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45 - Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust · Within a Budding Grove

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  Speaker 1: Section forty five of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust,
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  Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by Kristen Hand Seascape with
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  Speaker 1: Frieze of Girls, Part twelve. So that if before these
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  Speaker 1: visits to Elster, before I had set eyes on one
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  Speaker 1: of his sea pictures, in which a young woman in
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  Speaker 1: a dress of white serge or linen on the deck
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  Speaker 1: of a yacht flying the American flag, had duplicated a
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  Speaker 1: white linen dress and colored flag in my imagination, which
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  Speaker 1: at once bred in me an insatiable desire to visit
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  Speaker 1: the spot and sea there with my own eyes. White
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  Speaker 1: linen dresses and flags against the sea, as though no
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  Speaker 1: such experience had ever yet befallen me. Always, until then
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  Speaker 1: I had taken care when I stood by the sea,
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  Speaker 1: to expel from my field of vision, as well as
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  Speaker 1: the bathers in the foreground, the yachts with their two
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  Speaker 1: dazzling sails that were like seaside costumes, everything that prevented
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  Speaker 1: me from persuading myself that I was contemplating the immemorial
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  Speaker 1: flood of ocean which had been moving with the same
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  Speaker 1: mysterious life before the appearance of the human race, and
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  Speaker 1: had grudged even the days of radiant sunshine, which seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me to invest with the trivial aspect of the
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  Speaker 1: world's universal summer. This coast of fog and tempest to
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  Speaker 1: mark simply an interruption equivalent to what in music is
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  Speaker 1: known as arrest. Now, on the other hand, it was
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  Speaker 1: the bad days that appeared to me to be some
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  Speaker 1: disastrous accident, a thing that could no longer find any
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  Speaker 1: place for itself in the world of beauty. I felt
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  Speaker 1: a keen desire to go out and recapture in reality
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  Speaker 1: what had so powerfully aroused my imagination, And I hoped
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  Speaker 1: that the weather would be propitious enough for me to
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  Speaker 1: see from the summit of the cliff the same blue
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  Speaker 1: shadows as were in Elster's picture. Nor as I went along,
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  Speaker 1: did I still make a frame about my eyes with
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  Speaker 1: my hands, as in the days when conceiving nature to
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  Speaker 1: be animated by a life anterior to the first appearance
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  Speaker 1: of man, and inconsistent with all those wearisome perfections of
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  Speaker 1: industrial achievement which had hitherto made me with boredom at
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  Speaker 1: universal exhibitions or in the milliner's windows. I endeavored to
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  Speaker 1: include only that section of the sea over which there
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  Speaker 1: was no steamer passing, so that I might picture it
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  Speaker 1: to myself as immemorial, still contemporary with the ages in
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  Speaker 1: which it had been set, apart from the land, or
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  Speaker 1: at least with the first dawn of life in Greece,
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  Speaker 1: which enabled me to repeat in their literal meaning the
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  Speaker 1: lines of Father Lecomte, of which blochoisseau fond gone are
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  Speaker 1: the kings gone, are their towering prows vanished upon the
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  Speaker 1: raging deep alas the long haired warrior heroes of Hellas.
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  Speaker 1: I could no longer despise the milliners, now that Elsterra
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  Speaker 1: had told me that the delicate touches by which they
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  Speaker 1: gave a last refinement, a supreme caress to the ribbons
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  Speaker 1: or feathers of a hat after it is finished, would
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  Speaker 1: be as interesting to him to paint as the muscular
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  Speaker 1: action of the jockeys themselves, a statement which had delighted Albertine.
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  Speaker 1: But I must wait until I had returned for milliners
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  Speaker 1: to Paris, for regattas and races to Baalbeck, where there
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  Speaker 1: would be no more now until next year even a
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  Speaker 1: yacht with women in white linen garments was not to
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  Speaker 1: be found. Often we encountered Block's sisters, to whom I
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  Speaker 1: was obliged to bow. Since I had dined with her father,
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  Speaker 1: my new friends did not know them. I am not
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  Speaker 1: allowed to play with Israelites. Albertine explained her way of
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  Speaker 1: pronouncing the word Israelites instead of Israelites, would in itself
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  Speaker 1: have sufficed to show, even if one had not heard
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the sentence, that it was no feeling
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  Speaker 1: of friendliness towards the chosen race that inspired these young
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  Speaker 1: French women, brought up in God fearing homes and quite
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  Speaker 1: ready to believe that the Jews were in the habit
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  Speaker 1: of massacring Christian children. Besides their shocking bad form, your friends,
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  Speaker 1: said Andrea, with a smile which applied. She knew very
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  Speaker 1: well that they were no friends of mine. Like everything
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  Speaker 1: to do with the tribe, went on Albertine, in the
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  Speaker 1: sententious tone of one who spoke from personal experience to
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  Speaker 1: tell the truth. Block's sisters, at once over dressed and
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  Speaker 1: half naked, with their languishing, bold, blatant, sluttish air, did
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  Speaker 1: not create the best part Russian and one of their cousins,
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  Speaker 1: who was only fifteen, scandalized the casino by her unconcealed
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  Speaker 1: admiration for Mademoiselle Lea, whose talent is an actress Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: Bloch Senior rated very high, but whose tastes were understood
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  Speaker 1: to lead her not exactly in the direction of the gentleman.
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  Speaker 1: Some days we took our refreshment at one of the
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  Speaker 1: outlying farms which catered for visitors. These were the farms
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  Speaker 1: known as Les Ecore, Marie Therese, La Croix de Hulande, Bagatelle, Californie,
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  Speaker 1: and Marie Antoinette. It was the last that had been
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  Speaker 1: adopted by the little band. But at other times, instead
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  Speaker 1: of going to a farm, we would climb to the
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  Speaker 1: highest point of the cliff, and when we had reached
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  Speaker 1: it and were sitting on the grass, would undo our
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  Speaker 1: parcel of sandwiches and cakes. My friends preferred the sandwiches
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  Speaker 1: and were surprised to see me eat only a single
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  Speaker 1: chocolate cake sugared with Gothic tracery or an apricot tart.
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  Speaker 1: This was because with sandwiches of cheese or of green stuff,
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  Speaker 1: a form of food that was novelty, me and knew
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  Speaker 1: nothing of the past. I had nothing in common, but
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  Speaker 1: the cakes understood. The tarts were gossips. There were in
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  Speaker 1: the former an insipid taste of cream, in the latter
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  Speaker 1: a fresh taste of fruit, which knew all about Combre
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  Speaker 1: and about Gilbert, not only the guilbeer of Combree, but
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  Speaker 1: her too, of Paris, at whose tea parties I had
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  Speaker 1: found them again. They reminded me of those cake plates
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  Speaker 1: of the Arabian night's pattern, the subjects on which were
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  Speaker 1: such a distraction to my aunt Laone, when Francois brought
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  Speaker 1: her up. One day Aladdin or the wonderful lamp, another
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  Speaker 1: day Ali Baba or the Sleeper awakes, or Sindbad, the
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  Speaker 1: sailor embarking at Bassa with all his treasure. I should
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  Speaker 1: dearly have liked to see them again, But my grandmother
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  Speaker 1: did not know what had become of them, and thought
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  Speaker 1: moreover that they were just common plates that had been
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  Speaker 1: bought in the village. No matter in that gray Midland
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  Speaker 1: Combre seen they and their pictures were set like many
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  Speaker 1: colored jewels. As in the dark church, were the windows
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  Speaker 1: with their shifting radiance, as in the dusk of my
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  Speaker 1: bedroom were the projections cast by the magic lantern, as
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  Speaker 1: in the foreground of the view of the railway station,
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  Speaker 1: and the little local line, the buttercups from the Indies,
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  Speaker 1: and the Persian lilacs, as were my grant aunt's shelves
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  Speaker 1: of old percelain. In the sombra dwelling of an elderly
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  Speaker 1: lady in a country town. Stretched out on the cliff,
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  Speaker 1: I would see before me nothing but grassy meadows, and
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  Speaker 1: beyond them not the seven heavens of the Christian cosmogony,
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  Speaker 1: but two stages, only one of a deeper blue the sea,
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  Speaker 1: and over it another more pale. We ate our food,
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  Speaker 1: and if I had brought with me also some little
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  Speaker 1: keepsake which might appeal to one or other of my friends,
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  Speaker 1: Joy sprang with such sudden violence into her translucent face,
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  Speaker 1: flushed in an instant that her lips had not the
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  Speaker 1: strength to hold it in, and to allow it to escape.
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  Speaker 1: Parted in a shout of laughter. They had gathered close
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  Speaker 1: round to me, and between their faces, which were almost
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  Speaker 1: touching one another, the air that separated them traced azure pathways,
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  Speaker 1: such as might have been cut by a gardener wishing
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  Speaker 1: to clear the ground a little so as to be
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  Speaker 1: able himself to move freely through a thicket of roses.
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  Speaker 1: When we had finished eating, we would play games which
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  Speaker 1: until then I should have thought boring, Sometimes such childish
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  Speaker 1: games as king of the castle, or who laughs first?
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  Speaker 1: Not for a kingdom, when I have renounced them. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the rosy dawn of adolescence, with which the faces of
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  Speaker 1: these girls were still aglow, and from which I, young
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  Speaker 1: as I was, had already emerged, shed its light on
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  Speaker 1: everything round about them, and, like the fluid painting of
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  Speaker 1: some of the primitives, brought out the most insignificant details
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  Speaker 1: of their daily lives in relief against a golden background.
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  Speaker 1: Even the faces of the girls were for the most
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  Speaker 1: part clouded with this misty effulgence of a dawn, from
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  Speaker 1: which their actual features had not yet emerged. One saw
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  Speaker 1: only a charming sheet of color, beneath which what in
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  Speaker 1: a few years time would be a profile was not discernible.
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  Speaker 1: The profile of today had nothing definite about it, and
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  Speaker 1: could be only a momentary resemblance to some deceased member
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  Speaker 1: of the family to whom they nature had paid this
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  Speaker 1: commemorative courtesy. It comes so soon, the moment when there
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  Speaker 1: is nothing left to wait for, when the body is
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  Speaker 1: fixed in an immobility which holds no fresh surprise in store.
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  Speaker 1: When one loses all hope on seeing as on a
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  Speaker 1: tree in the height of summer, leaves already brown round
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  Speaker 1: a face still young, hair that is growing thin or
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  Speaker 1: turning gray. It is so short that radiant morning time
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  Speaker 1: that one comes to like only the very youngest girls,
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  Speaker 1: those in whom the flesh, like a precious leaven, is
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  Speaker 1: still at work. They are no more yet than a
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  Speaker 1: stream of ductile matter, molded ever afresh by the fleeting
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  Speaker 1: impression of the moment. You would say that each of
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  Speaker 1: them was, in turn a little statuette of childish gaiety,
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  Speaker 1: of a child grown earnest, coaxing, surprised, Taking its pattern
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  Speaker 1: from an expression frank and complete but fugitive, this plasticity
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  Speaker 1: gives a wealth of variety and charm to the pretty
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  Speaker 1: attentions which a little girl pays to us. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: such attentions are indispensable in the woman also, And she
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  Speaker 1: whom we do not attract, or who fails to let
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  Speaker 1: us see that we have attracted her, tends to assume
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  Speaker 1: in our eyes a somewhat tedious uniformity. But even these
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  Speaker 1: pretty attentions, after a certain age, cease to send gentle
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  Speaker 1: ripples over a face which the struggle for existence has
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  Speaker 1: hardened has rendered unalterably militant or ecstatic. One, owing to
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  Speaker 1: the prolonged strain of the obedience that subjects wife to husband,
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  Speaker 1: will seem not so much a woman's face as a soldier's. Another,
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  Speaker 1: carved by the sacrifices which a mother has consented to
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  Speaker 1: make day after day for her children, will be the
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  Speaker 1: face of an apostle. A third is, after a stormy
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  Speaker 1: passage through the years, the face of an ancient mariner
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  Speaker 1: upon a body of which its garments alone indicate the sex. Certainly,
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  Speaker 1: the attentions that a woman pays us can still, so
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  Speaker 1: long as we are in love with her, scatter fresh
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  Speaker 1: charms over the hours that we spend in her company.
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  Speaker 1: But she is not then for us a series of
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  Speaker 1: different women. Her gaiety remains external to an unchanging face,
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  Speaker 1: whereas adolescence is anterior to this complete solidification. And from
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  Speaker 1: this it follows that we feel, in the company of
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  Speaker 1: young girls the refreshing sense that has afforded us by
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  Speaker 1: the spectacle of forms undergoing an incessant process of change,
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  Speaker 1: a play of unstable forces, which makes us think of
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  Speaker 1: that perpetual recreation of the primordial elements of nature which
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  Speaker 1: we contemplate when we stand by the sea. It was
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  Speaker 1: not merely a social engagement, a drive with Madame de
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  Speaker 1: Ville parisis that I would have sacrificed to the ferrets
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  Speaker 1: or guessing games of my friends. More than once Robert
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  Speaker 1: des Saint Loup had sent word that since I was
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  Speaker 1: not coming to see him at Dulcier's, he had applied
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  Speaker 1: for twenty four hours leave which he would come spend
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  Speaker 1: at Ballbeck. Each time, I wrote back that he was
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  Speaker 1: on no account to come, offering the excuse that I
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  Speaker 1: should be obliged to be away myself that very day,
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  Speaker 1: when I had some duty call to pay with my
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  Speaker 1: grandmother on family friends in the neighborhood. No doubt I
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  Speaker 1: fell in his estimation when he learned from his aunt
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  Speaker 1: in what the duty call consisted, and who the persons
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  Speaker 1: were who combined to the part of my grandmother. And
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  Speaker 1: yet I had not been wrong, perhaps after all, in
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  Speaker 1: sacrificing not only the vain pleasures of the world, but
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  Speaker 1: the real pleasure of friendship, to that of spending the
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  Speaker 1: whole day in this green garden people who enjoy the capacity.
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  Speaker 1: It is true that such people are artists, and I
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  Speaker 1: had long been convinced that I should never be. That
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  Speaker 1: are also under an obligation to live for themselves, And
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  Speaker 1: friendship is a dispensation from this duty, an abdication of self.
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  Speaker 1: Even conversation, which is the mode of expression of friendship,
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  Speaker 1: is a superficial digression which gives us no new acquisition.
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  Speaker 1: We may talk for a lifetime without doing more than
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  Speaker 1: indefinitely repeat the vacuity of a minute, whereas the march
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  Speaker 1: of thought in the solitary travail of artistic creation proceeds
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  Speaker 1: downwards into the depths, in the only direction that has
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  Speaker 1: not closed to us, along which we are free to advance,
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  Speaker 1: though with more effort. It is true towards a goal
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  Speaker 1: of truth, and friendship is not merely devoid of virtue.
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  Speaker 1: Like conversation, it is fatal to us as well for
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  Speaker 1: the sense of boredom, which it is impossible not to
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  Speaker 1: feel in a friend's company. When that is to say,
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  Speaker 1: we must remain exposed on the surface of our consciousness
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  Speaker 1: instead of pursuing our voyage of discovery into the depths
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  Speaker 1: for those of us in whom the law of development
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  Speaker 1: is purely internal. That first impression of boredom our friendship
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  Speaker 1: impels us to correct, when we are alone again, to
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  Speaker 1: recall with emotion the words uttered by our friend, to
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  Speaker 1: look upon them as a valuable addition to our substance. Albeit,
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  Speaker 1: we are not like buildings to which stones can be
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  Speaker 1: added from without, but like trees, which draw from their
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  Speaker 1: own sat the knot that duly appears on their trunks,
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  Speaker 1: the spreading roof of their foliage. I was lying to myself.
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  Speaker 1: I was interrupting the process of growth in that direction
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  Speaker 1: in which I could indeed really be enlarged and made happy.
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  Speaker 1: When I congratulated myself on being liked admired by so good,
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  Speaker 1: so clever, so rare, a creature as san Loup, when
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  Speaker 1: I focused my mind not upon my own obscure and Russians,
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  Speaker 1: which duty bade me unravel, but on the words uttered
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  Speaker 1: by my friend, in which when I repeated them to myself,
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  Speaker 1: when I had them repeated to me by that other
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  Speaker 1: self who dwells in us, and on whom we are
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  Speaker 1: always so ready to transfer the burden of taking thought,
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  Speaker 1: I strove to make myself find a beauty very different
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  Speaker 1: from that which I used to peruse in silence when
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  Speaker 1: I was really alone, but one that would enhance the
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  Speaker 1: merit of Robert, of myself, of my life. In the
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  Speaker 1: life which a friend like this provided for me, I
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  Speaker 1: seemed to myself to be comfortably preserved from solitude, nobly
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  Speaker 1: desirous of sacrificing myself for him, in fact, quite incapable
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  Speaker 1: of realizing myself among the girls. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: if the pleasure which I enjoyed was selfish, at least
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  Speaker 1: it was not based on the lie which seeks to
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  Speaker 1: make us believe that we are not irremedably alone, and which,
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  Speaker 1: when we talk to another person, prevents us from admitting
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  Speaker 1: that it is no longer we who speak, that we
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  Speaker 1: are fashioning ourself in the likeness of us strangers, and
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  Speaker 1: not of our own ego, which is quite different from them.
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  Speaker 1: The words that pass between the girls of the Little
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  Speaker 1: Band and myself were not of any interest. They were, moreover,
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  Speaker 1: but few, broken by long spells of silence on my part,
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  Speaker 1: all of which did not prevent me from finding in
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  Speaker 1: listening to them when they spoke to me, as much
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  Speaker 1: pleasure as in gazing at them in discovering in the
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  Speaker 1: voice of each one of them a brightly colored picture.
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  Speaker 1: It was with ecstasy that I caught their pipings. Love
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  Speaker 1: helps us to discern things to discriminate. Standing in a wood,
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  Speaker 1: the lover of birds at once distinguishes the notes of
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  Speaker 1: the different species which two ordinary people sound the same.
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  Speaker 1: The lover of girls knows that human voices vary even more.
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  Speaker 1: Each one possesses more notes than the richest instrument of music,
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  Speaker 1: and the combinations in which the voice groups those notes
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  Speaker 1: are as inexhaustible as the infinite variety of personalities. When
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  Speaker 1: I talked with any one of my friends, I was
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  Speaker 1: conscious that the original, the unique portrait of her individuality,
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  Speaker 1: had been skilled fully traced tyrannically imposed on my mind,
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  Speaker 1: as much by the inflections of her voice as by
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  Speaker 1: those of her face, and that these were two separate
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  Speaker 1: spectacles which rendered each, in its own plane, the same,
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  Speaker 1: single reality. No doubt, the lines of the voice, like
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  Speaker 1: those of the face, were not yet definitely fixed. The
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  Speaker 1: voice still had to break the face to change. Just
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  Speaker 1: as children have a gland, the secretion in which enables
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  Speaker 1: them to digest milk, a gland which is not found
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  Speaker 1: in grown men and women. So there were in the
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  Speaker 1: twitterings of these girls notes which women's voices no longer contain,
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  Speaker 1: And on this instrument, with its greater compass, they played
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  Speaker 1: with their lips, showing all the application the ardor of
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Bellini's Little angel musicians, qualities which also are an exclusive
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: epanage of youth. Later on, these girls would lose that
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  Speaker 1: note of enthusiastic conviction which gave a charm to their
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: simplest utterances. Whether it were Albertine, who, in a tone
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  Speaker 1: of authority, repeated puns to which the younger ones listened
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  Speaker 1: with admiration, until that wild impulse to laugh caught them
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  Speaker 1: all with the irresistible violence of a sneeze, or andre
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  Speaker 1: who began to speak of their work in the school room,
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  Speaker 1: were even more childish, seemingly than the games. They played
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  Speaker 1: with a gravity essentially puerile, and their words changed in
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  Speaker 1: tone like the lyrics of ancient times, when poetry, still
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  Speaker 1: hardly differentiated from music, was declaimed upon the different notes
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  Speaker 1: of a scale, in spite of which the girls of
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  Speaker 1: voices already gave a quite clear indication of the attitude
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  Speaker 1: that each of these little people had adopted towards life,
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  Speaker 1: an attitude so personal that it would be speaking in
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  Speaker 1: far too general terms to say of one. She treats
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  Speaker 1: everything as a joke of another. She jumps from assertion
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  Speaker 1: to assertion of a third. She lives in a state
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  Speaker 1: of expectant hesitation. The features of our face are hardly
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  Speaker 1: more than gestures, which force of habit has made permanent nature,
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  Speaker 1: like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a
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  Speaker 1: nymph into a tree has arrested us in an accustomed movie. Similarly,
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  Speaker 1: our intonations embody our philosophy of life, what a person
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: says to himself about things at any given moment. No doubt,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: these peculiarities were to be found not only in the girls.
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  Speaker 1: They were those of their parents. The individual is a
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  Speaker 1: part of something that is more generally diffused than himself.
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  Speaker 1: By this reckoning, our parents furnish us not only with
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: those habitual gestures which are the outlines of our face
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and voice, but also with certain mannerisms in speech, certain
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: favorite expressions, which almost as unconscious as an intonation, almost
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: as profound, indicate likewise a definite point of view towards life.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It is quite true, since we are speaking of girls,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that there are certain of these expressions which their parents
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: do not hand on to them until they have reached
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a certain age, as a rule, not before they are women.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: These are kept in reserve. Thus, for instance, if you
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: were to speak of the pictures of one of Elster's friends, Andrea,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: whose hair was still down, could not make use personally
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of the expression which are and elder sister employed It
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: appears the man is quite charming. But that would come
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: in due course when she was allowed to go to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the Palais Royal. And already since her first communion, Aertina
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: begun to say, like a friend of her aunt, I'm
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: sure I should find that simply terrible. She had also
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: had given to her as a little present, the habit
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of repeating whatever you had just been saying to her,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: so as to pear to be interested and to be
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: trying to form an opinion of her own. If you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: said that an artist's work was good, or his house nice,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Oh his work is good is it? Oh? His house
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: is nice? Is it? Last of all, and even more
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: general than the family heritage, was the rich layer imposed
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: by the native province from which they derived their voices,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and of which indeed, their intonations smacked. When Andrea sharply
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: struck a solemn note, she could not prevent the Perigordian
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: string of her vocal instrument from giving back a resonant sound,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: quite in harmony. Moreover, with the maridonial purity of her features,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: while to the incessant pranks of Rosamond, the substance of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: her North Country face and voice responded, whatever her mood
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: at the time, in the accent of their province, Between
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that province and the temperament of the little girl who
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: dictated these inflections, I caught a charming dialogue, a dialogue
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: not in any sense of discord. It would not have
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: been possible to separate the girl herself and her native place.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: She was herself, she was still it Also, moreover, this
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: reaction of locally procured materials on the genius who utilizes
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: them and to whose work their reaction in parts in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: added freshness, does not make the work any less individual,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And whether it be that of an architect, a cabinet maker,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: or a composer, it reflects no less minutely the most
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: subtle shades of the artist's personality. Because he has been
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: compelled to work in the millstone of San Lee or
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the red sandstone of Strasbourg, has respected the knots peculiar
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to the ash tree has borne in mind when writing
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: his score. The resources, the limitations, the volume of sound,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the possibilities of flute or alto voice. All this I realized,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And yet we talked so little. Whereas with Madame de
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Villeparisis or San Loup, I should have displayed by my
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: words a great deal more pleasure than I should actually
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: have felt, for I used always to be worn out
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: when I parted from them. When, on the other hand,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I was lying on the grass among all these girls,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the plenitude of what I was feeling infinitely outweighed the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: paucity the infrequency of our speech, and brimmed over from
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: my immobility and silence in floods of happiness, the waves
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of which rippled up to die at the feet of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: these young roses. For a convalescent who rests all day
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: long in a flower garden or orchard, a scent of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: flowers or fruit does not more completely pervade the thousand
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: trifles that compose his idle hours than did for me
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that color, that fragrance in search of which my eyes
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: kept straying towards the girls, and the sweetness of which
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: finally became incorporated in me. So it is that grapes
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: grow sugary in sunshine, and by their slow continuity, these
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: simple little games and gradually wrought in me, also as
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in those who do nothing else all day but lie
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: outstretched by the sea, breathing the salt air, and growing sunburned.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: A relaxation, a blissful smile, a vague sense of dizziness
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that had spread from brain to eyes. Now and then
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: a pretty attention from one or other of them would
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: stir in me vibrations which dissipated for a time my
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: desire for the rest. Thus, one day, Albertine had suddenly
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: asked who has a pencil? Andrea had provided one, rosamond
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the paper. Albertin had warned them, now, young ladies, you
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: are not to look at what I write. After carefully
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: tracing each letter, supporting the paper on her knees, she
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: had passed it to me with take care no one sees.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Whereupon I had unfolded it and read her message, which
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was I love you, but we mustn't sit here scribbling nonsense.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: She cried, turning impetuously with a sudden gravity of demeanor
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to Andrea and Rosamond ought to show you the letter
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I got from Gisel this morning. What an idiot I am.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I've had it all this time in my pocket, and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you can't think how important it may be to us.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Gizelle had been moved to copy out for her friend
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: so that it might be passed on to the others
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the essay which she had written in her certificate examination.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Albertine's fears as to the difficulty of the subjects set
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: had been more than justified by the two from which
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Gazelle had had to choose. The first was Sophocles from
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the Shades, writes to Racine to console him for the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: failure of Athlete. The other supposed that after the first
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: performance of Esther, Madame de Sevigni is writing to Madame
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: de Lafayette to tell her how much she regretted her absence. Now, Gizelle,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: in an excess of zeal, which ought to have touched
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the examiner's heart, had chosen the former, which was also
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the more difficult of the two subjects, and had handled
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: it with such remarkable skill that she had been given
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: fourteen marks and had been congratulated by the board. She
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: would have received mention if she had not dried up.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: In the Spanish paper the essay, a copy of which
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Giselle had now sent her, was immediately read aloud to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: us by Albertine, for having presently to pass the same examination.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: She was anxious to have an opinion from Andrea, who
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: was by far the cleverest of them all, and might
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: be able to give her some good tips. She did
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: have a bit of luck, was Albertine's comment. It's the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: very subject her French mistress made her suat up while
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: she was here. The letter from Sophocles to Racine, as
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: drafted by Giselle, ran as follows, My dear friend, you
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: must pardon me the liberty of addressing you when I
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: have not the honor of your personal acquaintance. But your
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: latest tragedy Athelee shows. Does it not that you have
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: made the most thorough study of my own modest works.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: You have not only put poetry in the mouths of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the protagonists or principal persons of the drama, but you
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: have written other and let me tell you, without flattery,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: charming verses for the choruses, a feature which was not
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: too bad, according to all one hears in Greek tragedy,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: but is a complete novelty in France. Nay more, your talent,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: always so fluent, so finished, so winning, so fine, so delicate,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: has here acquired an energy on which I congratulate you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Athelie Jode. These are figures which your rival Corneil could
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: have wrought no better. The characters are virile, the plot
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: simple and strong. You have given us a tragedy in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: love which is not the keynote, and on this I
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: must offer you my sincerest compliments. The most familiar proverbs
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: are not always the truest. I will give you an example,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: this passion treat, which makes the poet's art fly as
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: on wings, straight to the listener's heart. You have shown
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: us that the religious sentiment in which your choruses are
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: steeped is no less capable of moving us. The general
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: public may have been puzzled at first, but those who
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: are best qualified to judge must give you your due.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I have felt myself impelled to offer you all my congratulations,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to which I would add my dear brother poet, an
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: expression of my very highest esteem. Albertine's eyes while she
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: was reading this to us had not ceased to sparkle. Really,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you'd think she must have cribbed it somewhere, she exclaimed
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: as she reached the end. I should never have believed
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that Gizelle could hatch out anything like a good and
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the poetry she brings in. Where on earth can she
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: have got that? From Albertine's admiration With a change, it
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: is true of object, but with no loss. An increase
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: rather of intensity, combined with the closest attention to what
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: was being said, continued to make her eyes start from
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: her head, all the time that Andrea, consulted as being
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the biggest of the band and more knowledgeable than the others.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: First of all, spoke of Jeisel's essay with in certain irony, then,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: with a levity of tone which failed to conceal her
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: underlying seriousness, proceeded to reconstruct the letter in her own way.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: It is not badly done, she told Albertine. But if
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I were you and had the same subject set me,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: which is quite likely as they do very often, set
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: that I shouldn't do it in that way. This is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: how I would tackle it. Well. First of all, if
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I had been Gizelle, I should not have let myself
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: get tied up. I should have begun by making a
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: rough sketch of what I was going to write on
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: a separate piece of paper on the top line. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: should state the question and give an account of the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: subject than the general ideas to be worked into the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: development after that appreciation style conclusion in that way, with
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a summary to refer to you know where you are,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: but at the very start where she begins her account
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of the subject, or if you like to teen, since
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it's a letter worth speaking of, where she comes to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the manner Jazelle has gone off the rails together. Writing
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to a person of the seventeenth century, Sophocles ought never
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to have said, my dear friend. Why of course she
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: ought to have said, my dear Racine came impetuously from aberteen.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: That would have been much better. No, replied Andrea, with
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a trace of mockery in her tone. She ought to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: have put sir in the same way to end up.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: She ought to have thought of something like, suffer me,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: sir at the very most, dear sir, to inform you
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of the sense of high esteem with which I have
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the honor to be your servant. Then again, Gazelle says
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that the courses in Athelie are novelty. She's forgetting Esther
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and two tragedies that are not much read now, but
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: happen to have been analyzed this year by the professor himself,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: so that you need only mention them, since he's got
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: them on the brain, and you are bound to pass.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I mean le jus by Robert Garnier and mont Cristiene
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: la Amann. Andrea quoted these titles without managing quite to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: conceal a secret sense of benevolent superiority, which found expression
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in a smile. Quite a delightful smile. For that matter,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Albertine could contain herself no longer. Andrea, you really are
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: a perfect marvel, she cried. You must write down those
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: names for me. Just fancy what luck would it be
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: if I got on to that even in the oral
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I should bring them in at once and make a
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: colossal impression. But in the days that followed, every time
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Albertine begged Andrea just to tell her again the names
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of those two plays so that she might write them down,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: her blue stocking friend seemed most unfortunately to have forgotten
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: them and left her none the wiser. And another thing
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Andrea went on with the faintest note in her voice
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of scorn for companions so much younger than herself, though
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: she relished their admiration and attached to the manner in
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: which she herself would have composed the essay of greater
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: importance than she wanted us to think. Sophocles in the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: shades must be kept well informed of all that goes on.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: He must know, therefore, that it was not before the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: general public, but before the King's majesty and a few
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: privileged courtiers, that Athilie was first played. What Jizelle says
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in this connection of the esteem of qualified judges is
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: not at all bad. But she might have gone a
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: little farther. Sophocles, now that he is immortal, might quite
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: well have the gift of prophecy and announce that, according
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: to Voltaire, Athilae is to be the supreme achievement, not
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of ra scene merely, but of the human mind. Albertine
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: was drinking in every word, her eyes blazed, and it
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: was with the utmost indignation that she rejected Rosamond's suggestion
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that they should begin to play. And so Andrea concluded,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: in the same easy, detached tone, blending a faint sneer
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: with a certain warmth of conviction. If Jazelle had noted
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: down properly, first of all, the general idea she was
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: going to develop, it might perhaps have occurred to her
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to do what I myself should have done, point out
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: what a difference there is between the religious inspiration of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Sophocles's choruses and Racines. I should have made. Sophocles remark
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: that if Racine's choruses are instinct with religious feeling like
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: those of the Greek tragedians, the gods are not the same.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: The God of Jod has nothing in common with the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: God of Sophocles, and that brings us quite naturally, when
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: we have finished developing the subject to our conclusion, what
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: does it matter if their beliefs are different? Sophocles would
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: hesitate to insist upon such a point. He would be
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: afraid of wounding Racine's convictions, and so slipping in a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: few appropriate words on his masters at Port Royal, he
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: prefers to congratulate his disciple on the loftiness of his
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: poetic genius, admiration and attention at so heated Albertine that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: great drops were rolling down her cheeks, Andrea preserved the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: unruffled calm of a female dandy. It would not be
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a bad thing either, to quote some of the opinions
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of famous critics, she added, before they began their game. Yes,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: put in Albertine. So I've been told the best ones
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to quote on the whole are Saint Blauve and Marlais,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: aren't they. Well you're not absolutely wrong, Andre told her.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Marleas and Saint Boive are by no means bad, but
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you certainly ought to mention del Tour and Gasque de fass.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: She refused, however, despite Albertine's entreaties to write down these
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: two unfamiliar names. Meanwhile, I had been thinking of the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: little page torn from a scribbling block which Albertine had
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: handed me. I love you, she had written, And an
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: hour later, as I scrambled down the paths which led
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: back a little too vertically for my liking to bawl back,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I said to myself that it was with her that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I would have my romance. End of section forty five