Latest / Within a Budding Grove / 44 - Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Transcript

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

0:00
Speaker 1: Section forty four of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust,
0:04
Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief. This LibriVox recording is
0:09
Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Kristen hand Seascape with
0:15
Speaker 1: Frieze of Girls, Part eleven. Within the next few days,
0:22
Speaker 1: in spite of the reluctance that Albertine had shown from
0:24
Speaker 1: introducing me to them, I knew all the little band
0:28
Speaker 1: of that first afternoon except Giselle, whom, owing to a
0:32
Speaker 1: prolonged delay at the level crossing by the station and
0:36
Speaker 1: change in the time table, I had not succeeded in
0:39
Speaker 1: meeting on the train, which had been gone some minutes
0:41
Speaker 1: before I arrived, and to whom, as it happened, I
0:45
Speaker 1: never gave another thought. And two or three other girls
0:49
Speaker 1: as well, to whom, at my request they introduced me.
0:53
Speaker 1: And thus my expectation of the pleasure which I should
0:55
Speaker 1: find in a new girl springing from another girl through
0:58
Speaker 1: whom I had come to know her, the latest was
1:01
Speaker 1: like one of those new varieties of rows which gardeners
1:04
Speaker 1: get by using first a rose of another kind, And
1:08
Speaker 1: as I pass from blossom to blossom along this flowery chain,
1:12
Speaker 1: the pleasure of knowing one that was different would send
1:15
Speaker 1: me back to her, to whom I was indebted for it,
1:18
Speaker 1: with a gratitude in which desire was mingled fully as
1:21
Speaker 1: much as in my new expectation. Presently I was spending
1:25
Speaker 1: all my time among these girls. Alas in the freshest flower,
1:30
Speaker 1: it is possible to discern those just perceptible signs which,
1:34
Speaker 1: to the instructed mind indicate already what will be by
1:37
Speaker 1: the desiccation or fructification of the flesh, that is to
1:41
Speaker 1: day in bloom, the ultimate form, immutable and already predestinate
1:46
Speaker 1: of the autumnal seed. The eye rapturously follows a nose
1:50
Speaker 1: like a wavelet that deliciously curls the water's face at daybreak,
1:54
Speaker 1: and seems not to move to be capturable by the pencil,
1:58
Speaker 1: because the sea is so calm that that one does
2:01
Speaker 1: not notice its tidal flow. Human faces seem not to
2:05
Speaker 1: change while we are looking at them, because the revolution
2:07
Speaker 1: which they perform is too slow for us to perceive it.
2:11
Speaker 1: But we have only to see by the side of
2:13
Speaker 1: any of those girls, her mother or her aunt to
2:17
Speaker 1: realize the distance over which, obeying the gravitation of a
2:20
Speaker 1: type that is generally speaking deplorable. Her features will have
2:24
Speaker 1: traveled in less than thirty years, and must continue to
2:27
Speaker 1: travel until the sunset hour, until her face, having vanished
2:31
Speaker 1: altogether below the horizon, catches the light. No more I
2:35
Speaker 1: knew that, as deep as inelectable as is their Jewish
2:40
Speaker 1: patriotism or Christian atavism in those who imagine themselves to
2:45
Speaker 1: be the most emancipated of their race, there dwelt beneath
2:48
Speaker 1: the rosy inflorescence of Albertine rosamond andre, unknown to themselves,
2:54
Speaker 1: held in reserve until the circumstances should arise. A course
2:58
Speaker 1: knows a protruding jaw, a bust that would create a
3:01
Speaker 1: sensation when it appeared, but was actually in the wings,
3:05
Speaker 1: ready to come on, just as it might be a
3:07
Speaker 1: burst of dryficism or clericalism, suddenly unforeseen, fatal, some patriotic,
3:15
Speaker 1: some futile form of heroism, emerging suddenly when the circumstances
3:19
Speaker 1: demand it, from a nature anterior to that of the
3:21
Speaker 1: man himself, by means of which he thinks lives, evolves,
3:26
Speaker 1: gains strength himself, or dies, without ever being able to
3:29
Speaker 1: distinguish that nature from the successive phases, which in turn
3:33
Speaker 1: he takes for it. Even mentally. We depend a great
3:36
Speaker 1: deal more than we think upon natural laws, and our
3:39
Speaker 1: mind possesses already, like some cryptogamous plant, every little peculiarity
3:45
Speaker 1: that we imagine ourselves to be selecting for. We can
3:48
Speaker 1: see only the derived ideas without detecting the primary cause
3:52
Speaker 1: Jewish blood, French birth, or whatever it may be that
3:56
Speaker 1: inevitably produced them, and which at a given moment we expose.
4:02
Speaker 1: And perhaps while the former appeared to us to be
4:04
Speaker 1: the result of deliberate thought, the latter that of an
4:07
Speaker 1: imprudent disregard for our own health. We take from our family,
4:11
Speaker 1: as the Papillons say, take in the form of their seed,
4:15
Speaker 1: as well the ideas by which we live, as the
4:18
Speaker 1: malady from which we shall die. As on a plant
4:21
Speaker 1: whose flowers open at different seasons, I had seen expressed
4:25
Speaker 1: in the form of old ladies on this ballback shore,
4:29
Speaker 1: those shriveled seed pods, those flabby tubers, which my friends
4:33
Speaker 1: would one day be. But what matter, For the moment
4:36
Speaker 1: it was their flowering time. And so when Madame de
4:39
Speaker 1: Ville Parisis asked me to drive with her, I sought
4:43
Speaker 1: an excuse to be prevented. I never went to see
4:46
Speaker 1: Elster unless accompanied by my new friends. I could not
4:49
Speaker 1: even spare an afternoon to go to Doncier to pay
4:52
Speaker 1: the visit I had promised Saint Luke. Social engagements, serious discussions,
4:56
Speaker 1: even a friendly conversation. Had they usurped the place allotted
5:00
Speaker 1: to my walks with these girls would have had the
5:03
Speaker 1: same effect on me as if, when the luncheon bell
5:06
Speaker 1: rang I had been taken not to a table spread
5:09
Speaker 1: with food, but to turn the pages of an album.
5:12
Speaker 1: The men, the youths, the women old or mature, whose
5:16
Speaker 1: society we suppose that we shall enjoy, are borne by
5:20
Speaker 1: us only on an unsubstantial plain surface, because we are
5:23
Speaker 1: conscious of them only by visual perception, restricted to its
5:26
Speaker 1: own limits. Whereas it is, as delegates from our other senses,
5:32
Speaker 1: that our eyes dart towards young girls. The senses follow
5:36
Speaker 1: one after another in search of the various charms, fragrant, tactile, savory,
5:41
Speaker 1: which they thus enjoy even without the aid of fingers
5:44
Speaker 1: and lips, and able thanks to the art of transposition,
5:49
Speaker 1: the genius for synthesis, in which desire excels to reconstruct
5:53
Speaker 1: beneath the hue of cheeks or bosom, the feel, the taste,
5:56
Speaker 1: the contact that is forbidden them. They give to these
6:00
Speaker 1: girls the same honeyed consistency as they create when they
6:03
Speaker 1: stand rifling the sweets of a rose garden, or before
6:06
Speaker 1: a vine, whose clusters their eyes alone devour if it rained.
6:10
Speaker 1: Although the weather had no power to daunt Albertine, who
6:13
Speaker 1: was often to be seen in her waterproof spinning on
6:16
Speaker 1: her bicycle through the driving showers, we would spend the
6:19
Speaker 1: day in the casino, where on such days it would
6:22
Speaker 1: have seemed to me impossible not to go. I had
6:25
Speaker 1: the greatest contempt for the young ombro Sacs, who had
6:28
Speaker 1: never set foot in it, and I willingly joined my
6:31
Speaker 1: friends in playing tricks on the dancing master. As a rule,
6:34
Speaker 1: we had to listen to admonition from the manager or
6:37
Speaker 1: from some of his staff usurping dictatorial powers, because my friends,
6:41
Speaker 1: even Andrea herself, whom on that account I had regarded
6:45
Speaker 1: when I first saw her, so Diany sick, a creature,
6:48
Speaker 1: whereas in reality she was delicate, intellectual, and this year
6:52
Speaker 1: far from well, in spite of which her actions were
6:54
Speaker 1: controlled less by the state of her health than by
6:57
Speaker 1: the spirit of that age. Which overcomes every other consideration
7:00
Speaker 1: and confounds in a general gaiety. The week with the
7:03
Speaker 1: strong could not enter the outer hall of the rooms
7:06
Speaker 1: without starting to run, jumping over all the chairs, sliding
7:09
Speaker 1: back along the floor, their balance maintained by a graceful
7:12
Speaker 1: poise of their outstretched arms, singing the while mingling all
7:16
Speaker 1: the arts in that first bloom of youth, in the
7:18
Speaker 1: manner of those poets of ancient days, for whom the
7:21
Speaker 1: different kinds were not yet separate, so that in an
7:24
Speaker 1: epic poem they would introduce rules of agriculture with theological doctrine.
7:30
Speaker 1: This Andrea, who had struck me when I first saw them,
7:33
Speaker 1: as the coldest of them all, was infinitely more refined,
7:37
Speaker 1: more loving, more sensitive than Albertine, to whom she displayed
7:40
Speaker 1: the caressing, gentle affection of an elder sister. At the casino,
7:44
Speaker 1: she would come across the floor to sit down by me,
7:47
Speaker 1: and knew instinctively, unlike Albertine, to refuse my invitation to dance,
7:52
Speaker 1: or even if I was tired, to give up the
7:54
Speaker 1: casino and come to me instead. At the hotel, she
7:58
Speaker 1: expressed her friendship for me for Albertine, in terms of
8:01
Speaker 1: which were evidence of the most exquisite understanding of the
8:04
Speaker 1: things of the heart, which may have been partially due
8:07
Speaker 1: to the state of her health. She had always a
8:09
Speaker 1: merry smile of excuse for the childish behavior of Albertine,
8:13
Speaker 1: who expressed with a crude violence the irresistible temptation held
8:16
Speaker 1: out to her by the parties and picnics to which
8:18
Speaker 1: she had not the sense, like Andrea, resolutely to prefer
8:22
Speaker 1: staying and talking with me when the time came for
8:25
Speaker 1: her to go off to a luncheon party at the
8:27
Speaker 1: golf club. If we were all three together, she would
8:30
Speaker 1: get ready to leave us then, coming up to Andrea, Well, Andrea,
8:33
Speaker 1: what are you waiting for now? You know we are
8:35
Speaker 1: lunching at the golf club. No, I am going to
8:38
Speaker 1: stay and talk to him, replied Andrea, pointing to me.
8:42
Speaker 1: But you know, Mademoiselle DEARIEO invited you, cried Albertine, as
8:46
Speaker 1: if Andrea's intention to reign with me could be explained
8:49
Speaker 1: only by ignorance on her part where else and by
8:51
Speaker 1: whom she had been bidden. Look here, my good girl,
8:55
Speaker 1: don't be such an idiot, Andrea chid her. Aubertine did
9:00
Speaker 1: not insist, fearing a suggestion that she too should stay
9:03
Speaker 1: with me. She tossed her head. Just as you like,
9:06
Speaker 1: was her answer, uttered in the tone one uses to
9:09
Speaker 1: an invalid whose self indulgence is killing him by inches.
9:13
Speaker 1: I must fly. I am sure your watch is slow,
9:16
Speaker 1: and off she went. She is a dear girl, but
9:19
Speaker 1: quite impossible, said Andrea, bathing her friend in a smile,
9:22
Speaker 1: at once caressing and critical. If in this craze for amusement,
9:26
Speaker 1: Albertine might be said to echo something of the old
9:29
Speaker 1: original Gilbeer, that is because a certain similarity exists, although
9:33
Speaker 1: the type evolves between all the women we love. A
9:36
Speaker 1: similarity that is due to the fixity of our own temperament,
9:40
Speaker 1: which it is that chooses them, eliminating all those who
9:43
Speaker 1: would not be at once our opposite and our compliment. Fitted.
9:47
Speaker 1: That is to say, to gratify our senses and to
9:50
Speaker 1: wring our heart. They are these women a product of
9:53
Speaker 1: our temperament, an image inversely projected a negative of our sensibility,
9:59
Speaker 1: So that an novelist might, in relating the life of
10:02
Speaker 1: his hero, describe his successive love affairs in almost exactly
10:05
Speaker 1: similar terms, and thereby give the impression not that he
10:09
Speaker 1: was repeating himself, but that he was creating. Since an
10:12
Speaker 1: artificial novelty is never so effective as a repetition that
10:16
Speaker 1: manages to suggest a fresh truth, He ought, moreover, to
10:19
Speaker 1: indicate in the character of the lover, a variability which
10:22
Speaker 1: becomes apparent as the story moves into fresh regions, into
10:26
Speaker 1: different latitudes of life. And perhaps he would be stating
10:29
Speaker 1: yet another truth if, while investing all the other persons
10:33
Speaker 1: of his story with the distinct characters, he refrained from
10:36
Speaker 1: giving any to the beloved. We understand the characters of
10:40
Speaker 1: people who do not interest us, how can we ever
10:42
Speaker 1: grasp that of a person who is an intimate part
10:45
Speaker 1: of our existence, whom, after a little we no longer
10:48
Speaker 1: distinguish in any way from ourselves, whose motives provide us
10:52
Speaker 1: with an inexhaustible supply of anxious hypotheses which we perpetually reconstruct,
10:58
Speaker 1: springing from somewhere beyond our understand Our curiosity as to
11:02
Speaker 1: the woman whom we love overleaps the bound of that
11:04
Speaker 1: woman's character, which we might, if we choose, but probably
11:08
Speaker 1: will not choose, to stop and examine the object of
11:11
Speaker 1: our uneasy investigation is something more essential than those details
11:15
Speaker 1: of character comparable to the tiny particles of epidermis, whose
11:19
Speaker 1: varied combinations form the florid originality of human flesh. Our
11:23
Speaker 1: intuitive radiography pierces them, and the images which it photographs
11:28
Speaker 1: for us, so far from being those of any single
11:30
Speaker 1: face present, rather the joyless universality of a skeleton. Andrea,
11:36
Speaker 1: being herself extremely rich while the other was penniless and
11:39
Speaker 1: an orphan, with real generosity, lavished on Albertine the full
11:43
Speaker 1: benefit of her wealth. As for her feelings towards Jisell,
11:46
Speaker 1: they were not quite what I had been led to suppose.
11:50
Speaker 1: News soon reached us of the young student, and when
11:52
Speaker 1: Albertine handed round the letter she had received, a letter
11:55
Speaker 1: intended by Giselle to give an account of her journey
11:57
Speaker 1: and to report her safe arrival to the Little Bay,
12:00
Speaker 1: and pleading laziness as an excuse for not having written
12:03
Speaker 1: yet to the rest. I was surprised to hear Andrea,
12:06
Speaker 1: for I imagine an irreparable breach between them, say, I
12:10
Speaker 1: shall write to her tomorrow, because if I wait for
12:11
Speaker 1: her to write, I may have to wait for years.
12:14
Speaker 1: She's such a slacker, And turning to myself, she added,
12:18
Speaker 1: you saw nothing much in her, evidently, But She's a
12:20
Speaker 1: jolly nice girl, and besides, I'm really very fond of her,
12:24
Speaker 1: from which I concluded that Andrea's quarrels were apt not
12:27
Speaker 1: to last very long, except in these rainy days. As
12:31
Speaker 1: we had always arranged to go on our bicycles along
12:33
Speaker 1: the cliffs or on an excursion Inland. An hour or
12:37
Speaker 1: so before it was time to start, I would go
12:38
Speaker 1: upstairs to make myself smart and would complain of Francois
12:42
Speaker 1: had not laid out all the things that I wanted. Now,
12:45
Speaker 1: even in Paris, she would proudly, angrily straighten a back
12:48
Speaker 1: which the years had begun to bend at the first
12:51
Speaker 1: word of reproach. She's so humble, she so modest and charming.
12:54
Speaker 1: When her self esteem was flattered at this was the
12:57
Speaker 1: mainspring of her life. Her satisfaction, her good humor were
13:01
Speaker 1: in direct ratio to the difficulty of the tasks imposed
13:04
Speaker 1: on her. Those which she had to perform at ball
13:06
Speaker 1: back were so easy that she showed almost all the time,
13:09
Speaker 1: a discontent which was suddenly multiplied and one hundredfold with
13:13
Speaker 1: the addition of an ironic air of offended dignity. When
13:15
Speaker 1: I complained on my way down to join my friends
13:19
Speaker 1: that my hat had not been brushed or my ties sorted.
13:22
Speaker 1: She who was capable of taking such endless pains without,
13:25
Speaker 1: in consequence, assuming that she had done anything at all
13:28
Speaker 1: on my simply remarking that a coat was not in
13:30
Speaker 1: its proper place. Not only did she boast of the
13:33
Speaker 1: care with which she had put it past sooner than
13:36
Speaker 1: let it go gathering the dust, but paying a formal
13:39
Speaker 1: tribute to her own labors, lamented that it was little
13:42
Speaker 1: enough of a holiday that she was getting a ball back,
13:44
Speaker 1: and that we would not find another person in the
13:47
Speaker 1: whole world who would consent to put up with such treatment.
13:50
Speaker 1: I can't think how anyone can leave things lying about
13:53
Speaker 1: the way you do. You just try and get anyone
13:55
Speaker 1: else to find what you want. In such a mix up,
13:59
Speaker 1: the devil himself would give it up as a bad job,
14:03
Speaker 1: or else she would adopt a regal mian, scorching me
14:05
Speaker 1: with her fiery glance at presiver, her silence that was
14:08
Speaker 1: broken as soon as she had fastened the door behind
14:10
Speaker 1: her and was outside in the passage, which would then
14:13
Speaker 1: reverberate with utterances which I guessed to be insulting, though
14:17
Speaker 1: they remained as indistinct as those of characters in a
14:19
Speaker 1: play whose opening lines are spoken in the wings before
14:22
Speaker 1: they appear on the stage. And even if nothing was missing,
14:25
Speaker 1: and Francois was in a good temper, still she made
14:28
Speaker 1: herself quite intolerable when I was getting ready to go
14:30
Speaker 1: out with my friends, for drawing upon a store of
14:34
Speaker 1: stale witticisms at their expense, which in my need to
14:37
Speaker 1: be talking about the girls I had made in her hearing,
14:40
Speaker 1: she put on an air of being about to reveal
14:42
Speaker 1: to me things of which I should have known more
14:44
Speaker 1: than she had. There been any truth in her statements,
14:47
Speaker 1: which there never was. Francois, having misunderstood what she had heard,
14:53
Speaker 1: she had like most people her own ways. A person
14:55
Speaker 1: is never like a straight highway, but surprises us with
14:58
Speaker 1: the strange, unavoidable windings of his course through life, by which,
15:02
Speaker 1: though some people may not notice them, we find it
15:04
Speaker 1: a perpetual annoyance to be stopped and hindered. Whenever I
15:08
Speaker 1: arrived at the stage of where is My Hat? Or
15:11
Speaker 1: uttered the name of Andrea or Albertine, I was forced
15:14
Speaker 1: by Francois to stray into endless and absurd side tracks,
15:17
Speaker 1: which greatly delayed my progress, so too when I asked
15:21
Speaker 1: her to cut me the sandwiches of cheese or salad,
15:23
Speaker 1: or sent her out for the cakes, which I was
15:25
Speaker 1: to eat while we rested on the cliffs, sharing them
15:28
Speaker 1: with the girls, and which the girls might very well
15:30
Speaker 1: have taken turns to provide if they had not been
15:32
Speaker 1: so close, declared Francois, to whose aid there came at
15:36
Speaker 1: such moments a whole heritage of atavistic peasant rapacity and coarseness,
15:41
Speaker 1: and for whom one would have said that the soul
15:43
Speaker 1: of her late Emily Eulalai had been broken into fragments
15:46
Speaker 1: and reincarnate more attractively than it had ever been in
15:50
Speaker 1: Saint Eloi's in the charming bodies of my friends of
15:53
Speaker 1: the Little Band. I listened to these accusations with the
15:56
Speaker 1: dull fury at finding myself brought to a standstill at
15:59
Speaker 1: one of those places, beyond which the well trodden country
16:02
Speaker 1: path that was Francois character became impassable, though fortunately never
16:06
Speaker 1: for very long. Then my hat or coat found and
16:09
Speaker 1: the sandwiches ready, I sallied out to find our routine,
16:12
Speaker 1: Andrea Rosamond and any others there might be and on
16:16
Speaker 1: foot or on our bicycles we would start. In the
16:19
Speaker 1: old days, I should have preferred our excursion to be
16:22
Speaker 1: made in bad weather, for then I still looked to
16:25
Speaker 1: find in ball Back the Samarian's land, and fine days
16:29
Speaker 1: were a thing that had no right to exist. There
16:31
Speaker 1: an intrusion of the vulgar summer of seaside holiday makers
16:34
Speaker 1: into that ancient region swathed in eternal mist. But now
16:39
Speaker 1: everything that I had hitherto despised shut out of my
16:42
Speaker 1: field of vision, not only effects of sunlight upon sea
16:45
Speaker 1: and shore, but even the regattas, the race meetings I
16:49
Speaker 1: would have sought out with ardor for the reason for
16:52
Speaker 1: which formerly I had wanted only stormy seas, which was
16:55
Speaker 1: that these were now associated in my mind as the
16:58
Speaker 1: others had been, with an estate idea. Because I had
17:02
Speaker 1: gone several times with my new friends to visit Elster,
17:05
Speaker 1: and on the days when the girls were there, what
17:07
Speaker 1: he had sketched to show us were drawings of pretty
17:09
Speaker 1: women in yachting dress or else a sketch made on
17:12
Speaker 1: a racecourse near ball Beck. I had at first shyly
17:15
Speaker 1: admitted to Elster that I had not felt inclined to
17:18
Speaker 1: go to the meetings that were being held there. You
17:21
Speaker 1: were wrong, he told me. It is such a pretty sight,
17:23
Speaker 1: and so well worth seeing. For one thing, that peculiar animal,
17:27
Speaker 1: the jockey, on whom so many eager eyes are fastened,
17:31
Speaker 1: who in the paddock there looks so grim, a colorless
17:34
Speaker 1: face between his brilliant jacket and cap, one body and soul,
17:38
Speaker 1: with the prancing horse he rides. How interesting to analyze
17:41
Speaker 1: his professional movements, the bright splash of color he makes
17:44
Speaker 1: with the horse's coat blending in it as they streamed
17:47
Speaker 1: down the course. What a transformation of every visible object
17:51
Speaker 1: in that luminous vastness of a race course, where one
17:54
Speaker 1: is constantly surprised by fresh lights and shades which one
17:57
Speaker 1: sees only there so charming the women can look there too.
18:02
Speaker 1: The first day's racing was quite delightful, and there were
18:05
Speaker 1: women there exquisitely dressed in the misty light of a
18:07
Speaker 1: Dutch landscape, in which one could feel rising to cloud
18:11
Speaker 1: the sun itself, the penetrating coldness of the water. Never
18:14
Speaker 1: have I seen women arriving in carriages or standing with
18:17
Speaker 1: glasses to their eyes in so extraordinary a light, which
18:21
Speaker 1: was due, I suppose, to the moisture from the sea,
18:24
Speaker 1: I should simply have loved to paint it. I came
18:27
Speaker 1: home from the races quite mad and so keen to
18:29
Speaker 1: get to work, after which he became more enthusiastic still
18:33
Speaker 1: over the yacht races. And I realized that Regatta's social fixtures,
18:37
Speaker 1: where a well dressed women might be seen bathed in
18:40
Speaker 1: the greenish light of a marine race course, might be
18:43
Speaker 1: for a modern artist as interesting a subject as were
18:45
Speaker 1: the revels which they so loved to depict, for a
18:48
Speaker 1: Varones or a Carpaccio. When I suggested this to Elser,
18:53
Speaker 1: your comparison is all the more true, he replied, since
18:56
Speaker 1: from the position of the city in which they painted,
18:58
Speaker 1: those revels were to a great extent aquatic, except that
19:02
Speaker 1: the beauty of the shipping in those days lay, as
19:04
Speaker 1: a rule in its solidity, in the complication of its structure.
19:08
Speaker 1: They had water tournaments, as we have here held generally
19:12
Speaker 1: in honor of some embassy, such as Carpaccio shows us
19:15
Speaker 1: in his Legend of Saint Ursula. The vessels were massive,
19:19
Speaker 1: built up like architecture, and seemed almost amphibious, like lesser
19:23
Speaker 1: venices sent in the heart of the greater When moored
19:27
Speaker 1: to the banks by hanging stages decked with crimson, satin
19:29
Speaker 1: and Persian carpets. They bore their freight of ladies in cherry,
19:33
Speaker 1: red brocade and green damask close under the balconies, encrusted
19:37
Speaker 1: with many colored marbles, from which other ladies leaned to
19:40
Speaker 1: gaze at them. In gowns with black sleeves slashed with white,
19:44
Speaker 1: stitched with pearls, or bordered with lace. You cannot tell
19:48
Speaker 1: where the land ends and the water begins. What is
19:51
Speaker 1: still the palace or already the vessel, the caravel, the Gaelias,
19:55
Speaker 1: the bucentorro. Albertine had listened with the keenest interest to
20:00
Speaker 1: these details of costume, these visions of elegance, that Elster
20:03
Speaker 1: was describing to us. Oh, I should so like to
20:06
Speaker 1: see that lace you speak of. It's so pretty the
20:09
Speaker 1: Venice point, she cried. Besides, I should love to see Venice.
20:14
Speaker 1: You may, perhaps before very long be able. Elster informed
20:18
Speaker 1: her to gaze upon the marvelous stuffs which they used
20:21
Speaker 1: to wear. Hitherto one has seen them only in the
20:24
Speaker 1: works of the Venetian painters, or very rarely among the
20:27
Speaker 1: treasures of old churches. Except now and then when a
20:31
Speaker 1: specimen has come into the sale room. But I hear
20:34
Speaker 1: that a Venetian artist called Fortiny has recovered the secret
20:38
Speaker 1: of the craft, and that before many years have passed,
20:40
Speaker 1: women will be able to walk abroad, and better still,
20:43
Speaker 1: to sit at home in brocades as sumptuous as those
20:46
Speaker 1: that Venice adorned for her patrician daughters, with patterns brought
20:50
Speaker 1: from the Orient. But I don't know that I should
20:53
Speaker 1: much care for that, that it wouldn't be too much
20:55
Speaker 1: of an anachronism for the women of to day, even
20:58
Speaker 1: though they parade at regatta for to return to our
21:01
Speaker 1: modern pleasure craft. The times have completely changed since Venice,
21:05
Speaker 1: Queen of the Adriatic. The great charm of a yacht,
21:08
Speaker 1: of the furnishings of a yacht, of yachting dress, is
21:11
Speaker 1: their simplicity as just things for the sea. And I
21:15
Speaker 1: do so love the sea. I must confess to you
21:19
Speaker 1: that I prefer the fashions of today to those of
21:21
Speaker 1: Veronese's and even of Carpaccio's time. What there is so
21:26
Speaker 1: attractive about our yachts, and the smaller yachts especially. I
21:29
Speaker 1: don't like the huge ones. They are too much like
21:31
Speaker 1: ships yachts are like women's hats you must keep within
21:35
Speaker 1: certain limits. Is the unbroken surface, simple gleaming gray, which
21:40
Speaker 1: under a cloudy leaden sky takes on a creamy softness.
21:44
Speaker 1: The cabin in which we live ought to make us
21:46
Speaker 1: think of a little cafe, and women's clothes on board
21:49
Speaker 1: a yacht are the same sort of thing. What really
21:51
Speaker 1: are charming are those light garments, uniformly white of cloth
21:55
Speaker 1: or linen or nankeen or drill, in which the sunlight
21:59
Speaker 1: and against the blue of the sea, show up with
22:01
Speaker 1: as dazzling a whiteness as a spread sail. You very
22:05
Speaker 1: seldom see a woman, for that matter, who knows how
22:07
Speaker 1: to dress, and yet some of them are quite wonderful
22:10
Speaker 1: at the races. Mademoiselle Lie had a little white hat
22:13
Speaker 1: and a little white sunshade, simply enchanting. I don't know
22:17
Speaker 1: what I wouldn't give for that little sunshade. I should
22:21
Speaker 1: have liked very much to know in what respect this
22:23
Speaker 1: little sunshade differed from any other, and for other reasons,
22:27
Speaker 1: reasons of feminine vanity. Ourbertine was still more curious. But
22:32
Speaker 1: just as Francois used to explain the excellence of her
22:34
Speaker 1: sioux FLEs by. It's the way you do them. So
22:37
Speaker 1: here the difference lay in the cut. It was, Elster explained,
22:41
Speaker 1: quite tiny, quite round, like a Chinese umbrella. I mentioned
22:45
Speaker 1: the sunshades carried by various ladies, but it was not
22:47
Speaker 1: like any of them. Elster found them all quite hideous.
22:51
Speaker 1: A man of exquisite taste, singularly hard to please. He
22:55
Speaker 1: would isolate some minute detail, which was the whole difference
22:58
Speaker 1: between what was worn by three quarters of the way,
23:00
Speaker 1: and he saw and horrified him, and a thing which
23:02
Speaker 1: enchanted him by its prettiness, and in contrast to its
23:06
Speaker 1: effect on myself, whose mind any display of luxury at
23:09
Speaker 1: once sterilized, stimulated his desire to paint, so as to
23:14
Speaker 1: make something as attractive. Here you see, a young lady
23:17
Speaker 1: was guessed what the hat and sunshade were like. He
23:19
Speaker 1: said to me, pointing to Albertine, whose eyes shone with envy,
23:23
Speaker 1: How he should love to be rich to have a yacht,
23:26
Speaker 1: She said to the painter, I should come to you
23:28
Speaker 1: to tell me how to run it. What lovely trips
23:31
Speaker 1: I'd take, and what fun it would be to go
23:33
Speaker 1: to KOs for the races, and a motor car. Tell
23:37
Speaker 1: me do you think the lady's fashions for motoring pretty? No,
23:41
Speaker 1: replied Elster, But that will come in time. You see,
23:44
Speaker 1: there are very few firms at present, one or two
23:47
Speaker 1: only Cayoe, although they go in rather too freely for lace, dosette,
23:52
Speaker 1: cherut paquin. Sometimes the others are all horrible. Then is
23:59
Speaker 1: there a vast difference between a Cayote dress and one
24:02
Speaker 1: from any ordinary shop? I asked Aubertine. Why an enormous difference,
24:06
Speaker 1: my little man, I beg your pardon. Only alas which
24:09
Speaker 1: you get for three hundred francs in an ordinary shop
24:11
Speaker 1: will cost two thousand there. But there can be no comparison.
24:16
Speaker 1: They look the same only to people who know nothing
24:18
Speaker 1: at all about it. Quite so put in Elster, though
24:22
Speaker 1: I should not go so far as to say that
24:24
Speaker 1: it is as profound as the difference between a statue
24:26
Speaker 1: from Rheim's cathedral and one from Saint Augustine. By the way,
24:30
Speaker 1: talking of cathedrals, he went on addressing himself exclusively to me,
24:34
Speaker 1: because what he was saying had reference to an earlier
24:36
Speaker 1: conversation in which the girls had not taken part, and which,
24:39
Speaker 1: for that matter, would not have interested them at all
24:42
Speaker 1: I spoke to you the other day of Ballback Church
24:44
Speaker 1: as a great cliff, a huge breakwater, built of the
24:46
Speaker 1: stone of the country. And now look at this, he
24:49
Speaker 1: handed me a water color. Look at these cliffs, it's
24:52
Speaker 1: a sketch I did close to hear at their creuniers.
24:55
Speaker 1: Don't these rocks remind you of a cathedral? And indeed
24:58
Speaker 1: one would have taken them for soaring red arches. But
25:01
Speaker 1: painted on a roasting hot day, they seemed to have
25:04
Speaker 1: crumbled into dust, made volatile by the heat, which had
25:07
Speaker 1: drunk up half the sea, distilled over the whole surface
25:10
Speaker 1: of the picture, almost into a gaseous state. On this
25:13
Speaker 1: day on which the sunlight had, so to speak, destroyed reality,
25:17
Speaker 1: reality concentrated itself in a certain dusky and transparent creatures, which,
25:22
Speaker 1: by contrast, gave a more striking, a closer impression of life.
25:25
Speaker 1: The shadows, ravening after coolness, most of them deserting the
25:29
Speaker 1: scorched open spaces, had fled for shelter to the foot
25:32
Speaker 1: of the rocks, out of the reach of the sun. Others,
25:35
Speaker 1: swimming gently upon the tide like dolphins, kept close under
25:39
Speaker 1: the sides of the moving vessels, whose hulls they extended
25:42
Speaker 1: upon the pale surface of the water, with their glossy
25:44
Speaker 1: blue forms. It was perhaps the thirst for coolness which
25:48
Speaker 1: they conveyed that did most to give me the sensation
25:51
Speaker 1: of the heat of this day, and made me exclaim
25:53
Speaker 1: how much I regretted not knowing. The croniers Albertine and
25:57
Speaker 1: Andrea were positive that I must have been there of times.
26:01
Speaker 1: If so, I had been there without knowing it, never
26:03
Speaker 1: suspecting that one day the sight of these rocks was
26:06
Speaker 1: to inspire me with such a thirst for beauty, not
26:09
Speaker 1: perhaps exactly natural beauty, such as I had been seeking
26:12
Speaker 1: hitherto among the cliffs of Ballback, but rather agricultural above all, I, who,
26:18
Speaker 1: having come here to visit the Kingdom of the Storm,
26:20
Speaker 1: had never found on any of my drives with Madame
26:22
Speaker 1: de Ville Parisis, when often we saw it only from afar,
26:26
Speaker 1: painted in a gap between the trees, the ocean sufficiently real,
26:30
Speaker 1: sufficiently liquid, giving a sufficient impression that it was hurling
26:34
Speaker 1: its massed forces against the shore, and would have liked
26:37
Speaker 1: to see it lie motionless only under a wintry shroud
26:40
Speaker 1: of fog. I could never have believed that I should
26:43
Speaker 1: now be dreaming of a sea which was nothing more
26:45
Speaker 1: than a whitish vapor that had lost both consistency and color.
26:50
Speaker 1: But of such a sea, Elster, like the people who
26:52
Speaker 1: sat musing on board those vessels, drowsy with the heat,
26:55
Speaker 1: had so intensely felt the enchantment that he had succeeded
26:58
Speaker 1: in transcribing, in fixing for all time upon the painted sheet,
27:02
Speaker 1: the imperceptible reflex of the tide, the throb of one
27:06
Speaker 1: happy moment, and one suddenly became so enamored at the
27:09
Speaker 1: sight of this magic portrait that one could think of
27:12
Speaker 1: nothing else than to range the world over, seeking to
27:15
Speaker 1: recapture the vanished day in its instantaneous, slumbering beauty. End
27:21
Speaker 1: of Section forty four.