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59 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust · Swanns Way

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  Speaker 1: Part four, Section five of Swan's Way by Marcel Proust,
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  Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff eighteen eighty nine to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. This livery Box recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Part four place names
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  Speaker 1: the name Section five. I had always within reach a
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  Speaker 1: plan of Paris, which, because I could see drawn on it,
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  Speaker 1: the street in which Monsieur Madame Swan lived, seemed to
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  Speaker 1: me to contain a secret treasure and to please myself
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  Speaker 1: as well as by a sort of chivalrous loyalty. In
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  Speaker 1: any connection or with no relevance at all, I would
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  Speaker 1: repeat the name of that street until my father, not
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  Speaker 1: being like my mother and grandmother in the secret of
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  Speaker 1: my love, would ask, but why are you always talking
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  Speaker 1: about that street? There's nothing wonderful about it. It is
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  Speaker 1: an admirable street to live in because it's only a
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  Speaker 1: few minutes walk from the Bois, but there are a
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  Speaker 1: dozen in other streets just the same. I made every
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  Speaker 1: effort to introduce the name of Swan into my conversation
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  Speaker 1: with my parents. In my own mind, of course, I
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  Speaker 1: never ceased to murmur it, but I needed also to
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  Speaker 1: hear its exquisite sound, and to make myself play that chord,
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  Speaker 1: the voiceless rendering of which did not suffice me. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: that name of Swan, with which I had for so
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  Speaker 1: long been familiar, was to me now, as happens at
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  Speaker 1: times to people suffering from aphasia in the case of
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  Speaker 1: the most ordinary words, the name of something new. It
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  Speaker 1: was forever present in my mind, which could not, however,
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  Speaker 1: grow accustomed to it. I analyzed it, I spelt it.
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  Speaker 1: Its orthography came to me as a surprise, and with
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  Speaker 1: its familiarity, it had simultaneously lost its innocence. The pleasure
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  Speaker 1: that I derived from the sound of it. I felt
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  Speaker 1: to be so guilty that it seemed to me as
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  Speaker 1: though the others must read my thoughts and would change
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  Speaker 1: the conversation if I endeavored to guide it in that direction.
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  Speaker 1: I fell back upon subjects which still brought me into
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  Speaker 1: touch with Gilbert. I eternally repeated the same words, and
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  Speaker 1: it was no use my knowing that they were but words,
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  Speaker 1: words uttered in her absence, which she could not hear,
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  Speaker 1: words without virtue in themselves, repeating what were indeed facts,
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  Speaker 1: but powerless to modify them. For Still, it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: me that by dint of handling, of stirring in this
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  Speaker 1: way everything that had reference to Gilbert, I might perhaps
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  Speaker 1: make emerge from it something that would bring me happiness.
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  Speaker 1: I told my parents again that Gilbert was very fond
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  Speaker 1: of her governess, as if the statement, when repeated for
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  Speaker 1: the hundredth time, would at last have the effect of
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  Speaker 1: making Gilbert suddenly burst into the room come to live
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  Speaker 1: with us forever. I had already sung the praises of
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  Speaker 1: the old lady who read the debates. I had hinted
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  Speaker 1: to my parents, as she must at least be an
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  Speaker 1: ambassador's widow, if not actually a highness. And I continued
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  Speaker 1: to descant on her being beauty, her splendor, her nobility,
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  Speaker 1: until the day on which I mentioned that, by what
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  Speaker 1: I had heard Filbert call her, she appeared to be
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  Speaker 1: a madame Blatin. Oh, now I know whom you mean,
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  Speaker 1: cried my mother, while I felt myself grow red all
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  Speaker 1: over with shame, on guard, on guard, as your grandfather says,
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  Speaker 1: and so it's she that you think so wonderful. Why
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  Speaker 1: she's perfectly horrible and always has been. She's the widow
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  Speaker 1: of a bailiff. You can't remember when you were little,
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  Speaker 1: all the trouble I used to have to avoid her
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  Speaker 1: at your gymnastic lessons, where she was always trying to
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  Speaker 1: get hold of me. I didn't know the woman, of course,
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  Speaker 1: to tell me that you were much too nice looking
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  Speaker 1: for a boy. She has always had an insane desire
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  Speaker 1: to get to know people, and she must be quite insane,
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  Speaker 1: as I have always thought, if she really does know
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  Speaker 1: Madame Swan. For even if she does come of very
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  Speaker 1: common people, I have never heard anything said against her character.
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  Speaker 1: But she must always be forcing herself upon strangers. She
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  Speaker 1: is really a horrible woman, frightfully vulgar, and besides, she
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  Speaker 1: is always creating awkward situations. As for Swan, in my
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  Speaker 1: attempts to resemble him, I spent the whole time when
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  Speaker 1: I was at table and drawing my finger along my
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  Speaker 1: nose and in rubbing my eyes. My father would exclaim,
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  Speaker 1: the child's a perfect idiot. He's becoming quite impossible. More
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  Speaker 1: than all else, I should have liked to be as
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  Speaker 1: bold as Swan. He appeared to me to be a
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  Speaker 1: creature so extraordinary that I found it impossible to believe
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  Speaker 1: that people whom I knew and often saw knew him also,
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  Speaker 1: and that in the course of the day anyone might
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  Speaker 1: run against him. And once my mother, while she was
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  Speaker 1: telling us, as she did every evening at dinner, where
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  Speaker 1: she had been and what she had done that afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: merely by the words, by the way, guess whom I
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  Speaker 1: saw at the three quarters at the umbrella counter, Swan
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  Speaker 1: caused to burst open in the midst of her narrative,
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  Speaker 1: an arid desert to me a mystic blossom. What a
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  Speaker 1: melancholy satisfaction to learn that that very afternoon, threading through
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  Speaker 1: the crowd, his supernatural form, Swan had gone to buy
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  Speaker 1: an umbrella. Among the events of the day, great and small,
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  Speaker 1: but all equally unimportant, that one alone aroused in me
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  Speaker 1: those peculiar vibrations by which my love for Jilbert was
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  Speaker 1: invariably stirred. My father complained that I took no interest
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  Speaker 1: in anything, because I did not listen while he was
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  Speaker 1: speaking of the political developments that might follow the visit
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  Speaker 1: of King Theodosius at that moment in France as the
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  Speaker 1: nation's guests. And it was hinted ally, and yet how
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  Speaker 1: intensely interested I was to know whether Swan had been
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  Speaker 1: wearing his hooded cape. Did you speak to him? I asked, why?
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  Speaker 1: Of course I did, answered my mother, who always seemed
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  Speaker 1: afraid less. Were she to admit that we were not
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  Speaker 1: on the warmest of terms with Swan, people would seek
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  Speaker 1: to reconcile us more than she cared for in view
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  Speaker 1: of the existence of Madame Swan, whom she did not
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  Speaker 1: wish to know. It was he who came up and
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  Speaker 1: spoke to me. I hadn't seen him. Then, you haven't
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  Speaker 1: quarreled quarreled? What on earth made you think that we
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  Speaker 1: had quarreled? She briskly parried, as though I had cast
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  Speaker 1: doubt on the fiction of her friendly relations with Swan
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  Speaker 1: and was planning an attempt to bring them together. He
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  Speaker 1: might be cross with you for never asking him here.
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  Speaker 1: One isn't obliged to ask everyone to one's house, you know,
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  Speaker 1: as he ever asked me to his. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: his wife, but he used often to come at combry
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  Speaker 1: I should think he did. He used to come at Combrye,
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  Speaker 1: and now in Paris he has something better to do,
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  Speaker 1: and so have I. But I can promise you we
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  Speaker 1: didn't look in the least like people who had quarreled
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  Speaker 1: we were kept waiting there for some time while they
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  Speaker 1: brought him his parcel. He asked after you. He told
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  Speaker 1: me you had been playing with his daughter. My mother
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  Speaker 1: went on amazing me with a portentous revelation of my
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  Speaker 1: own existence in Swan's mind, far more than that of
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  Speaker 1: my existence, and so complete, so material a form, that,
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  Speaker 1: when I stood before him, trembled with love in the champmelysee.
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  Speaker 1: He had known my name and who my mother was,
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  Speaker 1: and had been able to blend with my quality as
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  Speaker 1: his daughter's playmate, certain facts with regard to my grandparents
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  Speaker 1: and their connections, the place in which we lived, certain
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  Speaker 1: details of our past life, all of which I myself
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  Speaker 1: perhaps did not know. But my mother did not seem
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  Speaker 1: to have noticed anything particularly attractive in that counter at
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  Speaker 1: the three quarters, where she had represented to Swan, at
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  Speaker 1: the moment in which he caught sight of her, a
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  Speaker 1: definite person with whom he had sufficient memories in common
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  Speaker 1: to impel him to come up to her and to speak.
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  Speaker 1: Nor did either she or my father seem to find
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  Speaker 1: any occasion now to mention Swan's family the grandparents of Gilbert,
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  Speaker 1: nor to use the title of stockbroker. Topics than which
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  Speaker 1: nothing else gave me, so keen a pleasure. My imagination
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  Speaker 1: had isolated and consecrated in the social Paris's certain family,
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  Speaker 1: just as it had set a part in the structural Paris,
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  Speaker 1: a certain house on whose portrait had fashioned sculptures and
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  Speaker 1: made its windows precious. But these ornaments I alone had
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  Speaker 1: eyes to see. Just as my father and mother looked
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  Speaker 1: upon the house in which Swan lived as one that
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  Speaker 1: closely resembled the other houses built at the same period
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  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of the Bois So, Swan's family seemed
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  Speaker 1: to them to be in the same category as many
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  Speaker 1: other families of stockbrokers. Their judgment was more or less
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  Speaker 1: favorable according to the extent which the family in question
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  Speaker 1: shared in merits. There were common to the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the universe, and there was about it nothing that they
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  Speaker 1: could call unique. What, on the other hand, they did
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  Speaker 1: appreciate in the Swans they found in equal, if not
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  Speaker 1: in greater measure elsewhere. And so after admitting that the
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  Speaker 1: house was in a good position, they would go on
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  Speaker 1: to speak of some other house that was in a
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  Speaker 1: better but had nothing to do with Jolbert or of financiers.
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  Speaker 1: On a larger scale than her grandfather had been, and
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  Speaker 1: if they had appeared for a moment to be of
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  Speaker 1: my opinion, that was a mistake which was very soon corrected.
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  Speaker 1: For in order to distinguish in all Gilbert's surroundings and
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  Speaker 1: indefinable quality analogous in the scale of emotions to what
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  Speaker 1: in the scale of colors is called infra red, a
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  Speaker 1: supplementary sense of perception was required, with which love for
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  Speaker 1: the time being had endowed me, and this my parents lacked.
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  Speaker 1: On the days when Jilbert had warned me that she
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  Speaker 1: would not be coming to the Chammelsee, I would try
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  Speaker 1: to arrange my walk so that I should be brought
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  Speaker 1: into some kind of contact with her. Sometimes I would
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  Speaker 1: lead Francoise on a pilgrimage to the house in which
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  Speaker 1: the Swans lived, making her repeat to me unendingly all
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  Speaker 1: that she had learned from the governess. With regard to
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  Speaker 1: Madame Swan, it seems she puts great faith in Nettles.
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  Speaker 1: She would never think of starting on a journey if
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  Speaker 1: she had heard an owl hoot, or the death watch
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  Speaker 1: in the wall, or if she had seen a cat
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  Speaker 1: at midnight, or if the furniture had creaked. Oh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: she's the most religious lady she is. I was so
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  Speaker 1: madly in love with Jilbert that if on our way
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  Speaker 1: I caught sight of their old butler taking the dog out,
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  Speaker 1: my emotion would bring me to a standstill. I would
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  Speaker 1: fasten on his white whiskers, eyes that melted with passion,
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  Speaker 1: and Francoise would rouse me with what's wrong with you now, child,
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  Speaker 1: and we would continue on our way until we reached
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  Speaker 1: their gate, where a porter different from every other porter
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  Speaker 1: in the world, and saturated even to the braid on
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  Speaker 1: his livery with the same melancholy charm that I had
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  Speaker 1: felt to be latent in the name of Gilbert looked
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  Speaker 1: at me as though he knew that I was one
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  Speaker 1: of those whose natural unworthiness would forever prevent them from
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  Speaker 1: penetrating into the mysteries of the life inside which it
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  Speaker 1: was his duty to guard, and over which the ground
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  Speaker 1: floor windows appeared, conscious of being protectingly closed, with far
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  Speaker 1: less resemblance between the nobly sweeping arches of their muslin
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  Speaker 1: curtains to any other windows in the world than to
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  Speaker 1: Gilbert's glancing eyes. On other days, we would go along
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  Speaker 1: the boulevards and I would post myself at the corner
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  Speaker 1: of the Rue Dufot. I had heard that Swan was
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  Speaker 1: often to be seen passing there on his way to
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  Speaker 1: the dentists, and my imagination so far differentiated Jiolbert's father
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  Speaker 1: from the rest of humanity. His presence in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of a crowd of real people introduced among them so
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  Speaker 1: miraculous an element that even before we reached the Madeleine,
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  Speaker 1: I would be trembling with emotion at the thought that
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  Speaker 1: I was approaching a street from which that supernatural apparition
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  Speaker 1: might at any moment burst upon me unawares. But most
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  Speaker 1: often of all, on days when I was not to
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  Speaker 1: see Giolbert, as I had heard that Madame Swan walked
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  Speaker 1: almost every day along the Alleys de Acassias, round the
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  Speaker 1: Big Lake, and in the Alais de la Rene Marguerite,
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  Speaker 1: I would guide Francoise in the direction of Buas de Bouillon.
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  Speaker 1: It was to me like one of those zoological gardens
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  Speaker 1: in which one sees assembled together a variety of flora.
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  Speaker 1: In contrastity f landscape, where from a hill one passes
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  Speaker 1: to a grotto, a meadow, rocks, a stream, a trench,
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  Speaker 1: another hill, a marsh, but knows that they are there
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  Speaker 1: only to enable the hippopotamus, zebra, crocodile, rabbit, bear, and
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  Speaker 1: heron to disport themselves in a natural or a picturesque setting.
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  Speaker 1: This the bois equally complex, uniting a multitude of little
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  Speaker 1: worlds distinct and separate. Placing a stage set with red
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: trees American oaks like an experimental forest in Virginia, next
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  Speaker 1: to a fir wood by the edge of the lake,
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  Speaker 1: or to a forest grove from which would suddenly emerge
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  Speaker 1: in her lissome covering of firs with the large appealing
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  Speaker 1: eyes of a dumb animal, a hastening walker was the
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  Speaker 1: garden of woman, And like the myrtle alley in the Aeneid,
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  Speaker 1: planted for their delight with trees of one kind, only,
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  Speaker 1: the alleyed de Acassias was thronged by the famous beauties
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of the day, as from a long way off, the
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  Speaker 1: sight of the jutting crag from which it dives into
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  Speaker 1: the pool thrills with joy the children who know that
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  Speaker 1: they are going to behold the seal. Long before I
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  Speaker 1: reached the Acacia alley, their fragrance scattered abroad would make
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  Speaker 1: me feel that I was approaching the incomparable presence of
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  Speaker 1: a vegetable personality, strong and tender. Then as I drew
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  Speaker 1: near the sight of their topmost branches, their lightly tossing foliage,
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  Speaker 1: and its easy grace, its coquettish outline, its delicate fabric
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  Speaker 1: over which hundreds of flowers were laid, like winged and
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  Speaker 1: throbbing colonies of precious insects, and finally, their name itself, feminine,
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  Speaker 1: indolent and seductive, made my heart beat, but with a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: social longing, like those waltzes which remind us only of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the names of the fair dancers called aloud as they
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: entered the ball room. I had been told that I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: should see in the alley certain women of fashion, who,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in spite of their not all having husbands, were constantly
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  Speaker 1: mentioned in conjunction with Madame Swan, but most often by
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  Speaker 1: their professional names, their new names when they had any,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: being but a sort of incognito, a veil which those
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  Speaker 1: who would speak of them were careful to draw aside
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: so as to make themselves understood. Thinking that beauty in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the order of feminine elegance was governed by occult laws
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  Speaker 1: into the knowledge of which they had been initiated, and
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  Speaker 1: that they had the power to realize it. I accepted
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  Speaker 1: before seeing them, like the truth of a coming revelation,
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  Speaker 1: the appearance of their clothes, of their carriages and horses,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of a thousand details, among which I placed my faith
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  Speaker 1: as in an inner soul, which gave the cohesion of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a work of art to that ephemeral and changing pageant.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: But it was Madame Swan whom I wished to see,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and I waited for her to go past, as deeply
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  Speaker 1: moved as though she were Jobert, whose parents saturated, like
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  Speaker 1: everything in her environment with her own special charm, excited
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  Speaker 1: in me as keen a passion as she did herself,
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  Speaker 1: indeed a still more painful disturbance, since their point of
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: contact with her was that intimate, that internal part of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: her life, which was hidden from me. And furthermore, for
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I very soon learned, as we shall see in due course,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that they did not like my playing with her. That
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: feeling of veneration which we always have for those who
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: hold and exercise without restraint the power to do us
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  Speaker 1: an injury. I assigned the first place in the order
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: of esthetic merit and of social grandeur to simplicity. When
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I saw Madame Swan on foot in a polonnaise of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: plain cloth, a little toque on her head, trimmed with
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a pheasant's wing, a bunch of violets in her bosom,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: hastening along the Alee de a Cassias, as if it
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: had been merely the shortest way back to her own house,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and acknowledging with a rapid glance the courtesy of the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: gentlemen in carriages, who, recognizing her figure at a distance,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: were rais, using their hats to her and saying to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: one another that there was never anyone so well turned
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: out as she. But instead of simplicity, it was to
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  Speaker 1: ostentation that I must assign the first place. If after
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I had compelled Francoise, who could hold out no longer
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and complained that her legs were giving beneath her, to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: stroll up and down with me for another hour, I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: saw at length emerging from the Porte Dauphine, figuring for
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: me a royal dignity, the passage of a sovereign, and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: impression such as no real queen has ever since been
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: able to give me. Because my notion of their power
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: has been less vague and more founded upon experience borne
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: along by the flight of a pair of fiery horses,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: slender and shapely as one sees them in the drawings
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of Constantine Ghisee carrying on its box an enormous coachman,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: furred like a cossack, and by his side a diminutive
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: groom like Toby, the late Baudenord's tiger. I saw, or
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  Speaker 1: rather I felt, its outlines engraved upon my heart by
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a clean and killing stab, A matchless victoria, built rather
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: high in hinting through the extreme modernity of its appointments
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: at the forms of an earlier day, deep down in
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: which lay negligently back Madame Swan, her hair now quite pale,
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  Speaker 1: with one gray lock, girt with a narrow band of flowers,
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  Speaker 1: usually violet, from which floated down long veils, a lilac
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: parasol in her hand, on her lipped an ambiguous smile
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: in which I read only the benign condescension of majesty,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: though it was preeminently the enticing smile of the courtisan,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: which she graciously bestowed upon the men who bowed to her.
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  Speaker 1: That smile was in reality saying to me, oh, yes,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I do remember quite well. It was wonderful to another,
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  Speaker 1: how I should have loved to we were unfortunate to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a third. Yes, if you like, I must just keep
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in the line for a minute, then as soon as
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I can, I will break away. When strangers passed, she
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: still allowed to linger about her lips a lazy smile,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: as though she expected or remembered some friend, which made
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: them say what a lovely woman. And for certain men
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: only she had a sour, strange, shy, cold smile, which meant, yes,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you old goat. I know that you've got a tongue
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  Speaker 1: like a viper, that you can't keep quiet for a moment.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: But do you suppose that I care what you say? Cook?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Alene passed talking in a group of listening friends, and
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: with a sweeping wave of his hand, bade a theatrical
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: good day to the people in the carriages. But I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: thought only of Madame Swan and pretended to have not
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: yet seen her, for I knew that when she reached
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the pigeon shooting ground, she would tell her coachman to
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: break away and to stop the carriage so that she
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: might come back on foot. And on days when I
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: felt that I had the courage to pass close by her,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I would drag Francoise off in that direction, until the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: moment came when I saw Madame Swan letting trail behind
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: her the long train of her lilac skirt, dressed as
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the populace imagined queens to be, dressed, in rich attire
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: such as no other woman might wear, lowering her eyes
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: now and then to study the handle of her parasol,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: paying scant attention to the passers by, as though the
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: important thing for her, her one object in being there,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: was to take exercise without thinking that she was seen,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and that every head was turned towards her. Sometimes, however,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: when she had looked back to call her dog to her,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: she would cast almost imperceptibly a sweeping glance round about
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: end of Part four, Section five. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine,