Latest / Swanns Way / 52 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Part three, section twenty four of Swan's Way by Marcel Preus,
- 0:06Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief eighteen eighty nine to
- 0:10Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. The LibriVox recording is in the public domain
- 0:15Speaker 1: recording by Ectpatriate in Bangor, Maine, Part three, Swan in Love,
- 0:22Speaker 1: Section twenty four. The name of Beauseval had suggested to
- 0:27Speaker 1: him that of another place in the same district, Beuzeville,
- 0:31Speaker 1: which carried also bound to it by a hyphen a
- 0:35Speaker 1: second name to it, brote which he had often seen
- 0:38Speaker 1: on maps, but without ever previously remarking that it was
- 0:41Speaker 1: the same name as that borne by his friend Monsieur
- 0:45Speaker 1: de Brotet, whom the anonymous letter accused of having been
- 0:48Speaker 1: Odette's lover. After all, when it came to Monsieur de Brotees,
- 0:52Speaker 1: there was nothing improbable in the charge, But so far
- 0:56Speaker 1: as Madame Verderme was concerned, it was a sheer impossibility.
- 1:00Speaker 1: From the fact that Odette did occasionally tell a lie,
- 1:03Speaker 1: it was not fair to conclude that she never, by
- 1:05Speaker 1: any chance told the truth. And in these bantering conversations
- 1:09Speaker 1: with Madame Verdurant, which she herself had repeated to Swann,
- 1:13Speaker 1: he could recognize those meaningless and dangerous pleasantries which, in
- 1:18Speaker 1: their inexperience of life and ignorance of vice, women often utter,
- 1:23Speaker 1: thereby certifying their own innocence, who, as for instance, Odette,
- 1:28Speaker 1: would be the last people in the world to feel
- 1:30Speaker 1: any undue affection for one another. Whereas, on the other hand,
- 1:34Speaker 1: the indignation with which she had scattered, the suspicions which
- 1:38Speaker 1: she had unintentionally brought into being for a moment in
- 1:41Speaker 1: his mind by her story fitted in with everything that
- 1:44Speaker 1: he knew of the tastes, the temperament of his mistress,
- 1:47Speaker 1: But at that moment by an inspiration of jealousy, analogous
- 1:52Speaker 1: to the inspiration which reveals to a poet or a
- 1:54Speaker 1: philosopher who has nothing so far but an odd pair
- 1:58Speaker 1: of rhymes or a detached observation the idea or the
- 2:01Speaker 1: natural law which will give power mastery to his work.
- 2:05Speaker 1: Swan recalled for the first time a remark which Odette
- 2:08Speaker 1: had made to him at least two years before. Oh,
- 2:12Speaker 1: Madame Verdurance, she won't hear of anything just now but me.
- 2:15Speaker 1: I'm a love if you please, And she kisses me
- 2:18Speaker 1: and wants me to go with her everywhere and call
- 2:20Speaker 1: her by her Christian name. So far from seeing in
- 2:23Speaker 1: these expressions any connection with the absurd insinuations intended to
- 2:28Speaker 1: create an atmosphere of vice, which Odette had since repeated
- 2:32Speaker 1: to him. He had welcomed them as a proof of
- 2:34Speaker 1: Madame Verdran's warm hearted and generous friendship. But now this
- 2:38Speaker 1: old memory of her affection for Odette had coalesced suddenly
- 2:42Speaker 1: with his more recent memory of her unseemly conversation. He
- 2:47Speaker 1: could no longer separate them in his mind, and he
- 2:50Speaker 1: saw them blended in reality, the affection imparting a certain
- 2:54Speaker 1: seriousness and importance to the pleasantries, which in return spoiled
- 2:58Speaker 1: the affection of its innocence. He went to see Odette.
- 3:02Speaker 1: He sat down, keeping at a distance from her. He
- 3:05Speaker 1: did not dare to embrace her, not knowing whether in
- 3:08Speaker 1: her in himself it would be affection or anger that
- 3:11Speaker 1: a kiss would provoke. He sat there, silent, watching their
- 3:15Speaker 1: love expire. Suddenly he made up his mind. Odette, my darling,
- 3:20Speaker 1: he began, I know I am being simply odious, but
- 3:23Speaker 1: I must ask you a few questions. You remember what
- 3:26Speaker 1: I once thought about you and Madame verdrand tell me
- 3:29Speaker 1: was it true? Have you with her or any one else? Ever,
- 3:34Speaker 1: she shook her head, pursing her lips together, a sign
- 3:37Speaker 1: which people commonly employed to signify that they are not
- 3:41Speaker 1: going because it would bore them to go when someone
- 3:44Speaker 1: has asked, are you coming to watch the procession go by?
- 3:47Speaker 1: Or will you be at the review? But this shake
- 3:50Speaker 1: of the head, which is thus commonly used to decline
- 3:53Speaker 1: participation in an event that has yet to come, in
- 3:57Speaker 1: parts for that reason an element of uncertainty to the
- 4:00Speaker 1: denial of participation in an event that has passed. Furthermore,
- 4:05Speaker 1: it suggests reasons of personal convenience, rather than any definite
- 4:08Speaker 1: repudiation any moral impossibility. When he saw Odette thus make
- 4:14Speaker 1: him a sign that the insinuation was false, he realized
- 4:17Speaker 1: that it was quite possibly true. I have told you
- 4:20Speaker 1: I never did you know quite well? She added, seeming
- 4:23Speaker 1: angry and uncomfortable. Yes, I know all that, But are
- 4:27Speaker 1: you quite sure? Don't say to me you know quite well?
- 4:30Speaker 1: Say I have never done anything of that sort with
- 4:32Speaker 1: any woman. She repeated his words like a lesson learned
- 4:36Speaker 1: by wrote, and as though she hoped thereby to be
- 4:39Speaker 1: rid of him. I have never done anything of that
- 4:42Speaker 1: sort with any woman. Can you swear it to me
- 4:45Speaker 1: on your logetto metal? Swan knew that Odette would never
- 4:49Speaker 1: perjure herself on that Oh, you do make me so miserable,
- 4:53Speaker 1: she cried, with a jerk of her body, as though
- 4:55Speaker 1: to shake herself free of the constraint of his question.
- 4:58Speaker 1: Have you nearly done? What is the matter with you today?
- 5:02Speaker 1: You seem to have made up your mind that I
- 5:04Speaker 1: am to be forced to hate you, to curse you. Look,
- 5:07Speaker 1: I was anxious to be friends with you again, for
- 5:09Speaker 1: us to have a nice time together like the old days,
- 5:12Speaker 1: And this is all the thanks I get. However, he
- 5:15Speaker 1: would not let her go, but sat there like a
- 5:17Speaker 1: surgeon who waits for a spasm to subside that has
- 5:20Speaker 1: interrupted his operation, but need not make him abandon it.
- 5:24Speaker 1: You are quite wrong in supposing that I bear you
- 5:26Speaker 1: the least ill will in the world, Odette. He began,
- 5:29Speaker 1: with a persuasive and deceitful gentleness. I never speak to
- 5:33Speaker 1: you except of what I already know, and I always
- 5:36Speaker 1: know a great deal more than I say. But you
- 5:39Speaker 1: alone can mollify by your confession. What makes me hate you?
- 5:42Speaker 1: So long as it has been reported to me only
- 5:45Speaker 1: by other people. My anger with you is never due
- 5:48Speaker 1: to your actions. I can and do forgive you everything
- 5:51Speaker 1: because I love you, But to your untruthfulness, the ridiculous
- 5:55Speaker 1: untruthfulness which makes you persist in denying things which I
- 5:59Speaker 1: know to be true. How can you expect that I
- 6:02Speaker 1: shall continue to love you when I see you maintain
- 6:04Speaker 1: when I hear you swear to me a thing which
- 6:06Speaker 1: I know to be false. Odette, do not prolong this
- 6:10Speaker 1: moment which is torturing us. Both. If you are willing
- 6:13Speaker 1: to end it at once, you shall be free of
- 6:15Speaker 1: it forever. Tell me, upon your mettle, yes or no,
- 6:19Speaker 1: whether you have ever done those things? How on earth
- 6:22Speaker 1: can I tell? She was furious? Perhaps I have ever
- 6:25Speaker 1: so long ago, when I didn't know what I was doing,
- 6:28Speaker 1: perhaps two or three times. Swan had prepared himself for
- 6:32Speaker 1: all possibilities. Reality must therefore be something which bears no
- 6:37Speaker 1: relation to possibilities, any more than the stab of a
- 6:40Speaker 1: knife in one's body bears to the gradual movement of
- 6:43Speaker 1: the clouds overhead. Since those words two or three times
- 6:47Speaker 1: carved as it were, a cross upon the living tissues
- 6:50Speaker 1: of his heart, a strange thing. Indeed, that those words
- 6:54Speaker 1: two or three times, nothing more than a few words,
- 6:57Speaker 1: words uttered in the air at a distance, so lacerate
- 7:00Speaker 1: a man's heart as if they had actually pierced it,
- 7:04Speaker 1: could sicken a man like a poison that he had drunk. Instinctively,
- 7:08Speaker 1: Swan thought of the remark that he had heard of
- 7:10Speaker 1: Madame de Saint Hubert's, I have never seen anything to
- 7:13Speaker 1: beat it since the table turning. The agony that he
- 7:16Speaker 1: now suffered in no way resembled what he had supposed,
- 7:20Speaker 1: not only because in the hours when he most entirely
- 7:23Speaker 1: mistrusted her, he had rarely imagined such a culmination of evil,
- 7:28Speaker 1: but because even when he did imagine that offense, it
- 7:31Speaker 1: remained vague, uncertain, was not clothed in the particular horror
- 7:36Speaker 1: which had escaped with the words perhaps two or three times,
- 7:39Speaker 1: was not armed with that specific cruelty as different from
- 7:43Speaker 1: anything that he had known, as a new malady by
- 7:46Speaker 1: which one is attacked for the first time. And yet
- 7:49Speaker 1: this odepth from whom all this evil sprang was no
- 7:53Speaker 1: less dear to him, was, on the contrary, more precious,
- 7:57Speaker 1: as if in proportion as his sufferings increased, their increase
- 8:00Speaker 1: at the same time the price of the sedative of
- 8:03Speaker 1: the antidote which this woman alone possessed. He wished to
- 8:07Speaker 1: pay her more attention, as one attends to a disease
- 8:10Speaker 1: which one discovers suddenly to have grown more serious. He
- 8:14Speaker 1: wished that the horrible thing which she had told him
- 8:16Speaker 1: she had done two or three times might be prevented
- 8:19Speaker 1: from occurring again. To ensure that he must watch over Odette.
- 8:24Speaker 1: People often say that by pointing out to a man
- 8:26Speaker 1: the faults of his mistress, you succeed only in strengthening
- 8:30Speaker 1: his attachment to her because he does not believe you.
- 8:33Speaker 1: Yet how much more so if he does. But Swan
- 8:36Speaker 1: asked himself how could he manage to protect her. He
- 8:39Speaker 1: might perhaps be able to preserve her from the contamination
- 8:43Speaker 1: of any one woman, but there were hundreds of other women,
- 8:46Speaker 1: And he realized how insane had been his ambition when
- 8:49Speaker 1: he had begun on the evening, when he had failed
- 8:52Speaker 1: to find Odette at the verderands to desire the possession,
- 8:55Speaker 1: as if that were ever possible, of another person. Happily,
- 8:59Speaker 1: for sand beneath the mass of suffering which had invaded
- 9:03Speaker 1: his soul like a conquering horde of barbarians. There lay
- 9:07Speaker 1: a natural foundation, older, more placid and silently laborious, like
- 9:12Speaker 1: the cells of an injured organ, which at once set
- 9:16Speaker 1: to work to repair the damaged tissues, or the muscles
- 9:19Speaker 1: of a paralyzed limb, which tend to recover their former movements.
- 9:23Speaker 1: These older, these autophanous indwellers in his soul, absorbed all
- 9:29Speaker 1: Swan's strength for a while, in that obscure task of
- 9:32Speaker 1: reparation which gives one an illusory sense of repose during
- 9:36Speaker 1: convalescence or after an operation. This time it was not
- 9:41Speaker 1: so much as it ordinarily was, in Swan's brain that
- 9:44Speaker 1: the slackening of tension due to exhaustion took effect. It
- 9:48Speaker 1: was rather in his heart. But all the things in
- 9:51Speaker 1: life that have once existed tend to recur, and, like
- 9:55Speaker 1: a dying animal that is once more stirred by the
- 9:58Speaker 1: throes of a convulsion which it was apparently ended upon,
- 10:02Speaker 1: Swan's heart spared for a moment, only the same agony
- 10:06Speaker 1: returned of its own accord to trace the same cross again.
- 10:09Speaker 1: He remembered those moonlit evenings, when leaning back in the
- 10:13Speaker 1: victoria that was taking him to the rue La perouse,
- 10:16Speaker 1: he would cultivate with voluptuous enjoyment, the emotions of a
- 10:20Speaker 1: man in love, ignorant of the poisoned fruit that such
- 10:23Speaker 1: emotions must inevitably bear. But all those thoughts lasted for
- 10:27Speaker 1: no more than a second, the time that it took
- 10:30Speaker 1: him to raise his hand to his heart, to draw
- 10:32Speaker 1: breath again, and to contrive to smile, so as to
- 10:36Speaker 1: dissemble his torment. Already he had begun to put further
- 10:40Speaker 1: questions for his jealousy, which had taken an amount of
- 10:43Speaker 1: trouble such as no enemy would have incurred to strike
- 10:47Speaker 1: him this mortal blow, to make him forcibly acquainted with
- 10:51Speaker 1: the most cruel pain that he had ever known. His
- 10:53Speaker 1: jealousy was not satisfied that he had yet suffered enough,
- 10:57Speaker 1: and sought to expose his bosom to an even deeper wound.
- 11:01Speaker 1: Like an evil deity. His jealousy was inspiring swan was
- 11:05Speaker 1: thrusting him on towards destruction. It was not his fault,
- 11:09Speaker 1: but Odette's alone. If at first his punishment was not
- 11:12Speaker 1: more severe, my darling, he began again, it's all over now?
- 11:17Speaker 1: Was it with anyone? I know? No? I swear it
- 11:20Speaker 1: wasn't Besides, I think I exaggerated. I never really went
- 11:24Speaker 1: as far as that. He smiled and resumed with just
- 11:28Speaker 1: as you like. It doesn't really matter. But it's unfortunate
- 11:32Speaker 1: that you can't give me any name. If I were
- 11:34Speaker 1: able to form an idea of the person, that would
- 11:37Speaker 1: prevent my ever thinking of her again. I say it
- 11:40Speaker 1: for your own sake, because then I shouldn't bother you
- 11:42Speaker 1: any more about it. It's so soothing to be able
- 11:45Speaker 1: to form a clear picture of things in one's mind.
- 11:48Speaker 1: What is really terrible is what one cannot imagine. But
- 11:51Speaker 1: you've been so sweet to me. I don't want to
- 11:53Speaker 1: tire you. I do thank you with all my heart
- 11:56Speaker 1: for all the good that you have done me. I'm
- 11:58Speaker 1: quite finished now, Only one word more? How many times?
- 12:02Speaker 1: Oh Charles, can't you see you're killing me? It's all
- 12:06Speaker 1: ever so long ago. I've never given it a thought.
- 12:09Speaker 1: Anyone would say that you were positively trying to put
- 12:11Speaker 1: those ideas into my head again, and then you'd be
- 12:14Speaker 1: a lot better off. She concluded, with unconscious stupidity, but
- 12:18Speaker 1: with intentional malice. I only wished to know whether it
- 12:21Speaker 1: had been since I knew you. It's only natural did
- 12:24Speaker 1: it happen here. Ever, you can't give me any particular
- 12:28Speaker 1: evening so that I can remind myself what I was
- 12:30Speaker 1: doing at the time. You understand surely that it's not
- 12:33Speaker 1: possible that you don't remember with whom Odette my love.
- 12:37Speaker 1: But I don't know, really, I don't. I think it
- 12:40Speaker 1: was in the bois one evening when you came to
- 12:42Speaker 1: meet us. On the island, you had been dining with
- 12:45Speaker 1: a princess delom, she added, happy to be able to
- 12:48Speaker 1: furnish him with an exact detail which testified to her veracity.
- 12:52Speaker 1: At the next table, there was a woman whom I
- 12:54Speaker 1: hadn't seen for ever so long. She said to me,
- 12:57Speaker 1: Come along round behind the rock there, look at the
- 13:00Speaker 1: moonlight on the water. At first I just yawned and said, no,
- 13:05Speaker 1: I'm too tired, and I'm quite happy where I am.
- 13:07Speaker 1: Thank you. She swore there'd never been anything like it
- 13:11Speaker 1: in the way of moonlight. I've heard that tale before,
- 13:14Speaker 1: I said to her. You see, I knew quite well
- 13:16Speaker 1: what she was after. Odette narrated this episode almost as
- 13:20Speaker 1: if it were a joke, either because it appeared to
- 13:23Speaker 1: her to be quite natural, or because she thought that
- 13:25Speaker 1: she was there by minimizing its importance, or else so
- 13:29Speaker 1: as not to appear ashamed. But catching sight of Swan's face,
- 13:33Speaker 1: she changed her tone. And you are a fiend, she
- 13:36Speaker 1: flung at him. You enjoyed tormenting me, making me tell
- 13:40Speaker 1: you lies, just so that you'll leave me in peace.
- 13:43Speaker 1: The second blow struck at Swan was even more excruciating
- 13:46Speaker 1: than the first. Never had he supposed it to have
- 13:49Speaker 1: been so recent, an affair hidden from his eyes, that
- 13:52Speaker 1: had been too innocent to desert it, not in a
- 13:54Speaker 1: past which he had never known, but in evenings which
- 13:57Speaker 1: he so well remembered, which he had lived through with Odette,
- 14:01Speaker 1: by which he had supposed himself to have such an intimate,
- 14:04Speaker 1: such an exhaustive knowledge, and which now assumed retrospectively an
- 14:09Speaker 1: aspect of cunning and deceit and cruelty. In the midst
- 14:13Speaker 1: of them parted suddenly a gaping chasm. That moment on
- 14:17Speaker 1: the island, in the Bois DERs Boullon, Without being intelligent,
- 14:21Speaker 1: Odette had the charm of being natural. She had recounted.
- 14:25Speaker 1: She had acted the little scene with so much simplicity
- 14:28Speaker 1: that Swan, as he gasped for breath, could vividly see it,
- 14:32Speaker 1: Odette yawning the rock. There she could hear her answer, alas,
- 14:37Speaker 1: how lightheartedly I've heard that tale before. He felt that
- 14:42Speaker 1: she would tell him nothing more that evening, that no
- 14:45Speaker 1: further revelation was to be expected for the present. He
- 14:48Speaker 1: was silent for a time, then said to her, my
- 14:51Speaker 1: poor darling, you must forgive me. I know I am
- 14:54Speaker 1: hurting you dreadfully, but it's all over now. I shall
- 14:57Speaker 1: never think of it again. But she saw the His
- 15:00Speaker 1: eyes remained fixed upon the things that he did not know,
- 15:03Speaker 1: and on that past era of their love, monotonous and
- 15:06Speaker 1: soothing in his memory, because it was vague and now
- 15:09Speaker 1: rent as with a sword wound by the news of
- 15:12Speaker 1: that minute on the island in the bois by moonlight,
- 15:16Speaker 1: while he was dining with a princess der Loane. But
- 15:18Speaker 1: he had so far acquired the habit of finding life interesting,
- 15:22Speaker 1: of marveling at the strange discoveries that there were to
- 15:25Speaker 1: be made in it, that even while he was suffering
- 15:28Speaker 1: so acutely that he did not believe it possible to
- 15:31Speaker 1: endure such agony for any length of time, he was
- 15:34Speaker 1: saying to himself, life is indeed astonishing, and holds some
- 15:37Speaker 1: fine surprises. It appears that vice is far more common
- 15:41Speaker 1: than one has been led to believe. Here is a
- 15:43Speaker 1: woman in whom I had absolute confidence, who looks so simple,
- 15:47Speaker 1: so honest, who, in any case, even allowing that her
- 15:50Speaker 1: morals are not strict, seem quite normal and healthy in
- 15:54Speaker 1: her tastes and inclinations. I receive a most improbable accusation.
- 15:58Speaker 1: I question her, and the little that she admits reveals
- 16:02Speaker 1: far more than I could ever have suspected. But he
- 16:04Speaker 1: could not confine himself to these detached observations. He sought
- 16:09Speaker 1: to form an exact estimate of the importance of what
- 16:11Speaker 1: she had just told him, so as to know whether
- 16:14Speaker 1: he might conclude that she had done these things often
- 16:16Speaker 1: and was likely to do them again. He repeated her
- 16:20Speaker 1: words to himself, I knew quite well what she was
- 16:23Speaker 1: after two or three times. I've heard that tale before.
- 16:27Speaker 1: But they did not reappear in his memory unarmed. Each
- 16:31Speaker 1: of them held a knife with which it stabbed him afresh.
- 16:34Speaker 1: For a long time. Like a sick man who cannot
- 16:37Speaker 1: restrain himself from attempting every minute to make the movement
- 16:41Speaker 1: that he knows will hurt him, he kept on, murmuring
- 16:44Speaker 1: to himself, I'm quite happy where I am. Thank you.
- 16:47Speaker 1: I've heard that tale before. But the pain was so
- 16:50Speaker 1: intense that he was obliged to stop. He was amazed
- 16:53Speaker 1: to find that actions which he had always hitherto judged
- 16:56Speaker 1: so lightly had dismissed, indeed with a laugh, should have
- 17:00Speaker 1: become as serious to him as a disease which might
- 17:03Speaker 1: easily prove fatal. He knew any number of women whom
- 17:06Speaker 1: he could ask to keep an eye on odebt, But
- 17:09Speaker 1: how was he to expect them to adjust themselves to
- 17:12Speaker 1: his new point of view, and not to remain at
- 17:15Speaker 1: that which for so long had been his own, which
- 17:17Speaker 1: had always guided him in his voluptuous existence. Not to
- 17:21Speaker 1: say to him with a smile, you jealous monster wanting
- 17:24Speaker 1: to rob other people of their pleasure? By what trap
- 17:28Speaker 1: door suddenly lowered? Had he, who had never found in
- 17:32Speaker 1: the old days in his love for Odette any but
- 17:35Speaker 1: the most refined of pleasures, been precipitated into this new
- 17:39Speaker 1: circle of hell, from which he could not see how
- 17:41Speaker 1: he was ever to escape. Poor Odette. He wished her
- 17:45Speaker 1: no harm. She was but half to blame, had he
- 17:48Speaker 1: not been told that it was her own mother, who
- 17:50Speaker 1: had sold her when she was still little more than
- 17:53Speaker 1: a child at nice to a wealthy englishman. But what
- 17:56Speaker 1: an agonizing truth was now contained for him those lines
- 18:00Speaker 1: of Alfred de Vignyi's Journal of a Poet, which he
- 18:03Speaker 1: had previously read without emotion. When one feels oneself smitten
- 18:08Speaker 1: by love for a woman, one ought to say to oneself,
- 18:11Speaker 1: what are her surroundings? What has been her life? All
- 18:15Speaker 1: one's future happiness lies in the answer. Swan was astonished
- 18:19Speaker 1: that such simple phrases spelt over in his mind, as
- 18:23Speaker 1: I've heard that tale before, or I knew quite well
- 18:26Speaker 1: what she was after could cause him so much pain.
- 18:29Speaker 1: But he realized that what he had mistaken for simple
- 18:31Speaker 1: phrases were indeed parts of the panoply which held and
- 18:35Speaker 1: could inflict on him the anguish that he had felt
- 18:38Speaker 1: while Odette was telling her story, For it was the
- 18:41Speaker 1: same anguish that he now was feeling afresh. It was
- 18:44Speaker 1: no good his knowing now, Indeed it was no good
- 18:48Speaker 1: as time went on, his having partly forgotten and altogether
- 18:51Speaker 1: forgiven the offense. Whenever he repeated her words, his old
- 18:55Speaker 1: anguish refashioned him as he had been before Odette began
- 18:59Speaker 1: to speak ignorant, trustful. His merciless jealousy placed him once
- 19:03Speaker 1: again so that he might be effectively wounded by Odette's
- 19:07Speaker 1: admission in the position of a man who does not
- 19:09Speaker 1: yet know the truth, And after several months this old
- 19:13Speaker 1: story would still dumb founder him. Like a sudden revelation.
- 19:17Speaker 1: He marveled at the terrible recreative power of his memory.
- 19:21Speaker 1: It was only by the weakening of that generative force,
- 19:24Speaker 1: whose fecundity diminishes as age creeps over one, that he
- 19:28Speaker 1: could hope for a relaxation of his torments. But as
- 19:32Speaker 1: soon as the power that any one of Odette's sentences
- 19:35Speaker 1: had to make Swan suffer seemed to be nearly exhausted,
- 19:38Speaker 1: lo and behold another one of those to which he
- 19:41Speaker 1: had hitherto paid least attention, almost a new sentence came
- 19:45Speaker 1: to relieve the first, and to strike at him with
- 19:48Speaker 1: undiminished force. The memory of the evening on which he
- 19:51Speaker 1: had dined with the Princess de Lone was painful to him,
- 19:54Speaker 1: but it was no more than the center, the core
- 19:57Speaker 1: of his pain that radiated vaguely re about it, overflowing
- 20:01Speaker 1: into all the preceding and following days, and on whatever
- 20:05Speaker 1: point in it he might intend his memory to rest.
- 20:08Speaker 1: It was the whole of that season during which the
- 20:11Speaker 1: ver Durance had so often gone to dine upon the
- 20:13Speaker 1: island in the Bois that sprang back to hurt him
- 20:17Speaker 1: so violently that, by slow degrees, the curiosity which his
- 20:21Speaker 1: jealousy was ever exciting in him, was neutralized by his
- 20:25Speaker 1: fear of the fresh tortures which he would be inflicting
- 20:28Speaker 1: upon himself were he to satisfy it. He recognized that
- 20:32Speaker 1: all the period of Odette's life which had he lapsed
- 20:34Speaker 1: before she first met him, a period of which he
- 20:37Speaker 1: had never sought to form any picture in his mind,
- 20:40Speaker 1: was not the featureless abstraction which he could vaguely see,
- 20:44Speaker 1: but had consisted of so many definite, dated years, each
- 20:48Speaker 1: crowded with concrete incidents. But were he to learn more
- 20:52Speaker 1: of them, he feared lest her past, now colorless, fluid
- 20:56Speaker 1: and supportable, might assume a tangible and obscene form, with
- 21:00Speaker 1: individual and diabolical features. And he continued to refrain from
- 21:05Speaker 1: seeking a conception of it, not any longer now from
- 21:08Speaker 1: laziness of mind, but from fear of suffering. He hoped
- 21:12Speaker 1: that someday he might be able to hear the island
- 21:15Speaker 1: in the Bois or the Princess der Lone mentioned, without
- 21:18Speaker 1: feeling any twinge of that old, rending pain. Meanwhile, he
- 21:22Speaker 1: thought it imprudent to provoke Odette into furnishing him with
- 21:26Speaker 1: fresh sentences, with the names of more places and people
- 21:29Speaker 1: and of different events, which, when his malady was still
- 21:33Speaker 1: scarcely healed, would make it break out again in another form.
- 21:39Speaker 1: End of Part three, Section twenty four. Recording by expatriate
- 21:43Speaker 1: in Bangor, Maine,