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

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  Speaker 1: Section forty 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 seven. Elster at this period was
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  Speaker 1: no longer in that early youth in which we look
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  Speaker 1: only to the power of our own mind for the
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  Speaker 1: realization of our ideal. He was nearing the age at
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  Speaker 1: which we count on bodily satisfactions to stimulate the forces
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  Speaker 1: of the brain, at which the exhaustion of the brain,
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  Speaker 1: inclining us to materialism, in the diminution of our activity,
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  Speaker 1: to the possibility of influences passively received, begin to make
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  Speaker 1: us admit that there may indeed be certain bodies, certain callings,
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  Speaker 1: certain rhythms, that are privileged realizing so naturally our ideal
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  Speaker 1: that even without genius, merely by copying the movement of
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  Speaker 1: a shoulder the tension of a throat, we can achieve
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  Speaker 1: a masterpiece. It is the age at which we like
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  Speaker 1: to caress beauty with our eyes objectively outside ourselves, to
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  Speaker 1: have it near us in a tapestry. In a Lovely
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  Speaker 1: Sketch by Titian picked up in a second hand shot
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  Speaker 1: in a mistress as lovely as Titian's sketch. When I
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  Speaker 1: understood this, I could no longer look without pleasure at
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  Speaker 1: Madame Elster, and her body began to lose its heaviness,
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  Speaker 1: for I filled it with an idea, the idea that
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  Speaker 1: she was an immaterial creature, a portrait by Elster. She
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  Speaker 1: was one for me and for him also. I dare
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  Speaker 1: to say, the facts of life have no meaning for
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  Speaker 1: the artist. They are to him merely an opportunity for
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  Speaker 1: exposing the naked blaze of his genius. One feels unmistakably
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  Speaker 1: when one sees side by side ten portraits of different
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  Speaker 1: people painted by Elster, that they are all first and
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  Speaker 1: foremost Elsters. Only after this rising tide of genius which
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  Speaker 1: sweeps over and merges a man's life, when the brain
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  Speaker 1: begins to tire gradually, the balance is upset, and like
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  Speaker 1: a river that resumes its course after the counterflow of
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  Speaker 1: a spring tide, it is life that once more takes
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  Speaker 1: the upper hand. While the first period lasted, the artist
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  Speaker 1: has gradually evolved in the law the formula of his
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  Speaker 1: unconscious gift. He knows what situations. Should he be a novelist,
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  Speaker 1: if a painter, what scenes furnish him with the subject matter,
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  Speaker 1: which may be anything in the world, but whatever it
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  Speaker 1: is is essential to his researches, as a laboratory might
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  Speaker 1: be or a workshop. He knows that he has created
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  Speaker 1: his masterpieces out of effects of attenuated light, the action
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  Speaker 1: of remorse upon consciousness of guilt, out of women posed
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  Speaker 1: beneath trees or half immersed in water like statues. A
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  Speaker 1: day will come when, owing to the exhaustion of his brain,
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  Speaker 1: he will no longer have the strength when provided with
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  Speaker 1: those materials which his genius was wont to use to
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  Speaker 1: make the intellectual effort which alone can produce his work,
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  Speaker 1: and will yet continue to seek them out, happy when
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  Speaker 1: he finds himself in their presence, because of the spiritual pleasure,
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  Speaker 1: the allurement to work that they arouse in him, and
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  Speaker 1: surrounding them besides with a kind of hedge of superstition,
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  Speaker 1: as if they were superior to all things else, as
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  Speaker 1: if in them already dwelt a great part of the
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  Speaker 1: work of art, which they might be said to carry
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  Speaker 1: within them ready made. He will confine himself to the company,
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  Speaker 1: to the adoration of his models. He will hold endless
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  Speaker 1: conversations with the repentant criminals whose remorse the regeneration formed
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  Speaker 1: when he still wrote the subject of his novels. He
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  Speaker 1: will buy a country house in a district where mists
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  Speaker 1: attenuate the light. He will spend long hours gazing at
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  Speaker 1: the limbs of bathing women, will collect sumptuous stuffs, and
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  Speaker 1: thus the beauty of life a phase that has to
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  Speaker 1: some extent lost its meaning. A stage beyond the boundaries
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  Speaker 1: of art at which I had already seen Swan come
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  Speaker 1: to rest. Was that also which, by a slackening of
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  Speaker 1: the creative ardor idolatry of the forms which had aspired
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  Speaker 1: it desired to avoid effort, must ultimately arrest An Elster's progress.
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  Speaker 1: At last, he had applied the final brush stroke to
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  Speaker 1: his flowers. I sacrificed a minute to look at them.
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  Speaker 1: I acquired no merit by the act, for I knew
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  Speaker 1: that there was no chance now of our finding the
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  Speaker 1: girls on the beach. And yet had I believed them
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  Speaker 1: to be still there, and that these wasted moments would
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  Speaker 1: make me miss them, I should have stopped to look
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  Speaker 1: none the less, for I should have told myself that
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  Speaker 1: Elster was more interested in his flowers than in my
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  Speaker 1: meeting with the girls. My grandmother's nature, a nature that
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  Speaker 1: was the exact counterpart of my complete egoism, was nevertheless
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  Speaker 1: reflected in certain aspects of my own. In circumstances in
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  Speaker 1: which someone to whom I was indifferent, for whom I
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  Speaker 1: had always made a show of affection or respect, ran
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  Speaker 1: the risk merely of some unpleasantness where I, as I,
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  Speaker 1: was in real danger, I could have not done otherwise
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  Speaker 1: than commiserate with him on his annoyance as though it
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  Speaker 1: had been something important, and treat my own danger as nothing,
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  Speaker 1: Because I would feel that these were the proportions in
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  Speaker 1: which he must see things. To be quite accurate, I
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  Speaker 1: would go even farther, and not only not complain of
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  Speaker 1: the danger in which I myself stood, but go half
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  Speaker 1: way to meet it, and with that which involved other people, try,
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  Speaker 1: on the contrary, were I to increase the risk of
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  Speaker 1: my being caught, myself to avert it from them. The
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  Speaker 1: reasons for this are several, none of which does me
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  Speaker 1: the slightest credit. One is that, if while only my
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  Speaker 1: reason was employed, I have always believed in self preservation,
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  Speaker 1: whenever in the course of my existence, I have found
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  Speaker 1: myself obsessed by moral anxieties, or merely by nervous scruples,
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  Speaker 1: so puerile often that I dare not enumerate them here.
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  Speaker 1: If an unforeseen circumstance then arose, involving for me the
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  Speaker 1: risk of being killed, this new price the occupation was
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  Speaker 1: so trivial in comparison with the others, that I welcomed
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  Speaker 1: it with a sense of relief, almost of hilarity. Thus
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  Speaker 1: I find myself, albeit the least courageous of men, to
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  Speaker 1: have known that feeling which has always seemed to me
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  Speaker 1: in my reasoning moods so foreign to my nature, so inconceivable,
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  Speaker 1: the intoxication of danger. But even although I were when
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  Speaker 1: any even a deadly peril threatened me passing through an
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  Speaker 1: entirely calm and happy phase, I could not, were I
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  Speaker 1: with another person, refrain from sheltering him behind me and
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  Speaker 1: choosing for myself the post of danger. When a sufficient
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  Speaker 1: store of experience had taught me that I invariably acted
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  Speaker 1: and enjoyed acting. Thus I discovered, and was deeply ashamed
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  Speaker 1: by the discovery that it was because in contradiction of
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  Speaker 1: what I had always believed and asserted I was extremely
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  Speaker 1: sensitive to the opinions of others, not that this kind
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  Speaker 1: of unconfessed self esteem is in any sense vanity or conceit.
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  Speaker 1: For what might satisfy one or other of those failings
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  Speaker 1: would give me no pleasure, and I have always refrained
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  Speaker 1: from indulging them. But with the people in whose company
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  Speaker 1: I have succeeded in concealing most effectively the slight advantages,
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  Speaker 1: a knowledge of which might have given them a less
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  Speaker 1: derogatory idea of myself, I have never been able to
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  Speaker 1: deny myself the pleasure of showing them that I take
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  Speaker 1: more trouble to avert the risk of death from their
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  Speaker 1: path than from my own. As my motive is then
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  Speaker 1: self esteem and not valor, I find it quite natural
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  Speaker 1: that in any crisis they should act differently. I am
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  Speaker 1: far from blaming them for it, as I should, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: if I had been moved by a sense of duty,
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  Speaker 1: a duty which would seem to me in that case
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  Speaker 1: to be as incumbent upon them as upon myself. On
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  Speaker 1: the contrary, I feel that it is eminently sensible of
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  Speaker 1: them to safeguard their lives, though at the same time
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  Speaker 1: I cannot prevent my own safety. From receding into the background,
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  Speaker 1: which is particularly silly and culpable of me, since I
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  Speaker 1: have come to realize that the lives of many of
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  Speaker 1: the people in front of whom I plant myself when
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  Speaker 1: a bomb bursts, are more valueless even than my own. However,
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  Speaker 1: on the day of this first visit to Elster, the
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  Speaker 1: time was still distant at which I was to become
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  Speaker 1: conscious of this difference in value, And there was no
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  Speaker 1: question of danger, but simply a harbinger this of that
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  Speaker 1: pernicious self esteem, the question of my not appearing to
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  Speaker 1: attach to the pleasure which I so ardently desired more
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  Speaker 1: importance than to the work which the painter had still
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  Speaker 1: to finish. It was finished at last, and once we
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  Speaker 1: were out of doors, I discovered that so long were
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  Speaker 1: the days still at this season? It was not so
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  Speaker 1: late as I had supposed. We strolled down to the front.
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  Speaker 1: What stratagems I employed to keep Elster standing at the
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  Speaker 1: spot where I thought that the girls might still come past,
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  Speaker 1: pointing to the cliffs that towered beside us, I kept
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  Speaker 1: on asking him to tell me about them, so as
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  Speaker 1: to make him forget the time and stay there a
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  Speaker 1: little longer. I felt that we had a better chance
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  Speaker 1: of waylaying the little band if we move towards the
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  Speaker 1: end of the beach. I should like to look at
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  Speaker 1: those cliffs with you from a little nearer, I said
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  Speaker 1: to him, having noticed that one of the girls was
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  Speaker 1: in the habit of going in that direction. And as
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  Speaker 1: we go, do tell me about Cark Throwitt. I should
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  Speaker 1: so like to see Cark Throwitt. I went on, without
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  Speaker 1: thinking that the so novel character which manifested itself with
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  Speaker 1: such force in Elster's Cark Throughit Harbor might belong perhaps
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  Speaker 1: rather to the painter's vision than to any special quality
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  Speaker 1: in the place itself. Since I've seen your picture, I
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  Speaker 1: think that is where I should most like to go there,
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  Speaker 1: and to the Pont de Rose. But of course that
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  Speaker 1: would be quite a journey from here. Yes, and besides,
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  Speaker 1: even if it weren't nearer, I should advise you, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: all the same, to visit Carkthwitt. He replied, The Pont
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  Speaker 1: de Roze is magnificent, but after all it is simply
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  Speaker 1: the high cliff of Normandy or Brittany, which you know already.
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  Speaker 1: Cark Throwit is quite different with those rocks bursting from
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  Speaker 1: a level shore I know nothing in France like it.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me rather of what one sees in some
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  Speaker 1: parts of Florida. It is most interesting, and for that matter,
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  Speaker 1: extremely wild too. It is between Cleatorp and Naome. You
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  Speaker 1: know how desolate those parts are. The sweep of the
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  Speaker 1: coastline is delicious. Here the coastline is like anywhere else,
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  Speaker 1: But along there I can't tell you what charm it has,
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  Speaker 1: what softness. Night was falling, it was time to be
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  Speaker 1: turning homewards. I was escorting Elster in the direction of
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  Speaker 1: his villa, when suddenly, as it were Mephistopheles springing up
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  Speaker 1: before faust, there appeared at the end of the avenue,
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  Speaker 1: like simply an objectification, unreal, diabolical of the temperament, diametrically
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  Speaker 1: opposed to my own, of the semi barbarous and cruel
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  Speaker 1: vitality of which I, in my weakness, my excess of
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  Speaker 1: tortured sensibility and intellectuality, was so destitute. A few spots
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  Speaker 1: of the essence impossible to mistake for anything else in
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  Speaker 1: the world, A few spores of the zophytic band of girls,
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  Speaker 1: who wore an air of not having seen me, but
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  Speaker 1: were unquestionably for all that proceeding. As they advanced to
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  Speaker 1: pass judgment on me in their ironic vein, feeling that
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  Speaker 1: a collision between them and us was now inevitable, and
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  Speaker 1: that Elster would be certain to call me, I turned
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  Speaker 1: my back, like a bather preparing to meet the shock
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  Speaker 1: of a wave. I stopped dead, and, leaving my eminent
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  Speaker 1: companion to pursue his way, remained where I was stooping,
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  Speaker 1: as if I had suddenly become engrossed in it, towards
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  Speaker 1: the window of the curiosity shop, which we happened to
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  Speaker 1: be passing at the moment. I was not sorry to
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  Speaker 1: give the appearance of being able to think of something
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  Speaker 1: other than these girls. And I was already dimly aware
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  Speaker 1: that when Elster did call me up to introduce me
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  Speaker 1: to them, I should wear that sort of challenging expression
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  Speaker 1: which betokens not surprised, but the wish to appear as
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  Speaker 1: though one were surprised. So far is every one of
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  Speaker 1: us a bad actor or everyone else a good thought reader?
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  Speaker 1: That I should even go so far as to point
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  Speaker 1: a finger to my breast as who should ask, is
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  Speaker 1: it me really that you want? And then run to
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  Speaker 1: join him, my head lowered in compliance and docility, and
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  Speaker 1: my face coldly masking my annoyance at being torn from
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  Speaker 1: the study of old pottery in order to be introduced
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  Speaker 1: to people whom I had no wish to know. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: I explored the window and waited for the moment in
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  Speaker 1: which my name shouted by Elster would come to strike
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  Speaker 1: me like an expected and innocuous bullet. The certainty of
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  Speaker 1: being introduced to these girls had had the result of
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  Speaker 1: making me not only feign complete indifference to them, but
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  Speaker 1: actually to feel it inevitable. From this point, the pleasure
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  Speaker 1: of knowing them began at once to shrink. Became less
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  Speaker 1: to me than the pleasure of talking to San Lup,
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  Speaker 1: of dining with my grandmother, of making the neighborhood of
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  Speaker 1: ball back excursions which I would regret, the probability, in
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  Speaker 1: consequence of my having to associate with people who could
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  Speaker 1: scarcely be much interested in old buildings, of my being
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  Speaker 1: forced to abandon. Moreover, what diminished the pleasure which I
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  Speaker 1: was about to feel was now not merely the eminence,
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  Speaker 1: but the incoherence of its realization. Laws as precise as
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  Speaker 1: those of hydrostatics maintained the relative position of the images
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  Speaker 1: which we form in a fixed order, which the coming
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  Speaker 1: event at once upsets. Elster was just about to call me.
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  Speaker 1: This was not at all the fashion in which I
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  Speaker 1: had so often on the beach in my bedroom imagined
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  Speaker 1: myself making these girls acquaintance. What was about to happen
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  Speaker 1: was a different event for which I was not prepared.
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  Speaker 1: I recognized neither my desire nor its object. I regretted
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  Speaker 1: almost that I had come out with Elster. But above all,
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  Speaker 1: the shrinking of the pleasure that I expected to feel
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  Speaker 1: was due to the certainty that nothing now could take
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  Speaker 1: that pleasure from me, and it resumed, as though by
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  Speaker 1: some latent elasticity in itself, its whole extent, when it
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  Speaker 1: ceased to be subjected to the pressure of that certainty.
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  Speaker 1: At the moment, when having decided to turn my head,
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  Speaker 1: I saw Elster standing where he had stopped a few
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  Speaker 1: feet away, with the girls, bidding them goodbye. The face
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  Speaker 1: of the girl who stood nearest to him, round and
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  Speaker 1: plump and glittering with the light on her eyes, reminded
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  Speaker 1: me of a cake on the top of which a
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  Speaker 1: place has been kept for a morsel of blue sky.
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  Speaker 1: Her eyes, even when fixed on an object, gave one
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  Speaker 1: the impression of motion, just as on days of high wind,
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  Speaker 1: the air, although invisible, lets us perceive the speed with
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  Speaker 1: which it courses between us and the unchanging azure. For
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  Speaker 1: a moment, her gaze intersected mind, like those traveling skis
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  Speaker 1: on stormy days, which hurry after a rain cloud that
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  Speaker 1: moves less rapidly than they overtake, touch, cover, passet, and
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  Speaker 1: are gone. But they do not know one another and
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  Speaker 1: are soon driven far apart. So our eyes were, for
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  Speaker 1: a moment confronted, neither pair knowing what the celestial continents
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  Speaker 1: that lay before their gaze held a future blessing or disaster.
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  Speaker 1: Only at the moment when her gaze was directly coincident
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  Speaker 1: with mine, without slackening its movement, it grew perceptibly duller.
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  Speaker 1: So on a starry night, the windswept moon passes behind
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  Speaker 1: a cloud and veils her brightness for a moment, but
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  Speaker 1: soon will shine again. But Elster had already said goodbye
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  Speaker 1: to the girls and had never summoned me. They disappeared
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  Speaker 1: down across street. He came towards me. My whole plan
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  Speaker 1: was spoiled. I have said that Albertine had not seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that day to be the same as on
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  Speaker 1: previous days, and that afterwards, each time I saw her
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  Speaker 1: she was to appear different. But I felt at that
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  Speaker 1: moment that certain modifications in the appearance the importance the
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  Speaker 1: stature of a person may also be due to the
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  Speaker 1: variability of certain states of consciousness interposed between that person
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  Speaker 1: and us. One of those that play an important part
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  Speaker 1: in such transformations is a belief that evening my belief
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  Speaker 1: then the vanishing of my belief that I was about
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  Speaker 1: to know Albertine had with a few seconds interval only
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  Speaker 1: rendered her almost insignificant, then infinitely precious in my sight
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: some years later, the belief than the disappearance of the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: belief that Albertine was faithful to me brought about similar changes.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, long ago at Combray, I had seen shrink
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  Speaker 1: or stretch according to the time of day, according as
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  Speaker 1: I was entering one or the other of the two
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: dominant moods that governed my sensibility. In turn, my grief
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  Speaker 1: at not having my mother with me as imperceptible all afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: as is the moon's light when the sun is shining,
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  Speaker 1: and then when night had come, raining alone in my
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  Speaker 1: anxious heart in the place of recent memories now obliterated.
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  Speaker 1: But on that day at Baulbeck, when I saw that
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  Speaker 1: Elster was leaving the girls and had not called me,
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  Speaker 1: I learned for the first time that the variations in
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  Speaker 1: the importance which a pleasure or a pain has in
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  Speaker 1: our eyes may depend not merely on this alternation of
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  Speaker 1: two moods, but on the displacement of invisible beliefs, such,
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  Speaker 1: for example, as make death seem to us of no account,
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  Speaker 1: because they bathe it in a glow of unreality, and
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  Speaker 1: thus enable us to attach importance to our attending an
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  Speaker 1: evening party, which would lose much of its charm. For
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: if on the announcement that we were sentenced to die
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  Speaker 1: by the guillotine, the belief that had bathed the party
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  Speaker 1: and its warm glow was instantly shattered. In this part
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  Speaker 1: that belief plays, it is true that something in me
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  Speaker 1: was aware of it. This was my will, but its
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  Speaker 1: knowledge is vain if the mind the heart continue in ignorance.
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  Speaker 1: These last act in good faith when they believe that
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  Speaker 1: we are anxious to forsake a mistress to whom our
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  Speaker 1: will alone knows that we are still attached. This is
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  Speaker 1: because they are clouded by the belief that we shall
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  Speaker 1: see her again at any moment. But let this belief
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  Speaker 1: be shattered, Let them suddenly become aware that this mistress
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  Speaker 1: is gone from us forever. Then the mind and heart,
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  Speaker 1: having lost their focus, are driven like mad things. The
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  Speaker 1: meanest pleasure becomes infinitely great variance of a belief annulment.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Also of love, which pre existent and mobile, comes to
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  Speaker 1: rest at the image of any one woman, simply because
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that woman will be almost impossible of attainment. Thenceforward we
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: think not so much of the woman of whom we
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: find difficulty in forming an exact picture, as of the
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  Speaker 1: means of getting to know her. A whole series of
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  Speaker 1: agonies develops and is sufficient to fix our love definitely
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: upon her, who is its almost unknown object. Our love
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: becomes immense. We never dream how small a place in
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: it the real woman occupies. And if suddenly, as at
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the moment when I had seen Elster stop to talk
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to the girls, we cease to be uneasy to suffer pain.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Since it is this pain that is the whole of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: our love. It seems to us as though love had
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: abruptly vanished at the moment when at length we grasp
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the prey to whose value we had not given enough
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: thought before? What did I know of Albertine one or
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: two glimpses of a profile against the sea, less beautiful,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: assuredly than those of Vorones's women, whom I ought, had
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I been guided by purely esthetic reasons to have preferred
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to her? By what other reasons could I be guided?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Since my anxiety having subsided, I could recapture only those
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: mute profiles. I possess nothing of her bides. Since my
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: first sight of Albertine, I had meditated upon her daily
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a thousandfold. I had carried on with what I called
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: by her name, an interminable unspoken dialogue, in which I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: made her question me, answer me, think, and act, And
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in the infinite series of imaginary Albertines who followed one
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: after the other in my fancy, hour after hour, the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: real Albertine a glimpse caught on the beach, figured only
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: at the head, just as the actress who creates a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: part the star appears out of a long series of performances.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: In the few first alone, that Albertine was scarcely more
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: than a silhouette. All that was superimposed being of my
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: own growth so far when we are in love, does
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the contribution that we ourself make outweigh even if we
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: consider quantity only those that come to us from the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: beloved object. And the same is true of love that
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: is given its full effect. There are loves that manage
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: not only to be formed, but to subsist around a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: very little core, even among those whose prayer has been
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: answered after the flesh. An old drawing master who had
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: taught my grandmother had been presented by some obscure mistress
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: with a daughter. The mother died shortly after the birth
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of her child, and the drawing master was so broken
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: hearted that he did not long survive her. In the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: last months of his life, my grandmother and some of
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the Combra ladies, who had never liked to make any
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: illusion in the drawing master's presence to the woman with whom,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: for that matter, he had not officially lived and had
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: had comparatively slight relations, took it into their heads to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: ensure the little girl's future by combining to purchase an
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: annuity for her. It was my grandmother who suggested this.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Several of her friends made difficulties. After all, was the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: child really such a very interesting case? Was she? Even
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the child of her reputed father. With women like that,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it was never safe to say. Finally everything was settled.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: The child came to thank the ladies. She was plain
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and so absurdly like the old drawing master as to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: remove every shadow of doubt, her hair being the only
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: nice thing about her. One of the ladies said to
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: her father, who had come with her, what pretty hair
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: she has, And, thinking that now the woman who had sinned,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: being dead and the old man only half alive, a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: discreet allusion to that past of which they had always
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: pretended to know, nothing could do no harm. My grandmother added,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: it runs in families. Did her mother have pretty hair
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: like that? I don't know, was the old man's quaint answer.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I never saw her except with a hat on, But
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I must not keep Elster waiting. I caught sight of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: myself in a glass to add to the disaster of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: my not having been introduced to the girls. I noticed
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that my necktie was all crooked. My hat left long
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: wisps of hair showing, which did not become me. But
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it was a piece of luck all the same that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: they should have seen me, even thus attired in Elster's company,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and so could not forget me also that I should
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: have put on that morning, at my grandmother's suggestion, my
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: smart waistcoat, when I might so easily have been wearing
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: one that was simply hideous, and be carrying my best stick.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: For while an event for which we are longing never
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: happens quite in the way we have been expecting, failing
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the advantages on which we suppose that we might count,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: others present themselves for which we never hoped, and make
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: up for our disappointment. And we have been so dreading
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the worst that in the end we are inclined to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: feel that taking one thing with another chance has on
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the whole been rather kind to us. I did so
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: much want to know them, I said, as I reached Elster.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Then why did you stand a mile away? These were
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: his actual words, not that they expressed what was in
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: his mind, since if his desire had been to grant mine,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to call me up to him would have been quite easy.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: But perhaps because he had heard phrases of this sort
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in familiar use among common people when they are in
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the wrong, and because even great men are in certain
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: respects much the same as common people take their everyday
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: excuses from the same common stock, just as they get
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: their daily bread from the same baker. Or it may
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: be that such expressions which ought one might almost say,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to be read backwards, since their literal interpretation is the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: opposite of the truth, are the instantaneous effect the negative
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: exposure of a reflex action. They were in a hurry.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It struck me that, of course they must have stopped
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: him from summoning a person who did not greatly attract them.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Otherwise he would not have failed. After all the questions
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I had put to him about them, and the interest
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: which he must have seen that I took in them
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to call me. We were speaking just now of Carkathuitt,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: he began, as we walked towards his villa. I have
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: done a little sketch in which you can see much
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: better how the beach curves. The painting is not bad,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: but it is different. If you will allow me just
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to cement our friendship, I would like to give you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the sketch, he went on. For the people who refuse
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: us the objects of our desire are always ready to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: offer us something else. I should very much like if
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you have such a thing a photograph of the little
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: picture of miss Sacrapant. Sacrapants that's not a real name, Shirley.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It is the name of a character the sitter played
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in a stupid little musical comedy. But I assure you, sir,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I have never set eyes on her. You look as
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: though you thought that I knew her. Elster was silent.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: It isn't Madame Swan before she was married. I hazardated
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in one of those sudden, fortuitous stumblings upon the truth,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: which are rare enough in all conscience, and yet give
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: in the long run a certain cumulative support to the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: theory of presentiments, provided that one takes care to forget
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: all the wrong guesses that would invalidate it. Elster did
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: not reply. The portrait was indeed that of Odette de Crecy.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: She had preferred not to keep it for many reasons,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: some of them obvious, but there were others less apparent.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: The portrait dated from before the point at which Odette,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: disciplining her features, had made of her face and figure.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: That creation in the broad outlines of which her hairdressers,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: her dressmakers, she herself, in her way of standing, of speaking,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: of smiling, of moving her hands, her eyes of thinking,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: were to respect throughout the years to come. It required
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the vitiated tastes of a surfeited lover to make Swan
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: prefer to all the countless photographs of the sealed pattern odette,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: which was his charming wife, the little photographs which he
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: kept in his room, and which, beneath a straw hat
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: trimmed with pansies, you saw a thin young woman, not
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: even good looking, with bunched out hair and drawn features.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: End of section forty