lapels over -a white shirt-front, made me hesitate as to the period of the clothes -and the sex of the model, so that I did not know what it was exactly -that I was holding before my eyes, unless simply the brightest coloured -of these scraps of painting. And the pleasure which it afforded me was -disturbed only by the fear that Elstir, by delaying further, would make -me miss the girls, for the sun was now declining and hung low in the -little window. Nothing in this water-colour was merely stated there as a -fact and painted because of its utility to the composition, the costume -because the young woman must be wearing something, the vase to hold the -flowers. The glass of the vase, cherished for its own sake, seemed to be -holding the water in which the stems of the carnations were dipped in -something as limpid, almost as liquid as itself; the woman's dress -encompassed her in a manner that had an independent, a brotherly charm, -and, if the works of man can compete in charm with the wonders of -nature, as delicate, as pleasing to the touch of the eye, as freshly -painted as the fur of a cat, the petals of a flower, the feathers of a -dove. The whiteness of the shirt-front, fine as driven rain, with its -gay pleats gathered into little bells like lilies of the valley, was -starred with bright gleams of light from the room, as sharply edged and -as finely shaded as though they had been posies of flowers stitched on -the woven lawn. And the velvet of the coat, brilliant with a milky -sheen, had here and there a roughness, a scoring, a shagginess on its -surface which made one think of the crumpled brightness of the -carnations in the vase. But above all one felt that Elstir, sublimely -indifferent to whatever immoral suggestion there might be in this -disguise of a young actress for whom the talent with which she would -play her part on the stage was doubtless of less importance than the -irritant attraction which she would offer to the jaded or depraved -senses of some of her audience, had on the contrary fastened upon those -ambiguous points as on an aesthetic element which deserved to be brought -into prominence, and which he had done everything in his power to -emphasise. Along the lines of the face, the latent sex seemed to be on -the point of confessing itself to be that of a somewhat boyish girl, -then vanished and farther on reappeared with a suggestion rather of an -effeminate youth, vicious and pensive, then fled once more to remain -uncapturable. The dreamy sadness in the expression of her eyes, by the -mere fact of its contrast with the accessories belonging to the world of -love-making and play-acting, was not the least disturbing element in the -picture. One imagined moreover that it must be feigned, and that the -young person who seemed ready to submit to caresses in this provoking -costume had probably thought it effective to enhance the provocation -with this romantic expression of a secret longing, an unspoken grief. At -the foot of the picture was inscribed "_Miss Sacripant_: October, 1872." -I could not contain my admiration. "Oh, it's nothing, only a rough -sketch I did when I was young; it was a costume for a variety show. It's -all ages ago now." "And what has become of the model?" A bewilderment -provoked by my words preceded on Elstir's face the indifferent, -absent-minded air which, a moment later, he displayed there. "Quick, -give it to me!" he cried, "I hear Madame Elstir coming, and, though, I -assure you, the young person in the billy-cock hat never played any part -in my life, still there's no point in my wife's coming in and finding it -staring her in the face. I have kept it only as an amusing sidelight on -the theatre of those days." And, before putting it away behind the pile, -Elstir, who perhaps had not set eyes on the sketch for years, gave it -his careful scrutiny. "I must keep just the head," he murmured, "the -lower part is really too shockingly bad, the hands are a beginner's -work." I was miserable at the arrival of Mme. Elstir, who could only -delay us still further. The window-sill was already aglow. Our excursion -would be a pure waste of time. There was no longer the slightest chance -of our seeing the girls, consequently it mattered now not at all how -soon Mme. Elstir left us or how long she stayed. Not that she did stay -for any length of time. I found her most tedious; she might have been -beautiful, once, at twenty, driving an ox in the Roman Campagna, but her -dark hair was streaked with grey and she was common without being -simple, because she believed that a pompous manner and majestic -attitudes were required by her statuesque beauty, which, however, -advancing age had robbed of all its charm. She was dressed with the -utmost simplicity. And it was touching, but at the same time surprising -to hear Elstir, whenever he opened his mouth, and with a respectful -gentleness, as if merely uttering the words moved him to tenderness and -veneration, repeat: "My beautiful Gabrielle!" Later on, when I had -become familiar with Elstir's mythological paintings, Mme. Elstir -acquired beauty in my eyes also. I understood then that to a certain -ideal type illustrated by certain lines, certain arabesques which -reappeared incessantly throughout his work, to a certain canon of art he -had attributed a character that was almost divine, since the whole of -his time, all the mental effort of which he was capable, in a word his -whole life he had consecrated to the task of distinguishing those lines -as clearly and of reproducing them as faithfully as possible. What such -an ideal inspired in Elstir was indeed a cult so solemn, so exacting -that it never allowed him to be satisfied with what he had achieved; was -the most intimate part of himself; and so he had never been able to look -at it from a detached standpoint, to extract emotion from it, until the -day on which he encountered it realised outside, apart from himself, in -the body of a woman, the body of her who in due course became Mme. -Elstir and in whom he had been able (as one is able only with something -that is not oneself) to find it meritorious, moving, god-like. How -comforting, moreover, to let his lips rest upon that Beauty which -hitherto he had been obliged with so great labour to extract from within -himself, whereas now, mysteriously incarnate, it offered itself to him -in a series of communions, filled with saving grace. Elstir at this -period was no longer in that early youth in which we look only to the -power of our own mind for the realisation of our ideal. He was nearing -the age at which we count on bodily satisfactions to stimulate the -forces of the brain, at which the exhaustion of the brain inclining us -to materialism and the diminution of our activity to the possibility of -influences passively received, begin to make us admit that there may -indeed be certain bodies, Certain callings, certain rhythms that are -privileged, realising so naturally our ideal that even without genius, -merely by copying the movement of a shoulder, the tension of a throat, -we can achieve a masterpiece, it is the age at which we like to caress -Beauty with our eyes objectively, outside ourselves, to have it near us, -in a tapestry, in a lovely sketch by Titian picked up in a second-hand -shop, in a mistress as lovely as Titian's sketch. When I understood this -I could no longer look without pleasure at Mme. Elstir, and her body -began to lose its heaviness, for I filled it with an idea, the idea that -she was an immaterial creature, a portrait by Elstir. She was one for -me, and for him also I dare say. The facts of life have no meaning for -the artist, they are to him merely an opportunity for exposing the naked -blaze of his genius. One feels unmistakably, when one sees side by side -ten portraits of different people painted by Elstir, that they are all, -first and foremost, Elstirs. Only, after this rising tide of genius, -which sweeps over and submerges a man's life, when the brain begins to -tire, gradually the balance is upset and, like a river that resumes its -course after the counterflow of a spring tide, it is life that once more -takes the upper hand. While the first period lasted, the artist has -gradually evolved the law, the formula of his unconscious gift. He knows -what situations, should he be a novelist--if a painter, what scenes -furnish him with the subject matter, which may be anything in the world -but, whatever it is, is essential to his researches as a laboratory -might be or a workshop. He knows that he has created his masterpieces -out of effects of attenuated light, the action of remorse upon -consciousness of guilt, out of women posed beneath trees or -half-immersed in water, like statues. A day will come when, owing to the -exhaustion of his brain, he will no longer have the strength, when -provided with those materials which his genius was wont to use, to make -the intellectual effort which alone can produce his work, and will yet -continue to seek them out, happy when he finds himself in their -presence, because of the spiritual pleasure, the allurement to work that -they arouse in him; and, surrounding them besides with a kind of hedge -of superstition as if they were superior to all things else, as if in -them already dwelt a great part of the work of art which they might be -said to carry within them ready made, he will confine himself to the -company, to the adoration of his models. He will hold endless -conversations with the repentant criminals whose remorse, their -regeneration formed, when he still wrote, the subject of his novels; he -will buy a country house in a district where mists attentuate the light, -he will spend long hours gazing at the limbs of bathing women; will -collect sumptuous stuffs. And thus the beauty of life, a phase that has -to some extent lost its meaning, a stage beyond the boundaries of art at -which I had already seen Swann come to rest, was that also which, by a -slackening of the creative ardour, idolatry of the forms which had -inspired it, desire to avoid effort, must ultimately arrest an Elstir's -progress. - -At last he had applied the final brush-stroke to his flowers; I -sacrificed a minute to look at them; I acquired no merit by the act, for -I knew that there was no chance now of our finding the girls on the -beach; and yet, had I believed them to be still there, and that these -wasted moments would make me miss them, I should have stopped to look -none the less, for I should have told myself that Elstir was more -interested in his flowers than in my meeting with the girls. My -grandmother's nature, a nature that was the exact counterpart of my -complete egoism; was nevertheless reflected in certain aspects of my -own. In circumstances in which someone to whom I was indifferent, for -whom I had always made a show of affection or respect, ran the risk -merely of some unpleasantness whereas I was in real danger, I could not -have done otherwise than commiserate with him on his annoyance as though -it had been something important, and treat my own danger as nothing, -because I would feel that these were the proportions in which he must -see things. To be quite accurate, I would go even farther, and not only -not complain of the danger in which I myself stood but go half-way to -meet it, and with that which involved other people try, on the contrary, -were I to increase the risk of my being caught myself, to avert it from -them. The reasons for this are several, none of which does me the -slightest credit. One is that if, while only my reason was employed, I -have always believed in self-preservation, whenever in the course of my -existence I have found myself obsessed by moral anxieties, or merely by -nervous scruples, so puerile often that I dare not enumerate them here, -if an unforeseen circumstance then arose, involving for me the risk of -being killed, this new preoccupation was so trivial in comparison with -the others that I welcomed it with a sense of relief, almost of -hilarity. Thus I find myself, albeit the least courageous of men, to -have known that feeling which has always seemed to me, in my reasoning -moods, so foreign to my nature, so inconceivable, the intoxication of -danger. But even although I were, when any, even a deadly peril -threatened me, passing through an entirely calm and happy phase, I could -not, were I with another person, refrain from sheltering him behind me -and choosing for myself the post of danger. When a sufficient store of -experience had taught me that I invariably acted, and enjoyed acting -thus, I discovered--and was deeply ashamed by the discovery--that it was -because, in contradiction of what I had always believed and asserted, I -was extremely sensitive to the opinions of others. Not that this kind of -unconfessed self-esteem is in any sense vanity or conceit. For what -might satisfy one or other of those failings would give me no pleasure, -and I have always refrained from indulging them. But with the people in -whose company I have succeeded in concealing most effectively the slight -advantages a knowledge of which might have given them a less derogatory -idea of myself, I have never been able to deny myself the pleasure of -shewing them that I take more trouble to avert the risk of death from -their path than from my own. As my motive is then self-esteem and not -valour, I find it quite natural that in any crisis they should act -differently. I am far from blaming them for it, as I should perhaps if I -had been moved by a sense of duty, a duty which would seem to me, in -that case, to be as incumbent upon them as upon myself. On the contrary, -I feel that it is eminently sensible of them to safeguard their lives, -though at the same time I cannot prevent my own safety from receding -into the background, which is particularly silly and culpable of me -since I have come to realise that the lives of many of the people in -front of whom I plant myself when a bomb bursts are more valueless even -than my own. However, on the day of this first visit to Elstir, the time -was still distant at which I was to become conscious of this difference -in value, and there was no question of danger, but simply--a harbinger -this of that pernicious self-esteem--the question of my not appearing to -attach to the pleasure which I so ardently desired more importance than -to the work which the painter had still to finish. It was finished at -last. And, once we were out of doors, I discovered that--so long were -the days still at this season--it was not so late as I had supposed; we -strolled down to the "front". What stratagems I employed to keep Elstir -standing at the spot where I thought that the girls might still come -past. Pointing to the cliffs that towered beside us, I kept on asking -him to tell me about them, so as to make him forget the time and stay -there a little longer. I felt that we had a better chance of waylaying -the little band if we moved towards the end of the beach. "I should like -to look at those cliffs with you from a little nearer," I said to him, -having noticed that one of the girls was in the habit of going in that -direction. "And as we go, do tell me about Carquethuit. I should so like -to see Carquethuit," I went on, without thinking that the so novel -character which manifested itself with such force in Elstir's -Carquethuit Harbour, might belong perhaps rather to the painter's vision -than to any special quality in the place itself. "Since I've seen your -picture, I think that is where I should most like to go, there and to -the Pointe du Raz, but of course that would be quite a journey from -here." "Yes, and besides, even if it weren't nearer, I should advise you -perhaps all the same to visit Carquethuit," he replied. "The Pointe du -Raz is magnificent, but after all it is simply the high cliff of -Normandy or Brittany which you know already. Carquethuit is quite -different, with those rocks bursting from a level shore. I know nothing -in France like it, it reminds me rather of what one sees in some parts -of Florida. It is most interesting, and for that matter extremely wild -too. It is between Clitourps and Nehomme; you know how desolate those -parts are; the sweep of the coast-line is delicious. Here, the -coast-line is like anywhere else; but along there I can't tell you what -charm it has, what softness." - -Night was falling; it was time to be turning homewards; I was escorting -Elstir in the direction of his villa when suddenly, as it were -Mephistopheles springing up before Faust, there appeared at the end of -the avenue--like simply an objectification, unreal, diabolical, of the -temperament diametrically opposed to my own, of the semi-barbarous and -cruel vitality of which I, in my weakness, my excess of tortured -sensibility and intellectuality was so destitute--a few spots of the -essence impossible to mistake for anything else in the world, a few -spores of the zoophytic band of girls, who wore an air of not having -seen me but were unquestionably, for all that, proceeding as they -advanced to pass judgment on me in their ironic vein. Feeling that a -collision between them and us was now inevitable, and that Elstir would -be certain to call me, I turned my back, like a bather preparing to meet -the shock of a wave; I stopped dead and, leaving my eminent companion to -pursue his way, remained where I was, stooping, as if I had suddenly -become engrossed in it, towards the window of the curiosity shop which -we happened to be passing at the moment, I was not sorry to give the -appearance of being able to think of something other than these girls, -and I was already dimly aware that when Elstir did call me up to -introduce me to them I should wear that sort of challenging expression -which betokens not surprise but the wish to appear as though one were -surprised--so far is every one of us a bad actor, or everyone else a -good thought-reader;--that I should even go so far as to point a finger -to my breast, as who should ask "It is me, really, that you want?" and -then run to join him, my head lowered in compliance and docility and my -face coldly masking my annoyance at being torn from the study of old -pottery in order to be introduced to people whom I had no wish to know. -Meanwhile I explored the window and waited for the moment in which my -name, shouted by Elstir, would come to strike me like an expected and -innocuous bullet. The certainty of being introduced to these girls had -had the result of making me not only feign complete indifference to -them, but actually to feel it. Inevitable from this point, the pleasure -of knowing them began at once to shrink, became less to me than the -pleasure of talking to Saint-Loup, of dining with my grandmother, of -making, in the neighbourhood of Balbec, excursions which I would regret -the probability, in consequence of my having to associate with people -who could scarcely be much interested in old buildings, of my being -forced to abandon. Moreover, what diminished the pleasure which I was -about to feel was not merely the imminence but the incoherence of its -realisation. Laws as precise as those of hydrostatics maintain the -relative position of the images which we form in a fixed order, which -the coming event at once upsets. Elstir was just about to call me. This -was not at all the fashion in which I had so often, on the beach, in my -bedroom, imagined myself making these girls' acquaintance. What was -about to happen was a different event, for which I was not prepared. I -recognised neither my desire nor its object; I regretted almost that I -had come out with Elstir. But, above all, the shrinking of the pleasure -that I expected to feel was due to the certainty that nothing, now, -could take that pleasure from me. And it resumed, as though by some -latent elasticity in itself, its whole extent when it ceased to be -subjected to the pressure of that certainty, at the moment when, having -decided to turn my head, I saw Elstir, standing where he had stopped a -few feet away with the girls, bidding them good-bye. The face of the -girl who stood nearest to him, round and plump and glittering with the -light in her eyes, reminded me of a cake on the top of which a place has -been kept for a morsel of blue sky. Her eyes, even when fixed on an -object, gave one the impression of motion, just as on days of high wind -the air, although invisible, lets us perceive the speed with which it -courses between us and the unchanging azure. For a moment her gaze -intersected mine, like those travelling skies on stormy days which hurry -after a rain-cloud that moves less rapidly than they, overtake, touch, -cover, pass it and are gone; but they do not know one another, and are -soon driven far apart. So our eyes were for a moment confronted, neither -pair knowing what the celestial continent that lay before their gaze -held of future blessing or disaster. Only at the moment when her gaze -was directly coincident with mine, without slackening its movement it -grew perceptibly duller. So on a starry night the wind-swept moon passes -behind a cloud and veils her brightness for a moment, but soon will -shine again. But Elstir had already said good-bye to the girls, and had -never summoned me. They disappeared down a cross street; he came towards -me. My whole plan was spoiled. - -I have said that Albertine had not seemed to me that day to be the same -as on previous days and that afterwards, each time I saw her, she was to -appear different. But I felt at that moment that certain modifications -in the appearance, the importance, the stature of a person may also be -due to the variability of certain states of consciousness interposed -between that person and us. One of those that play an important part in -such transformations is belief (that evening my belief, then the -vanishing of my belief that I was about to know Albertine had, with a -few seconds' interval only, rendered her almost insignificant then -infinitely precious in my sight; some years later, the belief, then the -disappearance of the belief that Albertine was faithful to me brought -about similar changes.) - -Of course, long ago, at Combray, I had seen shrink or stretch, according -to the time of day, according as I was entering one or the other of the -two dominant moods that governed my sensibility in turn, my grief at not -having my mother with me, as imperceptible all afternoon as is the -moon's light when the sun is shining, and then, when night had come, -reigning alone in my anxious heart in the place of recent memories now -obliterated. But on that day at Balbec, when I saw that Elstir was -leaving the girls and had not called me, I learned for the first time -that the variations in the importance which a pleasure or a pain has in -our eyes may depend not merely on this alternation of two moods, but on -the displacement of invisible beliefs, such, for example, as make death -seem to us of no account because they bathe it in a glow of unreality, -and thus enable us to attach importance to our attending an evening -party, which would lose much of its charm for if, on the announcement -that we were sentenced to die by the guillotine, the belief that had -bathed the party in its warm glow was instantly shattered; and this part -that belief plays, it is true that something in me was aware of it; this -was my will; but its knowledge is vain if the mind, the heart continue -in ignorance; these last act in good faith when they believe that we are -anxious to forsake a mistress to whom our will alone knows that we are -still attached. This is because they are clouded by the belief that we -shall see her again at any moment. But let this belief be shattered, let -them suddenly become aware that this mistress is gone from us for ever, -then the mind and heart, having lost their focus, are driven like mad -things, the meanest pleasure becomes infinitely great. - -Variance of a belief, annulment also of love, which, pre-existent and -mobile, comes to rest at the image of any one woman simply because that -woman will be almost impossible of attainment. Thenceforward we think -not so much of the woman of whom we find difficulty in forming an exact -picture, as of the means of getting to know her. A whole series of -agonies develops and is sufficient to fix our love definitely upon her -who is its almost unknown object. Our love becomes immense; we never -dream how small a place in it the real woman occupies. And if suddenly, -as at the moment when I had seen Elstir stop to talk to the girls, we -cease to be uneasy, to suffer pain, since it is this pain that is the -whole of our love, it seems to us as though love had abruptly vanished -at the moment when at length we grasp the prey to whose value we had not -given enough thought before. What did I know of Albertine? One or two -glimpses of a profile against the sea, less beautiful, assuredly, than -those of Veronese's women whom I ought, had I been guided by purely -aesthetic reasons, to have preferred to her. By what other reasons could -I be guided, since, my anxiety having subsided, I could recapture only -those mute profiles; I possessed nothing of her besides. Since my first -sight of Albertine I had meditated upon her daily, a thousandfold, I had -carried on with what I called by her name an interminable unspoken -dialogue in which I made her question me, answer me, think and act, and -in the infinite series of imaginary Albertines who followed one after -the other in my fancy, hour after hour, the real Albertine, a glimpse -caught on the beach, figured only at the head, just as the actress who -creates a part, the star, appears, out of a long series of performances, -in the few first alone. That Albertine was scarcely more than a -silhouette, all that was superimposed being of my own growth, so far -when we are in love does the contribution that we ourself make -outweigh--even if we consider quantity only--those that come to us from -the beloved object. And the same is true of love that is given its full -effect. There are loves that manage not only to be formed but to subsist -around a very little core--even among those whose prayer has been -answered after the flesh. An old drawing-master who had taught my -grandmother had been presented by some obscure mistress with a daughter. -The mother died shortly after the birth of her child, and the -drawing-master was so broken-hearted that he did not long survive her. -In the last months of his life my grandmother and some of the Combray -ladies, who had never liked to make any allusion in the drawing-master's -presence to the woman, with whom, for that matter, he had not officially -"lived" and had had comparatively slight relations, took it into their -heads to ensure the little girl's future by combining to purchase an -annuity for her. It was my grandmother who suggested this; several of -her friends made difficulties; after all was the child really such a -very interesting case, was she even the child of her reputed father; -with women like that, it was never safe to say. Finally, everything was -settled. The child came to thank the ladies. She was plain, and so -absurdly like the old drawing-master as to remove every shadow of doubt; -her hair being the only nice thing about her, one of the ladies said to -her father, who had come with her: "What pretty hair she has." And -thinking that now, the woman who had sinned being dead and the old man -only half alive, a discreet allusion to that past of which they had -always pretended to know nothing could do no harm, my grandmother added: -"It runs in families. Did her mother have pretty hair like that?" "I -don't know," was the old man's quaint answer "I never saw her except -with a hat on." - -But I must not keep Elstir waiting. I caught sight of myself in a glass. -To add to the disaster of my not having been introduced to the girls, I -noticed that my necktie was all crooked, my hat left long wisps of hair -shewing, which did not become me; but it was a piece of luck, all the -same, that they should have seen me, even thus attired, in Elstir's -company and so could not forget me; also that I should have put on, that -morning, at my grandmother's suggestion, my smart waistcoat, when I -might so easily have been wearing one that was simply hideous, and be -carrying my best stick. For while an event for which we are longing -never happens quite in the way we have been expecting, failing the -advantages on which we supposed that we might count, others present -themselves for which we never hoped, and make up for our disappointment; -and we have been so dreading the worst that in the end we are inclined -to feel that, taking one thing with another, chance has, on the whole, -been rather kind to us. - -"I did so much want to know them," I said as I reached Elstir. "Then why -did you stand a mile away?" These were his actual words, not that they -expressed what was in his mind, since, if his desire had been to grant -mine, to call me up to him would have been quite easy, but perhaps -because he had heard phrases of this sort, in familiar use among common -people when they are in the wrong, and because even great men are in -certain respects much the same as common people, take their every day -excuses from the same common stock just as they get their daily bread -from the same baker; or it may be that such expressions (which ought, -one might almost say, to be read "backwards", since their literal -interpretation is the opposite of the truth) are the instantaneous -effect, the negative exposure of a reflex action. "They were in a -hurry." It struck me that of course they must have stopped him from -summoning a person who did not greatly attract them; otherwise he would -not have failed, after all the questions that I had put to him about -them, and the interest which he must have seen that I took in them, to -call me. "We were speaking just now of Carquethuit," he began, as we -walked towards his villa. "I have done a little sketch, in which you can -see much better how the beach curves. The painting is not bad, but it is -different. If you will allow me, just to cement our friendship, I would -like to give you the sketch," he went on, for the people who refuse us -the objects of our desire are always ready to offer us something else. - -"I should very much like, if you have such a thing, a photograph of the -little picture of Miss Sacripant. 'Sacripant'--that's not a real name, -surely?" "It is the name of a character the sitter played in a stupid -little musical comedy." "But, I assure you, sir, I have never set eyes -on her; you look as though you thought that I knew her." Elstir was -silent. "It isn't Mme. Swann, before she was married?" I hazarded, in -one of those sudden fortuitous stumblings upon the truth, which are rare -enough in all conscience, and yet give, in the long run, a certain -cumulative support to the theory of presentiments, provided that one -takes care to forget all the wrong guesses that would invalidate it. -Elstir did not reply. The portrait was indeed that of Odette de Crécy. -She had preferred not to keep it for many reasons, some of them obvious. -But there were others less apparent. The portrait dated from before the -point at which Odette, disciplining her features, had made of her face -and figure that creation the broad outlines of which her hairdressers, -her dressmakers, she herself--in her way of standing, of speaking, of -smiling, of moving her hands, her eyes, of thinking--were to respect -throughout the years to come. It required the vitiated tastes of a -surfeited lover to make Swann prefer to all the countless photographs of -the "sealed pattern" Odette which was his charming wife the little -photographs which he kept in his room and in which, beneath a straw hat -trimmed with pansies, you saw a thin young woman, not even good-looking, -with bunched out hair and drawn features. - -But apart from this, had the portrait been not anterior, like Swann's -favourite photograph, to the systematisation of Odette's features in a -fresh type, majestic and charming, but subsequent to it, Elstir's vision -would alone have sufficed to disorganise that type. Artistic genius in -its reactions is like those extremely high temperatures which have the -power to disintegrate combinations of atoms which they proceed to -combine afresh in a diametrically opposite order, following another -type. All that artificially harmonious whole into which a woman has -succeeded in bringing her limbs and features, the persistence of which -every day, before going out, she studies in her glass, changing the -angle of her hat, smoothing her hair, exercising the sprightliness in -her eyes, so as to ensure its continuity, that harmony the keen eye of -the great painter instantly destroys, substituting for it a -rearrangement of the woman's features such as will satisfy a certain -pictorial ideal of femininity which he carries in his head. Similarly it -often happens that, after a certain age, the eye of a great seeker after -truth will find everywhere the elements necessary to establish those -relations which alone are of interest to him. Like those craftsmen, -those players who, instead of making a fuss and asking for what they -cannot have, content themselves with the instrument that comes to their -hand, the artist might say of anything, no matter what, that it would -serve his purpose. Thus a cousin of the Princesse de Luxembourg, a -beauty of the most queenly type, having succumbed to a form of art which -was new at that time, had asked the leading painter of the naturalist -school to do her portrait. At once the artist's eye had found what he -sought everywhere in life. And on his canvas there appeared, in place of -the proud lady, a street-boy, and behind him a vast, sloping, purple -background which made one think of the Place Pigalle. But even without -going so far as that, not only will the portrait of a woman by a great -artist not seek in the least to give satisfaction to various demands on -the woman's part--such as for instance, when she begins to age, make her -have herself photographed in dresses that are almost those of a young -girl, which bring out her still youthful figure and make her appear like -the sister, or even the daughter of her own daughter, who, if need be, -is tricked out for the occasion as a "perfect fright" by her side--it -will, on the contrary, emphasise those very drawbacks which she seeks to -hide, and which (as for instance a feverish, that is to say a livid -complexion) are all the more tempting to him since they give his picture -"character"; they are quite enough, however, to destroy all the -illusions of the ordinary man who, when he sees the picture, sees -crumble into dust the ideal which the woman herself has so proudly -sustained for him, which has placed her in her unique, her unalterable -form so far apart, so far above the rest of humanity. Fallen now, -represented otherwise than in her own type in which she sat unassailably -enthroned, she is become nothing more than just an ordinary woman, in -the legend of whose superiority we have lost all faith. In this type we -are so accustomed to regard as included not only the beauty of an Odette -but her personality, her identity, that standing before the portrait -which has thus transposed her from it we are inclined to protest not -simply "How plain he has made her!" but "Why, it isn't the least bit -like her!" We find it hard to believe that it can be she. We do not -recognise her. And yet there is a person there on the canvas whom we are -quite conscious of having seen before. But that person is not Odette; -the face of the person, her body, her general appearance seem familiar. -They recall to us not this particular woman who never held herself like -that, whose natural pose had no suggestion of any such strange and -teasing arabesque in its outlines, but other women, all the women whom -Elstir has ever painted, women whom invariably, however they may differ -from one another, he has chosen to plant thus on his canvas facing you, -with an arched foot thrust out from under the skirt, a large round hat -in one hand, symmetrically corresponding at the level of the knee which -it hides to what also appears as a disc, higher up in the picture, the -face. And furthermore, not only does a portrait by the hand of genius -disintegrate and destroy a woman's type, as it has been defined by her -coquetry and her selfish conception of beauty, but if it is also old, it -is not content with ageing the original in the same way as a photograph -ages its sitter, by shewing her dressed in the fashions of long ago. In -a portrait, it is not only the manner the woman then had of dressing -that dates it, there is also the manner the artist had of painting. And -this, Elstir's earliest manner, was the most damaging of birth -certificates for Odette because it not only established her, as did her -photographs of the same period, as the younger sister of various -time-honoured courtesans, but made her portrait contemporary with the -countless portraits that Manet or Whistler had painted of all those -vanished models, models who already belonged to oblivion or to history. - -It was along this train of thought, meditated in silence by the side of -Elstir, as I accompanied him to his door, that I was being led by the -discovery that I had just made of the identity of his model, when this -original discovery caused me to make a second, more disturbing still, -involving the identity of the artist. He had painted the portrait of -Odette de Crécy. Could it possibly be that this man of genius, this -sage, this eremite, this philosopher with his marvellous flow of -conversation, who towered over everyone and everything, was the foolish, -corrupt little painter who had at one time been "taken up" by the -Verdurins? I asked him if he had known them, whether by any chance it -was he that they used to call M. Biche. He answered me in the -affirmative, with no trace of embarrassment, as if my question referred -to a period in his life that was ended and already somewhat remote, with -no suspicion of what a cherished illusion his words were shattering in -me, until looking up he read my disappointment upon my face. His own -assumed an expression of annoyance. And, as we were now almost at the -gate of his house, a man of less outstanding eminence, in heart and -brain, might simply have said "good-bye" to me, a trifle dryly, and -taken care to avoid seeing me again. This however was not Elstir's way -with me; like the master that he was--and this was, perhaps, from the -point of view of sheer creative genius, his one fault, that he was a -master in that sense of the word, for an artist if he is to live the -true life of the spirit in its full extent, must be alone and not bestow -himself with profusion, even upon disciples--from every circumstance, -whether involving himself or other people, he sought to extract, for the -better edification of the young, the element of truth that it contained. -He chose therefore, rather than say anything that might have avenged the -injury to his pride, to say what he thought would prove instructive to -me. "There is no man," he began, "however wise, who has not at some -period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of -which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he -could, expunge it from his memory. And yet he ought not entirely to -regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise -man--so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise--unless he has -passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that -ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows, -the sons and grandsons of famous men, whose masters have instilled into -them nobility of mind and moral refinement in their schooldays. They -have, perhaps, when they look back upon their past lives, nothing to -retract; they can, if they choose, publish a signed account of -everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, -feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and -sterile. We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for -ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can -take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the -point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives -that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result -of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have -sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the -influence of everything evil or common-place that prevailed round about -them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that the -picture of what we once were, in early youth, may not be recognisable -and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we -must not deny the truth of it, for it is evidence that we have really -lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind -that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, -of artistic groups--assuming that one is a painter--extracted something -that goes beyond them." Meanwhile we had reached his door. I was -disappointed at not having met the girls. But after all there was now -the possibility of meeting them again later on; they had ceased to do no -more than pass beyond a horizon on which I had been ready to suppose -that I should never see them reappear. Around them no longer swirled -that sort of great eddy which had separated me from them, which had been -merely the expression of the perpetually active desire, mobile, -compelling, fed ever on fresh anxieties, which was aroused in me by -their inaccessibility, their flight from me, possibly for ever. My -desire for them, I could now set it at rest, hold it in reserve, among -all those other desires the realisation of which, as soon as I knew it -to be possible, I would cheerfully postpone. I took leave of Elstir; I -was alone once again. Then all of a sudden, despite my recent -disappointment, I saw in my mind's eye all that chain of coincidence -which I had not supposed could possibly come about, that Elstir should -be a friend of those very girls, that they who only that morning had -been to me merely figures in a picture with the sea for background had -seen me, had seen me walking in friendly intimacy with a great painter, -who was now informed of my secret longing and would no doubt do what he -could to assuage it. All this had been a source of pleasure to me, but -that pleasure had remained hidden; it was one of those visitors who wait -before letting us know that they are in the room until all the rest have -gone and we are by ourselves. Then only do we catch sight of them, and -can say to them, "I am at your service," and listen to what they have to -tell us. Sometimes between the moment at which these pleasures have -entered our consciousness and the moment at which we are free to -entertain them, so many hours have passed, we have in the interval seen -so many people that we are afraid lest they should have grown tired of -waiting. But they are patient, they do not grow tired, and as soon as -the crowd has gone we find them there ready for us. Sometimes it is then -we who are so exhausted that it seems as though our weary mind will not -have the strength left to seize and retain those memories, those -impressions for which our frail self is the one habitable place, the -sole means of realisation. And we should regret that failure, for -existence to us is hardly interesting save on the days on which the dust -of realities is shot with magic sand, on which some trivial incident of -life becomes a spring of romance. Then a whole promontory of the -inaccessible world rises dear in the light of our dream, and enters into -our life, our life in which, like the sleeper awakened, we actually see -the people of whom we have been so ardently dreaming that we came to -believe that we should never behold them save in our dreams. - -The sense of comfort that I drew from the probability of my now being -able to meet the little band whenever I chose was all the more precious -to me because I should not have been able to keep watch for them during -the next few days, which would be taken up with preparations for -Saint-Loup's departure. My grandmother was anxious to offer my friend -some proof of her gratitude for all the kindnesses that he had shewn to -her and myself. I told her that he was a great admirer of Proudhon, and -this put it into her head to send for a collection of autograph letters -by that philosopher which she had once bought; Saint-Loup came to her -room to look at them on the day of their arrival, which was also his -last day at Balbec. He read them eagerly, fingering each page with -reverence, trying to get the sentences by heart; and then, rising from -the table, was beginning to apologise to my grandmother for having -stayed so long, when he heard her say: "No, no; take them with you; they -are for you to keep; that was why I sent for them, to give them to you." - -He was overpowered by a joy which he could no more control than we can a -physical condition that arises without the intervention of our will. He -blushed scarlet as a child who has just been whipped, and my grandmother -was a great deal more touched to see all the efforts that he was making -(without success) to control the joy that convulsed him than she would -have been to hear any words of thanks that he could have uttered. But -he, fearing that he had failed to shew his gratitude properly, begged me -to make his excuses to her again, next day, leaning from the window of -the little train of the local railway company which was to take him back -to his regiment. The distance was, as a matter of fact, nothing. He had -thought of going, as he had frequently done that summer, when he was to -return the same evening and was not encumbered with luggage, by road. -But this time he would have had, anyhow, to put all his heavy luggage in -the train. And he found it simpler to take the train himself also, -following the advice of the manager who, on being consulted, replied -that "Carriage or train, it was more or less equivocal." He meant us to -understand that they were equivalent (in fact, very much what Françoise -would have expressed as "coming to as near as made no difference"). -"Very well," Saint-Loup had decided, "I will take the 'little crawler'." -I should have taken it too, had I not been tired, and gone with my -friend to Doncières; failing this I kept on promising, all the time -that we waited in the Balbec station--the time, that is to say, which -the driver of the little train spent in waiting for unpunctual friends, -without whom he refused to start, and also in seeking some refreshment -for himself--to go over there and see him several times a week. As Bloch -had come to the station also--much to Saint-Loup's disgust--the latter, -seeing that our companion could hear him begging me to come to luncheon, -to dinner, to stay altogether at Doncières, finally turned to him and, -in the most forbidding tone, intended to counteract the forced civility -of the invitation and to prevent Bloch from taking it seriously: "If you -ever happen to be passing through Doncières any afternoon when I am off -duty, you might ask for me at the barracks; but I hardly ever am off -duty." Perhaps, also, Robert feared lest, if left to myself, I might not -come, and, thinking that I was more intimate with Bloch than I made out, -was providing me in this way with a travelling companion, one who would -urge me on. - -I was afraid that this tone, this way of inviting a person while warning -him not to come, might have wounded Bloch, and felt that Saint-Loup -would have done better, saying nothing. But I was mistaken, for after -the train had gone, while we were walking back together as far as the -cross-roads at which we should have to part, one road going to the -hotel, the other to the Blochs' villa, he never ceased from asking me on -what day we should go to Doncières, for after "all the civilities that -Saint-Loup had shewn" him, it would be "too unmannerly" on his part not -to accept the invitation. I was glad that he had not noticed, or was so -little displeased as to wish to let it be thought that he had not -noticed on how far from pressing, how barely polite a note the -invitation had been sounded. At the same time I should have liked Bloch, -for his own sake, to refrain from making a fool of himself by going over -at once to Doncières. But I dared not offer a piece of advice which -could only have offended him by hinting that Saint-Loup had been less -pressing than himself impressed. He was a great deal too ready to -respond, and even if all his faults of this nature were atoned for by -remarkable qualities which others, with more reserve than he, would not -possess, he carried indiscretion to a pitch that was almost maddening. -The week must not, to hear him speak, pass without our going to -Doncières (he said "our" for I think that he counted to some extent on -my presence there as an excuse for his own). All the way home, opposite -the gymnasium, in its grove of trees, opposite the lawn-tennis courts, -the mayor's office, the shell-fish stall, he stopped me, imploring me to -fix a day, and, as I did not, left me in a towering rage, saying: "As -your lordship pleases. For my part, I am obliged to go since he has -invited me." - -Saint-Loup was still so much afraid of not having thanked my grandmother -properly that he charged me once again to express his gratitude to her a -day or two later in a letter I received from him from the town in which -he was quartered, a town which seemed, on the envelope where the -post-mark had stamped its name, to be hastening to me across country, to -tell me that within its walls, in the Louis XVI cavalry barracks, he was -thinking of me. The paper was embossed with the arms of Marsantes, in -which I could make out a lion, surmounted by a coronet formed by the cap -of a Peer of France. - -"After a journey which," he wrote, "passed pleasantly enough, with a -book I bought at the station, by Arvède Barine (a Russian author, I -fancy; it seemed to me remarkably well written for a foreigner, but you -shall give me your critical opinion, you are bound to know all about it, -you fount of knowledge who have read everything), here I am again in the -thick of this debased existence, where, alas, I feel a sad exile, not -having here what I had to leave at Balbec; this life in which I cannot -discover one affectionate memory, any intellectual attraction; an -environment on which you would probably look with contempt--and yet it -has a certain charm. Everything seems to have changed since I was last -here, for in the interval one of the most important periods in my life, -that from which our friendship dates, has begun. I hope that it may -never come to an end. I have spoken of our friendship, of you, to one -person only, to the friend I told you of, who has just paid me a -surprise visit here. She would like immensely to know you, and I feel -that you would get on well together, for she too is extremely literary. -I, on the other hand, to go over in my mind all our talk, to live over -again those hours which I never shall forget, have shut myself off from -my comrades, excellent fellows, but altogether incapable of -understanding that sort of thing. This remembrance of moments spent with -you I should almost have preferred, on my first day here, to call up for -my own solitary enjoyment, without writing. But I was afraid lest you, -with your subtle mind and ultra-sensitive heart, might, if you did not -hear from me, needlessly torment yourself, if, that is to say, you still -condescend to occupy your thoughts with this blunt trooper whom you will -have a hard task to polish and refine, and make a little more subtle and -worthier of your company." - -On the whole this letter, in its affectionate spirit, was not at all -unlike those which, when I did not yet know Saint-Loup, I had imagined -that he would write to me, in those daydreams from which the coldness of -his first greeting had shaken me by bringing me face to face with an icy -reality which was not, however, to endure. Once I had received this -letter, whenever, at luncheon-time, the post was brought in, I could -tell at once when it was from him that a letter came, for it had always -that second face which a person assumes when he is absent, in the -features of which (the characters of his script) there is no reason why -we should not suppose that we are tracing an individual soul just as -much as in the line of a nose or the inflexions of a voice. - -I would now gladly remain at the table while it was being cleared, and, -if it was not a moment at which the girls of the little band might be -passing, it was no longer solely towards the sea that I would turn my -eyes. Since I had seen such things depicted in water-colours by Elstir, -I sought to find again in reality, I cherished, as though for their -poetic beauty, the broken gestures of the knives still lying across one -another, the swollen convexity of a discarded napkin upon which the sun -would patch a scrap of yellow velvet, the half-empty glass which thus -shewed to greater advantage the noble sweep of its curved sides, and, in -the heart of its translucent crystal, clear as frozen daylight, a dreg -of wine, dusky but sparkling with reflected lights, the displacement of -solid objects, the transmutation of liquids by the effect of light and -shade, the shifting colour of the plums which passed from green to blue -and from blue to golden yellow in the half-plundered dish, the chairs, -like a group of old ladies, that came twice daily to take their places -round the white cloth spread on the table as on an altar at which were -celebrated the rites of the palate, where in the hollows of -oyster-shells a few drops of lustral water had gathered as in tiny holy -water stoups of stone; I tried to find beauty there where I had never -imagined before that it could exist, in the most ordinary things, in the -profundities of "still life". - -When, some days after Saint-Loup's departure, I had succeeded in -persuading Elstir to give a small tea-party, at which I was to meet -Albertine, that freshness of appearance, that smartness of attire, both -(alas) fleeting, which were to be observed in me at the moment of my -starting out from the Grand Hotel, and were due respectively to a longer -rest than usual and to special pains over my toilet, I regretted my -inability to reserve them (and also the credit accruing from Elstir's -friendship) for the captivation of some other, more interesting person; -I regretted having to use them all up on the simple pleasure of making -Albertine's acquaintance. My brain assessed this pleasure at a very low -value now that it was assured me. But, inside, my will did not for a -moment share this illusion, that will which is the persevering and -unalterable servant of our successive personalities; hiding itself in -secret places, despised, downtrodden, untiringly faithful, toiling -without intermission and with no thought for the variability of the -self, its master, if only that master may never lack what he requires. -Whereas at the moment when we are just about to start on a long-planned -and eagerly awaited holiday, our brain, our nerves begin to ask -themselves whether it is really worth all the trouble involved, the -will, knowing that those lazy masters would at once begin to consider -their journey the most wonderful experience, if it became impossible for -them to take it, the will leaves them explaining their difficulties -outside the station, multiplying their hesitations; but busies itself -with taking the tickets and putting us into the carriage before the -train starts. It is as invariable as brain and nerves are fickle, but as -it is silent, gives no account of its actions, it seems almost -non-existent; it is by its dogged determination that the other -constituent parts of our personality are led, but without seeing it, -while they distinguish clearly all their own uncertainties. My nerves -and brain then started a discussion as to the real value of the pleasure -that there would be in knowing Albertine, while I studied in the glass -vain and perishable attractions which nerves and brain would have -preserved intact for use on some other occasion. But my will would not -let the hour pass at which I must start, and it was Elstir's address -that it called out to the driver. Brain and nerves were at liberty, now -that the die was cast, to think this "a pity." If my will had given the -man a different address, they would have been finely "sold". - -When I arrived at Elstir's, a few minutes later, my first impression was -that Mlle. Simonet was not in the studio. There was certainly a girl -sitting there in a silk frock, bare-headed, but one whose marvellous -hair, her nose, meant nothing to me, in whom I did not recognise the -human entity that I had formed out of a young cyclist strolling past, in -a polo-cap, between myself and the sea. It was Albertine, nevertheless. -But even when I knew it to be her, I gave her no thought. On entering -any social gathering, when we are young, we lose consciousness of our -old self, we become a different man, every drawing-room being a fresh -universe, in which, coming under the sway of a new moral perspective, we -fasten our attention, as if they were to matter to us for all time, on -people, dances, card-tables, all of which we shall have forgotten by the -morning. Obliged to follow, if I was to arrive at the goal of -conversation with Albertine, a road in no way of my own planning, which -first brought me to a halt at Elstir, passed by other groups of guests -to whom I was presented, then along the table, at which I was offered, -and ate a strawberry tart or two, while I listened, motionless, to the -music that was beginning in another part of the room, I found myself -giving to these various incidents the same importance as to my -introduction to Mlle. Simonet, an introduction which was now nothing -more than one among several such incidents, having entirely forgotten -that it had been, but a few minutes since, my sole object in coming -there that day. But is it not ever thus in the bustle of daily life, -with every true happiness, every great sorrow. In a room full of other -people we receive from her whom we love the answer, propitious or fatal, -which we have been awaiting for the last year. But we must go on -talking, ideas come, one after another, forming a smooth surface which -is pricked, at the very most, now and then by a dull throb from within -of the memory, deep-rooted enough but of very slender growth, that -misfortune has come upon us. If, instead of misfortune, it is happiness, -it may be that not until many years have elapsed will we recall that the -most important event in our sentimental life occurred without our having -time to give it any prolonged attention, or even to become aware of it -almost, at a social gathering, it may have been, to which we had gone -solely in expectation of that event. - -When Elstir asked me to come with him so that he might introduce me to -Albertine, who was sitting a little farther down the room, I first of -all finished eating a coffee éclair and, with a show of keen interest, -asked an old gentleman whose acquaintance I had just made (and thought -that I might, perhaps, offer him the rose in my buttonhole which he had -admired) to tell me more about the old Norman fairs. This is not to say -that the introduction which followed did not give me any pleasure, nor -assume a definite importance in my eyes. But so far as the pleasure was -concerned, I was not conscious of it, naturally, until some time later, -when, once more in the hotel, and in my room alone, I had become myself -again. Pleasure in this respect is like photography. What we take, in -the presence of the beloved object, is merely a negative film; we -develop it later, when we are at home, and have once again found at our -disposal that inner dark-room, the entrance to which is barred to us so -long as we are with other people. - -If my consciousness of the pleasure it had brought me was thus retarded -by a few hours, the importance of this introduction I felt immediately. -At such moments of introduction, for all that we feel ourselves to have -been suddenly enriched, to have been furnished with a pass that will -admit us henceforward to pleasures which we have been pursuing for weeks -past, but in vain, we realise only too clearly that this acquisition -puts an end for us not merely to hours of toilsome search--a relief that -could only fill us with joy--but also to the very existence of a certain -person, her whom our imagination had wildly distorted, our anxious fear -that we might never become known to her enlarged. At the moment when our -name sounds on the lips of the person introducing us, especially if he -amplifies it, as Elstir was now doing, with a flattering account of -us--in that sacramental moment, as when in a fairy tale the magician -commands a person suddenly to become someone else, she to whose presence -we have been longing to attain vanishes; how could she remain the same -when, for one thing--owing to the attention which the stranger is -obliged to pay to the announcement of our name and the sight of our -person--in the eyes that only yesterday were situated at an infinite -distance (where we supposed that our eyes, wandering, uncontrolled, -desperate, divergent, would never succeed in meeting them) the conscious -gaze, the incommunicable thought which we have been seeking have been -miraculously and quite simply replaced by our own image, painted in them -as though behind the glass of a smiling mirror. If this incarnation of -ourself in the person who seems to differ most from us is what does most -to modify the appearance of the person to whom we have just been -introduced, the form of that person still remains quite vague; and we -are free to ask ourself whether she will turn out to be a god, a table -or a basin. But, as nimble as the wax-modellers who will fashion a bust -before our eyes in five minutes, the few words which the stranger is now -going to say to us will substantiate her form, will give her something -positive and final that will exclude all the hypotheses by which, a -moment ago, our desire, our imagination were being tempted. Doubtless, -even before her coming to this party, Albertine had ceased to be to me -simply that sole phantom worthy to haunt our life which is what remains -of a passing stranger, of whom we know nothing and have caught but the -barest glimpse. Her relation to Mme. Bontemps had already restricted the -scope of those marvellous hypotheses, by stopping one of the channels -along which they might have spread. As I drew closer to the girl, and -began to know her better, my knowledge of her underwent a process of -subtraction, all the factors of imagination and desire giving place to a -notion which was worth infinitely less, a notion to which, it must be -admitted, there was added presently what was more or less the -equivalent, in the domain of real life, of what joint stock companies -give one, after paying interest on one's capital, and call a bonus. Her -name, her family connexions had been the original limit set to my -suppositions. Her friendly greeting while, standing close beside her, I -saw once again the tiny mole on her cheek, below her eye, marked another -stage; last of all, I was surprised to hear her use the adverb -"perfectly" (in place of "quite") of two people whom she mentioned, -saying of one: "She is perfectly mad, but very nice for all that," and -of the other, "He is a perfectly common man, a perfect bore." However -little to be commended this use of "perfectly" may be, it indicates a -degree of civilisation and culture which I could never have imagined as -having been attained by the bacchante with the bicycle, the frenzied -muse of the golf-course. Nor did it mean that after this first -transformation Albertine was not to change again for me, many times. The -good and bad qualities which a person presents to us, exposed to view on -the surface of his or her face, rearrange themselves in a totally -different order if we approach them from another angle--just as, in a -town, buildings that appear strung irregularly along a single line, from -another aspect retire into a graduated distance, and their relative -heights are altered. To begin with, Albertine now struck me as not -implacable so much as almost frightened; she seemed to me rather -respectably than ill-bred, judging by the description, "bad style," "a -comic manner" which she applied to each in turn of the girls of whom I -spoke to her; finally, she presented as a target for my line of sight a -temple that was distinctly flushed and hardly attractive to the eye, and -no longer the curious gaze which I had always connected with her until -then. But this was merely a second impression and there were doubtless -others through which I was successively to pass. Thus it can be only -after one has recognised, not without having had to feel one's way, the -optical illusions of one's first impression that one can arrive at an -exact knowledge of another person, supposing such knowledge to be ever -possible. But it is not; for while our original impression of him -undergoes correction, the person himself, not being an inanimate -object, changes in himself, we think that we have caught him, he moves, -and, when we imagine that at last we are seeing him clearly, it is only -the old impressions which we had already formed of him that we have -succeeded in making clearer, when they no longer represent him. - -And yet, whatever the inevitable disappointments that it must bring in -its train, this movement towards what we have only half seen, what we -have been free to dwell upon and imagine at our leisure, this movement -is the only one that is wholesome for the senses, that whets the -appetite. How dreary a monotony must pervade those people's lives who, -from indolence or timidity, drive in their carriages straight to the -doors of friends whom they have got to know without having first dreamed -of knowing them, without ever daring, on the way, to stop and examine -what arouses their desire. - -I returned home, my mind full of the party, the coffee _éclair_ which I -had finished eating before I let Elstir take me up to Albertine, the -rose which I had given the old gentleman, all the details selected -without our knowledge by the circumstances of the occasion, which -compose in a special and quite fortuitous order the picture that we -retain of a first meeting. But this picture, I had the impression that I -was seeing it from a fresh point of view, a long way remote from myself, -realising that it had not existed only for me, when some months later, -to my great surprise, on my speaking to Albertine on the day on which I -had first met her, she reminded me of the éclair, the flower that I had -given away, all those things which I had supposed to have been--I will -not say of importance only to myself but--perceived only by myself, and -which I now found thus transcribed, in a version the existence of which -I had never suspected, in the mind of Albertine. On this first day -itself, when, on my return to the hotel, I was able to visualise the -memory which I had brought away with me, I realised the consummate -adroitness with which the sleight of hand had been performed, and how I -had talked for a moment or two with a person who, thanks to the skill of -the conjurer, without actually embodying anything of that other person -whom I had for so long been following as she paced beside the sea, had -been effectively substituted for her. I might, for that matter, have -guessed as much in advance, since the girl of the beach was a -fabrication invented by myself. In spite of which, as I had, in my -conversations with Elstir, identified her with this other girl, I felt -myself in honour bound to fulfil to the real the promises of love made -to the imagined Albertine. We betroth ourselves by proxy, and think -ourselves obliged, in the sequel, to marry the person who has -intervened. Moreover, if there had disappeared, provisionally at any -rate, from my life, an anguish that found adequate consolation in the -memory of polite manners, of that expression "perfectly common" and of -the glowing temple, that memory awakened in me desire of another kind -which, for all that it was placid and not at all painful, resembling -rather brotherly love, might in the long run become fully as dangerous -by making me feel at every moment a compelling need to kiss this new -person, whose charming ways, her shyness, her unlooked-for -accessibility, arrested the futile process of my imagination but gave -birth to a sentimental gratitude. And then, since memory begins at once -to record photographs independent of one another, eliminates every link, -any kind of sequence from between the scenes portrayed in the collection -which it exposes to our view, the most recent does not necessarily -destroy or cancel those that came before. Confronted with the -common-place though appealing Albertine to whom I had spoken that -afternoon, I still saw the other, mysterious Albertine outlined against -the sea. These were now memories, that is to say pictures neither of -which now seemed to me any more true than the other. But, to make an end -of this first afternoon of my introduction to Albertine, when trying to -recapture that little mole on her cheek, just under the eye, I -remembered that, looking from Elstir's window, when Albertine had gone -by, I had seen the mole on her chin. In fact, whenever I saw her I -noticed that she had a mole, but my inaccurate memory made it wander -about the face of Albertine, fixing it now in one place, now in another. - -Whatever my disappointment in finding in Mlle. Simonet a girl so little -different from those that I knew already, just as my rude awakening when -I saw Balbec church did not prevent me from wishing still to go to -Quimperlé, Pont-Aven and Venice, I comforted myself with the thought -that through Albertine at any rate, even if she herself was not all that -I had hoped, I might make the acquaintance of her comrades of the little -band. - -I thought at first that I should fail. As she was to be staying (and I -too) for a long time still at Balbec, I had decided that the best thing -was not to make my efforts to meet her too apparent, but to wait for an -accidental encounter. But should this occur every day, even, it was -greatly to be feared that she would confine herself to acknowledging my -bow from a distance, and such meetings, repeated day after day -throughout the whole season, would benefit me not at all. - -Shortly after this, one morning when it had been raining and was almost -cold, I was accosted on the "front" by a girl wearing a close-fitting -toque and carrying a muff, so different from the girl whom I had met at -Elstir's party that to recognise in her the same person seemed an -operation beyond the power of the human mind; mine was, nevertheless, -successful in performing it, but after a momentary surprise which did -not, I think, escape Albertine's notice. On the other hand, when I -instinctively recalled the good-breeding which had so impressed me -before, she filled me with a converse astonishment by her rude tone and -manners typical of the "little band". Apart from these, her temple had -ceased to be the optical centre, on which the eye might comfortably -rest, of her face, either because I was now on her other side, or -because her toque hid it, or else possibly because its inflammation was -not a constant thing. "What weather!" she began. "Really the perpetual -summer of Balbec is all stuff and nonsense. You don't go in for anything -special here, do you? We don't ever see you playing golf, or dancing at -the Casino. You don't ride, either. You must be bored stiff. You don't -find it too deadly, staying about on the beach all day. I see, you just -bask in the sun like a lizard; you enjoy that. You must have plenty of -time on your hands. I can see you're not like me; I simply adore all -sports. You weren't at the Sogne races! We went in the 'tram', and I can -quite believe you don't see the fun of going in an old 'tin-pot' like -that. It took us two whole hours! I could have gone there and back three -times on my bike." I, who had been lost in admiration of Saint-Loup when -he, in the most natural manner in the world, called the little local -train the "crawler", because of the ceaseless windings of its line, was -positively alarmed by the glibness with which Albertine spoke of the -"tram", and called it a "tin-pot". I could feel her mastery of a form of -speech in which I was afraid of her detecting and scorning my -inferiority. And yet the full wealth of the synonyms that the little -band possessed to denote this railway had not yet been revealed to me. -In speaking, Albertine kept her head motionless, her nostrils closed, -allowing only the corners of her lips to move. The result of this was a -drawling, nasal sound, into the composition of which there entered -perhaps a provincial descent, a juvenile affectation of British phlegm, -the teaching of a foreign governess and a congestive hypertrophy of the -mucus of the nose. This enunciation which, as it happened, soon -disappeared when she knew people better, giving place to a natural -girlish tone, might have been thought unpleasant. But it was peculiar to -herself, and delighted me. Whenever I had gone for several days without -seeing her, I would refresh my spirit by repeating to myself: "We don't -ever see you playing golf," with the nasal intonation in which she had -uttered the words, point blank, without moving a muscle of her face. And -I thought then that there could be no one in the world so desirable. - -We formed that morning one of those couples who dotted the "front" here -and there with their conjunction, their stopping together for time -enough just to exchange a few words before breaking apart, each to -resume separately his or her divergent stroll. I seized the opportunity, -while she stood still, to look again and discover once and for all where -exactly the little mole was placed. Then, just as a phrase of Vinteuil -which had delighted me in the sonata, and which my recollection allowed -to wander from the andante to the finale, until the day when, having the -score in my hands, I was able to find it, and to fix it in my memory in -its proper place, in the scherzo, so this mole, which I had visualised -now on her cheek, now on her chin, came to rest for ever on her upper -lip, just below her nose. In the same way, too, do we not come with -amazement upon lines that we know by heart in a poem in which we never -dreamed that they were to be found. - -At that moment, as if in order that against the sea there might multiply -in freedom, in the variety of its forms, all the rich decorative whole -which was the lovely unfolding of the train of maidens, at once golden -and rosy, baked by sun and wind, Albertine's friends, with their shapely -limbs, their supple figures, but so different one from another, came -into sight in a cluster that expanded as it approached, advancing -towards us, but keeping closer to the sea, along a parallel line. I -asked Albertine's permission to walk for a little way with her. -Unfortunately, all she did was to wave her hand to them in greeting. -"But your friends will be disappointed if you don't go with them," I -hinted, hoping that we might all walk together. A young man with regular -features, carrying a bag of golf-clubs, sauntered up to us. It was the -baccarat-player, whose fast ways so enraged the chief magistrate's wife. -In a frigid, impassive tone, which he evidently regarded as an -indication of the highest refinement, he bade Albertine good day. "Been -playing golf, Octave?" she asked. "How did the game go? Were you in -form?" "Oh, it's too sickening; I can't play for nuts," he replied. "Was -Andrée playing?" "Yes, she went round in seventy-seven." "Why, that's -a record!" "I went round in eighty-two yesterday." He was the son of an -immensely rich manufacturer who was to take an important part in the -organisation of the coming World's Fair. I was struck by the extreme -degree to which, in this young man and in the other by no means numerous -male friends of the band of girls, the knowledge of everything that -pertained to clothes and how to wear them, cigars, English drinks, -horses, a knowledge which he possessed in its minutest details with a -haughty infallibility that approached the reticent modesty of the true -expert, had been developed in complete isolation, unaccompanied by the -least trace of any intellectual culture. He had no hesitation as to the -right time and place for dinner jacket or pyjamas, but neither had he -any suspicion of the circumstances in which one might or might not -employ this or that word, or even of the simplest rules of grammar. This -disparity between the two forms of culture must have existed also in his -father, the President of the Syndicate that "ran" Balbec, for, in an -open letter to the electors which he had recently had posted on all the -walls, he announced: "I desired to see the Mayor, to speak to him of the -matter; he would not listen to my righteous plaint." Octave, at the -Casino, took prizes in all the dancing competitions, for bostons, tangos -and what-not, an accomplishment that would entitle him, if he chose, to -make a fine marriage in that seaside society where it is not -figuratively but in sober earnest that the young women "marry their -dancing-partners". He lighted a cigar with a "D'you mind?" to Albertine, -as one who asks permission to finish, while going on talking, an urgent -piece of work. For he was one of those people who can never be "doing -nothing", although there was nothing, for that matter, that he could -ever be said to do. And as complete inactivity has the same effect on -us, in the end, as prolonged overwork, and on the character as much as -on the life of body and muscles, the unimpaired nullity of intellect -that was enshrined behind Octave's meditative brow had ended by giving -him, despite his air of unruffled calm, ineffectual longings to think -which kept him awake at night, for all the world like an overwrought -philosopher. - -Supposing that if I knew their male friends I should have more -opportunities of seeing the girls, I had been on the point of asking for -an introduction to Octave. I told Albertine this, as soon as he had left -us, still muttering, "I couldn't play for nuts!" I thought I would thus -put into her head the idea of doing it next time. "But I can't," she -cried, "introduce you to a tame cat like that. This place simply swarms -with them. But what on earth would they have to say to you? That one -plays golf quite well, and that's all there is to it. I know what I'm -talking about; you'ld find he wasn't at all your sort." "Your friends -will be cross with you if you desert them like this," I repeated, hoping -that she would then suggest my joining the party. "Oh, no, they don't -want me." We ran into Bloch, who directed at me a subtle, insinuating -smile, and, embarrassed by the presence of Albertine, whom he did not -know, or, rather, knew "without knowing" her, bent his head with a -stiff, almost irritated jerk. "What's he called, that Ostrogoth?" -Albertine asked. "I can't think why he should bow to me; he doesn't know -me. And I didn't bow to him, either." I had no time to explain to her, -for, bearing straight down upon us, "Excuse me," he began, "for -interrupting you, but I must tell you that I am going to Doncières -to-morrow. I cannot put it off any longer without discourtesy; indeed, -I ask myself, what must de Saint-Loup-en-Bray think of me. I just came -to let you know that I shall take the two o'clock train. At your -service." But I thought now only of seeing Albertine again, and of -trying to get to know her friends, and Doncières, since they were not -going there, and my going would bring me back too late to see them still -on the beach, seemed to me to be situated at the other end of the world. -I told Bloch that it was impossible. "Oh, very well, I shall go alone. -In the fatuous words of Master Arouet, I shall say to Saint-Loup, to -beguile his clericalism:" - - -'My duty stands alone, by his in no way bound; -Though he should choose to fail, yet faithful I'll be found.' - - -"I admit he's not a bad looking boy," was Albertine's comment, "but he -makes me feel quite sick." I had never thought that Bloch might be "not -a bad looking boy"; and yet, when one came to think of it, so he was. -With his rather prominent brow, very aquiline nose, and his air of -extreme cleverness and of being convinced of his cleverness, he had a -pleasing face. But he could not succeed in pleasing Albertine. This was -perhaps due, to some extent, to her own disadvantages, the harshness, -the want of feeling of the little band, its rudeness towards everything -that was not itself. And later on, when I introduced them, Albertine's -antipathy for him grew no less. Bloch belonged to a section of society -in which, between the free and easy customs of the "smart set" and the -regard for good manners which a man is supposed to shew who "does not -soil his hands", a sort of special compromise has been reached which -differs from the manners of the world and is nevertheless a peculiarly -unpleasant form of worldliness. When he was introduced to anyone he -would bow with a sceptical smile, and at the same time with an -exaggerated show of respect, and, if it was to a man, would say: -"Pleased to meet you, sir," in a voice which ridiculed the words that it -was uttering, though with a consciousness of belonging to some one who -was no fool. Having sacrificed this first moment to a custom which he at -once followed and derided (just as on the first of January he would -greet you with a "Many happy!") he would adopt an air of infinite -cunning, and would "proffer subtle words" which were often true enough -but "got on" Albertine's nerves. When I told her on this first day that -his name was Bloch, she exclaimed: "I would have betted anything he was -a Jew-boy. Trust them to put their foot in it!" Moreover, Bloch was -destined to give Albertine other grounds for annoyance later on. Like -many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a -simple way. He would find some precious qualification for every -statement, and would sweep from particular to general. It vexed -Albertine, who was never too well pleased at other people's shewing an -interest in what she was doing, that when she had sprained her ankle and -was keeping quiet, Bloch said of her: "She is outstretched on her chair, -but in her ubiquity has not ceased to frequent simultaneously vague -golf-courses and dubious tennis-courts." He was simply being "literary", -of course, but this, in view of the difficulties which Albertine felt -that it might create for her with friends whose invitations she had -declined on the plea that she was unable to move, was quite enough to -disgust her with the face, the sound of the voice of the young man who -could say such things about her. We parted, Albertine and I, after -promising to take a walk together later. I had talked to her without -being any more conscious of where my words were falling, of what became -of them, than if I were dropping pebbles into a bottomless pit. That our -words are, as a general rule, filled, by the person to whom we address -them, with a meaning which that person derives from her own substance, a -meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words -when we uttered them, is a fact which the daily round of life is -perpetually demonstrating. But if we find ourself as well in the company -of a person whose education (as Albertine's was to me) is inconceivable, -her tastes, her reading, her principles unknown, we cannot tell whether -our words have aroused in her anything that resembles their meaning, any -more than in an animal, although there are things that even an animal -may be made to understand. So that to attempt any closer friendship with -Albertine seemed to me like placing myself in contact with the unknown, -if not the impossible, an occupation as arduous as breaking a horse, as -reposeful as keeping bees or growing roses. - -I had thought, a few hours before, that Albertine would acknowledge my -bow but would not speak to me. We had now parted, after planning to make -some excursion soon together. I vowed that when I next met Albertine I -would treat her with greater boldness, and I had sketched out in advance -a draft of all that I would say to her, and even (being now quite -convinced that she was not strait-laced) of all the favours that I would -demand of her. But the mind is subject to external influences, as plants -are, and cells and chemical elements, and the medium in which its -immersion alters it is a change of circumstances, or new surroundings. -Grown different by the mere fact of her presence, when I found myself -once again in Albertine's company, what I said to her was not at all -what I had meant to say. Remembering her flushed temple, I asked myself -whether she might not appreciate more keenly a polite attention which -she knew to be disinterested. Besides, I was embarrassed by certain -things in her look, in her smile. They might equally well signify a -laxity of morals and the rather silly merriment of a girl who though -full of spirits was at heart thoroughly respectable. A single -expression, on a face as in speech, is susceptible of divers -interpretations, and I stood hesitating like a schoolboy faced by the -difficulties of a piece of Greek prose. - -On this occasion we met almost immediately the tall one, Andrée, the -one who had jumped over the old banker, and Albertine was obliged to -introduce me. Her friend had a pair of eyes of extraordinary brightness, -like, in a dark house, a glimpse through an open door of a room into -which the sun is shining with a greenish reflexion from the glittering -sea. - -A party of five were passing, men whom I had come to know very well by -sight during my stay at Balbec. I had often wondered who they could be. -"They're nothing very wonderful," said Albertine with a sneering laugh. -"The little old one with dyed hair and yellow gloves has a fine touch; -he knows how to draw all right, he's the Balbec dentist; he's a good -sort. The fat one is the Mayor, not the tiny little fat one, you must -have seen him before, he's the dancing master; he's rather a beast, you -know; he can't stand us, because we make such a row at the Casino; we -smash his chairs, and want to have the carpet up when we dance; that's -why he never gives us prizes, though we're the only girls there who can -dance a bit. The dentist is a dear, I would have said how d'ye do to -him, just to make the dancing master swear, but I couldn't because -they've got M. de Sainte-Croix with them; he's on the General Council; -he comes of a very good family, but he's joined the Republicans, to make -more money. No nice people ever speak to him now. He knows my uncle, -because they're both in the Government, but the rest of my family always -cut him. The thin one in the waterproof is the bandmaster. You know him, -of course. You don't? Oh, he plays divinely. You haven't been to -_Cavalleria Rusticana?_ I thought it too lovely! He's giving a concert -this evening, but we can't go because it's to be in the town hall. In -the Casino it wouldn't matter, but in the town hall, where they've taken -down the crucifix, Andrée's mother would have a fit if we went there. -You're going to say that my aunt's husband is in the Government. But -what difference does that make? My aunt is my aunt. That's not why I'm -fond of her. The only thing she has ever wanted has been to get rid of -me. No, the person who has really been a mother to me, and all the more -credit to her because she's no relation at all, is a friend of mine whom -I love just as much as if she was my mother. I will let you see her -'photo'." We were joined for a moment by the golf champion and baccarat -plunger, Octave. I thought that I had discovered a bond between us, for -I learned in the course of conversation that he was some sort of -relative, and even more a friend of the Verdurins. But he spoke -contemptuously of the famous Wednesdays, adding that M. Verdurin had -never even heard of a dinner jacket, which made it a horrid bore when -one ran into him in a music-hall, where one would very much rather not -be greeted with "Well, you young rascal," by an old fellow in a frock -coat and black tie, for all the world like a village lawyer. Octave left -us, and soon it was Andrée's turn, when we came to her villa, into -which she vanished without having uttered a single word to me during the -whole of our walk. I regretted her departure, all the more in that, -while I was complaining to Albertine how chilling her friend had been -with me, and was comparing in my mind this difficulty which Albertine -seemed to find in making me know her friends with the hostility that -Elstir, when he might have granted my desire, seemed to have encountered -on that first afternoon, two girls came by to whom I lifted my hat, the -young Ambresacs, whom Albertine greeted also. - -I felt that, in Albertine's eyes, my position would be improved by this -meeting. They were the daughters of a kinswoman of Mme. de Villeparisis, -who was also a friend of Mme. de Luxembourg. M. and Mme. d'Ambresac, who -had a small villa at Balbec and were immensely rich, led the simplest of -lives there, and always went about dressed he in an unvarying frock -coat, she in a dark gown. Both of them used to make sweeping bows to my -grandmother, which never led to anything further. The daughters, who -were very pretty, were dressed more fashionably, but in a fashion suited -rather to Paris than to the seaside. With their long skirts and large -hats, they had the look of belonging to a different race from Albertine. -She, I discovered, knew all about them. - -"Oh, so you know the little d'Ambresacs, do you? Dear me, you have some -swagger friends. After all, they're very simple souls," she went on as -though this might account for it. "They're very nice, but so well -brought up that they aren't allowed near the Casino, for fear of -us--we've such a bad tone. They attract you, do they? Well, it all -depends on what you like. They're just little white rabbits, really. -There may be something in that, of course. If little white rabbits are -what appeals to you, they may supply a long-felt want. It seems, there -must be some attraction, because one of them has got engaged already to -the Marquis de Saint-Loup. Which is a cruel blow to the younger one, who -is madly in love with that young man. I'm sure, the way they speak to -you with their lips shut is quite enough for me. And then they dress in -the most absurd way. Fancy going to play golf in silk frocks! At their -age, they dress more showily than grown-up women who really know about -clothes. Look at Mme. Elstir; there's a well dressed woman if you like," -I answered that she had struck me as being dressed with the utmost -simplicity. Albertine laughed. "She does put on the simplest things, I -admit, but she dresses wonderfully, and to get what you call simplicity -costs her a fortune." Mme. Elstir's gowns passed unnoticed by any one -who had not a sober and unerring taste in matters of attire. This was -lacking in me. Elstir possessed it in a supreme degree, or so Albertine -told me. I had not suspected this, nor that the beautiful but quite -simple objects which littered his studio were treasures long desired by -him which he had followed from sale room to sale room, knowing all their -history, until he had made enough money to be able to acquire them. But -as to this Albertine, being as ignorant as myself, could not enlighten -me. Whereas when it came to clothes, prompted by a coquettish instinct, -and perhaps by the regretful longing of a penniless girl who is able to -appreciate with greater disinterestedness, more delicacy of feeling, in -other, richer people the things that she will never be able to afford -for herself, she expressed herself admirably on the refinement of -Elstir's taste, so hard to satisfy that all women appeared to him badly -dressed, while, attaching infinite importance to right proportions and -shades of colour, he would order to be made for his wife, at fabulous -prices, the sunshades, hats and cloaks which he had learned from -Albertine to regard as charming, and which a person wanting in taste -would no more have noticed than myself. Apart from this, Albertine, who -had done a little painting, though without, she confessed, having any -"gift" for it, felt a boundless admiration for Elstir, and, thanks to -his precept and example, shewed a judgment of pictures which was in -marked contrast to her enthusiasm for _Cavalleria Rusticana._ The truth -was, though as yet it was hardly apparent, that she was highly -intelligent, and that in the things that she said the stupidity was not -her own but that of her environment and age. Elstir's had been a good -but only a partial influence. All the branches of her intelligence had -not reached the same stage of development. The taste for pictures had -almost caught up the taste for clothes and all forms of smartness, but -had not been followed by the taste for music, which was still a long way -behind. - -Albertine might know all about the Ambresacs; but as he who can achieve -great things is not necessarily capable of small, I did not find her, -after I had bowed to those young ladies, any better disposed to make me -known to her friends. "It's too good of you to attach any importance to -them. You shouldn't take any notice of them; they don't count. What on -earth can a lot of kids like them mean to a man like you? Now Andrée, -I must say, is remarkably clever. She is a good girl, that, though she -is perfectly fantastic at times, but the others are really dreadfully -stupid." When I had left Albertine, I felt suddenly a keen regret that -Saint-Loup should have concealed his engagement from me and that he -should be doing anything so improper as to choose a wife before breaking -with his mistress. And then, shortly afterwards, I met Andrée, and as -she went on talking to me for some time I seized the opportunity to tell -her that I would very much like to see her again next day, but she -replied that this was impossible, because her mother was not at all -well, and she would have to stay beside her. The next day but one, when -I was at Elstir's, he told me how greatly Andrée had been attracted by -me; on my protesting: "But it was I who was attracted by her from the -start; I asked her to meet me again yesterday, but she could not." "Yes, -I know; she told me all about that," was his reply, "she was very sorry, -but she had promised to go to a picnic, somewhere miles from here. They -were to drive over in a break, and it was too late for her to get out of -it." Albeit this falsehood (Andrée knowing me so slightly) was of no -real importance, I ought not to have continued to seek the company of a -person who was capable of uttering it. For what people have once done -they will do again indefinitely, and if you go every year to see a -friend who, the first time, was not able to meet you at the appointed -place, or was in bed with a chill, you will find him in bed with another -chill which he has just caught, you will miss him again at another -meeting-place at which he has failed to appear, for a single and -unalterable reason in place of which he supposes himself to have various -reasons, drawn from the circumstances. One morning, not long after -Andrée's telling me that she would be obliged to stay beside her -mother, I was taking a short stroll with Albertine, whom I had found on -the beach tossing up and catching again on a cord an oddly shaped -implement which gave her a look of Giotto's "Idolatry"; it was called, -for that matter, "Diabolo", and is so fallen into disuse now that, when -they come upon the picture of a girl playing with one, the critics of -future generations will solemnly discuss, as it might be over one of the -allegorical figures in the Arena, what it is that she is holding. A -moment later their friend with the penurious and harsh appearance, the -same one who on that first day had sneered so malevolently: "I do feel -sorry for him, poor old man," when she saw the old gentlemen's head -brushed by the flying feet of Andrée, came up to Albertine with "Good -morning, 'm I disturbing you?" She had taken off her hat, for comfort, -and her hair, like a strange and fascinating plant, lay over her brow, -displaying all the delicate tracery of its foliation. Albertine, perhaps -because she resented seeing the other bare-headed, made no reply, -preserved a frigid silence in spite of which the girl stayed with us, -kept apart from myself by Albertine, who arranged at one moment to be -alone with her, at another to walk with me leaving her to follow. I was -obliged, to secure an introduction, to ask for it in the girl's hearing. -Then, as Albertine was uttering my name, on the face and in the blue -eyes of this girl, whose expression I had thought so cruel when I heard -her say: "Poor old man, I do feel so sorry for him", I saw gather and -gleam a cordial, friendly smile, and she held out her hand. Her hair was -golden, and not her hair only; for if her cheeks were pink and her eyes -blue it was like the still roseate morning sky which sparkles everywhere -with dazzling points of gold. - -At once kindled by her flame, I said to myself that this was a child who -when in love grew shy, that it was for my sake, from love for me that -she had remained with us, despite Albertine's rebuffs, and that she must -have rejoiced in the opportunity to confess to me at last, by that -smiling, friendly gaze, that she would be as kind to me as she was -terrible to other people. Doubtless she had noticed me on the beach, -when I still knew nothing of her, and had been thinking of me ever -since; perhaps it had been to win my admiration that she mocked at the -old gentleman, and because she had not succeeded in getting to know me -that on the following days she appeared so morose. From the hotel I had -often seen her, in the evenings, walking by herself on the beach. -Probably in the hope of meeting me. And now, hindered as much by -Albertine's presence as she would have been by that of the whole band, -she had evidently attached herself to us, braving the increasing -coldness of her friend's attitude, only in the hope of outstaying her, -of being left alone with me, when she might make an appointment with me -for some time when she would find an excuse to slip away without either -her family's or her friends' knowing that she had gone, and would meet -me in some safe place before church or after golf. It was all the more -difficult to see her because Andrée had quarrelled with her and now -detested her. "I have put up far too long with her terrible dishonesty," -she explained to me, "her baseness; I can't tell you all the vile -insults she has heaped on me. I have stood it all because of the others. -But her latest effort was really too much!" And she told me of some -foolish thing that this girl had done, which might indeed have injurious -consequences to Andrée herself. - -But those private words promised me by Gisèle's confiding eyes for the -moment when Albertine should have left us by ourselves, were destined -never to be spoken, because after Albertine, stubbornly planted between -us, had answered with increasing curtness, and finally had ceased to -respond at all to her friend's remarks, Gisèle at length abandoned the -attempt and turned back. I found fault with Albertine for having been so -disagreeable. "It will teach her to be more careful how she behaves. -She's not a bad kid, but she'ld talk the head off a donkey. She's no -business, either, to go poking her nose into everything. Why should she -fasten herself on to us without being asked? In another minute I'ld have -told her to go to blazes. Besides I can't stand her going about with her -hair like that; it's such bad form." I gazed at Albertine's cheeks as -she spoke, and asked myself what might be the perfume, the taste of -them: this time they were not cool, but glowed with a uniform pink, -violet-tinted, creamy, like certain roses whose petals have a waxy -gloss. I felt a passionate longing for them such as one feels sometimes -for a particular flower. "I hadn't noticed it," was all that I said. -"You stared at her hard enough; anyone would have said you wanted to -paint her portrait," she scolded, not at all softened by the fact that -it was at herself that I was now staring so fixedly. "I don't believe -you would care for her, all the same. She's not in the least a flirt. -You like little girls who flirt with you, I know. Anyhow, she won't have -another chance of fastening on to us and being sent about her business; -she's going off to-day to Paris." "Are the rest of your friends going -too?" "No; only she and 'Miss', because she's got an exam, coming; she's -got to stay at home and swot for it, poor kid. It's not much fun for -her, I don't mind telling you. Of course, you may be set a good subject, -you never know. But it's a tremendous risk. One girl I know was asked: -_Describe an accident that you have witnessed._ That was a piece of -luck. But I know another girl who got: _State which you would rather -have as a friend, Alceste or Philinte._ I'm sure I should have dried up -altogether! Apart from everything else, it's not a question to set to -girls. Girls go about with other girls; they're not supposed to have -gentlemen friends." (This announcement, which shewed that I had but -little chance of being admitted to the companionship of the band, froze -my blood.) "But in any case, supposing it was set to boys, what on earth -would you expect them to say to a question like that? Several parents -wrote to the _Gaulois_, to complain of the difficult questions that were -being set. The joke of it is that in a collection of prize-winning -essays they gave two which treated the question in absolutely opposite -ways. You see, it all depends on which examiner you get. One would like -you to say that Philinte was a flatterer and a scoundrel, the other that -you couldn't help admiring Alceste, but that he was too cantankerous, -and that as a friend you ought to choose Philinte. How can you expect a -lot of unfortunate candidates to know what to say when the professors -themselves can't make up their minds. But that's nothing. They get more -difficult every year. Gisèle will want all her wits about her if she's -to get through." I returned to the hotel. My grandmother was not there. -I waited for her for some time; when at last she appeared, I begged her -to allow me, in quite unexpected circumstances, to make an expedition -which might keep me away for a couple of days. I had luncheon with her, -ordered a carriage and drove to the station. Gisèle would shew no -surprise at seeing me there. After we had changed at Doncières, in the -Paris train, there would be a carriage with a corridor, along which, -while the governess dozed, I should be able to lead Gisèle into dark -corners, and make an appointment to meet her on my return to Paris, which -I would then try to put forward to the earliest possible date. I would -travel with her as far as Caen or Evreux, whichever she preferred, and -would take the next train back to Balbec. And yet, what would she have -thought of me had she known that I had hesitated for a long time between -her and her friends, that quite as much as with her I had contemplated -falling in love with Albertine, with the bright-eyed girl, with -Rosemonde. I felt a pang of remorse now that a bond of mutual affection -was going to unite me with Gisèle. I could, moreover, truthfully have -assured her that Albertine no longer interested me. I had seen her that -morning as she swerved aside, almost turning her back on me, to speak to -Gisèle. On her head, which was bent sullenly over her bosom, the hair -that grew at the back, different from and darker even than the rest, -shone as though she had just been bathing. "Like a dying duck in a -thunderstorm!" I thought to myself, this view of her hair having let -into Albertine's body a soul entirely different from that implied -hitherto by her glowing complexion and mysterious gaze. That shining -cataract of hair at the back of her head had been for a moment or two -all that I was able to see of her, and continued to be all that I saw in -retrospect. Our memory is like a shop in the window of which is exposed -now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the -most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen. While -the coachman whipped on his horse I sat there listening to the words of -gratitude and affection which Gisèle was murmuring in my ear, born, all -of them, of her friendly smile and outstretched hand, the fact being -that in those periods of my life in which I was not actually, but -desired to be in love, I carried in my mind not only an ideal form of -beauty once seen, which I recognised at a glance in every passing -stranger who kept far enough from me for her confused features to resist -any attempt at identification, but also the moral phantom--ever ready to -be incarnate--of the woman who was going to fall in love with me, to -take up her cues in the amorous comedy which I had had written out in my -mind from my earliest boyhood, and in which every nice girl seemed to me -to be equally desirous of playing, provided that she had also some of -the physical qualifications required. In this play, whoever the new star -might be whom I invited to create or to revive the leading part, the -plot, the incidents, the lines themselves preserved an unalterable form. - -Within the next few days, in spite of the reluctance that Albertine had -shewn from introducing me to them, I knew all the little band of that -first afternoon (except Gisèle, whom, owing to a prolonged delay at the -level crossing by the station and a change in the time-table, I had not -succeeded in meeting on the train, which had been gone some minutes -before I arrived, and to whom as it happened I never gave another -thought), and two or three other girls as well to whom at my request -they introduced me. And thus, my expectation of the pleasure which I -should find in a new girl springing from another girl through whom I had -come to know her, the latest was like one of those new varieties of rose -which gardeners get by using first a rose of another kind. And as I -passed from blossom to blossom along this flowery chain, the pleasure of -knowing one that was different would send me back to her to whom I was -indebted for it, with a gratitude in which desire was mingled fully as -much as in my new expectation. Presently I was spending all my time -among these girls. - -Alas! in the freshest flower it is possible to discern those just -perceptible signs which to the instructed mind indicate already what -will be, by the desiccation or fructification of the flesh that is -to-day in bloom, the ultimate form, immutable and already predestinate, -of the autumnal seed. The eye rapturously follows a nose like a wavelet -that deliciously curls the water's face at day-break and seems not to -move, to be capturable by the pencil, because the sea is so calm then -that one does not notice its tidal flow. Human faces seem not to change -while we are looking at them, because the revolution which they perform -is too slow for us to perceive it. But we have only to see, by the side -of any of those girls, her mother or her aunt, to realise the distance -over which, obeying the gravitation of a type that is, generally -speaking, deplorable, her features will have travelled in less than -thirty years, and must continue to travel until the sunset hour, until -her face, having vanished altogether below the horizon, catches the -light no more. I knew that, as deep, as ineluctable as is their Jewish -patriotism or Christian atavism in those who imagine themselves to be -the most emancipated of their race, there dwelt beneath the rosy -inflorescence of Albertine, Rosemonde, Andrée, unknown to themselves, -held in reserve until the circumstances should arise, a coarse nose, a -protruding jaw, a bust that would create a sensation when it appeared, -but was actually in the wings, ready to "come on", just as it might be a -burst of Dreyfusism, or clericalism, sudden, unforeseen, fatal, some -patriotic, some feudal form of heroism emerging suddenly when the -circumstances demand it from a nature anterior to that of the man -himself, by means of which he thinks, lives, evolves, gains strength -himself or dies, without ever being able to distinguish that nature from -the successive phases which in turn he takes for it. Even mentally, we -depend a great deal more than we think upon natural laws, and our mind -possesses already, like some cryptogamous plant, every little -peculiarity that we imagine ourselves to be selecting. For we can see -only the derived ideas, without detecting the primary cause (Jewish -blood, French birth or whatever it may be) that inevitably produced -them, and which at a given moment we expose. And perhaps, while the -former appear to us to be the result of deliberate thought, the latter -that of an imprudent disregard for our own health, we take from our -family, as the papilionaceae take the form of their seed, as well the -ideas by which we live as the malady from which we shall die. - -As on a plant whose flowers open at different seasons, I had seen, -expressed in the form of old ladies, on this Balbec shore, those -shrivelled seed-pods, those flabby tubers which my friends would one day -be. But what matter? For the moment it was their flowering-time. And so -when Mme. de Villeparisis asked me to drive with her I sought an excuse -to be prevented. I never went to see Elstir unless accompanied by my new -friends. I could not even spare an afternoon to go to Doncières, to pay -the visit I had promised Saint-Loup. Social engagements, serious -discussions, even a friendly conversation, had they usurped the place -allotted to my walks with these girls, would have had the same effect on -me as if, when the luncheon bell rang, I had been taken not to a table -spread with food but to turn the pages of an album. The men, the youths, -the women, old or mature, whose society we suppose that we shall enjoy, -are borne by us only on an unsubstantial plane surface, because we are -conscious of them only by visual perception restricted to its own -limits; whereas it is as delegates from our other senses that our eyes -dart towards young girls; the senses follow, one after another, in -search of the various charms, fragrant, tactile, savoury, which they -thus enjoy even without the aid of fingers and lips; and able, thanks to -the art of transposition, the genius for synthesis in which desire -excels, to reconstruct beneath the hue of cheeks or bosom the feel, the -taste, the contact that is forbidden them, they give to these girls the -same honeyed consistency as they create when they stand rifling the -sweets of a rose-garden, or before a vine whose clusters their eyes -alone devour. - -If it rained, although the weather had no power to daunt Albertine, who -was often to be seen in her waterproof spinning on her bicycle through -the driving showers, we would spend the day in the Casino, where on such -days it would have seemed to me impossible not to go. I had the greatest -contempt for the young Ambresacs, who had never set foot in it. And I -willingly joined my friends in playing tricks on the dancing master. As -a rule we had to listen to admonition from the manager, or from some of -his staff, usurping dictatorial powers, because my friends, even Andrée -herself, whom on that account I had regarded when I first saw her as so -dionysiac a creature, whereas in reality she was delicate, intellectual, -and this year far from well, in spite of which her actions were -controlled less by the state of her health than by the spirit of that -age which overcomes every other consideration and confounds in a general -gaiety the weak with the strong, could not enter the outer hall of the -rooms without starting to run, jumping over all the chairs, sliding back -along the floor, their balance maintained by a graceful poise of their -outstretched arms, singing the while, mingling all the arts, in that -first bloom of youth, in the manner of those poets of ancient days for -whom the different "kinds" were not yet separate, so that in an epic -poem they would introduce rules of agriculture with theological -doctrine. - -This Andrée who had struck me when I first saw them as the coldest of -them all, was infinitely more refined, more loving, more sensitive than -Albertine, to whom she displayed the caressing, gentle affection of an -elder sister. At the Casino she would come across the floor to sit down -by me, and knew instinctively, unlike Albertine, to refuse my invitation -to dance, or even, if I was tired, to give up the Casino and come to me -instead at the hotel. She expressed her friendship for me, for -Albertine, in terms which were evidence of the most exquisite -understanding of the things of the heart, which may have been partly due -to the state of her health. She had always a merry smile of excuse for -the childish behaviour of Albertine, who expressed with a crude violence -the irresistible temptation held out to her by the parties and picnics -to which she had not the sense, like Andrée, resolutely to prefer -staying and talking with me. When the time came for her to go off to a -luncheon party at the golf-club, if we were all three together she would -get ready to leave us, then, coming up to Andrée: "Well, Andrée, what -are you waiting for now? You know we are lunching at the golf-club." -"No; I'm going to stay and talk to him," replied Andrée, pointing to -me. "But you know, Mme. Durieux invited you," cried Albertine, as if -Andrée's intention to remain with me could be explained only by -ignorance on her part where else and by whom she had been bidden. "Look -here, my good girl, don't be such an idiot," Andrée chid her. Albertine -did not insist, fearing a suggestion that she too should stay with me. -She tossed her head: "Just as you like," was her answer, uttered in the -tone one uses to an invalid whose self-indulgence is killing him by -inches, "I must fly; I'm sure your watch is slow," and off she went. -"She is a dear girl, but quite impossible," said Andrée, bathing her -friend in a smile at once caressing and critical. If in this craze for -amusement Albertine might be said to echo something of the old original -Gilberte, that is because a certain similarity exists, although the type -evolves, between all the women we love, a similarity that is due to the -fixity of our own temperament, which it is that chooses them, -eliminating all those who would not be at once our opposite and our -complement, fitted that is to say to gratify our senses and to wring our -heart. They are, these women, a product of our temperament, an image -inversely projected, a negative of our sensibility. So that a novelist -might, in relating the life of his hero, describe his successive -love-affairs in almost exactly similar terms, and thereby give the -impression not that he was repeating himself but that he was creating, -since an artificial novelty is never so effective as a repetition that -manages to suggest a fresh truth. He ought, moreover, to indicate in the -character of the lover a variability which becomes apparent as the story -moves into fresh regions, into different latitudes of life. And perhaps -he would be stating yet another truth if while investing all the other -persons of his story with distinct characters he refrained from giving -any to the beloved. We understand the characters of people who do not -interest us; how can we ever grasp that of a person who is an intimate -part of our existence, whom after a little we no longer distinguish in -any way from ourself, whose motives provide us with an inexhaustible -supply of anxious hypotheses which we perpetually reconstruct. Springing -from somewhere beyond our understanding, our curiosity as to the woman -whom we love overleaps the bounds of that woman's character, which we -might if we chose but probably will not choose to stop and examine. The -object of our uneasy investigation is something more essential than -those details of character comparable to the tiny particles of epidermis -whose varied combinations form the florid originality of human flesh. -Our intuitive radiography pierces them, and the images which it -photographs for us, so far from being those of any single face, present -rather the joyless universality of a skeleton. - -Andrée, being herself extremely rich while the other was penniless and -an orphan, with real generosity lavished on Albertine the full benefit -of her wealth. As for her feelings towards Gisèle, they were not quite -what I had been led to suppose. News soon reached us of the young -student, and when Albertine handed round the letter she had received, a -letter intended by Gisèle to give an account of her journey and to -report her safe arrival to the little band, pleading laziness as an -excuse for not having written yet to the rest, I was surprised to hear -Andrée (for I imagined an irreparable breach between them) say: "I -shall write to her to-morrow, because if I wait for her to write I may -have to wait for years, she's such a slacker." And, turning to myself, -she added: "You saw nothing much in her, evidently; but she's a jolly -nice girl, and besides I'm really very fond of her." From which I -concluded that Andrée's quarrels were apt not to last very long. - -Except on these rainy days, as we had always arranged to go on our -bicycles along the cliffs, or on an excursion inland, an hour or so -before it was time to start I would go upstairs to make myself smart and -would complain if Françoise had not laid out all the things that I -wanted. Now even in Paris she would proudly, angrily straighten a back -which the years had begun to bend, at the first word of reproach, she so -humble, she so modest and charming when her self-esteem was flattered. -As this was the mainspring of her life, her satisfaction, her good -humour were in direct ratio to the difficulty of the tasks imposed on -her. Those which she had to perform at Balbec were so easy that she -shewed almost all the time a discontent which was suddenly multiplied an -hundredfold, with the addition of an ironic air of offended dignity when -I complained, on my way down to join my friends, that my hat had not -been brushed or my ties sorted. She who was capable of taking such -endless pains, without in consequence assuming that she had done -anything at all, on my simply remarking that a coat was not in its -proper place, not only did she boast of the care with which she had "put -it past sooner than let it go gathering the dust," but, paying a formal -tribute to her own labours, lamented that it was little enough of a -holiday that she was getting at Balbec, and that we would not find -another person in the whole world who would consent to put up with such -treatment. "I can't think how anyone can leave things lying about the -way you do; you just try and get anyone else to find what you want in -such a mix-up. The devil himself would give it up as a bad job." Or else -she would adopt a regal mien, scorching me with her fiery glance, and -preserve a silence that was broken as soon as she had fastened the door -behind her and was outside in the passage, which would then reverberate -with utterances which I guessed to be insulting, though they remained as -indistinct as those of characters in a play whose opening lines are -spoken in the wings, before they appear on the stage. And even if -nothing was missing and Françoise was in a good temper, still she made -herself quite intolerable when I was getting ready to go out with my -friends. For, drawing upon a store of stale witticisms at their expense -which, in my need to be talking about the girls, I had made in her -hearing, she put on an air of being about to reveal to me things of -which I should have known more than she had there been any truth in her -statements, which there never was, Françoise having misunderstood what -she had heard. She had, like most people, her own ways; a person is never -like a straight highway, but surprises us with the strange, unavoidable -windings of his course through life, by which, though some people may -not notice them, we find it a perpetual annoyance to be stopped and -hindered. Whenever I arrived at the stage of "Where is my hat?" or -uttered the name of Andrée or Albertine, I was forced by Françoise to -stray into endless and absurd side-tracks which greatly delayed my -progress. So too when I asked her to cut me the sandwiches of cheese or -salad, or sent her out for the cakes which I was to eat while we rested -on the cliffs, sharing them with the girls, and which the girls "might -very well have taken turns to provide, if they had not been so close," -declared Françoise, to whose aid there came at such moments a whole -heritage of atavistic peasant rapacity and coarseness, and for whom one -would have said that the soul of her late enemy Eulalie had been broken -into fragments and reincarnate, more attractively than it had ever been -in Saint-Eloi's, in the charming bodies of my friends of the little -band. I listened to these accusations with a dull fury at finding myself -brought to a standstill at one of those places beyond which the -well-trodden country path that was Françoise's character became -impassable, though fortunately never for very long. Then, my hat or coat -found and the sandwiches ready, I sallied out to find Albertine, -Andrée, Rosemonde, and any others there might be, and on foot or on our -bicycles we would start. - -In the old days I should have preferred our excursion to be made in bad -weather. For then I still looked to find in Balbec the "Cimmerians' -land", and fine days were a thing that had no right to exist there, an -intrusion of the vulgar summer of seaside holiday makers into that -ancient region swathed in eternal mist. But now, everything that I had -hitherto despised, shut out of my field of vision, not only effects of -sunlight upon sea and shore, but even the regattas, the race-meetings, I -would have sought out with ardour, for the reason for which formerly I -had wanted only stormy seas, which was that these were now associated in -my mind, as the others had been, with an aesthetic idea. Because I had -gone several times with my new friends to visit Elstir, and, on the days -when the girls were there, what he had selected to shew us were drawings -of pretty women in yachting dress, or else a sketch made on a -race-course near Balbec. I had at first shyly admitted to Elstir that I -had not felt inclined to go to the meetings that were being held there. -"You were wrong," he told me, "it is such a pretty sight, and so well -worth seeing. For one thing, that peculiar animal, the jockey, on whom -so many eager eyes are fastened, who in the paddock there looks so grim, -a colourless face between his brilliant jacket and cap, one body and -soul with the prancing horse he rides, how interesting to analyse his -professional movements, the bright splash of colour he makes, with the -horse's coat blending in it, as they stream down the course. What a -transformation of every visible object in that luminous vastness of a -race-course where one is constantly surprised by fresh lights and shades -which one sees only there. How charming the women can look there, too! -The first day's racing was quite delightful, and there were women there -exquisitely dressed, in the misty light of a Dutch landscape, in which -one could feel rising to cloud the sun itself the penetrating coldness -of the water. Never have I seen women arriving in carriages, or standing -with glasses to their eyes in so extraordinary a light, which was due, I -suppose, to the moisture from the sea. I should simply have loved to -paint it. I came home from the races quite mad, and so keen to get to -work!" After which he became more enthusiastic still over the -yacht-races, and I realised that regattas, social fixtures where well -dressed women might be seen bathed in the greenish light of a marine -race-course, might be for a modern artist as interesting a subject as -were the revels which they so loved to depict for a Veronese or -Carpaccio. When I suggested this to Elstir, "Your comparison is all the -more true," he replied, "since, from the position of the city in which -they painted, those revels were to a great extent aquatic. Except that -the beauty of the shipping in those days lay as a rule in its solidity, -in the complication of its structure. They had water-tournaments, as we -have here, held generally in honour of some Embassy, such as Carpaccio -shews us in his _Legend of Saint Ursula._ The vessels were massive, -built up like architecture, and seemed almost amphibious, like lesser -Venices set in the heart of the greater, when, moored to the banks by -hanging stages decked with crimson satin and Persian carpets, they bore -their freight of ladies in cherry-red brocade and green damask close -under the balconies incrusted with many-coloured marbles from which -other ladies leaned to gaze at them, in gowns with black sleeves slashed -with white, stitched with pearls or bordered with lace. You cannot tell -where the land ends and the water begins, what is still the palace or -already the vessel, the caravel, the galeas, the Bucintoro." Albertine -had listened with the keenest interest to these details of costume, -these visions of elegance that Elstir was describing to us. "Oh, I -should so like to see that lace you speak of; it's so pretty, the -Venice-point," she cried, "Besides, I should love to see Venice." "You -may, perhaps, before very long, be able," Elstir informed her, "to gaze -upon the marvellous stuffs which they used to wear. Hitherto one has -seen them only in the works of the Venetian painters, or very rarely -among the treasures of old churches, except now and then when a specimen -has come into the sale room. But I hear that a Venetian artist, called -Fortuny, has recovered the secret of the craft, and that before many -years have passed women will be able to walk abroad, and better still to -sit at home in brocades as sumptuous as those that Venice adorned, for -her patrician daughters, with patterns brought from the Orient. But I -don't know that I should much care for that, that it wouldn't be too -much of an anachronism for the women of to-day, even when they parade at -regattas, for, to return to our modern pleasure-craft, the times have -completely changed since 'Venice, Queen of the Adriatic'. The great -charm of a yacht, of the furnishings of a yacht, of yachting dress, is -their simplicity, as just things for the sea, and I do so love the sea. -I must confess to you that I prefer the fashions of to-day to those of -Veronese's and even of Carpaccio's time. What there is so attractive -about our yachts--and the smaller yachts especially, I don't like the -huge ones, they're too much like ships; yachts are like women's hats, -you must keep within certain limits--is the unbroken surface, simple, -gleaming, grey, which under a cloudy, leaden sky takes on a creamy -softness. The cabin in which we live ought to make us think of a little -café. And women's clothes on board a yacht are the same sort of thing; -what really are charming are those light garments, uniformly white, of -cloth or linen or nankeen or drill, which in the sunlight and against -the blue of the sea shew up with as dazzling a whiteness as a spread -sail. You very seldom see a woman, for that matter, who knows how to -dress, and yet some of them are quite wonderful. At the races, Mlle. -Léa had a little white hat and a little white sunshade, simply -enchanting. I don't know what I wouldn't give for that little sunshade." -I should have liked very much to know in what respect this little -sunshade differed from any other, and for other reasons, reasons of -feminine vanity, Albertine was still more curious. But, just as -Françoise used to explain the excellence of her soufflés by "It's the -way you do them," so here the difference lay in the cut. "It was," -Elstir explained, "quite tiny, quite round, like a Chinese umbrella," I -mentioned the sunshades carried by various ladies, but it was not like -any of them. Elstir found them all quite hideous. A man of exquisite -taste, singularly hard to please, he would isolate some minute detail -which was the whole difference between what was worn by three-quarters -of the women he saw, and horrified him, and a thing which enchanted him -by its prettiness; and--in contrast to its effect on myself, whose mind -any display of luxury at once sterilised--stimulated his desire to paint -"so as to make something as attractive." "Here you see a young lady who -has guessed what the hat and sunshade were like," he said to me, -pointing to Albertine whose eyes shone with envy. "How I should love to -be rich, to have a yacht!" she said to the painter. "I should come to -you to tell me how to run it. What lovely trips I'ld take. And what fun -it would be to go to Cowes for the races. And a motor-car! Tell me, do -you think the ladies' fashions for motoring pretty?" "No;" replied -Elstir, "but that will come in time. You see, there are very few firms -at present, one or two only, Callot--although they go in rather too -freely for lace--Doucet, Cheruit, Paquin sometimes. The others are all -horrible." "Then, is there a vast difference between a Callot dress and -one from any ordinary shop?" I asked Albertine. "Why, an enormous -difference, my little man! I beg your pardon! Only, alas! what you get -for three hundred francs in an ordinary shop will cost two thousand -there. But there can be no comparison; they look the same only to people -who know nothing at all about it." "Quite so," put in Elstir; "though I -should not go so far as to say that it is as profound as the difference -between a statue from Rheims Cathedral and one from Saint-Augustin. By -the way, talking of cathedrals," he went on, addressing himself -exclusively to me, because what he was saying had reference to an -earlier conversation in which the girls had not taken part, and which -for that matter would not have interested them at all, "I spoke to you -the other day of Balbec church as a great cliff, a huge breakwater built -of the stone of the country; now look at this;" he handed me a -water-colour. "Look at these cliffs (it's a sketch I did close to here, -at the Creuniers); don't these rocks remind you of a cathedral?" And -indeed one would have taken them for soaring red arches. But, painted on -a roasting hot day, they seemed to have crumbled into dust, made -volatile by the heat which had drunk up half the sea, distilled over the -whole surface of the picture almost into a gaseous state. On this day on -which the sunlight had, so to speak, destroyed reality, reality -concentrated itself in certain dusky and transparent creatures which, by -contrast, gave a more striking, a closer impression of life: the -shadows. Ravening after coolness, most of them, deserting the scorched -open spaces, had fled for shelter to the foot of the rocks, out of reach -of the sun; others, swimming gently upon the tide, like dolphins, kept -close under the sides of the moving vessels, whose hulls they extended -upon the pale surface of the water with their glossy blue forms. It was -perhaps the thirst for coolness which they conveyed that did most to -give me the sensation of the heat of this day and made me exclaim how -much I regretted not knowing the Creuniers. Albertine and Andrée were -positive that I must have been there hundreds of times. If so I had been -there without knowing it, never suspecting that one day the sight of -these rocks was to inspire me with such a thirst for beauty, not perhaps -exactly natural beauty such as I had been seeking hitherto among the -cliffs of Balbec, but rather architectural. Above all, I who, having -come here to visit the kingdom of the storm, had never found, on any of -my drives with Mme. de Villeparisis, when often we saw it only from -afar, painted in a gap between the trees, the ocean sufficiently real, -sufficiently liquid, giving a sufficient impression that it was hurling -its massed forces against the shore, and would have liked to see it lie -motionless only under a wintry shroud of fog, I could never have -believed that I should now be dreaming of a sea which was nothing more -than a whitish vapour that had lost both consistency and colour. But of -such a sea Elstir, like the people who sat musing on board those vessels -drowsy with the heat, had so intensely felt the enchantment that he had -succeeded in transcribing, in fixing for all time upon the painted sheet -the imperceptible reflux of the tide, the throb of one happy moment; and -one suddenly became so enamoured, at the sight of this magic portrait, -that one could think of nothing else than to range the world over, -seeking to recapture the vanished day in its instantaneous, slumbering -beauty. - -So that if before these visits to Elstir, before I had set eyes on one -of his sea-pictures in which a young woman in a dress of white serge or -linen, on the deck of a yacht flying the American flag, had duplicated a -white linen dress and coloured flag in my imagination which at once bred -in me an insatiable desire to visit the spot and see there with my own -eyes white linen dresses and flags against the sea, as though no such -experience had ever yet befallen me, always until then I had taken care -when I stood by the sea to expel from my field of vision, as well as the -bathers in the foreground, the yachts with their too dazzling sails that -were like seaside costumes, everything that prevented me from persuading -myself that I was contemplating the immemorial flood of ocean which had -been moving with the same mysterious life before the appearance of the -human race; and had grudged even the days of radiant sunshine which -seemed to me to invest with the trivial aspect of the world's universal -summer this coast of fog and tempest, to mark simply an interruption, -equivalent to what in music is known as a rest; now on the other hand it -was the bad days that appeared to me to be some disastrous accident, a -thing that could no longer find any place for itself in the world of -beauty; I felt a keen desire to go out and recapture in reality what had -so powerfully aroused my imagination, and I hoped that the weather would -be propitious enough for me to see from the summit of the cliff the same -blue shadows as were in Elstir's picture. - -Nor, as I went along, did I still make a frame about my eyes with my -hands as in the days when, conceiving nature to be animated by a life -anterior to the first appearance of man, and inconsistent with all those -wearisome perfections of industrial achievement which had hitherto made -me yawn with boredom at Universal Exhibitions or in the milliners' -windows, I endeavoured to include only that section of the sea over -which there was no steamer passing, so that I might picture it to myself -as immemorial, still contemporary with the ages in which it had been set -apart from the land, or at least with the first dawn of life in Greece, -which enabled me to repeat in their literal meaning the lines of "Father -Leconte" of which Bloch was so fond: - - -'Gone are the Kings, gone are their towering prows, -Vanished upon the raging deep, alas, -The long-haired warrior heroes of Hellas.' - - -I could no longer despise the milliners, now that Elstir had told me -that the delicate touches by which they give a last refinement, a -supreme caress to the ribbons or feathers of a hat after it is finished -would be as interesting to him to paint as the muscular action of the -jockeys themselves (a statement which had delighted Albertine). But I -must wait until I had returned--for milliners, to Paris--for regattas -and races to Balbec, where there would be no more now until next year. -Even a yacht with women in white linen garments was not to be found. - -Often we encountered Bloch's sisters, to whom I was obliged to bow since -I had dined with their father. My new friends did not know them. "I am -not allowed to play with Israelites," Albertine explained. Her way of -pronouncing the word--"Issraelites" instead of "Izraelites"--would in -itself have sufficed to show, even if one had not heard the rest of the -sentence, that it was no feeling of friendliness towards the chosen race -that inspired these young Frenchwomen, brought up in God-fearing homes, -and quite ready to believe that the Jews were in the habit of massacring -Christian children. "Besides, they're shocking bad form, your friends," -said Andrée with a smile which implied that she knew very well that -they were no friends of mine. "Like everything to do with the tribe," -went on Albertine, in the sententious tone of one who spoke from -personal experience. To tell the truth, Bloch's sisters, at once -overdressed and half naked, with their languishing, bold, blatant, -sluttish air did not create the best impression. And one of their -cousins, who was only fifteen, scandalised the Casino by her unconcealed -admiration for Mlle. Léa, whose talent as an actress M. Bloch senior -rated very high, but whose tastes were understood to lead her not -exactly in the direction of the gentlemen. - -Some days we took our refreshment at one of the outlying farms which -catered for visitors. These were the farms known as Les Ecorres, -Marie-Thérèse, La Croix d'Heuland, Bagatelle, Californie and Marie -Antoinette. It was the last that had been adopted by the little band. - -But at other times, instead of going to a farm, we would climb to the -highest point of the cliff, and, when we had reached it and were seated -on the grass, would undo our parcel of sandwiches and cakes. My friends -preferred the sandwiches, and were surprised to see me eat only a single -chocolate cake, sugared with gothic tracery, or an apricot tart. This -was because, with the sandwiches of cheese or of green-stuff, a form of -food that was novel to me and knew nothing of the past, I had nothing in -common. But the cakes understood, the tarts were gossips. There were in -the former an insipid taste of cream, in the latter a fresh taste of -fruit which knew all about Combray, and about Gilberte, not only the -Gilberte of Combray but her too of Paris, at whose tea-parties I had -found them again. They reminded me of those cake-plates of the Arabian -Nights pattern, the subjects on which were such a distraction to my aunt -Léonie when Françoise brought her up, one day, Aladdin or the -Wonderful Lamp, another day Ali-Baba, or the Sleeper Awakes or Sinbad -the Sailor embarking at Bassorah with all his treasure. I should dearly -have liked to see them again, but my grandmother did not know what had -become of them, and thought moreover that they were just common plates -that had been bought in the village. No matter, in that grey, midland -Combray scene they and their pictures were set like many-coloured -jewels, as in the dark church were the windows with their shifting -radiance, as in the dusk of my bedroom were the projections cast by the -magic lantern, as in the foreground of the view of the railway station -and the little local line the buttercups from the Indies and the Persian -lilacs, as were my great-aunt's shelves of old porcelain in the sombre -dwelling of an elderly lady in a country town. - -Stretched out on the cliff I would see before me nothing but grassy -meadows and beyond them not the seven heavens of the Christian cosmogony -but two stages only, one of a deeper blue, the sea, and over it another -more pale. We ate our food, and if I had brought with me also some -little keepsake which might appeal to one or other of my friends, joy -sprang with such sudden violence into her translucent face, flushed in -an instant, that her lips had not the strength to hold it in, and to -allow it to escape parted in a shout of laughter. They had gathered -close round me, and between their faces which were almost touching one -another the air that separated them traced azure pathways such as might -have been cut by a gardener wishing to clear the ground a little so as -to be able himself to move freely through a thicket of roses. - -When we had finished eating we would play games which until then I -should have thought boring, sometimes such childish games as King of the -Castle, or Who Laughs First; not for a kingdom would I have renounced -them now; the rosy dawn of adolescence, with which the faces of these -girls were still aglow, and from which I, young as I was, had already -emerged, shed its light on everything round about them and, like the -fluid painting of some of the Primitives, brought out the most -insignificant details of their daily lives in relief against a golden -background. Even the faces of the girls were, for the most part, clouded -with this misty effulgence of a dawn from which their actual features -had not yet emerged. One saw only a charming sheet of colour beneath -which what in a few years' time would be a profile was not discernible. -The profile of to-day had nothing definite about it, and could be only a -momentary resemblance to some deceased member of the family to whom -nature had paid this commemorative courtesy. It comes so soon, the -moment when there is nothing left to wait for, when the body is fixed in -an immobility which holds no fresh surprise in store, when one loses all -hope on seeing--as on a tree in the height of summer leaves already -brown--round a face still young hair that is growing thin or turning -grey; it is so short, that radiant morning time that one comes to like -only the very youngest girls, those in whom the flesh, like a precious -leaven, is still at work. They are no more yet than a stream of ductile -matter, moulded ever afresh by the fleeting impression of the moment. -You would say that each of them was in turn a little statuette of -childish gaiety, of a child grown earnest, coaxing, surprised, taking -its pattern from an expression frank and complete, but fugitive. This -plasticity gives a wealth of variety and charm to the pretty attentions -which a little girl pays to us. Of course, such attentions are -indispensable in the woman also, and she whom we do not attract, or who -fails to let us see that we have attracted her, tends to assume in our -eyes a somewhat tedious uniformity. But even these pretty attentions, -after a certain age, cease to send gentle ripples over a face which the -struggle for existence has hardened, has rendered unalterably militant -or ecstatic. One--owing to the prolonged strain of the obedience that -subjects wife to husband--will seem not so much a woman's face as a -soldier's; another, carved by the sacrifices which a mother has -consented to make, day after day, for her children, will be the face of -an apostle. A third is, after a stormy passage through the years, the -face of an ancient mariner, upon a body of which its garments alone -indicate the sex. Certainly the attentions that a woman pays us can -still, so long as we are in love with her, scatter fresh charms over the -hours that we spend in her company. But she is not then for us a series -of different women. Her gaiety remains external to an unchanging face. -Whereas adolescence is anterior to this complete solidification; and -from this it follows that we feel, in the company of young girls, the -refreshing sense that is afforded us by the spectacle of forms -undergoing an incessant process of change, a play of unstable forces -which makes us think of that perpetual re-creation of the primordial -elements of nature which we contemplate when we stand by the sea. - -It was not merely a social engagement, a drive with Mme. de -Villeparisis, that I would have sacrificed to the "Ferret" or "Guessing -Games" of my friends. More than once, Robert de Saint-Loup had sent word -that, since I was not coming to see him at Doncières, he had applied -for twenty-four hours' leave, which he would spend at Balbec. Each time -I wrote back that he was on no account to come, offering the excuse that -I should be obliged to be away myself that very day, when I had some -duty call to pay with my grandmother on family friends in the -neighbourhood. No doubt I fell in his estimation when he learned from -his aunt in what the "duty call" consisted, and who the persons were who -combined to play the part of my grandmother. And yet I had not been -wrong, perhaps, after all, in sacrificing not only the vain pleasures of -the world but the real pleasure of friendship to that of spending the -whole day in this green garden. People who enjoy the capacity--it is -true that such people are artists, and I had long been convinced that I -should never be that--are also under an obligation to live for -themselves. And friendship is a dispensation from this duty, an -abdication of self. Even conversation, which is the mode of expression -of friendship, is a superficial digression which gives us no new -acquisition. We may talk for a lifetime without doing more than -indefinitely repeat the vacuity of a minute, whereas the march of -thought in the solitary travail of artistic creation proceeds downwards, -into the depths, in the only direction that is not closed to us, along -which we are free to advance--though with more effort, it is -true--towards a goal of truth. And friendship is not merely devoid of -virtue, like conversation, it is fatal to us as well. For the sense of -boredom which it is impossible not to feel in a friend's company (when, -that is to say, we must remain exposed on the surface of our -consciousness, instead of pursuing our voyage of discovery into the -depths) for those of us in whom the law of development is purely -internal--that first impression of boredom our friendship impels us to -correct when we are alone again, to recall with emotion the words -uttered by our friend, to look upon them as a valuable addition to our -substance, albeit we are not like buildings to which stones can be added -from without, but like trees which draw from their own sap the knot that -duly appears on their trunks, the spreading roof of their foliage. I was -lying to myself, I was interrupting the process of growth in that -direction in which I could indeed really be enlarged and made happy, -when I congratulated myself on being liked, admired, by so good, so -clever, so rare a creature as Saint-Loup, when I focussed my mind, not -upon my own obscure impressions which duty bade me unravel, but on the -words uttered by my friend, in which, when I repeated them to -myself--when I had them repeated to me by that other self who dwells in -us and on to whom we are always so ready to transfer the burden of -taking thought,--I strove to make myself find a beauty very different -from that which I used to pursue in silence when I was really alone, but -one that would enhance the merit of Robert, of myself, of my life. In -the life which a friend like this provided for me, I seemed to myself to -be comfortably preserved from solitude, nobly desirous of sacrificing -myself for him, in fact quite incapable of realising myself. Among the -girls, on the other hand, if the pleasure which I enjoyed was selfish, -at least it was not based on the lie which seeks to make us believe that -we are not irremediably alone, and which, when we talk to another -person, prevents us from admitting that it is no longer we who speak, -that we are fashioning ourself in the likeness of strangers and not of -our own ego, which is quite different from them. The words that passed -between the girls of the little band and myself were not of any -interest; they were, moreover, but few, broken by long spells of silence -on my part. All of which did not prevent me from finding, in listening -to them when they spoke to me, as much pleasure as in gazing at them, in -discovering in the voice of each one of them a brightly coloured -picture. It was with ecstasy that I caught their pipings. Love helps us -to discern things, to discriminate. Standing in a wood, the lover of -birds at once distinguishes the notes of the different species, which to -ordinary people sound the same. The lover of girls knows that human -voices vary even more. Each one possesses more notes than the richest -instrument of music. And the combinations in which the voice groups -those notes are as inexhaustible as the infinite variety of -personalities. When I talked with any one of my friends I was conscious -that the original, the unique portrait of her individuality had been -skilfully traced, tyrannically imposed on my mind as much by the -inflexions of her voice as by those of her face, and that these were two -separate spectacles which rendered, each in its own plane, the same -single reality. No doubt the lines of the voice, like those of the face, -were not yet definitely fixed; the voice had still to break, as the face -to change. Just as children have a gland the secretion in which enables -them to digest milk, a gland which is not found in grown men and women, -so there were in the twitterings of these girls notes which women's -voices no longer contain. And on this instrument with its greater -compass they played with their lips, shewing all the application, the -ardour of Bellini's little angel musicians, qualities which also are an -exclusive appanage of youth. Later on these girls would lose that note -of enthusiastic conviction which gave a charm to their simplest -utterances, whether it were Albertine who, in a tone of authority, -repeated puns to which the younger ones listened with admiration, until -that wild impulse to laugh caught them all with the irresistible -violence of a sneeze, or Andrée who began to speak of their work in the -schoolroom, work even more childish seemingly than the games they -played, with a gravity essentially puerile; and their words changed in -tone, like the lyrics of ancient times when poetry, still hardly -differentiated from music, was declaimed upon the different notes of a -scale. In spite of which, the girls' voices already gave a quite clear -indication of the attitude that each of these little people had adopted -towards life, an attitude so personal that it would be speaking in far -too general terms to say of one: "She treats everything as a joke," of -another: "She jumps from assertion to assertion," of a third: "She lives -in a state of expectant hesitation." The features of our face are hardly -more than gestures which force of habit has made permanent. Nature, like -the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a -tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement. Similarly, our -intonations embody our philosophy of life, what a person says to himself -about things at any given moment. No doubt these peculiarities were to -be found not only in the girls. They were those of their parents. The -individual is a part of something that is more generally diffused than -himself. By this reckoning, our parents furnish us not only with those -habitual gestures which are the outlines of our face and voice, but also -with certain mannerisms in speech, certain favourite expressions, which, -almost as unconscious as an intonation, almost as profound, indicate -likewise a definite point of view towards life. It is quite true, since -we are speaking of girls, that there are certain of these expressions -which their parents do not hand on to them until they have reached a -certain age, as a rule not before they are women. These are kept in -reserve. Thus, for instance, if you were to speak of the pictures of one -of Elstir's friends, Andrée, whose hair was still "down", could not yet -make use, personally, of the expression which her mother and elder -sister employed: "It appears, the man is quite charming!" But that would -come in due course, when she was allowed to go to the Palais-Royal. And -already, since her first communion, Albertine had begun to say, like a -friend of her aunt: "I'm sure I should find that simply terrible!" She -had also had given to her, as a little present, the habit of repeating -whatever you had just been saying to her, so as to appear to be -interested, and to be trying to form an opinion of her own. If you said -that an artist's work was good, or his house nice, "Oh, his work is -good, is it?" "Oh, his house is nice, is it?" Last of all, and even more -general than the family heritage, was the rich layer imposed by the -native province from which they derived their voices and of which indeed -their intonations smacked. When Andrée sharply struck a solemn note she -could not prevent the Perigordian string of her vocal instrument from -giving back a resonant sound quite in harmony, moreover, with the -Meridional purity of her features; while to the incessant pranks of -Rosemonde the substance of her North-Country face and voice responded, -whatever her mood at the time, in the accent of their province. Between -that province and the temperament of the little girl who dictated these -inflexions, I caught a charming dialogue. A dialogue, not in any sense a -discord. It would not have been possible to separate the girl herself -and her native place. She was herself; she was still it also. Moreover -this reaction of locally procured materials on the genius who utilises -them and to whose work their reaction imparts an added freshness, does -not make the work any less individual, and whether it be that of an -architect, a cabinet-maker or a composer, it reflects no less minutely -the most subtle shades of the artist's personality, because he has been -compelled to work in the millstone of Senlis or the red sandstone of -Strasbourg, has respected the knots peculiar to the ash-tree, has borne -in mind, when writing his score, the resources, the limitations, the -volume of sound, the possibilities of flute or alto voice. - -All this I realised, and yet we talked so little. Whereas with Mme. de -Villeparisis or Saint-Loup I should have displayed by my words a great -deal more pleasure than I should actually have felt, for I used always -to be worn out when I parted from them; when, on the other hand, I was -lying on the grass among all these girls, the plentitude of what I was -feeling infinitely outweighed the paucity, the infrequency of our -speech, and brimmed over from my immobility and silence in floods of -happiness, the waves of which rippled up to die at the feet of these -young roses. - -For a convalescent who rests all day long in a flower-garden or orchard, -a scent of flowers or fruit does not more completely pervade the -thousand trifles that compose his idle hours than did for me that -colour, that fragrance in search of which my eyes kept straying towards -the girls, and the sweetness of which finally became incorporated in me. -So it is that grapes grow sugary in sunshine. And by their slow -continuity these simple little games had gradually wrought in me also, -as in those who do nothing else all day but lie outstretched by the sea, -breathing the salt air and growing sunburned, a relaxation, a blissful -smile, a vague sense of dizziness that had spread from brain to eyes. - -Now and then a pretty attention from one or another of them would stir -in me vibrations which dissipated for a time my desire for the rest. -Thus one day Albertine had suddenly asked: "Who has a pencil?" Andrée -had provided one, Rosemonde the paper; Albertine had warned them: "Now, -young ladies, you are not to look at what I write." After carefully -tracing each letter, supporting the paper on her knee, she had passed it -to me with: "Take care no one sees." Whereupon I had unfolded it and -read her message, which was: "I love you." - -"But we mustn't sit here scribbling nonsense," she cried, turning -impetuously, with a sudden gravity of demeanour, to Andrée and -Rosemonde, "I ought to shew you the letter I got from Gisèle this -morning. What an idiot I am; I've had it all this time in my pocket--and -you can't think how important it may be to us." Gisèle had been moved -to copy out for her friend, so that it might be passed on to the others, -the essay which she had written in her certificate examination. -Albertine's fears as to the difficulty of the subjects set had been more -than justified by the two from which Gisèle had had to choose. The -first was: "Sophocles, from the Shades, writes to Racine to console him -for the failure of _Athalie_"; the other: "Suppose that, after the first -performance of _Esther_, Mme. de Sévigné is writing to Mme. de La -Fayette to tell her how much she regretted her absence." Now Gisèle, in -an excess of zeal which ought to have touched the examiners' hearts, had -chosen the former, which was also the more difficult of the two -subjects, and had handled it with such remarkable skill that she had -been given fourteen marks, and had been congratulated by the board. She -would have received her "mention" if she had not "dried up" in the -Spanish paper. The essay, a copy of which Gisèle had now sent her, was -immediately read aloud to us by Albertine, for, having presently to pass -the same examination, she was anxious to have an opinion from Andrée, -who was by far the cleverest of them all and might be able to give her -some good "tips". "She did have a bit of luck!" was Albertine's comment. -"It's the very subject her French mistress made her swot up while she -was here." The letter from Sophocles to Racine, as drafted by Gisèle, -ran as follows: "My dear friend, You must pardon me the liberty of -addressing you when I have not the honour of your personal acquaintance, -but your latest tragedy, _Athalie_ shews, does it not, that you have -made the most thorough study of my own modest works. You have not only -put poetry in the mouths of the protagonists, or principal persons of -the drama, but you have written other, and, let me tell you without -flattery, charming verses for the choruses, a feature which was not too -bad, according to all one hears, in Greek Tragedy, but is a complete -novelty in France. Nay more, your talent always so fluent, so finished, -so winning, so fine, so delicate, has here acquired an energy on which I -congratulate you. Athalie, Joad--these are figures which your rival -Corneille could have wrought no better. The characters are virile, the -plot simple and strong. You have given us a tragedy in which love is not -the keynote, and on this I must offer you my sincerest compliments. The -most familiar proverbs are not always the truest. I will give you an -example: - - -"This passion treat, which makes the poet's art -Fly, as on wings, straight to the listener's heart." - - -You have shewn us that the religious sentiment in which your choruses -are steeped is no less capable of moving us. The general public may have -been puzzled at first, but those who are best qualified to judge must -give you your due. I have felt myself impelled to offer you all my -congratulations, to which I would add, my dear brother poet, an -expression of my very highest esteem." Albertine's eyes, while she was -reading this to us, had not ceased to sparkle. "Really, you'ld think she -must have cribbed it somewhere!" she exclaimed, as she reached the end. -"I should never have believed that Gisèle could hatch out anything like -as good! And the poetry she brings in! Where on earth can she have got -that from?" Albertine's admiration, with a change, it is true, of -object, but with no loss—an increase, rather—of intensity, combined with -the closest attention to what was being said, continued to make her eyes -"start from her head" all the time that Andrée (consulted as being the -biggest of the band and more knowledgeable than the others) first of all -spoke of Gisèle's essay with a certain irony, then with a levity of -tone which failed to conceal her underlying seriousness proceeded to -reconstruct the letter in her own way. "It is not badly done," she told -Albertine, "but if I were you and had the same subject set me, which is -quite likely, as they do very often set that, I shouldn't do it in that -way. This is how I would tackle it. Well, first of all, if I had been -Gisèle, I should not have let myself get tied up, I should have begun -by making a rough sketch of what I was going to write on a separate -piece of paper. On the top line I should state the question and give an -account of the subject, then the general ideas to be worked into the -development. After that, appreciation, style, conclusion. In that way, -with a summary to refer to, you know where you are. But at the very -start, where she begins her account of the subject, or, if you like, -Titine, since it's a letter we're speaking of, where she comes to the -matter, Gisèle has gone off the rails altogether. Writing to a person -of the seventeenth century, Sophocles ought never to have said, 'My dear -friend,'" "Why, of course, she ought to have said, 'My dear Racine,'" -came impetuously from Albertine. "That would have been much better." -"No," replied Andrée, with a trace of mockery in her tone, "She ought -to have put 'Sir.' In the same way, to end up, she ought to have thought -of something like, 'Suffer me, Sir,' (at the very most, 'Dear Sir') to -inform you of the sense of high esteem with which I have the honour to -be your servant.' Then again, Gisèle says that the choruses in -_Athalie_ are a novelty. She is forgetting _Esther_, and two tragedies -that are not much read now but happen to have been analysed this year by -the Professor himself, so that you need only mention them, since he's -got them on the brain, and you're bound to pass. I mean _Les Juives_, by -Robert Garnier, and Montchrestien's _L'Aman._" Andrée quoted these -titles without managing quite to conceal a secret sense of benevolent -superiority, which found expression in a smile, quite a delightful -smile, for that matter. Albertine could contain herself no longer. -"Andrée, you really are a perfect marvel," she cried. "You must write -down those names for me. Just fancy, what luck it would be if I got on -to that, even in the oral, I should bring them in at once and make a -colossal impression." But in the days that followed, every time that -Albertine begged Andrée just to tell her again the names of those two -plays so that she might write them down, her blue-stocking friend seemed -most unfortunately to have forgotten them, and left her none the wiser. -"And another thing," Andrée went on with the faintest note in her voice -of scorn for companions so much younger than herself, though she -relished their admiration and attached to the manner in which she -herself would have composed the essay a greater importance than she -wanted us to think, "Sophocles in the Shades must be kept well-informed -of all that goes on. He must know, therefore, that it was not before the -general public but before the King's Majesty and a few privileged -courtiers that _Athalie_ was first played. What Gisèle says in this -connexion of the esteem of qualified judges is not at all bad, but she -might have gone a little farther. Sophocles, now that he is immortal, -might quite well have the gift of prophecy and announce that, according -to Voltaire, _Athalie_ is to be the supreme achievement not of Racine -merely but of the human mind." Albertine was drinking in every word. Her -eyes blazed. And it was with the utmost indignation that she rejected -Rosemonde's suggestion that they should begin to play. "And so," Andrée -concluded, in the same easy, detached tone, blending a faint sneer with -a certain warmth of conviction, "if Gisèle had noted down properly, -first of all, the general ideas that she was going to develop, it might -perhaps have occurred to her to do what I myself should have done, point -out what a difference there is between the religious inspiration of -Sophocles's choruses and Racine's. I should have made Sophocles remark -that if Racine's choruses are instinct with religious feeling like those -of the Greek Tragedians, the gods are not the same. The God of Joad has -nothing in common with the god of Sophocles. And that brings us quite -naturally, when we have finished developing the subject, to our -conclusion: What does it matter if their beliefs are different? -Sophocles would hesitate to insist upon such a point. He would be afraid -of wounding Racine's convictions, and so, slipping in a few appropriate -words on his masters at Port-Royal, he prefers to congratulate his -disciple on the loftiness of his poetic genius." - -Admiration and attention had so heated Albertine that great drops were -rolling down her cheeks. Andrée preserved the unruffled calm of a -female dandy. "It would not be a bad thing either to quote some of the -opinions of famous critics," she added, before they began their game. -"Yes," put in Albertine, "so I've been told. The best ones to quote, on -the whole, are Sainte-Beuve and Merlet, aren't they?" "Well, you're not -absolutely wrong," Andrée told her, "Merlet and Sainte-Beuve are by no -means bad. But you certainly ought to mention Deltour and -Gascq-Desfossés." She refused, however, despite Albertine's entreaties, -to write down these two unfamiliar names. - -Meanwhile I had been thinking of the little page torn from a scribbling -block which Albertine had handed me. "I love you," she had written. And -an hour later, as I scrambled down the paths which led back, a little -too vertically for my liking, to Balbec, I said to myself that it was -with her that I would have my romance. - -The state of being indicated by the presence of all the signs by which -we are accustomed to recognise that we are in love, such as the orders -which I left in the hotel not to awaken me whoever might ask to see me, -unless it were one or other of the girls, the beating of my heart while -I waited for her (whichever of them it might be that I was expecting) -and on those mornings my fury if I had not succeeded in finding a barber -to shave me, and must appear with the disfigurement of a hairy chin -before Albertine, Rosemonde or Andrée, no doubt this state, recurring -indifferently at the thought of one or another, was as different from -what we call love as is from human life the life of the zoophytes, where -an existence, an individuality, if we may so term it, is divided up -among several organisms. But natural history teaches us that such an -organization of animal life is indeed to be observed, and that our own -life, provided only that we have outgrown the first phase, is no less -positive as to the reality of states hitherto unsuspected by us, through -which we have to pass, and can then abandon them altogether. Such was -for me this state of love divided among several girls at once. -Divided--say rather undivided, for more often than not what was so -delicious to me, different from the rest of the world, what was -beginning to become so precious to me that the hope of finding it again -on the morrow was the greatest happiness in my life, was rather the -whole of the group of girls, taken as they were all together on those -afternoons on the cliffs, during those lifeless hours, upon that strip -of grass on which were laid those forms, so exciting to my imagination, -of Albertine, Rosemonde, Andrée; and that without my being able to say -which of them it was that made those scenes so precious to me, which of -them I was most anxious to love. At the start of a new love as at its -ending, we are not exclusively attached to the object of that love, but -rather the desire to be loving from which it will presently emerge (and, -later on, the memory which it leaves behind) wanders voluptuously -through a zone of interchangeable charms--simply natural charms, it may -be, gratification of appetite, enjoyment of one's surroundings--which -are so far harmonised among themselves that it does not in the presence -of any one of them feel itself out of place. Besides, as my perception -of them was not yet dulled by familiarity, I had still the faculty of -seeing them, that is to say of feeling a profound astonishment every -time that I found myself in their presence. No doubt this astonishment -is to some extent due to the fact that the other person on such -occasions presents himself in a fresh aspect; but so great is the -multiformity of each of us, so abundant the wealth of lines of face and -body, lines so few of which leave any trace, once we have parted from -the other person, on the arbitrary simplicity of our memory. As our mind -has selected some peculiarity that had struck us, has isolated it, -exaggerated it, making of a woman who has appeared to us tall, a sketch -in which her figure is absurdly elongated, or of a woman who has seemed -to be pink-cheeked and golden-haired a pure 'Harmony in pink and gold', -so, the moment that woman is once again standing before us, all the -other forgotten qualities which restore the balance of that one -remembered feature at once assail us, in their confused complexity, -diminishing her height, paling her cheeks, and substituting for what we -have come to her solely to seek other peculiarities which we remember -now that we did notice the first time, and fail to understand how we can -so far have forgotten to look out for again. We thought we remembered; -it was a peahen, surely; we go to see it and find a peony. And this -inevitable astonishment is not the only one; for, side by side with it -comes another, born of the difference, not now between the stereotyped -forms of memory and reality, but between the person whom we saw last -time and him who appears to us to-day from another angle and shews us -another aspect. The human face is indeed, like the face of the God of -some Oriental theogony, a whole cluster of faces, crowded together but -on different surfaces so that one does not see them all at once. - -But to a great extent our astonishment springs from the other person's -presenting to us also a face that is the same as before. It would -require so immense an effort to reconstruct everything that has been -imparted to us by things other than ourself--were it only the taste of a -fruit--that no sooner is the impression received than we begin -imperceptibly to descend the slope of memory and, without noticing -anything, in a very short time, we have come a long way from what we -actually felt. So that every fresh encounter is a sort of rectification, -which brings us back to what we really did see. We have no longer any -recollection of this, to such an extent does what we call remembering a -person consist really in forgetting him. But so long as we can still see -at the moment when the forgotten aspect appears, we recognise it, we are -obliged to correct the straying line; thus the perpetual and fruitful -surprise which made so salutary and invigorating for me these daily -outings with the charming damsels of the sea shore, consisted fully as -much in recognition as in discovery. When there is added to this the -agitation aroused by what these girls were to me, which was never quite -what I had supposed, and meant that my expectancy of our next meeting -resembled not so much my expectancy the time before as the still -throbbing memory of our latest conversation, it will be realised that -each of our excursions made a violent interruption in the course of my -thoughts and moved them clean out of the direction which, in the -solitude of my own room, I had been able to trace for them at my -leisure. That plotted course was forgotten, had ceased to exist, when I -returned home buzzing like a hive of bees with remarks which had -disquieted me when I heard them and were still echoing in my brain. The -other person is destroyed when we cease to see him; after which his next -appearance means a fresh creation of him, different from that which -immediately preceded it, if not from them all. For the minimum variation -that is to be found in these creations is duality. If we have in mind a -strong and searching glance, a bold manner, it is inevitably, next time, -by a half-languid profile, a sort of dreamy gentleness, overlooked by us -in our previous impression, that we shall be, on meeting him again, -astonished, that is to say almost solely struck. In confronting our -memory with the new reality it is this that will mark the extent of our -disappointment or surprise, will appear to us like the revised version -of an earlier reality warning us that we had not remembered it -correctly. In its turn, the facial aspect neglected the time before, and -for that very reason the most striking this time, the most real, the -most documentary, will become a matter for dreams and memories. It is a -languorous and rounded profile, a gentle, dreamy expression which we -shall now desire to see again. And then, next time, such resolution, -such strength of character as there may be in the piercing eyes, the -pointed nose, the tight lips, will come to correct the discrepancy -between our desire and the object to which it has supposed itself to -correspond. It is understood, of course, that this loyalty to the first -and purely physical impressions which I formed afresh at each encounter -with my friends did not involve only their facial appearance, since the -reader has seen that I was sensible also of their voices, more -disquieting still, perhaps (for not only does a voice offer the same -strange and sensuous surfaces as a face, it issues from that unknown, -inaccessible region the mere thought of which sets the mind swimming -with unattainable kisses), their voices each like the unique sound of a -little instrument into which the player put all her artistry and which -was found only in her possession. Traced by a casual inflexion, a sudden -deep chord in one of their voices would astonish me when I recognised -after having forgotten it. So much so that the corrections which after -every fresh meeting I was obliged to make so as to ensure absolute -accuracy were as much those of a tuner or singing-master as a -draughtsman's. - -As for the harmonious cohesion in which had been neutralised for some -time, by the resistance that each brought to bear against the expansion -of the others, the several waves of sentiment set in motion in me by -these girls, it was broken in Albertine's favour one afternoon when we -were playing the game of "ferret". It was in a little wood on the cliff. -Stationed between two girls, strangers to the little band, whom the band -had brought in its train because we wanted that day to have a bigger -party than usual, I gazed enviously at Albertine's neighbour, a young -man, saying to myself that if I had been in his place I could have been -touching my friend's hands all those miraculous moments which might -perhaps never recur, and that this would have been but the first stage -in a great advance. Already, by itself, and even without the -consequences which it would probably have involved, the contact of -Albertine's hands would have been delicious to me. Not that I had never -seen prettier hands than hers. Even in the group of her friends, those -of Andrée, slender hands and much finelier modelled, had as it were a -private life of their own, obedient to the commands of their mistress, -but independent, and used often to strain out before her like a leash of -thoroughbred greyhounds, with lazy pauses, long dreams, sudden -stretchings of a joint, seeing which Elstir had made a number of studies -of these hands. And in one of them, in which you saw Andrée warming her -hands at the fire, they had, with the light behind them, the gilded -transparency of two autumn leaves. But, plumper than these, the hands of -Albertine would yield for a moment, then resist the pressure of the hand -that clasped them, giving a sensation that was quite peculiar to -themselves. The act of pressing Albertine's hand had a sensual sweetness -which was in keeping somehow with the rosy, almost mauve colouring of -her skin. That pressure seemed to allow you to penetrate into the girl's -being, to plumb the depths of her senses, like the ringing sound of her -laughter, indecent as may be the cooing of doves or certain animal -cries. She was the sort of woman with whom shaking hands affords so much -pleasure that one feels grateful to civilisation for having made of the -handclasp a lawful act between young men and girls when they meet. If -the arbitrary code of good manners had replaced the clasp of hands by -some other gesture, I should have gazed, day after day, at the -unattainable hands of Albertine with a curiosity to know the feel of -them as ardent as was my curiosity to learn the savour of her cheeks. -But in the pleasure of holding her hand unrestrictedly in mine, had I -been next to her at "ferret" I did not envisage that pleasure alone; -what avowals, declarations silenced hitherto by my bashfulness, I could -have conveyed by certain pressures of hand on hand; on her side, how -easy it would have been for her, in responding by other pressures, to -shew me that she accepted; what complicity, what a vista of happiness -stood open! My love would be able to make more advance in a few minutes -spent thus by her side than it had yet made in all the time that I had -known her. Feeling that they would last but a short time, were rapidly -nearing their end, since presumably we were not going on much longer -with this game, and that once it was over I should be too late, I could -not keep in my place for another moment. I let myself deliberately be -caught with the ring, and, having gone into the middle, when the ring -passed I pretended not to see it but followed its course with my eyes, -waiting for the moment when it should come into the hands of the young -man next to Albertine, who herself, pealing with helpless laughter, and -in the excitement and pleasure of the game, was blushing like a rose. -"Why, we really are in the Fairy Wood!" said Andrée to me, pointing to -the trees that grew all round, with a smile in her eyes which was meant -only for me and seemed to pass over the heads of the other players, as -though we two alone were clever enough to double our parts, and make, in -connexion with the game we were playing, a remark of a poetic nature. -She even carried the delicacy of her fancy so far as to sing -half-unconsciously: "The Ferret of the Wood has passed this way, Sweet -Ladies; he has passed by this way, the Ferret of Fairy Wood!" like those -people who cannot visit Trianon without getting up a party in Louis XVI -costume, or think it effective to have a song sung to its original -setting. I should no doubt have been sorry that I could see no charm in -this piece of mimicry, had I had time to think of it. But my thoughts -were all elsewhere. The players began to shew surprise at my stupidity -in never getting the ring. I was looking at Albertine, so pretty, so -indifferent, so gay, who, though she little knew it, was to be my -neighbour when at last I should catch the ring in the right hands, -thanks to a stratagem which she did not suspect, and would certainly -have resented if she had. In the heat of the game her long hair had -become loosened, and fell in curling locks over her cheeks on which it -served to intensify, by its dry brownness, the carnation pink. "You have -the tresses of Laura Dianti, of Eleanor of Guyenne, and of her -descendant so beloved of Chateaubriand. You ought always to wear your -hair half down like that," I murmured in her ear as an excuse for -drawing close to her. Suddenly the ring passed to her neighbour. I -sprang upon him at once, forced open his hands and seized it; he was -obliged now to take my place inside the circle, while I took his beside -Albertine. A few minutes earlier I had been envying this young man, when -I saw that his hands as they slipped over the cord were constantly -brushing against hers. Now that my turn was come, too shy to seek, too -much moved to enjoy this contact, I no longer felt anything save the -rapid and painful beating of my heart. At one moment Albertine leaned -towards me, with an air of connivance, her round and rosy face, making a -show of having the ring, so as to deceive the ferret, and keep him from -looking in the direction in which she was just going to pass it. I -realised at once that this was the sole object of Albertine's -mysterious, confidential gaze, but I was a little shocked to see thus -kindle in her eyes the image--purely fictitious, invented to serve the -needs of the game--of a secret, an understanding between her and myself -which did not exist, but which from that moment seemed to me to be -possible and would have been divinely sweet. While I was still being -swept aloft by this thought, I felt a slight pressure of Albertine's -hand against mine, and her caressing finger slip under my finger along -the cord, and I saw her, at the same moment, give me a wink which she -tried to make pass unperceived by the others. At once, a mass of hopes, -invisible hitherto by myself, crystallised within me. "She is taking -advantage of the game to let me feel that she really does love me," I -thought to myself, in an acme of joy, from which no sooner had I reached -it than I fell, on hearing Albertine mutter furiously: "Why can't you -take it? I've been shoving it at you for the last hour." Stunned with -grief, I let go the cord, the ferret saw the ring and swooped down on -it, and I had to go back into the middle, where I stood helpless, in -despair, looking at the unbridled rout which continued to circle round -me, stung by the jeering shouts of all the players, obliged, in reply, -to laugh when I had so little mind for laughter, while Albertine kept on -repeating: "People can't play if they don't pay attention, and spoil the -game for the others. He shan't be asked again when we're going to play, -Andrée; if he is, I don't come." Andrée, with a mind above the game, -still chanting her "Fairy Wood" which, in a spirit of imitation, -Rosemonde had taken up too, but without conviction, sought to make a -diversion from Albertine's reproaches by saying to me: "We're quite -close to those old Creuniers you wanted so much to see. Look, I'll take -you there by a dear little path, and we'll leave these silly idiots to -go on playing like babies in the nursery." As Andrée was extremely nice -to me, as we went along I said to her everything about Albertine that -seemed calculated to make me attractive to the latter. Andrée replied -that she too was very fond of Albertine, thought her charming; in spite -of which the compliments that I was paying to her friend did not seem -altogether to please her. Suddenly, in the little sunken path, I stopped -short, touched to the heart by an exquisite memory of my childhood. I -had just recognised, by the fretted and glossy leaves which it thrust -out towards me, a hawthorn-bush, flowerless, alas, now that spring was -over. Around me floated the atmosphere of far off Months of Mary, of -Sunday afternoons, of beliefs, or errors long ago forgotten. I wanted to -stay it in its passage. I stood still for a moment, and Andrée, with a -charming divination of what was in my mind, left me to converse with the -leaves of the bush. I asked them for news of the flowers, those hawthorn -flowers that were like merry little girls headstrong, provocative, -pious. "The young ladies have been gone from here for a long time now," -the leaves told me. And perhaps they thought that, for the great friend -of those young ladies that I pretended to be, I seemed to have -singularly little knowledge of their habits. A great friend, but one who -had never been to see them again for all these years, despite his -promises. And yet, as Gilberte had been my first love among girls, so -these had been my first love among flowers. "Yes, I know all that, they -leave about the middle of June," I answered, "but I am so delighted to -see the place where they stayed when they were here. They came to see -me, too, at Combray, in my room; my mother brought them when I was ill -in bed. And we used to meet on Saturday evenings, too, at the Month of -Mary devotions. Can they get to them from here?" "Oh, of course! Why, -they make a special point of having our young ladies at Saint-Denis du -Désert, the church near here." "Then, if I want to see them now?" "Oh, -not before May, next year." "But I can be sure that they will be here?" -"They come regularly every year." "Only I don't know whether it will be -easy to find the place." "Oh, dear, yes! They are so gay, the young -ladies, they stop laughing only to sing hymns together, so that you -can't possibly miss them, you can tell by the scent from the other end -of the path." - -I caught up Andrée, and began again to sing Albertine's praises. It was -inconceivable to me that she would not repeat what I said to her friend, -seeing the emphasis that I put into it. And yet I never heard that -Albertine had been told. Andrée had, nevertheless, a far greater -understanding of the things of the heart, a refinement of nice -behaviour; finding the look, the word, the action that could most -ingeniously give pleasure, keeping to herself a remark that might -possibly cause pain, making a sacrifice (and making it as though it were -no sacrifice at all) of an afternoon's play, or it might be an "at home" -or a garden-party in order to stay beside a friend who was feeling sad, -and thus shew him or her that she preferred the simple company of a -friend to frivolous pleasures; these were her habitual delicacies. But -when one knew her a little better one would have said that it was with -her as with those heroic cravens who wish not to be afraid, and whose -bravery is especially meritorious, one would have said that in her true -character there was none of that generosity which she displayed at every -moment out of moral distinction, or sensibility, or a noble desire to -shew herself a true friend. When I listened to all the charming things -she was saying to me about a possible affection between Albertine and -myself it seemed as though she were bound to do everything in her power -to bring it to pass. Whereas, by mere chance perhaps, not even of the -least of the various minor opportunities which were at her disposal and -might have proved effective in uniting me to Albertine did she ever make -any use, and I would not swear that my effort to make myself loved by -Albertine did not--if not provoke in her friend secret stratagems -destined to bring it to nought--at any rate arouse in her an anger which -however she took good care to hide and against which even, in her -delicacy of feeling, she may herself have fought. Of the countless -refinements of goodness which Andrée shewed Albertine would have been -incapable, and yet I was not certain of the underlying goodness of the -former as I was to be, later on, of the latter's. Shewing herself always -tenderly indulgent to the exuberant frivolity of Albertine, Andrée -would greet her with speeches, with smiles which were those of a friend, -better still, she always acted towards her as a friend. I have seen her, -day after day, in order to give the benefit of her own wealth, to bring -some happiness to this penniless friend take, without any possibility of -advantage to herself, more pains than a courtier would take who sought -to win his sovereign's favour. She was charmingly gentle always, -charming in her choice of sweet, pathetic expressions, when you said to -her what a pity it was that Albertine was so poor, and took infinitely -more trouble on her behalf than she would have taken for a wealthy -friend. But if anyone were to hint that Albertine was perhaps not quite -so poor as people made out, a just discernible cloud would veil the -light of Andrée's eyes and brow; she seemed out of temper. And if you -went on to say that after all Albertine might perhaps be less difficult -to marry off than people supposed, she would vehemently contradict you, -repeating almost angrily: "Oh dear, no; she will never get married! I am -quite certain of it; it is a dreadful worry to me!" In so far as I -myself was concerned, Andrée was the only one of the girls who would -never have repeated to me anything not very pleasant that might have -been said about me by a third person; more than that, if it were I who -told her what had been said she would make a pretence of not believing -it, or would furnish some explanation which made the remark inoffensive; -it is the aggregate of these qualities that goes by the name of tact. -Tact is the attribute of those people who, if we have called a man out -in a duel, congratulate us and add that there was no necessity, really; -so as to enhance still further in our own eyes the courage of which we -have given proof without having been forced to do so. They are the -opposite of the people who, in similar circumstances, say: "It must have -been a horrid nuisance for you, fighting a duel, but on the other hand -you couldn't possibly swallow an insult like that, there was nothing -else to be done." But as there is always something to be said on both -sides, if the pleasure, or at least the indifference shewn by our -friends in repeating something offensive that they have heard said about -us, proves that they do not exactly put themselves in our skin at the -moment of speaking, but thrust in the pin-point, turn the knife-blade as -though it were gold-beater's skin and not human, the art of always -keeping hidden from us what might be disagreeable to us in what they -have heard said about our actions, or in the opinion which those actions -have led the speakers themselves to form of us, proves that there is in -the other kind of friends, in the friends who are so full of tact, a -strong vein of dissimulation. It does no harm if indeed they are -incapable of thinking evil, and if what is said by other people only -makes them suffer as it would make us. I supposed this to be the case -with Andrée, without, however, being absolutely sure. - -We had left the little wood and had followed a network of overgrown -paths through which Andrée managed to find her way with great skill. -Suddenly, "Look now," she said to me, "there are your famous Creuniers, -and, I say, you are in luck, it's just the time of day, and the light is -the same as when Elstir painted them." But I was still too wretched at -having fallen, during the game of "ferret", from such a pinnacle of -hopes. And so it was not with the pleasure which otherwise I should -doubtless have felt that I caught sight, almost below my feet, crouching -among the rocks, where they had gone for protection from the heat, of -marine goddesses for whom Elstir had lain in wait and surprised them -there, beneath a dark glaze as lovely as Leonardo would have painted, -the marvellous Shadows, sheltered and furtive, nimble and voiceless, -ready at the first glimmer of light to slip behind the stone, to hide in -a cranny, and prompt, once the menacing ray had passed, to return to -rock or seaweed beneath the sun that crumbled the cliffs and the -odourless ocean, over whose slumbers they seemed to be watching, -motionless lightfoot guardians letting appear on the waters surface -their viscous bodies and the attentive gaze of their deep blue eyes. - -We went back to the wood to pick up the other girls and go home -together. I knew now that I was in love with Albertine; but, alas! I had -no thought of letting her know it. This was because, since the days of -our games in the Champs-Elysées, my conception of love had become -different, even if the persons to whom my love was successively assigned -remained practically the same. For one thing, the avowal, the -declaration of my passion to her whom I loved no longer seemed to me one -of the vital and necessary incidents of love, nor love itself an -external reality, but simply a subjective pleasure. And as for this -pleasure, I felt that Albertine would do everything necessary to furnish -it, all the more since she would not know that I was enjoying it. - -As we walked home the image of Albertine, bathed in the light that -streamed from the other girls, was not the only one that existed for me. -But as the moon, which is no more than a tiny white cloud of a more -definite and fixed shape than other clouds during the day, assumes her -full power as soon as daylight dies, so when I was once more in the -hotel it was Albertine's sole image that rose from my heart and began to -shine. My room seemed to me to have become suddenly a new place. Of -course, for a long time past, it had not been the hostile room of my -first night in it. All our lives, we go on patiently modifying the -surroundings in which we dwell; and gradually, as habit dispenses us -from feeling them, we suppress the noxious elements of colour, shape and -smell which were at the root of our discomfort. Nor was it any longer -the room, still potent enough over my sensibility, not certainly to make -me suffer, but to give me joy, the fount of summer days, like a marble -basin in which, half-way up its polished sides, they mirrored an azure -surface steeped in light over which glided for an instant, impalpable -and white as a wave of heat, a shadowy and fleeting cloud; not the room, -wholly aesthetic, of the pictorial evening hours; it was the room in -which I had been now for so many days that I no longer saw it. And now I -was just beginning again to open my eyes to it, but this time from the -selfish angle which is that of love. I liked to feel that the fine big -mirror across one corner, the handsome bookcases with their fronts of -glass would give Albertine, if she came to see me, a good impression of -myself. Instead of a place of transit in which I would stay for a few -minutes before escaping to the beach or to Rivebelle, my room became -real and dear to me, fashioned itself anew, for I looked at and -appreciated each article of its furniture with the eyes of Albertine. - -A few days after the game of "ferret", when having allowed ourselves to -wander rather too far afield, we had been fortunate in finding at -Maineville a couple of little "tubs" with two seats in each which would -enable us to be back in time for dinner, the keenness, already intense, -of my love for Albertine, had the following effect, first of all, that -it was Rosemonde and Andrée in turn that I invited to be my companion, -and never once Albertine, after which, in spite of my manifest -preference for Andrée or Rosemonde, I led everybody, by secondary -considerations of time and distance, cloaks and so forth, to decide, as -though against my wishes, that the most practical policy was that I -should take Albertine, to whose company I pretended to resign myself for -good or ill. Unfortunately, since love tends to the complete -assimilation of another person, while other people are not comestible by -way of conversation alone, Albertine might be (and indeed was) as -friendly as possible to me on our way home; when I had deposited her at -her own door she left me happy but more famished for her even than I had -been at the start, and reckoning the moments that we had spent together -as only a prelude, of little importance in itself, to those that were -still to come. And yet this prelude had that initial charm which is not -to be found again. I had not yet asked anything of Albertine. She could -imagine what I wanted, but, not being certain of it, would suppose that -I was tending only towards relations without any definite purpose, in -which my friend would find that delicious vagueness, rich in surprising -fulfilments of expectations, which is true romance. - -In the week that followed I scarcely attempted to see Albertine. I made -a show of preferring Andrée. Love is born; one would like to remain, -for her whom one loves, the unknown whom she may love in turn, but one -has need of her, one requires contact not so much with her body as with -her attention, her heart. One slips into a letter some spiteful -expression which will force the indifferent reader to ask for some -little kindness in compensation, and love, following an unvarying -procedure, sets going with an alternating movement the machinery in -which one can no longer either refrain from loving or be loved. I gave -to Andrée the hours spent by the others at a party which I knew that -she would sacrifice for my sake, with pleasure, and would have -sacrificed even with reluctance, from a moral nicety, so as not to let -either the others or herself think that she attached any importance to a -relatively frivolous amusement. I arranged in this way to have her -entirely to myself every evening, meaning not to make Albertine jealous, -but to improve my position in her eyes, or at any rate not to imperil it -by letting Albertine know that it was herself and not Andrée that I -loved. Nor did I confide this to Andrée either, lest she should repeat -it to her friend. When I spoke of Albertine to Andrée I affected a -coldness by which she was perhaps less deceived than I by her apparent -credulity. She made a show of believing in my indifference to Albertine, -of desiring the closest possible union between Albertine and myself. It -is probable that, on the contrary, she neither believed in the one nor -wished for the other. While I was saying to her that I did not care very -greatly for her friend, I was thinking of one thing only, how to become -acquainted with Mme. Bontemps, who was staying for a few days near -Balbec, and to whom Albertine was going presently on a short visit. -Naturally I did not let Andrée become aware of this desire, and when I -spoke to her of Albertine's people, it was in the most careless manner -possible. Andrée's direct answers did not appear to throw any doubt on -my sincerity. Why then did she blurt out suddenly, about that time: "Oh, -guess who' I've just seen--Albertine's aunt!" It is true that she had -not said in so many words: "I could see through your casual remarks all -right that the one thing you were really thinking of was how you could -make friends with Albertine's aunt." But it was clearly to the presence -in Andrée's mind of some such idea which she felt it more becoming to -keep from me that the word "just" seemed to point. It was of a kind with -certain glances, certain gestures which, for all that they have not a -form that is logical, rational, deliberately calculated to match the -listener's intelligence, reach him nevertheless in their true -significance, just as human speech, converted into electricity in the -telephone, is turned into speech again when it strikes the ear. In order -to remove from Andrée's mind the idea that I was interested in Mme. -Bontemps, I spoke of her from that time onwards not only carelessly but -with downright malice, saying that I had once met that idiot of a woman, -and trusted I should never have that experience again. Whereas I was -seeking by every means in my power to meet her. - -I tried to induce Elstir (but without mentioning to anyone else that I -had asked him) to speak to her about me and to bring us together. He -promised to introduce me to her, though he seemed greatly surprised at -my wishing it, for he regarded her as a contemptible woman, a born -intriguer, as little interesting as she was disinterested. Reflecting -that if I did see Mme. Bontemps, Andrée would be sure to hear of it -sooner or later, I thought it best to warn her in advance. "The things -one tries hardest to avoid are what one finds one cannot escape," I told -her. "Nothing in the world could bore me so much as meeting Mme. -Bontemps again, and yet I can't get out of it, Elstir has arranged to -invite us together." "I have never doubted it for a single instant," -exclaimed Andrée in a bitter tone, while her eyes, enlarged and altered -by her annoyance, focussed themselves upon some invisible object. These -words of Andrée's were not the most reasoned statement of a thought -which might be expressed thus: "I know that you are in love with -Albertine, and that you are working day and night to get in touch with -her people." But they were the shapeless fragments, easily pieced -together again by me, of some such thought which I had exploded by -striking it, through the shield of Andrée's self-control. Like her -"just", these words had no meaning save in the second degree, that is to -say they were words of the sort which (rather than direct affirmatives) -inspires in us respect or distrust for another person, and leads to a -rupture. - -If Andrée had not believed me when I told her that Albertine's -relatives left me indifferent, that was because she thought that I was -in love with Albertine. And probably she was none too happy in the -thought. - -She was generally present as a third party at my meetings with her -friend. And yet there were days when I was to see Albertine by herself, -days to which I looked forward with feverish impatience, which passed -without bringing me any decisive result, without having, any of them, -been that cardinal day whose part I immediately entrusted to the day -that was to follow, which would prove no more apt to play it; thus there -crumbled and collapsed, one after another, like waves of the sea, those -peaks at once replaced by others. - -About a month after the day on which we had played "ferret" together, I -learned that Albertine was going away next morning to spend a couple of -days with Mme. Bontemps, and, since she would have to start early, was -coming to sleep that night at the Grand Hotel, from which, by taking the -omnibus, she would be able, without disturbing the friends with whom she -was staying, to catch the first train in the morning. I mentioned this -to Andrée. "I don't believe a word of it," she replied, with a look of -annoyance. "Anyhow it won't help you at all, for I'm quite sure -Albertine won't want to see you if she goes to the hotel by herself. It -wouldn't be 'regulation'," she added, employing an epithet which had -recently come into favour with her, in the sense of "what is done". "I -tell you this because I understand Albertine. What difference do you -suppose it makes to me whether you see her or not? Not the slightest, I -can assure you!" - -We were joined by Octave who had no hesitation in telling Andrée the -number of strokes he had gone round in, the day before, at golf, then by -Albertine, counting her diabolo as she walked along, like a nun telling -her beads. Thanks to this pastime she could be left alone for hours on -end without growing bored. As soon as she joined us I became conscious -of the obstinate tip of her nose, which I had omitted from my mental -pictures of her during the last few days; beneath her dark hair the -vertical front of her brow controverted--and not for the first time--the -indefinite image that I had preserved of her, while its whiteness made a -vivid splash in my field of vision; emerging from the dust of memory, -Albertine was built up afresh before my eyes. Golf gives one a taste for -solitary pleasures. The pleasure to be derived from diabolo is -undoubtedly one of these. And yet, after she had joined us, Albertine -continued to toss up and catch her missile, just as a lady on whom -friends have come to call does not on their account stop working at her -crochet. "I hear that Mme. de Villeparisis," she remarked to Octave, -"has been complaining to your father." I could hear, underlying the -word, one of those notes that were peculiar to Albertine; always, just -as I had made certain that I had forgotten them, I would be reminded of -a glimpse caught through them before of Albertine's determined and -typically Gallic mien. I might have been blind, and yet have detected -certain of her qualities, alert and slightly provincial, from those -notes, just as plainly as from the tip of her nose. These were -equivalent and might have, been substituted for one another, and her -voice was like, what we are promised in the photo-telephone of the -future; the visual image was clearly outlined in the sound. "She's not -written only to your father, either, she wrote to the Mayor of Balbec at -the same time, to say that we must stop playing diabolo on the 'front' -as somebody hit her in the face with one." "Yes, I was hearing about -that. It's too silly. There's little enough to do here as it is." -Andrée did not join in the conversation; she was not acquainted, any -more than was Albertine or Octave, with Mme. de Villeparisis. She did, -however, remark: "I can't think why this lady should make such a song -about it. Old Mme. de Cambremer got hit in the face, and she never -complained." "I will explain the difference," replied Octave gravely, -striking a match as he spoke. "It's my belief that Mme. de Cambremer is -a woman of the world, and Mme. de Villeparisis is just an upstart. Are -you playing golf this afternoon?" and he left us, followed by Andrée. -I was alone now with Albertine. "Do you see," she began, "I'm wearing my -hair now the way you like--look at my ringlet. They all laugh at me and -nobody knows who' I'm doing it for. My aunt will laugh at me too. But I -shan't tell her why, either." I had a sidelong view of Albertine's -cheeks, which often appeared pale, but, seen thus, were flushed with a -coursing stream of blood which lighted them up, gave them that dazzling -dearness which certain winter mornings have when the stones sparkling in -the sun seem blocks of pink granite and radiate joy. The joy that I was -drawing at this moment from the sight of Albertine's cheeks was equally -keen, but led to another desire on my part, which was not to walk with -her but to take her in my arms. I asked her if the report of her plans -which I had heard were correct. "Yes," she told me, "I shall be sleeping -at your hotel to-night, and in fact as I've got rather a chill, I shall -be going to bed before dinner. You can come and sit by my bed and watch -me eat, if you like, and afterwards we'll play at anything you choose. I -should have liked you to come to the station to-morrow morning, but I'm -afraid it might look rather odd, I don't say to Andrée, who is a -sensible person, but to the others who will be there; if my aunt got to -know, I should never hear the last of it. But we can spend the evening -together, at any rate. My aunt will know nothing about that. I must go -and say good-bye to Andrée. So long, then. Come early, so that we can -have a nice long time together," she added, smiling. At these words I -was swept back past the days in which I loved Gilberte to those in which -love seemed to me not only an external entity but one that could be -realised as a whole. Whereas the Gilberte whom I used to see in the -Champs-Elysées was a different Gilberte from the one whom I found -waiting inside myself when I was alone again, suddenly in the real -Albertine, her whom I saw every day, whom I supposed to be stuffed with -middle class prejudices and entirely open with her aunt, there was -incarnate the imaginary Albertine, she whom, when I still did not know -her, I had suspected of casting furtive glances at myself on the -"front", she who had worn an air of being reluctant to go indoors when -she saw me making off in the other direction. - -I went in to dinner with my grandmother. I felt within me a secret which -she could never guess. Similarly with Albertine; to-morrow her friends -would be with her, not knowing what novel experience she and I had in -common; and when she kissed her niece on the brow Mme. Bontemps would -never imagine that I stood between them, in that arrangement of -Albertine's hair which had for its object, concealed from all the world, -to give me pleasure, me who had until then so greatly envied Mme. -Bontemps because, being related to the same people as her niece, she had -the same occasions to don mourning, the same family visits to pay; and -now I found myself meaning more to Albertine than did the aunt herself. -When she was with her aunt, it was of me that she would be thinking. -What was going to happen that evening, I scarcely knew. In any event, -the Grand Hotel, the evening would no longer seem empty to me; they -contained my happiness. I rang for the lift-boy to take me up to the -room which Albertine had engaged, a room that looked over the valley. -The slightest movements, such as that of sitting down on the bench in -the lift, were satisfying, because they were in direct relation to my -heart; I saw in the ropes that drew the cage upwards, in the few steps -that I had still to climb, only a materialisation of the machinery, the -stages of my joy. I had only two or three steps to take now along the -corridor before coming to that room in which was enshrined the precious -substance of that rosy form--that room which, even if there were to be -done in it delicious things, would keep that air of permanence, of -being, to a chance visitor who knew nothing of its history, just like -any other room, which makes of inanimate things the obstinately mute -witnesses, the scrupulous confidants, the inviolable depositaries of our -pleasure. Those few steps from the landing to Albertine's door, those -few steps which no one now could prevent my taking, I took with delight, -with prudence, as though plunged into a new and strange element, as if -in going forward I had been gently displacing the liquid stream of -happiness, and at the same time with a strange feeling of absolute -power, and of entering at length into an inheritance which had belonged -to me from all time. Then suddenly I reflected that it was wrong to be -in any doubt; she had told me to come when she was in bed. It was as -clear as daylight; I pranced for joy, I nearly knocked over Françoise -who was standing in my way, I ran, with glowing eyes, towards my -friend's room. I found Albertine in bed. Leaving her throat bare, her -white nightgown altered the proportions of her face, which, flushed by -being in bed or by her cold or by dinner, seemed pinker than before; I -thought of the colours which I had had, a few hours earlier, displayed -beside me, on the "front", the savour of which I was now at last to -taste; her cheek was crossed obliquely by one of those long, dark, -curling tresses, which, to please me, she had undone altogether. She -looked at me and smiled. Beyond her, through the window, the valley lay -bright beneath the moon. The sight of Albertine's bare throat, of those -strangely vivid cheeks, had so intoxicated me (that is to say had placed -the reality of the world for me no longer in nature, but in the torrent -of my sensations which it was all I could do to keep within bounds), as -to have destroyed the balance between the life, immense and -indestructible, which circulated in my being, and the life of the -universe, so puny in comparison. The sea, which was visible through the -window as well as the valley, the swelling breasts of the first of the -Maineville cliffs, the sky in which the moon had not yet climbed to the -zenith, all of these seemed less than a featherweight on my eyeballs, -which between their lids I could feel dilated, resisting, ready to bear -very different burdens, all the mountains of the world upon their -fragile surface. Their orbit no longer found even the sphere of the -horizon adequate to fill it. And everything that nature could have -brought me of life would have seemed wretchedly meagre, the sigh of the -waves far too short a sound to express the enormous aspiration that was -surging in my breast. I bent over Albertine to kiss her. Death might -have struck me down in that moment; it would have seemed to me a -trivial, or rather an impossible thing, for life was not outside, it was -in me; I should have smiled pityingly had a philosopher then expressed -the idea that some day, even some distant day, I should have to die, -that the external forces of nature would survive me, the forces of that -nature beneath whose god-like feet I was no more than a grain of dust; -that, after me, there would still remain those rounded, swelling cliffs, -that sea, that moonlight and that sky! How was that possible; how could -the world last longer than myself, since it was it that was enclosed in -me, in me whom it went a long way short of filling, in me, where, -feeling that there was room to store so many other treasures, I flung -contemptuously into a corner sky, sea and cliffs. "Stop that, or I'll -ring the bell!" cried Albertine, seeing that I was flinging myself upon -her to kiss her. But I reminded myself that it was not for no purpose -that a girl made a young man come to her room in secret, arranging that -her aunt should not know--that boldness, moreover, rewards those who -know how to seize their opportunities; in the state of exaltation in -which I was, the round face of Albertine, lighted by an inner flame, -like the glass bowl of a lamp, started into such prominence that, -copying the rotation of a burning sphere, it seemed to me to be turning, -like those faces of Michael Angelo which are being swept past in the -arrested headlong flight of a whirlwind. I was going to learn the -fragrance, the flavour which this strange pink fruit concealed. I heard -a sound, precipitous, prolonged, shrill. Albertine had pulled the bell -with all her might. - - * -* * - -I had supposed that the love which I felt for Albertine was not based on -the hope of carnal possession. And yet, when the lesson to be drawn from -my experience that evening was, apparently, that such possession was -impossible; when, after having had not the least doubt, that first day, -on the beach, of Albertine's being unchaste, and having then passed -through various intermediate assumptions, I seemed to have quite -definitely reached the conclusion that she was absolutely virtuous; -when, on her return from her aunt's, a week later, she greeted me coldly -with: "I forgive you; in fact I'm sorry to have upset you, but you must -never do it again,"--then, in contrast to what I had felt on learning -from Bloch that one could always have all the women one liked, and as -if, in place of a real girl, I had known a wax doll, it came to pass -that gradually there detached itself from her my desire to penetrate -into her life, to follow her through the places in which she had spent -her childhood, to be initiated by her into the athletic life; my -intellectual curiosity to know what were her thoughts on this subject or -that did not survive my belief that I might take her in my arms if I -chose. My dreams abandoned her, once they had ceased to be nourished by -the hope of a possession of which I had supposed them to be independent. -Thenceforward they found themselves once more at liberty to transmit -themselves, according to the attraction that I had found in her on any -particular day, above all according to the chances that I seemed to -detect of my being, possibly, one day, loved by her--to one or another -of Albertine's friends, and to Andrée first of all. And yet, if -Albertine had not existed, perhaps I should not have had the pleasure -which I began to feel more and more strongly during the days that -followed in the kindness that was shewn me by Andrée. Albertine told no -one of the check which I had received at her hands. She was one of those -pretty girls who, from their earliest youth, by their beauty, but -especially by an attraction, a charm which remains somewhat mysterious -and has its source perhaps in reserves of vitality to which others less -favoured by nature come to quench their thirst, have always--in their -home circle, among their friends, in society--proved more attractive -than other more beautiful and richer girls; she was one of those people -from whom, before the age of love and ever so much more after it is -reached, one asks more than they ask in return, more even than they are -able to give. From her childhood Albertine had always had round her in -an adoring circle four or five little girl friends, among them Andrée -who was so far her superior and knew it (and perhaps this attraction -which Albertine exerted quite involuntarily had been the origin, had -laid the foundations of the little band). This attraction was still -potent even at a great social distance, in circles quite brilliant in -comparison, where if there was a pavane to be danced, they would send -for Albertine rather than have it danced by another girl of better -family. The consequence was that, not having a penny to her name, living -a hard enough life, moreover, on the hands of M. Bontemps, who was said -to be "on the rocks", and was anyhow anxious to be rid of her, she was -nevertheless invited, not only to dine but to stay, by people who, in -Saint-Loup's sight, might not have had any distinction, but to -Rosemonde's mother or Andrée's, women who though very rich themselves -did not know these other and richer people, represented something quite -incalculable. Thus Albertine spent a few weeks every year with the -family of one of the Governors of the Bank of France, who was also -Chairman of the Board of Directors of a great Railway Company. The wife -of this financier entertained people of importance, and had never -mentioned her "day" to Andrée's mother, who thought her wanting in -politeness, but was nevertheless prodigiously interested in everything -that went on in her house. Accordingly she encouraged Andrée every year -to invite Albertine down to their villa, because, as she said, it was a -real charity to offer a holiday by the sea to a girl who had not herself -the means to travel and whose aunt did so little for her; Andrée's -mother was probably not prompted by the thought that the banker and his -wife, learning that Albertine was made much of by her and her daughter, -would form a high opinion of them both; still less did she hope that -Albertine, good and clever as she was, would manage to get her invited, -or at least to get Andrée invited to the financier's garden-parties. -But every evening at the dinner-table, while she assumed an air of -indifference slightly tinged with contempt, she was fascinated by -Albertine's accounts of everything that had happened at the big house -while she was staying there, and the names of the other guests, almost -all of them people whom she knew by sight or by name. True, the thought -that she knew them only in this indirect fashion, that is to say did not -know them at all (she called this kind of acquaintance knowing people -"all my life"), gave Andrée's mother a touch of melancholy while she -plied Albertine with questions about them in a lofty and distant tone, -speaking with closed lips, and might have left her doubtful and uneasy -as to the importance of her own social position had she not been able to -reassure herself, to return safely to the "realities of life", by saying -to the butler: "Please tell the chef that he has not made the peas soft -enough." She then recovered her serenity. And she was quite determined -that Andrée was to marry nobody but a man--of the best family, of -course--but rich enough for her too to be able to keep a chef and a -couple of coachmen. This was the proof positive, the practical -indication of "position". But the fact that Albertine had dined at the -banker's house in the country with this or that great lady, and that the -said great lady had invited the girl to stay with her next winter, did -not invalidate a sort of special consideration which Albertine shewed -towards Andrée's mother, which went very well with the pity, and even -repulsion, excited by the tale of her misfortunes, a repulsion increased -by the fact that M. Bontemps had proved a traitor to the cause (he was -even, people said, vaguely Panamist) and had rallied to the Government. -Not that this deterred Andrée's mother, in her passion for abstract -truth, from withering with her scorn the people who appeared to believe -that Albertine was of humble origin. "What's that you say? Why, they're -one of the best families in the country. Simonet with a single 'n', you -know!" Certainly, in view of the class of society in which all this went -on, in which money plays so important a part, and mere charm makes -people ask you out but not marry you, a "comfortable" marriage did not -appear to be for Albertine a practical outcome of the so distinguished -patronage which she enjoyed but which would not have been held to -compensate for her poverty. But even by themselves, and with no prospect -of any matrimonial consequence, Albertine's "successes" in society -excited the envy of certain spiteful mothers, furious at seeing her -received like one of the family by the banker's wife, even by Andrée's -mother, neither of whom they themselves really knew. They therefore went -about telling common friends of those ladies and their own that both -ladies would be very angry if they knew the facts, which were that -Albertine repeated to each of them everything that the intimacy to which -she was rashly admitted enabled her to spy out in the household of the -other, a thousand little secrets which it must be infinitely unpleasant -to the interested party to have made public. These envious women said -this so that it might be repeated and might get Albertine into trouble -with her patrons. But, as often happens, their machinations met with no -success. The spite that prompted them was too apparent, and their only -result was to make the women who had planned them appear rather more -contemptible than before. Andrée's mother was too firm in her opinion -of Albertine to change her mind about her now. She looked upon her as a -"poor wretch", but the best-natured girl living, and one who would do -anything in the world to give pleasure. - -If this sort of select popularity to which Albertine had attained did -not seem likely to lead to any practical result, it had stamped -Andrée's friend with the distinctive marks of people who, being always -sought after, have never any need to offer themselves, marks (to be -found also, and for analogous reasons, at the other end of the social -scale among the leaders of fashion) which consist in their not making -any display of the successes they have scored, but rather keeping them -to themselves. She would never say to anyone: "So-and-so is anxious to -meet me," would speak of everyone with the greatest good nature, and as -if it had been she who ran after, who sought to know other people, and -not they. If you spoke of a young man who, a few minutes earlier, had -been, in private conversation with her, heaping the bitterest reproaches -upon her because she had refused him an assignation, so far from -proclaiming this in public, or betraying any resentment she would stand -up for him: "He is such a nice boy!" Indeed it quite annoyed her when -she attracted people, because that compelled her to disappoint them, -whereas her natural instinct was always to give pleasure. So much did -she enjoy giving pleasure that she had come to employ a particular kind -of falsehood, found among utilitarians and men who have "arrived". -Existing besides in an embryonic state in a vast number of people, this -form of insincerity consists in not being able to confine the pleasure -arising out of a single act of politeness to a single person. For -instance, if Albertine's aunt wished her niece to accompany her to a -party which was not very lively, Albertine might have found it -sufficient to extract from the incident the moral profit of having given -pleasure to her aunt. But being courteously welcomed by her host and -hostess, she thought it better to say to them that she had been wanting -to see them for so long that she had finally seized this opportunity and -begged her aunt to take her to their party. Even this was not enough: at -the same party there happened to be one of Albertine's friends who was -in great distress. "I did not like the idea of your being here by -yourself. I thought it might do you good to have me with you. If you -would rather come away from here, go somewhere else, I am ready to do -anything you like; all I want is to see you look not so sad."--Which, as -it happened, was true also. Sometimes it happened however that the -fictitious object destroyed the real. Thus, Albertine, having a favour -to ask on behalf of one of her friends, went on purpose to see a certain -lady who could help her. But on arriving at the house of this lady--a -kind and sympathetic soul--the girl, unconsciously following the -principle of utilising a single action in a number of ways, felt it to -be more ingratiating to appear to have come there solely on account of -the pleasure she knew she would derive from seeing the lady again. The -lady was deeply touched that Albertine should have taken a long journey -purely out of friendship for herself. Seeing her almost overcome by -emotion, Albertine began to like the lady still better. Only, there was -this awkward consequence: she now felt so keenly the pleasure of -friendship which she pretended to have been her motive in coming, that -she was afraid of making the lady suspect the genuineness of sentiments -which were actually quite sincere if she now asked her to do the favour, -whatever it may have been, for her friend. The lady would think that -Albertine had come for that purpose, which was true, but would conclude -also that Albertine had no disinterested pleasure in seeing her, which -was not. With the result that she came away without having asked the -favour, like a man sometimes who has been so good to a woman, in the -hope of winning her, that he refrains from declaring his passion in -order to preserve for his goodness an air of nobility. In other -instances it would be wrong to say that the true object was sacrificed -to the subordinate and subsequently conceived idea, but the two were so -far incompatible that if the person to whom Albertine endeared herself -by stating the second had known of the existence of the first, his -pleasure would at once have been turned into the deepest annoyance. At a -much later point in this story, we shall have occasion to see this kind -of incompatibility expressed in clearer terms. Let us say for the -present, borrowing an example of a completely different order, that they -occur very frequently in the most divergent situations that life has to -offer. A husband has established his mistress in the town where he is -quartered with his regiment. His wife, left by herself in Paris, and -with an inkling of the truth, grows more and more miserable, and writes -her husband, letters embittered by jealousy. Very well; the mistress is -obliged to go up to Paris for the day. The husband cannot resist her -entreaties that he will go with her, and applies for short leave, which -is granted. But as he is a good-natured fellow, and hates to make his -wife unhappy, he goes to her and tells her, shedding a few quite genuine -tears, that, driven to desperation by her letters, he has found the -means of getting away from his duties to come to her, to console her in -his arms. He has thus contrived by a single journey to furnish wife and -mistress alike with proofs of his affection. But if the wife were to -learn the reason for which he has come to Paris, her joy would doubtless -be turned into grief, unless her pleasure in seeing the faithless wretch -outweighed, in spite of everything, the pain that his infidelities had -caused her. Among the men who have struck me as practising with most -perseverance this system of what might be called killing any number of -birds with one stone, must be included M. de Norpois. He would now and -then agree to act as intermediary between two of his friends who had -quarrelled, which led to his being called the most obliging of men. But -it was not sufficient for him to appear to be doing a service to the -friend who had come to him to demand it; he would represent to the other -the steps which he was taking to effect a reconciliation as undertaken -not at the request of the first friend but in the interest of the -second, an attitude of the sincerity of which he had never any -difficulty in convincing a listener already influenced by the idea that -he saw before him the "most serviceable of men". In this fashion, -playing in two scenes turn about, what in stage parlance is called -"doubling" two parts, he never allowed his influence to be in the -slightest degree imperilled, and the services which he rendered -constituted not an expenditure of capital but a dividend upon some part -of his credit. At the same time every service, seemingly rendered twice -over, correspondingly enhanced his reputation as an obliging friend, -and, better still, a friend whose interventions were efficacious, one -who did not draw bows at a venture, whose efforts were always justified -by success, as was shewn by the gratitude of both parties. This -duplicity in rendering services was--allowing for disappointments such -as are the lot of every human being--an important element of M. de -Norpois's character. And often at the Ministry he would make use of my -father, who was a simple soul, while making him believe that it was he, -M. de Norpois, who was being useful to my father. - -Attracting people more easily than she wished, and having no need to -proclaim her conquests abroad, Albertine kept silence with regard to the -scene with myself by her bedside, which a plain girl would have wished -the whole world to know. And yet of her attitude during that scene I -could not arrive at any satisfactory explanation. Taking first of all -the supposition that she was absolutely chaste (a supposition with which -I had originally accounted for the violence with which Albertine had -refused to let herself be taken in my arms and kissed, though it was by -no means essential to my conception of the goodness, the fundamentally -honourable character of my friend), I could not accept it without a -copious revision of its terms. It ran so entirely counter to the -hypothesis which I had constructed that day when I saw Albertine for the -first time. Then ever so many different acts, all acts of kindness -towards myself (a kindness that was caressing, at times uneasy, alarmed, -jealous of my predilection for Andrée) came up on all sides to -challenge the brutal gesture with which, to escape from me, she had -pulled the bell. Why then had she invited me to come and spend the -evening by her bedside? Why had she spoken all the time in the language -of affection? What object is there in your desire to see a friend, in -your fear that he is fonder of another of your friends than of you; why -seek to give him pleasure, why tell him, so romantically, that the -others will never know that he has spent the evening in your room, if -you refuse him so simple a pleasure and if to you it is no pleasure at -all? I could not believe, all the same, that Albertine's chastity was -carried to such a pitch as that, and I had begun to ask myself whether -her violence might not have been due to some reason of coquetry, a -disagreeable odour, for instance, which she suspected of lingering about -her person, and by which she was afraid that I might be disgusted, or -else of cowardice, if for instance she imagined, in her ignorance of the -facts of love, that my state of nervous exhaustion was due to something -contagious, communicable to her in a kiss. - -She was genuinely distressed by her failure to afford me pleasure, and -gave me a little gold pencil-case, with that virtuous perversity which -people shew who, moved by your supplications and yet not consenting to -grant you what those supplications demand, are anxious all the same to -bestow on you some mark of their affection; the critic, an article from -whose pen would so gratify the novelist, asks him instead to dinner; -the duchess does not take the snob with her to the theatre but lends him -her box on an evening when she will not be using it herself. So far are -those who do least for us, and might easily do nothing, driven by -conscience to do something. I told Albertine that in giving me this -pencil-case she was affording me great pleasure, and yet not so great as -I should have felt if, on the night she had spent at the hotel, she had -permitted me to embrace her. "It would have made me so happy; what -possible harm could it have done you? I was simply astounded at your -refusing to let me do it." "What astounds me," she retorted, "is that -you should have thought it astounding. Funny sort of girls you must know -if my behaviour surprises you." "I am extremely sorry if I annoyed you, -but even now I cannot say that I think I was in the wrong. What I feel -is that all that sort of thing is of no importance, really, and I can't -understand a girl who could so easily give pleasure not consenting to do -so. Let us be quite clear about it," I went on, throwing a sop of sorts -to her moral scruples, as I recalled how she and her friends had -scarified the girl who went about with the actress Léa, "I don't mean -to say for a moment that a girl can behave exactly as she likes, or that -there's no such thing as immorality. Take, let me see now, yes, what you -were saying the other day about a girl who is staying at Balbec and her -relations with an actress; I call that degrading, so degrading that I -feel must all have been made up by the girl's enemies, and that there -can't be any truth in the story. It strikes me as improbable, -impossible. But to let a friend kiss you, and go farther than that -even--since you say that I am your friend . . ." "So you are, but I have -had friends before now, I have known lots of young men who were every -bit as friendly, I can assure you. There wasn't one of them would ever -have dared to do a thing like that. They knew they'ld get their ears -boxed if they tried it on. Besides, they never dreamed of trying, we -would shake hands in an open, friendly sort of way, like good pals, but -there was never a word said about kissing, and yet we weren't any the -less friends for that. Why, if it's my friendship you are after, you've -nothing to complain of; I must be jolly fond of you to forgive you. But -I'm sure you don't care two straws about me, really. Own up now, it's -Andrée you're in love with. After all, you're quite right; she is ever -so much prettier than I am, and perfectly charming! Oh! You men!" -Despite my recent disappointment, these words so frankly uttered, by -giving me a great respect for Albertine, made a very pleasant impression -on me. And perhaps this impression was to have serious and vexatious -consequences for me later on, for it was round it that there began to -form that feeling almost of brotherly intimacy, that moral core which -was always to remain at the heart of my love for Albertine. A feeling of -this sort may be the cause of the keenest pain. For in order really to -suffer at the hands of a woman one must have believed in her completely. -For the moment, that embryo of moral esteem, of friendship, was left -embedded in me like a stepping-stone in a stream. It could have availed -nothing, by itself, against my happiness if it had remained there -without growing, in an inertia which it was to retain the following -year, and still more during the final weeks of this first visit to -Balbec. It dwelt in me like one of those foreign bodies which it would -be wiser when all is said to expel, but which we leave where they are -without disturbing them, so harmless for the present does their -weakness, their isolation amid a strange environment render them. - -My dreams were now once more at liberty to concentrate on one or another -of Albertine's friends, and returned first of all to Andrée, whose -kindnesses might perhaps have appealed to me less strongly had I not -been certain that they would come to Albertine's ears. Undoubtedly the -preference that I had long been pretending to feel for Andrée had -furnished me--in the habit of conversation with her, of declaring my -affection--with, so to speak, the material, prepared and ready, for a -love of her which had hitherto lacked only the complement of a genuine -sentiment, and this my heart being once more free was now in a position -to supply. But for me really to love Andrée, she was too intellectual, -too neurotic, too sickly, too much like myself. If Albertine now seemed -to me to be void of substance, Andrée was filled with something which I -knew only too well. I had thought, that first day, that what I saw on -the beach there was the mistress of some racing cyclist, passionately -athletic; and now Andrée told me that if she had taken up athletic -pastimes, it was under orders from her doctor, to cure her neurasthenia, -her digestive troubles, but that her happiest hours were those which she -spent in translating one of George Eliot's novels. The misunderstanding, -due to an initial mistake as to what Andrée was, had not, as a matter -of fact, the slightest importance. But my mistake was one of the kind -which, if they allow love to be born, and are not recognised as mistakes -until it has ceased to be under control, become a cause of suffering. -Such mistakes--which may be quite different from mine with regard to -Andrée, and even its exact opposite,--are frequently due (and this was -especially the case here) to our paying too much attention to the -aspect, the manners of what a person is not but would like to be, in -forming our first impression of that person. To the outward appearance -affectation, imitation, the longing to be admired, whether by the good -or by the wicked, add misleading similarities of speech and gesture. -There are cynicisms and cruelties which, when put to the test, prove no -more genuine than certain apparent virtues and generosities. Just as we -often discover a vain miser beneath the cloak of a man famed for his -bountiful charity, so her flaunting of vice leads us to suppose a -Messalina a respectable girl with middle class prejudices. I had thought -to find in Andrée a healthy, primitive creature, whereas she was merely -a person in search of health, as were doubtless many of those in whom -she herself had thought to find it, and who were in reality no more -healthy than a burly arthritic with a red face and in white flannels is -necessarily a Hercules. Now there are circumstances in which it is not -immaterial to our happiness that the person whom we have loved because -of what appeared to be so healthy about her is in reality only one of -those invalids who receive such health as they possess from others, as -the planets borrow their light, as certain bodies are only conductors of -electricity. - -No matter, Andrée, like Rosemonde and Gisèle, indeed more than they, -was, when all was said, a friend of Albertine, sharing her life, -imitating her conduct, so closely that, the first day, I had not at once -distinguished them one from another. Over these girls, flowering sprays -of roses whose principal charm was that they outlined themselves against -the sea, the same undivided partnership prevailed as at the time when I -did not know them, when the appearance of no matter which of them had -caused me such violent emotion by its announcement that the little band -was not far off. And even now the sight of one of them filled me with a -pleasure into which there entered, to an extent which I should not have -found it easy to define, the thought of seeing the others follow her in -due course, and even if they did not come that day, speaking about them, -and knowing that they would be told that I had been on the beach. - -It was no longer simply the attraction of those firsts days, it was a -regular love-longing which hesitated among them all, so far was each the -natural substitute for the others. My bitterest grief would not have -been to be thrown over by whichever of the girls I liked best, but I -should at once have liked best, because I should have fastened on to her -the whole of the melancholy dream which had been floating vaguely among -them all, her who had thrown me over. It would, moreover, in that event, -be the loss of all her friends, in whose eyes I should speedily have -forfeited whatever advantage I might possess, that I should, in losing -her, have unconsciously regretted, having vowed to them that sort of -collective love which the politician and the actor feel for the public -for whose desertion of them after they have enjoyed all its favours they -can never be consoled. Even those favours which I had failed to win from -Albertine I would hope suddenly to receive from one or other who had -parted from me in the evening with a word or glance of ambiguous -meaning, thanks to which it was to her that, for the next day or so, my -desire would turn. - -It strayed among them all the more voluptuously in that upon those -volatile faces a comparative fixation of features had now begun, and had -been carried far enough for the eye to distinguish--even if it were to -change yet further--each malleable and floating effigy. To the -differences that existed among them there was doubtless very little that -corresponded in the no less marked differences in the length and breadth -of those features, any of which might, perhaps, dissimilar as the girls -appeared, almost have been lifted bodily from one face and imposed at -random upon any other. But our knowledge of faces is not mathematical. -In the first place, it does not begin with the measurement of the parts, -it takes as its starting-point an expression, a combination of the -whole. In Andrée, for instance, the fineness of her gentle eyes seemed -to go with the thinness of her nose, as slender as a mere curve which -one could imagine as having been traced in order to produce along a -single line the idea of delicacy divided higher up between the dual -smile of her twin gaze. A line equally fine was engraved in her hair, -pliant and deep as the line with which the wind furrows the sand. And in -her it must have been hereditary; for the snow white hair of Andrée's -mother was driven in the same way, forming here a swelling, there a -depression like a snowdrift that rises or sinks according to the -irregularities of the soil. Certainly, when compared with the fine -delineation of Andrée's, Rosemonde's nose seemed to present broad -surfaces, like a high tower raised upon massive foundations. Albeit -expression suffices to make us believe in enormous differences between -things that are separated by infinitely little--albeit that infinitely -little may by itself create an expression that is absolutely unique, an -individuality--it was not only the infinitely little of its lines and -the originality of its expression that made each of these faces appear -irreducible to terms of any other. Between my friends' faces their -colouring established a separation wider still, not so much by the -varied beauty of the tones with which it provided them, so contrasted -that I felt when I looked at Rosemonde--flooded with a sulphurous rose -colour, with the further contrast of the greenish light in her eyes--and -then at Andrée--whose white cheeks received such an austere distinction -from her black hair--the same kind of pleasure as if I had been looking -alternately at a geranium growing by a sunlit sea and a camellia in the -night; but principally because the infinitely little differences of -their lines were enlarged out of all proportion, the relations between -one and another surface entirely changed by this new element of colour -which, in addition to being a dispenser of tints, is great at restoring, -or rather at altering dimensions. So that faces which were perhaps -constructed on not dissimilar lines, according as they were lighted by -the flaming torch of an auburn poll or high complexion, or by the white -glimmer of a dull pallor, grew sharper or broader, became something -else, like those properties used in the Russian ballet, consisting -sometimes, when they are seen in the light of day, of a mere disc of -paper, out of which the genius of a Bakst, according to the blood-red or -moonlit effect in which he plunges his stage, makes a hard incrustation, -like a turquoise on a palace wall, or a swooning softness, as of a -Bengal rose in an eastern garden. And so when acquiring a knowledge of -faces we take careful measurements, but as painters, not as surveyors. - -So it was with Albertine as with her friends. On certain days, slim, -with grey cheeks, a sullen air, a violet transparency falling obliquely -from her such as we notice sometimes on the sea, she seemed to be -feeling the sorrows of exile. On other days her face, more sleek, caught -and glued my desires to its varnished surface and prevented them from -going any farther; unless I caught a sudden glimpse of her from the -side, for her dull cheeks, like white wax on the surface, were visibly -pink beneath, which made me anxious to kiss them, to reach that -different tint which thus avoided my touch. At other times happiness -bathed her cheeks with a clarity so mobile that the skin, grown fluid -and vague, gave passage to a sort of stealthy and subcutaneous gaze, -which made it appear to be of another colour but not of another -substance than her eyes; sometimes, instinctively, when one looked at -her face punctuated with tiny brown marks among which floated what were -simply two larger, bluer stains, it was like looking at the egg of a -goldfinch--or often like an opalescent agate cut and polished in two -places only, where, from the heart of the brown stone, shone like the -transparent wings of a sky-blue butterfly her eyes, those features in -which the flesh becomes a mirror and gives us the illusion that it -allows us, more than through the other parts of the body, to approach -the soul. But most often of all she shewed more colour, and was then -more animated; sometimes the only pink thing in her white face was the -tip of her nose, as finely pointed as that of a mischievous kitten with -which one would have liked to stop and play; sometimes her cheeks were -so glossy that one's glance slipped, as over the surface of a miniature, -over their pink enamel, which was made to appear still more delicate, -more private, by the enclosing though half-opened case of her black -hair; or it might happen that the tint of her cheeks had deepened to the -violet shade of the red cyclamen, and, at times, even, when she was -flushed or feverish, with a suggestion of unhealthiness which lowered my -desire to something more sensual and made her glance expressive of -something more perverse and unwholesome, to the deep purple of certain -roses, a red that was almost black; and each of these Albertines was -different, as in every fresh appearance of the dancer whose colours, -form, character, are transmuted according to the innumerably varied play -of a projected limelight. It was perhaps because they were so different, -the persons whom I used to contemplate in her at this period, that later -on I became myself a different person, corresponding to the particular -Albertine to whom my thoughts had turned; a jealous, an indifferent, a -voluptuous, a melancholy, a frenzied person, created anew not merely by -the accident of what memory had risen to the surface, but in proportion -also to the strength of the belief that was lent to the support of one -and the same memory by the varying manner in which I appreciated it. For -this is the point to which we must always return, to these beliefs with -which most of the time we are quite unconsciously filled, but which for -all that are of more importance to our happiness than is the average -person whom we see, for it is through them that we see him, it is they -that impart his momentary greatness to the person seen. To be quite -accurate I ought to give a different name to each of the 'me's' who were -to think about Albertine in time to come; I ought still more to give a -different name to each of the Albertines who appeared before me, never -the same, like--called by me simply and for the sake of convenience "the -sea"--those seas that succeeded one another on the beach, in front of -which, a nymph likewise, she stood apart. But above all, in the same way -as, in telling a story (though to far greater purpose here), one -mentions what the weather was like on such and such a day, I ought -always to give its name to the belief that, on any given day on which I -saw Albertine, was reigning in my soul, creating its atmosphere, the -appearance of people like that of seas being dependent on those clouds, -themselves barely visible, which change the colour of everything by -their concentration, their mobility, their dissemination, their -flight--like that cloud which Elstir had rent one evening by not -introducing me to these girls, with whom he had stopped to talk, -whereupon their forms, as they moved away, had suddenly increased in -beauty--a cloud that had formed again a few days later when I did get to -know the girls, veiling their brightness, interposing itself frequently -between my eyes and them, opaque and soft, like Virgil's Leucothea. - -No doubt, all their faces had assumed quite new meanings for me since -the manner in which they were to be read had been to some extent -indicated to me by their talk, talk to which I could ascribe a value all -the greater in that, by questioning them, I could prompt it whenever I -chose, could vary it like an experimenter who seeks by corroborative -proofs to establish the truth of his theory. And it is, after all, as -good a way as any of solving the problem of existence to approach near -enough to the things that have appeared to us from a distance to be -beautiful and mysterious, to be able to satisfy ourselves that they have -neither mystery nor beauty. It is one of the systems of hygiene among -which we are at liberty to choose our own, a system which is perhaps not -to be recommended too strongly, but it gives us a certain tranquillity -with which to spend what remains of life, and also--since it enables us -to regret nothing, by assuring us that we have attained to the best, and -that the best was nothing out of the common--with which to resign -ourselves to death. - -I had now substituted, in the brains of these girls, for their supposed -contempt for chastity, their memories of daily "incidents", honest -principles, liable, it might be, to relaxation, but principles which had -hitherto kept unscathed the children who had acquired them in their own -respectable homes. And yet, when one has been mistaken from the start, -even in trifling details, when an error of assumption or recollection -makes one seek for the author of a malicious slander, or for the place -where one has lost something, in the wrong direction, it frequently -happens that one discovers one's error only to substitute for it not the -truth but a fresh error. I drew, so far as their manner of life and the -proper way to behave with them went, all the possible conclusions from -the word "Innocence" which I had read, in talking familiarly with them, -upon their faces. But perhaps I had been reading carelessly, with the -inaccuracy born of a too rapid deciphering, and it was no more written -there than was the name of Jules Ferry on the programme of the -performance at which I had heard Berma for the first time, an omission -which had not prevented me from maintaining to M. de Norpois that Jules -Ferry, beyond any possibility of doubt, was a person who wrote -curtain-raisers. - -No matter which it might be of my friends of the little band, was not -inevitably the face that I had last seen the only face that I could -recall, since, of our memories with respect to a person, the mind -eliminates everything that does not agree with our immediate purpose of -our daily relations (especially if those relations are quickened with an -element of love which, ever unsatisfied, lives always in the moment that -is about to come)? That purpose allows the chain of spent days to slip -away, holding on only to the very end of it, often of a quite different -metal from the links that, have vanished in the night, and in the -journey which we make through life, counts as real only in the place in -which we at any given moment are. But all those earliest impressions, -already so remote, could not find, against the blunting process that -assailed them day after day, any remedy in my memory; during the long -hours which I spent in talking, eating, playing with these girls, I did -not remember even that they were the same ruthless, sensual virgins whom -I had seen, as in a fresco, file past between me and the sea. - -Geographers, archaeologists may conduct us over Calypso's island, may -excavate the Palace of Minos. Only Calypso becomes then nothing more -than a woman, Minos than a king with no semblance of divinity. Even the -good and bad qualities which history teaches us to have been the -attributes of those quite real personages, often differ widely from -those which we had ascribed to the fabulous beings who bore the same -names as they. Thus had there faded and vanished all the lovely -mythology of Ocean which I had composed in those first days. But it is -not altogether immaterial that we do succeed, at any rate now and then, -in spending our time in familiar intercourse with what we have thought -to be unattainable and have longed to possess. In our later dealings -with people whom at first we found disagreeable there persists always, -even among the artificial pleasure which we have come at length to enjoy -in their society, the lingering taint of the defects which they have -succeeded in hiding. But, in relations such as I was now having with -Albertine and her friends, the genuine pleasure which was there at the -start leaves that fragrance which no amount of skill can impart to -hot-house fruits, to grapes that have not ripened in the sun. The -supernatural creatures which for a little time they had been to me still -introduced, even without any intention on my part, a miraculous element -into the most common-place dealings that I might have with them, or -rather prevented such dealings from ever becoming common-place at all. -My desire had sought so ardently to learn the significance of the eyes -which now knew and smiled to see me, but whose glances on the first day -had crossed mine like rays from another universe; it had distributed so -generously, so carefully, so minutely, colour and fragrance over the -carnation surfaces of these girls who now, outstretched on the -cliff-top, were simply offering me sandwiches or guessing riddles, that -often, in the afternoon, while I lay there among them, like those -painters who seek to match the grandeurs of antiquity in modern life, -give to a woman cutting her toe-nail the nobility of the _Spinario_, or, -like Rubens, make goddesses out of women whom they know, to people some -mythological scene; at those lovely forms, dark and fair, so dissimilar -in type, scattered around me in the grass, I would gaze without emptying -them, perhaps, of all the mediocre contents with which my every day -experience had filled them, and at the same time without expressly -recalling their heavenly origin, as if, like young Hercules or young -Telemachus, I had been set to play amid a band of nymphs. - -Then the concerts ended, the bad weather began, my friends left Balbec; -not all at once, like the swallows, but all in the same week. Albertine -was the first to go, abruptly, without any of her friends understanding, -then or afterwards, why she had returned suddenly to Paris whither -neither her work nor any amusement summoned her. "She said neither why -nor wherefore, and with that she left!" muttered Françoise, who, for -that matter, would have liked us to leave as well. We were, she thought, -inconsiderate towards the staff, now greatly reduced in number, but -retained on account of the few visitors who were still staying on, and -towards the manager who was "just eating up money." It was true that the -hotel, which would very soon be closed for the winter, had long since -seen most of its patrons depart, but never had it been so attractive. -This view was not shared by the manager; from end to end of the rooms in -which we sat shivering, and at the doors of which no page now stood on -guard, he paced the corridors, wearing a new frock coat, so well tended -by the hairdresser that his insipid face appeared to be made of some -composition in which, for one part of flesh, there were three of -cosmetics, incessantly changing his neckties. (These refinements cost -less than having the place heated and keeping on the staff, just as a -man who is no longer able to subscribe ten thousand francs to a charity -can still parade his generosity without inconvenience to himself by -tipping the boy who brings him a telegram with five.) He appeared to be -inspecting the empty air, to be seeking to give, by the smartness of his -personal appearance, a provisional splendour to the desolation that -could now be felt in this hotel where the season had not been good, and -walked like the ghost of a monarch who returns to haunt the ruins of -what was once his palace. He was particularly annoyed when the little -local railway company, finding the supply of passengers inadequate, -discontinued its trains until the following spring. "What is lacking -here," said the manager, "is the means of commotion." In spite of the -deficit which his books shewed, he was making plans for the future on a -lavish scale. And as he was, after all, capable of retaining an exact -memory of fine language when it was directly applicable to the -hotel-keeping industry and had the effect of enhancing its importance: -"I was not adequately supported, although in the dining-room I had an -efficient squad," he explained; "but the pages left something to be -desired. You will see, next year, what a phalanx I shall collect." In -the meantime the suspension of the services of the B. C. B. obliged him -to send for letters and occasionally to dispatch visitors in a light -cart. I would often ask leave to sit by the driver, and in this way I -managed to be out in all weathers, as in the winter that I had spent at -Combray. - -Sometimes, however, the driving rain kept my grandmother and me, the -Casino being closed, in rooms almost completely deserted, as in the -lowest hold of a ship when a storm is raging; and there, day by day, as -in the course of a sea-voyage, a new person from among those in whose -company we had spent three months without getting to know them, the -chief magistrate from Caen, the leader of the Cherbourg bar, an American -lady and her daughters, came up to us, started conversation, discovered -some way of making the time pass less slowly, revealed some social -accomplishment, taught us a new game, invited us to drink tea or to -listen to music, to meet them at a certain hour, to plan together some -of those diversions which contain the true secret of pleasure-giving, -which is to aim not at giving pleasure but simply at helping us to pass -the time of our boredom, in a word, formed with us, at the end of our -stay at Balbec, ties of friendship which, in a day or two, their -successive departures from the place would sever. I even made the -acquaintance of the rich young man, of one of his pair of aristocratic -friends and of the actress, who had reappeared for a few days; but their -little society was composed now of three persons only, the other friend -having returned to Paris. They asked me to come out to dinner with them -at their restaurant. I think, they were just as well pleased that I did -not accept. But they had given the invitation in the most friendly way -imaginable, and albeit it came actually from the rich young man, since -the others were only his guests, as the friend who was staying with him, -the Marquis Maurice de Vaudémont, came of a very good family indeed, -instinctively the actress, in asking me whether I would not come, said, -to flatter my vanity: "Maurice will be so pleased." - -And when in the hall of the hotel I met them all three together, it was -M. de Vaudémont (the rich young man effacing himself) who said to me: -"Won't you give us the pleasure of dining with us?" - -On the whole I had derived very little benefit from Balbec, but this -only strengthened my desire to return there. It seemed to me that I had -not stayed there long enough. This was not what my friends at home were -thinking, who wrote to ask whether I meant to stay there for the rest of -my life. And when I saw that it was the name "Balbec" which they were -obliged to put on the envelope--just as my window looked out not over a -landscape or a street but on to the plains of the sea, as I heard -through the night its murmur to which I had before going to sleep -entrusted my ship of dreams, I had the illusion that this life of -promiscuity with the waves must effectively, without my knowledge, -pervade me with the notion of their charm, like those lessons which one -learns by heart while one is asleep. - -The manager offered to reserve better rooms for me next year, but I had -now become attached to mine, into which I went without ever noticing the -scent of flowering grasses, while my mind, which had once found such -difficulty in rising to fill its space had come now to take its -measurements so exactly that I was obliged to submit it to a reverse -process when I had to sleep in Paris, in my own room, the ceiling of -which was low. - -It was high time, indeed, to leave Balbec, for the cold and damp had -become too penetrating for us to stay any longer in a hotel which had -neither fireplaces in the rooms nor a central furnace. Moreover, I -forgot almost immediately these last weeks of our stay. What my mind's -eye did almost invariably see when I thought of Balbec were the hours -which, every morning during the fine weather, as I was going out in the -afternoon with Albertine and her friends, my grandmother, following the -doctor's orders, insisted on my spending lying down, with the room -darkened. The manager gave instructions that no noise was to be made on -my landing, and came up himself to see that they were obeyed. Because -the light outside was so strong, I kept drawn for as long as possible -the big violet curtains which had adopted so hostile an attitude towards -me the first evening. But as, in spite of the pins with which, so that -the light should not enter, Françoise fastened them every night, pins -which she alone knew how to unfasten; as in spite of the rugs, the red -cretonne table-cover, the various fabrics collected here and there which -she fitted in to her defensive scheme, she never succeeded in making -them meet exactly, the darkness was not complete, and they allowed to -spill over the carpet as it were a scarlet shower of anemone-petals, -among which I could not resist the temptation to plunge my bare feet for -a moment. And on the wall which faced the window and so was partially -lighted, a cylinder of gold with no visible support was placed -vertically and moved slowly along like the pillar of fire which went -before the Hebrews in the desert. I went back to bed; obliged to taste -without moving, in imagination only, and all at once, the pleasures of -games, bathing, walks which the morning prompted, joy made my heart beat -thunderingly like a machine set going at full speed but fixed to the -ground, which can spend its energy only by turning upon its own axis. - -I knew that my friends were on the "front", but I did not see them as -they passed before the links of the sea's uneven chain, far at the back -of which, and nestling amid its bluish peaks like an Italian citadel, -one could occasionally, in a clear moment, make out the little town of -Rivebelle, drawn in minutest detail by the sun. I did not see my -friends, but (while there mounted to my belvedere the shout of the -newsboy, the "journalists" as Françoise used to call them, the shouts -of the bathers and of children at play, punctuating like the cries of -sea-birds the sound of the gently breaking waves) I guessed their -presence, I heard their laughter enveloped like the laughter of the -Nereids in the smooth tide of sound that rose to my ears. "We looked -up," said Albertine in the evening, "to see if you were coming down. But -your shutters were still closed when the concert began." At ten o'clock, -sure enough, it broke out beneath my windows. In the intervals in the -blare of the instruments, if the tide were high, would begin again, -slurred and continuous, the gliding surge of a wave which seemed to -enfold the notes of the violin in its crystal spirals and to be spraying -its foam over echoes of a submarine music. I grew impatient because no -one had yet come with my things, so that I might rise and dress. Twelve -o'clock struck, Françoise arrived at last. And for months on end, in -this Balbec to which I had so looked forward because I imagined it only -as battered by the storm and buried in fogs, the weather had been so -dazzling and so unchanging that when she came to open the window I could -always, without once being wrong, expect to see the same patch of -sunlight folded in the corner of the outer wall, of an unalterable -colour which was less moving as a sign of summer than depressing as the -colour of a lifeless and composed enamel. And after Françoise had -removed her pins from the mouldings of the window-frame, taken down her -various cloths, and drawn back the curtains, the summer day which she -disclosed seemed as dead, as immemorially ancient as would have been a -sumptuously attired dynastic mummy from which our old servant had done -no more than precautionally unwind the linen wrappings before displaying -it to my gaze, embalmed in its vesture of gold. - - - - -THE END - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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