Latest / Swanns Way / 53 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Part three, section twenty five of Swan's Way by Marcel Proust,
- 0:06Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief eighteen eighty nine to
- 0:10Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Part three, Swan in Love,
- 0:20Speaker 1: Section twenty five. But often enough the things that he
- 0:25Speaker 1: did not know that he dreaded now to learn. It
- 0:28Speaker 1: was Odette herself who, spontaneously and without thought of what
- 0:33Speaker 1: she did, revealed them to him. For the gap which
- 0:36Speaker 1: her vices made between her actual life and the comparatively
- 0:40Speaker 1: innocent life which Swan had believed and often still believed
- 0:44Speaker 1: his mistress to lead, was far wider than she knew.
- 0:48Speaker 1: A vicious person, always affecting the same air of virtue
- 0:52Speaker 1: before people whom he is anxious to keep from having
- 0:55Speaker 1: any suspicion of his vices, as no register, no gauge
- 0:59Speaker 1: at hand from which he may ascertain how far those vices,
- 1:04Speaker 1: their continuous growth, being imperceptible by himself, have gradually segregated
- 1:09Speaker 1: him from the normal ways of life. In the course
- 1:12Speaker 1: of their cohabitation in Odette's mind, with the memory of
- 1:16Speaker 1: those of her actions which she concealed from Swan. Her
- 1:20Speaker 1: other her innocuous actions were gradually colored infected by these,
- 1:25Speaker 1: without her being able to detect anything strange in them,
- 1:29Speaker 1: without their causing any explosion in the particular region of
- 1:33Speaker 1: herself in which she made them live. But when she
- 1:36Speaker 1: related them to Swan, he was overwhelmed by the revelation
- 1:40Speaker 1: of the duplicity to which they pointed. One day, he
- 1:43Speaker 1: was trying, without hurting Odette to discover from her whether
- 1:47Speaker 1: she had ever had any dealings with procuruses. He was,
- 1:51Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, convinced that she had not.
- 1:54Speaker 1: The anonymous letter had put the idea into his mind,
- 1:57Speaker 1: but in a purely mechanical way. It had been received
- 2:00Speaker 1: there with no credulity, but it had for all that
- 2:04Speaker 1: remained there, and Swan, wishing to be rid of the
- 2:07Speaker 1: burden a dead weight but nonetheless disturbing of this suspicion,
- 2:12Speaker 1: hoped that Odette would now extirpate it forever. Oh, dear, no,
- 2:16Speaker 1: not that they don't simply persecute me to go to them.
- 2:19Speaker 1: Her smile revealed a gratified vanity which she no longer
- 2:23Speaker 1: saw that it was impossible should appear legitimate to Swan.
- 2:27Speaker 1: There was one of them waited more than two hours
- 2:29Speaker 1: for me yesterday, said she would give me any money
- 2:32Speaker 1: I asked. It seems there's an ambassador who said to her,
- 2:35Speaker 1: I'll kill myself if you don't bring her to me,
- 2:38Speaker 1: meaning me. They told her I'd gone out, but she
- 2:41Speaker 1: waited and waited, and in the end I had to
- 2:43Speaker 1: go myself and speak to her before she'd go away.
- 2:46Speaker 1: I do wish you could have seen the way I
- 2:48Speaker 1: tackled her. My maid was in the next room listening
- 2:51Speaker 1: and told me I shouted fit to bring the house down.
- 2:54Speaker 1: But when you hear me say that, I don't want
- 2:56Speaker 1: to the idea of such a thing, I don't like
- 2:58Speaker 1: it at all. I should hope still free to do
- 3:00Speaker 1: as I please, and when I please, and where I please.
- 3:03Speaker 1: If I needed the money, I could understand the porter
- 3:07Speaker 1: has orders not to let her in again. He will
- 3:09Speaker 1: tell her that I am out of town. Oh. I
- 3:12Speaker 1: do wish I could have had you hidden somewhere in
- 3:14Speaker 1: the room while I was talking to her. I know
- 3:16Speaker 1: you'd have been pleased, My dear. There's some good in
- 3:19Speaker 1: your little odette, you see. After all, though people do
- 3:22Speaker 1: say such dreadful things about her, besides her very admissions,
- 3:27Speaker 1: when she made any of false which she supposed him
- 3:30Speaker 1: to have discovered, rather serves Swan as a starting point
- 3:34Speaker 1: for fresh doubts than they put an end to the old,
- 3:37Speaker 1: For her admissions never exactly coincided with his doubts. In vain,
- 3:42Speaker 1: might Odette expurgate her confession of all its essential part,
- 3:46Speaker 1: there would remain in the accessories something which Swan had
- 3:49Speaker 1: never yet imagined, which crushed him anew and was to
- 3:53Speaker 1: enable him to alter the terms of the problem of
- 3:56Speaker 1: his jealousy. And these admissions he could never forget. His
- 4:00Speaker 1: spirit carried them along, cast them aside, then cradled them
- 4:04Speaker 1: again in its bosom, like corpses in a river, and
- 4:07Speaker 1: they poisoned it. She spoke to him once of a
- 4:10Speaker 1: visit that Forcheville had paid her on the day of
- 4:12Speaker 1: the Paris Mercy Fat, what you knew him as long
- 4:16Speaker 1: ago as that? Oh, yes, of course you did. He
- 4:19Speaker 1: corrected himself, so as not to show that he had
- 4:21Speaker 1: been ignorant of the fact. And suddenly he began to
- 4:24Speaker 1: tremble at the thought that on the day of the
- 4:27Speaker 1: Paris Mercy Fat, when he had received that letter, which
- 4:30Speaker 1: he had so carefully preserved. She had been having luncheon,
- 4:33Speaker 1: perhaps with Forcheville, at the Maison d'Or. She swore that
- 4:37Speaker 1: she had not still the Maison d'Or reminds me of
- 4:40Speaker 1: something or other which I knew at the time. Wasn't true,
- 4:43Speaker 1: he pursued, hoping to frighten her. Yes, that I hadn't
- 4:47Speaker 1: been there at all that evening when I told you
- 4:49Speaker 1: I had just come from there, and you had been
- 4:51Speaker 1: looking for me at Pravos, she replied, judging by his
- 4:54Speaker 1: manner that he knew with a firmness that was based
- 4:57Speaker 1: not so much upon cynicism as upon t a fear
- 5:01Speaker 1: of crossing swan, which her own self respect made her
- 5:04Speaker 1: anxious to conceal, and to desire to show him that
- 5:08Speaker 1: she could be perfectly frank if she chose. And so
- 5:11Speaker 1: she struck him with all the sharpness and force of
- 5:14Speaker 1: a headsman wielding his axe, and yet could not be
- 5:17Speaker 1: charged with cruelty, since she was quite unconscious of hurting him.
- 5:21Speaker 1: She even began to laugh. Though this may, perhaps it
- 5:23Speaker 1: is true, have been chiefly to keep him from thinking
- 5:26Speaker 1: that she was ashamed at all or confused. It's quite true,
- 5:31Speaker 1: I hadn't been to the Maison d'horre. I was coming
- 5:34Speaker 1: away from Forcheville's. I had really been to Pravose. That
- 5:37Speaker 1: wasn't a story. And he met me there and asked
- 5:40Speaker 1: me to come in and look at his prince, but
- 5:42Speaker 1: someone else came to see him. I told you that
- 5:45Speaker 1: I was coming from the Maison d'Or because I was
- 5:47Speaker 1: afraid you might be angry with me. It was rather
- 5:50Speaker 1: nice of me, really, don't you see. I admit I
- 5:53Speaker 1: did wrong, but at least I'm telling you all about
- 5:55Speaker 1: it now, aunt I, What have I to gain by
- 5:58Speaker 1: not telling you straight that I lunched with him on
- 6:00Speaker 1: the day of the Paris Mercy Fete if it were true,
- 6:04Speaker 1: especially as at that time we didn't know one another
- 6:06Speaker 1: quite as well as we do now, did we? Dear?
- 6:09Speaker 1: He smiled back at her with the sudden, craven weakness
- 6:13Speaker 1: of the utterly spiritless creature which these crushing words had
- 6:16Speaker 1: made of him. And so, even in the months of
- 6:19Speaker 1: which he had never dared to think again because they
- 6:21Speaker 1: had been too happy in those months when she had
- 6:24Speaker 1: loved him, she was already lying to him. Besides that moment,
- 6:29Speaker 1: that first evening on which they had done a catlia
- 6:32Speaker 1: when she had told him that she was coming from
- 6:34Speaker 1: the Maison d're. How many others must there have been,
- 6:37Speaker 1: each of them covering a falsehood of which one had
- 6:40Speaker 1: had no suspicion. He recalled how she had said to
- 6:43Speaker 1: him once, I need only tell Madame Verduern that my
- 6:46Speaker 1: dress wasn't ready, or that my cab came late. There
- 6:49Speaker 1: was always some excuse from himself too, probably many times
- 6:54Speaker 1: when she had glibly uttered such words as explained a
- 6:57Speaker 1: delay or justify an alteration of the hour fixed for
- 7:01Speaker 1: a meeting. Those moments must have hidden, without his having
- 7:04Speaker 1: the least inkling of it at the time, an engagement
- 7:07Speaker 1: that she had with some other man, some man to
- 7:10Speaker 1: whom she had said, I need only tell Swan that
- 7:12Speaker 1: my dress wasn't ready, or that my cab came late.
- 7:15Speaker 1: There is always some excuse. And beneath all his most
- 7:19Speaker 1: pleasant memories, beneath the simplest words that Odette had ever
- 7:22Speaker 1: spoken to him in those old days, words which he
- 7:25Speaker 1: had believed as though they were the words of a gospel,
- 7:28Speaker 1: Beneath her daily actions which she had recounted to him,
- 7:32Speaker 1: beneath the most ordinary places her dressmaker's flat, the Avenue
- 7:36Speaker 1: du Bois, the Hippodrome. He could feel dissembled there by
- 7:40Speaker 1: virtue of that temporal superfluity which, after the most detailed
- 7:44Speaker 1: account of how a day has been spent, always leaves
- 7:48Speaker 1: something over that may serve as a hiding place for
- 7:51Speaker 1: certain unconfessed actions. He could feel the insinuation of a
- 7:55Speaker 1: possible undercurrent of falsehood, which debates for him all that
- 7:59Speaker 1: had remained most precious his happiest evenings, the Rue la
- 8:03Speaker 1: Peruse itself, which Odette must constantly have been leaving at
- 8:07Speaker 1: other hours than those of which she told him, extending
- 8:10Speaker 1: the power of the dark horror that had gripped him
- 8:13Speaker 1: when he had heard her admission with regard to the
- 8:15Speaker 1: Maison Doret, and, like the obscene creatures in the desolation
- 8:20Speaker 1: of Nineveh, shattering stone by stone, the whole edifice of
- 8:24Speaker 1: his past. If now he turned aside whenever his memory
- 8:28Speaker 1: repeated the cruel name of the Maison Doret, it was
- 8:31Speaker 1: because that name recalled to him no longer as such
- 8:34Speaker 1: a little time since at Madame de Saint Ubert's party,
- 8:38Speaker 1: the good fortune which he long had lost, but a
- 8:40Speaker 1: misfortune of which he was now first aware. Then it
- 8:44Speaker 1: befell the Maison do'rat, as it had befallen the island
- 8:47Speaker 1: in the Bois, that gradually its names ceased to trouble him.
- 8:51Speaker 1: For what we supposed to be our love, our jealousy
- 8:55Speaker 1: are neither of them single, continuous and individual passions, composed
- 9:00Speaker 1: of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each
- 9:05Speaker 1: of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multitude they
- 9:09Speaker 1: give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity.
- 9:13Speaker 1: The life of Swan's love, the fidelity of his jealousy
- 9:17Speaker 1: were formed out of death, of infidelity, of innumerable desires,
- 9:21Speaker 1: innumerable doubts, all of which had Odette for their object.
- 9:25Speaker 1: If he had remained for any length of time without
- 9:28Speaker 1: seeing her, those that died would not have been replaced
- 9:31Speaker 1: by others. But the presence of Odette continued to sow
- 9:35Speaker 1: in Swan's heart alternate seeds of love and suspicion. On
- 9:40Speaker 1: certain evenings, she would suddenly resume towards him, a kindness
- 9:44Speaker 1: of which she would warn him sternly that he must
- 9:46Speaker 1: take immediate advantage, under penalty of not seeing it repeated
- 9:50Speaker 1: for years to come. He must instantly accompany her home
- 9:53Speaker 1: to do acatlia. And the desire which she pretended to
- 9:57Speaker 1: have for him was so sudden, so inexpl so imperious.
- 10:02Speaker 1: The kisses which she lavished on him were so demonstrative
- 10:05Speaker 1: and so unfamiliar, that this brutal and unnatural fondness made
- 10:10Speaker 1: Swan just as unhappy as any lie or unkind action.
- 10:14Speaker 1: One evening, when he had, thus, in obedience to her command,
- 10:18Speaker 1: gone home with her, and while she was interspersing her
- 10:21Speaker 1: kisses with passionate words in strange contrast to her habitual coldness,
- 10:26Speaker 1: he thought suddenly that he heard a sound. He rose,
- 10:30Speaker 1: searched everywhere, and found nobody, But he had not the
- 10:33Speaker 1: courage to return to his place by her side, whereupon she,
- 10:37Speaker 1: in a towering rage, broke a vase with I never
- 10:41Speaker 1: can do anything right with you, you impossible person, And
- 10:45Speaker 1: he was left uncertain whether she had not actually had
- 10:47Speaker 1: some man concealed in the room whose jealousy she had
- 10:51Speaker 1: wished to wound, or else to inflame his senses. Sometimes
- 10:55Speaker 1: he repaired to gay houses, hoping to learn something about Odette,
- 10:59Speaker 1: although he dared not mention her name. I have a
- 11:02Speaker 1: little thing here. You're sure to like the managerss would
- 11:05Speaker 1: greet him, and he would stay for an hour or so,
- 11:08Speaker 1: talking dolefully to some poor girl who sat there, Astonished
- 11:12Speaker 1: that he went no further. One of them, who was
- 11:15Speaker 1: still quite young and attractive, said to him once, of course,
- 11:18Speaker 1: what I should like would be to find a real friend.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Then he might be quite certain I should never go
- 11:23Speaker 1: with any other men again. Indeed, you think it possible
- 11:26Speaker 1: for a woman really to be touched by a man's
- 11:29Speaker 1: being in love with her and never to be unfaithful
- 11:31Speaker 1: to him, asked Swan anxiously. Why, surely it all depends
- 11:36Speaker 1: on their characters. Swan could not help making the same
- 11:39Speaker 1: remarks to these girls as would have delighted the Princess Delane.
- 11:43Speaker 1: To the one who was in search of a friend,
- 11:45Speaker 1: he said, with a smile, But how nice of you.
- 11:48Speaker 1: You've put on blue eyes to go with your sash,
- 11:51Speaker 1: and you too, you've got blue cuffs on. What a
- 11:54Speaker 1: charming conversation we are having for a place of this sort.
- 11:57Speaker 1: I'm not boring you, am I? Or keeping you? No,
- 12:00Speaker 1: I've nothing to do. Thank you. If you bored me,
- 12:02Speaker 1: I should say so, But I love hearing you talk.
- 12:06Speaker 1: I am highly flattered. Aren't we behaving prettily? He asked
- 12:09Speaker 1: the managress, who had just looked in. Why yes, that's
- 12:12Speaker 1: just what I was saying to myself. How sensibly they're behaving,
- 12:16Speaker 1: But that's how it is. People come to my house
- 12:18Speaker 1: now just to talk. The Prince was telling me only
- 12:21Speaker 1: the other day that he's far more comfortable here than
- 12:24Speaker 1: with his wife. It seems that nowadays all the society
- 12:27Speaker 1: ladies are like that. A perfect scandal, I call it.
- 12:30Speaker 1: But I'll leave you in peace now I know when
- 12:32Speaker 1: I'm not wanted. She ended discreetly and left Swan with
- 12:36Speaker 1: a girl who had the blue eyes. But presently he
- 12:39Speaker 1: rose and said good bye to her. She had ceased
- 12:42Speaker 1: to interest him. She did not know o debt the painter.
- 12:46Speaker 1: Having been ill, Doctor Cotard recommended a sea voyage. Several
- 12:50Speaker 1: of the faithful spoke of accompanying him. The ver Drons
- 12:54Speaker 1: could not face the prospect of being left alone in Paris,
- 12:57Speaker 1: so first of all hired and finally purchased a yacht. Thus,
- 13:01Speaker 1: Odette was constantly going on a cruise. Whenever she had
- 13:04Speaker 1: been away for any length of time, Swan would feel
- 13:07Speaker 1: that he was beginning to detach himself from her, but
- 13:11Speaker 1: as though this moral distance were proportionate to the physical
- 13:14Speaker 1: distance between them, whenever he heard that Odette had returned
- 13:18Speaker 1: to Paris, he could not rest without seeing her once.
- 13:22Speaker 1: When they had gone away, as everyone thought, for a month,
- 13:25Speaker 1: only either they succumbed to a series of temptations, or else,
- 13:29Speaker 1: Monsieur Verdurand had cunningly arranged everything beforehand to please his wife,
- 13:34Speaker 1: and disclosed his plans to the faithful only as time
- 13:37Speaker 1: went on. Anyhow, from Algiers they flitted to Tunis, then
- 13:41Speaker 1: to Italy, Greece Constantinople, Asia Minor. They had been absent
- 13:46Speaker 1: for nearly a year, and Swan felt perfectly at ease
- 13:49Speaker 1: and almost happy. Albeit Monsieur Verdurand had endeavored to persuade
- 13:53Speaker 1: the pianist and doctor Cotard that their respective aunt and
- 13:57Speaker 1: patience had no need of them, and that in any event,
- 14:00Speaker 1: it was most rash to allow Madame Catard to return
- 14:03Speaker 1: to Paris, where Madame Verdurant assured him a revolution had
- 14:07Speaker 1: just broken out. It was obliged to grant them their
- 14:10Speaker 1: liberty at Constantinople, and the painter came home with them
- 14:14Speaker 1: one day shortly after the return of these four travelers, Swan,
- 14:18Speaker 1: seeing an omnibus approach him labeled Luxembourg, and having some
- 14:22Speaker 1: business there, had jumped on to it and had found
- 14:25Speaker 1: himself sitting opposite Madame Catard, who was paying a round
- 14:29Speaker 1: of visits to people whose day it was in full
- 14:32Speaker 1: review order, with a plume in her hat, a silk dress,
- 14:36Speaker 1: a muff an umbrella which, due for a parastols the
- 14:39Speaker 1: rain kept off, a card case, and a pair of
- 14:42Speaker 1: white gloves fresh from the cleaners. Wearing these badges of rank,
- 14:46Speaker 1: she would, in fine weather go on foot from one
- 14:48Speaker 1: house to another in the same neighborhood, but when she
- 14:51Speaker 1: had to proceed to another district, would make use of
- 14:54Speaker 1: a transfer ticket on the omnibus for the first minute
- 14:58Speaker 1: or two, until the natural courtesy of the a woman
- 15:00Speaker 1: broke through the start surface of the doctor's wife. Not
- 15:03Speaker 1: being certain either whether she ought to maintain the verderans
- 15:06Speaker 1: before Swan, she produced quite naturally in her slow and
- 15:10Speaker 1: awkward but not unattractive voice, which every now and then
- 15:14Speaker 1: was completely drowned by the rattling of the omnibus. Topics
- 15:18Speaker 1: selected from those which she had picked up, and would
- 15:21Speaker 1: repeat in each of the score of houses up the
- 15:23Speaker 1: stairs of which she clamored in the course of an afternoon.
- 15:28Speaker 1: I needn't ask you, Monsieur Swan, whether a man so
- 15:30Speaker 1: much in the movement as yourself has been to the
- 15:32Speaker 1: merely tolls to see the portrait by Machard that the
- 15:35Speaker 1: whole of Paris is running after? Well, and what do
- 15:38Speaker 1: you think of it? Whose camp are you in? Those
- 15:41Speaker 1: who bless her, those who curse. It's the same in
- 15:43Speaker 1: every house in Paris now no one will speak of
- 15:46Speaker 1: anything else but Machard's portrait. You aren't smart, you aren't
- 15:50Speaker 1: really cultured. You aren't up to date unless you give
- 15:52Speaker 1: an opinion on Machard's portrait. Swan, having replied that he
- 15:56Speaker 1: had not seen this portrait, Madame Catard, was afraid that
- 15:59Speaker 1: she might have heard her his feelings by obliging him
- 16:02Speaker 1: to confess the omission. Well, that's quite all right. At
- 16:05Speaker 1: least you have the courage to be quite frank about it.
- 16:08Speaker 1: You don't consider yourself disgraced because you haven't seen Michard's portrait.
- 16:12Speaker 1: I do think that is so nice of you. Well,
- 16:15Speaker 1: now I have seen it. Opinion is divided. You know.
- 16:18Speaker 1: There are some people who find it rather labored, like
- 16:20Speaker 1: whipped cream, they say, But I think it's just ideal.
- 16:24Speaker 1: Of course, she's not a bit like the blue and
- 16:26Speaker 1: yellow ladies that our friend Beach paints. That's quite clear.
- 16:30Speaker 1: But I must tell you perfectly frankly, you'll think me
- 16:32Speaker 1: dreadfully old fashioned. But I always say just what I
- 16:35Speaker 1: think that I don't understand his work. I can quite
- 16:38Speaker 1: see the good points there are in his portrait of
- 16:41Speaker 1: my husband. Oh dear me, yes, and it's certainly less
- 16:44Speaker 1: odd than most of what he does. But even then
- 16:47Speaker 1: he had to give the poor man a blue mustache.
- 16:49Speaker 1: But Machard just listen to this. Now, the husband of
- 16:52Speaker 1: my friend I am on my way to see at
- 16:55Speaker 1: this very moment, which has given me the very great
- 16:57Speaker 1: pleasure of your company, has promised her at that. But
- 17:00Speaker 1: if he is elected to the Academy, he is one
- 17:02Speaker 1: of the doctor's colleagues. He will get Machard to paint
- 17:05Speaker 1: her portrait, so she's got something to look forward to.
- 17:08Speaker 1: I have another friend who insists that she'd rather have Lelois.
- 17:12Speaker 1: I'm only a wretched philistine, and I've no doubt Lelois
- 17:15Speaker 1: has perhaps more knowledge of painting even than the Chard
- 17:19Speaker 1: but I do think that the most important thing about
- 17:21Speaker 1: a portrait, especially when it's going to cost ten thousand francs,
- 17:25Speaker 1: is that it should be like and a pleasant likeness,
- 17:27Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. Having exhausted this topic,
- 17:31Speaker 1: to which she had been inspired by the loftiness of
- 17:33Speaker 1: her plume, the monogram on her card case, the little
- 17:37Speaker 1: number inked inside each of her gloves by the cleaner,
- 17:40Speaker 1: and the difficulty of speaking to Swan about the Verdurans.
- 17:43Speaker 1: Madame Catard, seeing that they had still a long way
- 17:46Speaker 1: to go before they would reach the corner of the
- 17:48Speaker 1: Rue Bonaparte, where the conductor was to set her down,
- 17:52Speaker 1: listen to the promptings of her heart, which counseled other
- 17:55Speaker 1: words than these your ears must have been burning, she ventured.
- 17:59Speaker 1: While we were on the young with Madame Verduran, we
- 18:01Speaker 1: were talking about you all the time. Swan was genuinely astonished,
- 18:06Speaker 1: for he supposed that his name was never uttered in
- 18:09Speaker 1: the ver Doran's presence, you see, Madame Catard went on,
- 18:12Speaker 1: Madame de creesy, was there need I say more? When
- 18:16Speaker 1: Odette is anywhere, it's never long before she begins talking
- 18:19Speaker 1: about you. And you know quite well it isn't nasty thing.
- 18:22Speaker 1: She says, what you don't believe me? She went on,
- 18:25Speaker 1: noticing that Swan looked skeptical and carried away by the
- 18:29Speaker 1: sincerity of her conviction, without putting any evil meaning into
- 18:33Speaker 1: the word, which he used purely in the sense in
- 18:36Speaker 1: which one employs it to speak of the affection that
- 18:39Speaker 1: unites a pair of friends. Why she adores you? No, Indeed,
- 18:42Speaker 1: I'm sure it would never do to say anything against you.
- 18:45Speaker 1: When she was about one would soon be taught one's place,
- 18:49Speaker 1: whatever we might be doing. If he were looking at
- 18:51Speaker 1: a picture, for instance, she would say, if only we
- 18:53Speaker 1: had him here, he's the man who could tell us
- 18:56Speaker 1: whether it's genuine or not. There's no one like him
- 18:59Speaker 1: for that. And all day long she would be saying,
- 19:01Speaker 1: what can he be doing? Just now? I do hope
- 19:04Speaker 1: he's doing a little work. It's too dreadful that a
- 19:07Speaker 1: fellow with such gifts as he has should be so lazy.
- 19:10Speaker 1: Forgive me, won't you? I can see him this very moment.
- 19:14Speaker 1: He's thinking of us. He's wondering where we are. Indeed,
- 19:17Speaker 1: she used an expression which I thought very pretty at
- 19:19Speaker 1: the time. Monsieur ver Duerrant asked her. How in the
- 19:22Speaker 1: world can you see what he's doing when he's a
- 19:24Speaker 1: thousand miles away? And Odette answered, nothing is impossible to
- 19:29Speaker 1: the eye of a friend. No, I assure you, I'm
- 19:32Speaker 1: not saying it just to flatter you. You have a
- 19:34Speaker 1: true friend in her, such as one doesn't often find.
- 19:37Speaker 1: I can tell you. Besides, in case you don't know it,
- 19:40Speaker 1: that you're the only one. Madame ver Duurrant told me
- 19:42Speaker 1: as much herself on our last day with them. One
- 19:45Speaker 1: talks more freely, don't you know before a parting. I
- 19:48Speaker 1: don't say that Odette isn't fond of us, that anything
- 19:51Speaker 1: that we may say to her accounts for very little,
- 19:54Speaker 1: beside what Swan might say, Oh, mercy, there's the conductor's
- 19:58Speaker 1: stopping for me. Here. Have I been chatting away to
- 20:00Speaker 1: you and would have gone right past the Rue Bonaparte
- 20:03Speaker 1: and never noticed? Will you be so very kind as
- 20:06Speaker 1: to tell me whether my plume is straight? And Madame
- 20:09Speaker 1: Catard withdrew from her muff to offer it to Swan,
- 20:12Speaker 1: a white gloved hand, from which there floated with a
- 20:15Speaker 1: transfer ticket. An atmosphere of fashionable life that pervaded the
- 20:19Speaker 1: omnibus blended with a harsher fragrance of newly clean kid,
- 20:24Speaker 1: and Swan felt himself overflowing with gratitude to her, as
- 20:28Speaker 1: well as to Madame Verduuran and almost to Odette, for
- 20:31Speaker 1: the feeling that he now entertained for her was no
- 20:34Speaker 1: longer tinged with pain, was scarcely even to be described
- 20:38Speaker 1: now as love. While from the platform of the Omnibus,
- 20:41Speaker 1: he followed her with loving eyes as she gallantly threaded
- 20:45Speaker 1: her way along the Rue Bonaparte, her plume erect, her
- 20:48Speaker 1: skirt held up in one hand, while in the other
- 20:51Speaker 1: she clasped her umbrella and her card case so that
- 20:54Speaker 1: its monogram could be seen, her muff dancing in the
- 20:57Speaker 1: air before her as she went. End of Part three,
- 21:03Speaker 1: Section twenty five. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine.