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

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Speaker 1: Section forty nine 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 sixteen. My dreams were now once
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Speaker 1: more at liberty to concentrate on one or another of
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Speaker 1: Albertine's friends, and returned first of all to Andrea, whose
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Speaker 1: kindnesses might perhaps have appealed to me less strongly, had
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Speaker 1: I not been certain that they would come to Albertine's ears. Undoubtedly,
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Speaker 1: the preference that I had long been pretending to feel
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Speaker 1: for Andrea had furnished me in the habit of conversation
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Speaker 1: with her, of declaring my affection with, so to speak,
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Speaker 1: the material prepared and ready for a love of her,
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Speaker 1: which had hitherto lacked only the compliment of a genuine sentiment.
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Speaker 1: And this, my heart, being once more free, was now
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Speaker 1: in a position to supply. But for me really to
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Speaker 1: love Onna, she was too intellectual, too neurotic, too sickly,
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Speaker 1: too much like myself. If Albertine now seemed to me
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Speaker 1: to be void of substance, Andrea was filled with something
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Speaker 1: which I knew only too well. I had thought that
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Speaker 1: first day that what I saw on the beach there
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Speaker 1: was the mistress of some racing cyclist passionately athletic. And
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Speaker 1: now Andrea told me that if she had taken up
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Speaker 1: athletic pastimes, it was under orders from her doctor to
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Speaker 1: cure her neurasthenia, her digestive troubles, but that her happiest
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Speaker 1: hours were those which she spent in translating one of
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Speaker 1: George Eliot's novels. The misunderstanding due to an initial mistake
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Speaker 1: as to what Andre was had not, as a matter
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Speaker 1: of fact, the slightest importance. But my mistake was one
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Speaker 1: of the kind which, if they allow love to be born,
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Speaker 1: and are not recognized as mistakes until it has ceased
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Speaker 1: to be under control, became a cause of suffering. Such mistakes,
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Speaker 1: which might be quite different from mine with regard to Andrea,
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Speaker 1: and even its exact opposite, are frequently due, and this
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Speaker 1: was especially the case here to our paying too much
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Speaker 1: attention to the aspect the manners of what a person
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Speaker 1: is not but would like to be, in forming our
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Speaker 1: first impression of that person to the outward appearance, affectation, imitation,
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Speaker 1: the longing to be admired, whether by the good or
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Speaker 1: by the wicked. Add misleading similarities of speech and gesture,
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Speaker 1: there are cynicisms and cruelties which, when put to the task,
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Speaker 1: prove no more genuine than certain apparent virtues and generosities.
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Speaker 1: Just as we often discover a vain miser beneath the
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Speaker 1: cloak of a man famed for his bountiful charity, so
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Speaker 1: her flaunting of vice leads us to suppose a Messalina,
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Speaker 1: a respectable girl with middle class prejudices. I had thought
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Speaker 1: to find in Andrea a healthy, primitive creature, whereas she
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Speaker 1: was merely a person in search of health, as were
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Speaker 1: doubtless many of those in whom she herself had thought
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Speaker 1: to find it, and who were in reality no more
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Speaker 1: healthy than a burly earthritic with a red face and
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Speaker 1: in white flannels. Is not necessarily a Hercules. Now there
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Speaker 1: are circumstances in which it is not immaterial to our
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Speaker 1: happiness that the person whom we have loved because of
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Speaker 1: what appeared to be so healthy about her, is in
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Speaker 1: reality only one of those invalids who received such health
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Speaker 1: as they possess from others. As the planets borrow their light,
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Speaker 1: as certain bodies are only conductors of electricity, no matter
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Speaker 1: andre like Rosamond and Giselle, indeed more than they was
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Speaker 1: when all was said a friend of Albertine, sharing her life,
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Speaker 1: imitating her conduct so closely, that the first day I
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Speaker 1: had not at once distinguished them one from another. Over
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Speaker 1: these girls, flowering sprays of roses, whose principal charm was
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Speaker 1: that they outlined themselves against the sea, the same undivided
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Speaker 1: partnership prevailed as at the time when I did not
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Speaker 1: know them, when the appearance of no matter which of them,
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Speaker 1: had had caused me such violent emotion by its announcement
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Speaker 1: that the little band was not far off. And even
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Speaker 1: now the sight of one of them filled me with
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Speaker 1: a pleasure into which there entered to an extent which
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Speaker 1: I should not have found it easy to define, the
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Speaker 1: thought of seeking the others follow her in due course.
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Speaker 1: And even if they did not come that day, speaking
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Speaker 1: about them, and knowing that they would be told that
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Speaker 1: I had been on the beach, it was no longer
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Speaker 1: simply the attraction of those firsts days. It was a
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Speaker 1: regular love longing which hesitated among them. All so far
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Speaker 1: was each the natural substitute for the others. My bitterest
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Speaker 1: grief would not have been to be thrown over by
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Speaker 1: whichever of the girls I like best. But I should
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Speaker 1: at once have liked best, because I should have fastened
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Speaker 1: on to her the whole of the melancholy dream which
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Speaker 1: had been floating vaguely among them. All her who had
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Speaker 1: thrown me over. It would, moreover, in that event, be
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Speaker 1: the loss of all her friends, in whose eyes I
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Speaker 1: should speedily have forfeited whatever advantage I might zess that
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Speaker 1: I should, in losing her, have unconsciously regretted, having vowed
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Speaker 1: to them that sort of collective love which the politician
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Speaker 1: and the actor feel for the public, whose desertion of them,
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Speaker 1: after they have enjoyed all its favors, they can never
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Speaker 1: be consoled. Even those favors which I had failed to
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Speaker 1: win from Albertine, I would hope suddenly to receive from
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Speaker 1: one or other who had parted from me in the
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Speaker 1: evening with a word or glance of ambiguous meaning, thanks
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Speaker 1: to which it was to her that for the next
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Speaker 1: day or so my desire would turn it strayed among them,
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Speaker 1: all the more voluptuously in that upon those volatile faces.
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Speaker 1: A comparative fixation of features had now begun, and had
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Speaker 1: been carried far enough for the eye to distinguish even
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Speaker 1: if it were to change yet further each malleable and
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Speaker 1: floating effigy to the differences that existed among them. There
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Speaker 1: was doubtless very little that corresponded in the no less
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Speaker 1: marked differences in the length and breadth of those features,
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Speaker 1: any of which might perhaps dissimilar, as the girls appeared,
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Speaker 1: almost have been lifted bodily from one face and imposed
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Speaker 1: at random upon any other. But our knowledge of faces
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Speaker 1: is not mathematical in the first place. It does not
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Speaker 1: begin with the measurement of the parts. It takes as
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Speaker 1: its starting point and expression a combination of the whole.
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Speaker 1: In Andrea, for instance, the fineness of her gentle eyes
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Speaker 1: seemed to go with the thinness of her nose, as slender,
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Speaker 1: as a mere curve, which one could imagine as having
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Speaker 1: been traced in order to produce along a single line.
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Speaker 1: The idea of delicacy divided higher up between the dual
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Speaker 1: smile of her twin gaze. A line equally fine was
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Speaker 1: engraved in her hair, pliant and deep as the line
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Speaker 1: with which the wind furrows the sand, and in her
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Speaker 1: it must have been hereditary, for the snow white hair
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Speaker 1: of Andrea's mother was driven in the same way, forming
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Speaker 1: here a swelling, there a depression, like a snow drift
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Speaker 1: that rises or sinks according to the irregularities of the soil. Certainly,
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Speaker 1: when compared with the fine delineation of Andrea's, Rosamond's nose
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Speaker 1: seemed to present broad surfaces, like a high tower raised
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Speaker 1: upon massive foundations. Albeit expression suffices to make us believe
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Speaker 1: in enormous differences between things that are separated by infinitely little,
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Speaker 1: Albeit that infinitely little may by itself create an expression
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Speaker 1: that is absolutely unique and individuality. It was not only
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Speaker 1: by the infinitely little of its lines and the originality
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Speaker 1: of its expression that made each of these faces appear
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Speaker 1: irreducible to terms of any other. Between my friend's faces,
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Speaker 1: their coloring established a separation wider still not so much
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Speaker 1: by the varied beauty of the tones with which it
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Speaker 1: provided them, so contrasted that I felt when I looked
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Speaker 1: at Rosamond flooded with a sulfurous rose color, with the
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Speaker 1: further contrast of the greenish light in her eyes, and
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Speaker 1: then at Andrea, whose white cheeks received such an austere
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Speaker 1: distinction from her black hair, the same kind of pleasure
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Speaker 1: as if I had been looking alternately at a geranium
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Speaker 1: growing by a sunlit sea and a camellia in the night,
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Speaker 1: but principally because the infinitely little differences of their lines
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Speaker 1: were enlarged out of all proportion, the relations between one
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Speaker 1: and another's surface entirely changed by this new element of color, which,
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Speaker 1: in addition to being a dispenser of tints, is great
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Speaker 1: at restoring, or rather at altering dimensions, so that faces
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Speaker 1: which were perhaps constructed on not dissimilar lines according as
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Speaker 1: they were lighted by the flaming torch of an auburn
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Speaker 1: pole or high complexion, or by the white glimmer of
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Speaker 1: a dull pallor grew sharper or broader because something else,
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Speaker 1: like those properties used in the Russian ballet, consisting sometimes
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Speaker 1: when they are seen in the light of day, of
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Speaker 1: a mere disk of paper, out of which the genius
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Speaker 1: of a bask, according to the blood red or moonlit
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Speaker 1: effect in which he plunges his stage, makes a hard
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Speaker 1: incrustation like a turquoise on a palace wall, or swooning
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Speaker 1: softness as of a bangle rose in an eastern garden,
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Speaker 1: and so when acquiring knowledge of faces, we take careful measurements,
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Speaker 1: but as painters, not as surveyors. So it was with
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Speaker 1: Albertine as with her friends. On certain days, slim, with
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Speaker 1: gray cheeks, a sullen air, a violet transparency falling obliquely
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Speaker 1: from her, such as we notice sometimes on the sea,
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Speaker 1: she seemed to be feeling the sorrows of exile. On
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Speaker 1: other days, her face, more sleek, caught and glued my
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Speaker 1: desires to its varnished surface, and prevented them from going
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Speaker 1: any farther unless I caught a sudden glimpse of her
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Speaker 1: from the side. For her dull cheeks, like white wax
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Speaker 1: on the surface, were visibly pink beneath, which made me
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Speaker 1: anxious to kiss them, to reach that different tint, which
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Speaker 1: thus avoided my touch. At other times, happiness bathed her
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Speaker 1: cheeks with a clarity so mobile that the skin grown
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Speaker 1: fluid and vague, gave passage to a sort of stealthy
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Speaker 1: and subcutaneous gaze, which made it appear to be of
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Speaker 1: another color, but not of another substance than her eyes.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes instinctively, when one looked at her face punctuated with
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Speaker 1: tiny brown marks, among which floated what were simply two
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Speaker 1: larger blue stains. It was like looking at the egg
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Speaker 1: of a goldfinch, or often like an opalescent agate cut
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Speaker 1: and polished in two places, only where from the heart
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Speaker 1: of the brown stone shone like the transparent wings of
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Speaker 1: a sky blue butterfly. Her eyes those features in which
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Speaker 1: the flesh becomes a mirror and gives us the illusion
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Speaker 1: that it allows us, more than through the other parts
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Speaker 1: of the body, to approach the soul. But most often
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Speaker 1: of all she showed more color, and was then more animated.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes the only pink thing in her white face was
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Speaker 1: the tip of her nose, as finely pointed as that
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Speaker 1: of a mischievous kitten with which one would have liked
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Speaker 1: to stop and play. Sometimes her cheeks were so glossy
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Speaker 1: that one's glance slipped as over the surface of a miniature,
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Speaker 1: over their pink enamel, which was made to appear still
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Speaker 1: more delicate, more private, by the enclosing though half opened
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Speaker 1: case of her black hair. Or it might happen that
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Speaker 1: the tint of her cheeks had deepened to the violet
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Speaker 1: shade of the red cyclomen. And at times even when
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Speaker 1: she was flushed or feverish, with a suggestion of unhealthiness,
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Speaker 1: which lowered my desire to something more sensual, and made
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Speaker 1: her glance expressive of something more perverse and unwholesome, to
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Speaker 1: the deep purple of certain roses, a red that was
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Speaker 1: almost black. And each of these Albertines was different, as
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Speaker 1: in every fresh appearance of the dancer, whose colors form
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Speaker 1: character are transmuted according to the innumerably varied play of
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Speaker 1: a projected limelight. It was perhaps because they were so
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Speaker 1: different the persons whom I used to contemplate in her
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Speaker 1: at this period, that later on I became myself a
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Speaker 1: different person, corresponding to the particular Albertine to whom my
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Speaker 1: thoughts had turned. A jealous and indifferent, voluptuous and melancholy,
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Speaker 1: a frenzied person created a new not merely by the
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Speaker 1: accident of what memory had risen to the surface, but
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Speaker 1: in proportion also to the strength of the belief that
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Speaker 1: was lent to the support of one and the same memory,
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Speaker 1: by the varying manner in which I appreciated it. For
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Speaker 1: this is the point to which we must always return to,
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Speaker 1: these beliefs with which most of the time we are
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Speaker 1: quite unconsciously filled, but which for all that are of
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Speaker 1: more importance to our happiness than is the average person
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Speaker 1: whom we see. For it is through them that we
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Speaker 1: see him. It is they that impart his momentary greatness
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Speaker 1: to the person seen to be quite accurate, I ought
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Speaker 1: to give a different name to each of the mes
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Speaker 1: who were to think about Albertine in time to come.
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Speaker 1: I ought still more to give a different name to
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Speaker 1: each of the Albertines who appeared before me, never the
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Speaker 1: same like called by me simply and for the sake
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Speaker 1: of convenience. The sea, those seas that succeeded one another
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Speaker 1: on the beach in front of which a nymph, likewise
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Speaker 1: she stood apart, but above all in the same way
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Speaker 1: as in telling a story, though too far greater purpose.
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Speaker 1: Here one mentioned what the weather was like on such
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Speaker 1: and such a day. I ought always to give its
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Speaker 1: name to the belief that, on any given day on
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Speaker 1: which I saw, Albertine was raining in my soul, creating
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Speaker 1: its atmosphere. The appearance of people, like that of seas,
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Speaker 1: being dependent on those clouds themselves barely visible, which changed
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Speaker 1: the color of everything by their concentration, their mobility, their
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Speaker 1: dissemination their flight, like that cloud which Elster had rent
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Speaker 1: one evening by not introducing me to these girls with
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Speaker 1: whom he had stopped to talk, whereupon their forms as
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Speaker 1: they moved away had suddenly increased in beauty, a cloud
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Speaker 1: that had formed again a few days later when I
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Speaker 1: did get to know the girls, veiling, their brightness interposing
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Speaker 1: itself frequently between my eyes and them, opaque and soft
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Speaker 1: like Virgil's Lacothia. No doubt, all their faces had assumed
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Speaker 1: quite new meanings for me, since the manner in which
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Speaker 1: they were to be read had been to some extent
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Speaker 1: indicated to me by their talk, talk to which I
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Speaker 1: could ascribe a value, all the greater in that by
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Speaker 1: questioning them I could prompt it whenever I chose, could
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Speaker 1: vary it, like an experimenter who seeks, by corroborative proofs
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Speaker 1: to establish the truth of his theory. And it is,
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Speaker 1: after all, as good a way as any of solving
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Speaker 1: the problem of existence, to approach near enough to the
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Speaker 1: things that have appeared to us from a distance to
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Speaker 1: be beautiful and mysterious, to be able to satisfy ourselves
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Speaker 1: that they have neither mystery nor beauty. It is one
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Speaker 1: of the systems of hygiene among which we are at
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Speaker 1: liberty to choose our own, a system which is perhaps
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Speaker 1: not to be recommended too strongly, but it gives us
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Speaker 1: a certain tranquility with which to spend what remains of life.
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Speaker 1: And also since it enables us to regret nothing, by
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Speaker 1: assuring us that we have attained to the best, and
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Speaker 1: that the best was nothing out of the common with
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Speaker 1: which to resign ourselves to death. I had now substituted
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Speaker 1: in the brain of these four girls their supposed contempt
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Speaker 1: for chastity, their memories of daily incidents, honest principles liable,
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Speaker 1: it might be, to relaxation, but principles which had hitherto
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Speaker 1: kept unscathed the children who had acquired them in their
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Speaker 1: own respectable homes. And Yet, when one has been mistaken
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Speaker 1: from the start, even in trifling details, when an error
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Speaker 1: of assumption or recollection makes one seek for the author
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Speaker 1: of a malicious slander, or for the place where one
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Speaker 1: has lost something in the wrong direction, it frequently happens
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Speaker 1: that one discovers one's error, only to substitute for it
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Speaker 1: not the truth but a fresh error. I drew so
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Speaker 1: far as their manner of life and the proper way
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Speaker 1: to behave with them. Went all the possible conclusions from
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Speaker 1: the word innocence, which I had read in talking familiarly
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Speaker 1: with them upon their faces. But perhaps I had been
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Speaker 1: reading carelessly, with the inaccuracy born of a too rapid deciphering,
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Speaker 1: and it was no more written there than was the
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Speaker 1: name of Jules Fairy on the program of the performance
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Speaker 1: at which I had heard Behrma for the first time,
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Speaker 1: an omission which had not prevented me from maintaining to
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Speaker 1: Monsieur d' n'orpois that Jewles Fairy, beyond any possibility of
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Speaker 1: a doubt, was a person who wrote curtain raisers, no
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Speaker 1: matter which it might be. Of my friends of the
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Speaker 1: Little Band, was not inevitably the face that I had
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Speaker 1: last seen, only the face that I could recall since
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Speaker 1: of our memories with respect to a person. The mind
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Speaker 1: eliminates everything that does not agree with our immediate purpose
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Speaker 1: of our daily relations, especially if those relations are quickened
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Speaker 1: with an element of love, which, ever unsatisfied, lives always
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Speaker 1: in the moment that is about to come. That purpose
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Speaker 1: allows the chain of spent days to slip away, holding
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Speaker 1: on only to the very end of it, often of
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Speaker 1: a quite different metal from the links that have vanished
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Speaker 1: in the night, and in the journey which we make
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Speaker 1: through life counts as real only in the place in
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Speaker 1: which we, at any given moment are But all those
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Speaker 1: earliest impressions, already so remote, could not find, against the
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Speaker 1: blunting process that assailed them day after day, any remedy
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Speaker 1: in my memory. During the long hours which I spent
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Speaker 1: in talking, eating, playing with these girls, I did not
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Speaker 1: remember even that they were the same ruthless, sensual virgins
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Speaker 1: whom I had seen as in a fresco file past
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Speaker 1: me and the sea. Geographers archaeologists may conduct us over
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Speaker 1: Calypso's island, may excavate the palace of Minos. Only Calypso
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Speaker 1: becomes then nothing more than a woman Minos, than a king,
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Speaker 1: with no semblance of divinity. Even the good and bad
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Speaker 1: qualities which history teaches us to have been the attributes
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Speaker 1: of those quite real personages often differ widely from those
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Speaker 1: which we had ascribed to the fabulous beings who bore
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Speaker 1: the same names as they thus had their fated and vanished.
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Speaker 1: All the lovely mythology of ocean which I had composed
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Speaker 1: in those first days. But it is not altogether immaterial
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Speaker 1: that we do succeed at any rate now and then
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Speaker 1: in spending our time in familiar intercourse with what we
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Speaker 1: have thought to be unattainable and have longed to possess.
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Speaker 1: In our later dealings with people whom at first we
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Speaker 1: found disagreeable, there persists, always, even among the artificial pleasure
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Speaker 1: which we have come at length to enjoy in their society,
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Speaker 1: the lingering taint of the defects which they have succeeded
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Speaker 1: in hiding. But in relations such as I was now
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Speaker 1: having with Albertine and her friends, the genuine pleasure which
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Speaker 1: there was at the start, leaves that fragrance which no
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Speaker 1: amount of skill can impart. To hot house fruits, to
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Speaker 1: grapes that have not ripened in the sun. The supernatural
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Speaker 1: creatures which for a little time they had been to me,
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Speaker 1: still introduced, even without any intention on my part, a
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Speaker 1: miraculous element into the most commonplace dealings that I might
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Speaker 1: have with them, or rather prevented such dealings from ever
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Speaker 1: becoming commonplace at all. My desire had sought so ardently
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Speaker 1: to learn the significance of the eyes which now knew
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Speaker 1: and smiled to see me, but whose glances on the
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Speaker 1: first day had crossed mind like rays from another universe.
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Speaker 1: It had distributed so generously, so carefully, so minutely, color
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Speaker 1: and fragrance over the carnation surfaces of these girls, who
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Speaker 1: now outstretched on the cliff top, were simply offering me
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Speaker 1: sandwiches or guessing riddles that often in the afternoon while
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Speaker 1: I lay there among them, Like those painters who seek
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Speaker 1: to match the grandeurs of antiquity in modern life, give
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Speaker 1: to a woman cutting her toenail the nobility of the spinario,
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Speaker 1: or like Rubens, make goddesses out of women whom they
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Speaker 1: know to some people mythological scene. At those lovely forms,
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Speaker 1: dark and fair, so dissimilar in type, scattered around me
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Speaker 1: in the grass, I would gaze without emptying them, perhaps
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Speaker 1: of all the mediocre contents with which my everyday experience
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Speaker 1: had filled them, and at the same time, without expressly
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Speaker 1: recalling their heavenly origin, as if, like young Hercules or
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Speaker 1: young Telemachus, I had been set to play amid a
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Speaker 1: band of nymphs. Then the concerts ended, the bad weather began.
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Speaker 1: My friends left Bullbeck, not all at once like the swallows,
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Speaker 1: but all in the same week, Albertine was the first
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Speaker 1: to go abruptly, without any of her friend's understanding then
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Speaker 1: or afterwards. Why she had returned suddenly to Paris, Whither
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Speaker 1: neither her work nor any amusement summoned her? She said,
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Speaker 1: neither why nor wherefore? And with that she left, muttered Francois,
20:35
Speaker 1: who for that matter would have liked us to leave
20:38
Speaker 1: as well? We were, she thought, in considerate towards the staff,
20:42
Speaker 1: now greatly reduced in number, but retained on account of
20:45
Speaker 1: the few visitors who were still staying on, and towards
20:48
Speaker 1: the manager, who was just eating up money. It was
20:51
Speaker 1: true that the hotel, which would very soon be closed
20:54
Speaker 1: for the winter, had long since seen most of its
20:56
Speaker 1: patrons depart, But never had it been so attractive. This
21:00
Speaker 1: view was not shared by the manager. From end to
21:03
Speaker 1: end of the rooms in which we sat shivering, and
21:06
Speaker 1: at the doors of which no page now stood on guard,
21:09
Speaker 1: he paced the corridors, wearing a new frock coat so
21:12
Speaker 1: well tended by the hair dresser that his insipid face
21:15
Speaker 1: appeared to be made of some composition in which for
21:18
Speaker 1: one part of flesh there were three of cosmetics. Incessantly
21:22
Speaker 1: changing his neckties. These refinements cost less than having the
21:26
Speaker 1: place heated and keeping on the staff. Just as a
21:28
Speaker 1: man who is no longer able to subscribe ten thousand
21:31
Speaker 1: francs to a charity can still parade his generosity without
21:34
Speaker 1: inconvenience to himself. By tipping the boy who brings him
21:38
Speaker 1: a telegram with five. He appeared to be inspecting the
21:41
Speaker 1: empty air, to be seeking to give, by the spartness
21:44
Speaker 1: of his personal appearance, a provisional splendor to the desolation
21:48
Speaker 1: that could now be felt in his hotel, where the
21:51
Speaker 1: season has not been good, and walked like the ghost
21:54
Speaker 1: of a monarch who returns to haunt the ruins of
21:56
Speaker 1: what was once his palace. He was particularly annoyed when
22:00
Speaker 1: the local railway company, finding the supply of passengers inadequate,
22:05
Speaker 1: discontinued its trains until the following spring. What is lacking here,
22:09
Speaker 1: said the manager, is the means of commotion. In spite
22:12
Speaker 1: of the deficit which his books showed, he was making
22:15
Speaker 1: plans for the future on a lavish scale, and as
22:19
Speaker 1: he was, after all capable of retaining an exact memory
22:22
Speaker 1: of fine language when it was directly applicable to the
22:25
Speaker 1: hotel keeping industry, and had the effect of enhancing its importance.
22:29
Speaker 1: I was not adequately supported, although in the dining room
22:32
Speaker 1: I had an efficient squad, he explained, but the pages
22:36
Speaker 1: left something to be desired. You will see next year
22:39
Speaker 1: what a fealanx I shall collect. In the meantime, the
22:43
Speaker 1: suspension of the services of the b c B obliged
22:46
Speaker 1: him to send for letters and occasionally to dispatch visitors
22:49
Speaker 1: in a light cart. I would often ask leave to
22:52
Speaker 1: sit by the driver, and in this way I managed
22:54
Speaker 1: to be out in all weathers, as in the winter
22:57
Speaker 1: that I had spent at Combray. Sometimes, however, the driving
23:02
Speaker 1: rain kept my grandmother and me the casino being closed
23:05
Speaker 1: in rooms almost completely deserted, as in the lowest hold
23:09
Speaker 1: of a ship when a storm is raging. And there,
23:11
Speaker 1: day by day, as in the course of a sea voyage,
23:14
Speaker 1: a new person from among those in whose company we
23:16
Speaker 1: had spent three months without getting to know them. The
23:19
Speaker 1: chief magistrate from Cayenne, the leader of the Schubourg bar
23:23
Speaker 1: an American lady and her daughters, came up to us,
23:26
Speaker 1: started conversation, discovered some way of making the time pass less.
23:30
Speaker 1: Slowly revealed some social accomplishment, taught us a new game,
23:34
Speaker 1: invited us to drink tea or listen to music, to
23:38
Speaker 1: meet them at a certain hour, to plan together some
23:40
Speaker 1: of those diversions which contain the true secret of pleasure giving,
23:43
Speaker 1: which is to aim not at giving pleasure, but simply
23:46
Speaker 1: at helping us to pass the time of our boredom.
23:49
Speaker 1: In a word, formed with us at the end of
23:52
Speaker 1: our stay at Baalbeck ties of friendship, which in a
23:55
Speaker 1: day or two their successive departures from the place would sever.
24:00
Speaker 1: I even made the acquaintance of the rich young man,
24:02
Speaker 1: one of his pair of aristocratic friends, and of the actress,
24:06
Speaker 1: who had reappeared for a few days. But their little
24:08
Speaker 1: society was composed now of three persons, only the other
24:12
Speaker 1: friend having returned to Paris. They asked me to come
24:15
Speaker 1: out to dinner with them at their restaurant. I think
24:18
Speaker 1: they were just as well pleased that I did not accept,
24:21
Speaker 1: But they had given the invitation in the most friendly
24:23
Speaker 1: way imaginable, and albeit it came actually from the rich
24:27
Speaker 1: young man, since the others were only his guests, as
24:30
Speaker 1: the friend who was staying with him, the Marquis Maurice
24:33
Speaker 1: de Vaudemont came of a very good family. Indeed, instinctively
24:37
Speaker 1: the actress, in asking me whether I would not come, said,
24:40
Speaker 1: to flatter my vanity, Maurice will be so pleased. And
24:45
Speaker 1: when in the hall of the hotel I met them
24:47
Speaker 1: all three together, it was Monsieur de Vaudemont, the rich
24:50
Speaker 1: young man of facing himself, who said to me, won't
24:53
Speaker 1: you give us the pleasure of dining with us? On
24:57
Speaker 1: the whole I had derived very little benefit from Baulbeck,
25:00
Speaker 1: but this only strengthened my desire to return there. It
25:03
Speaker 1: seemed to me that I had not stayed there long enough.
25:06
Speaker 1: This was not what my friends at home were thinking,
25:08
Speaker 1: who wrote to ask whether I meant to stay there
25:10
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life? And when I saw
25:13
Speaker 1: that it was the name bald Beck, which they were
25:15
Speaker 1: obliged to put on the envelope. Just as my window
25:18
Speaker 1: looked out not over a landscape or a street, but
25:21
Speaker 1: on to the plains of the sea. As I heard
25:23
Speaker 1: through the night its murmur to which I had before
25:26
Speaker 1: going to sleep, and trusted my ship of dreams, I
25:28
Speaker 1: had the illusion that this life of promiscuity with the
25:31
Speaker 1: waves must, effectively without my knowledge, purveyed me with the
25:36
Speaker 1: notion of their charm, like those lessons which one learns
25:39
Speaker 1: by heart while one is asleep. The manager offered to
25:43
Speaker 1: reserve better rooms for me next year, but I had
25:45
Speaker 1: now become attached to mine, into which I went without
25:49
Speaker 1: ever noticing the scent of flowering grasses. While my mind,
25:52
Speaker 1: which had once found such difficulty in rising to fill
25:55
Speaker 1: its space, had come now to take its measurements so
25:58
Speaker 1: exactly that I was obliged to submit it to a
26:01
Speaker 1: reverse process. When I had to sleep in Paris in
26:04
Speaker 1: my own room, the ceiling of which was low, it
26:08
Speaker 1: was high time, indeed, to leave Ballbeck, for the cold
26:11
Speaker 1: and damp had become too penetrating for us to stay
26:13
Speaker 1: any longer in a hotel which had neither fireplaces in
26:16
Speaker 1: the rooms nor a central furnace. Moreover, I forgot almost
26:20
Speaker 1: immediately these last weeks of our stay what my mind's
26:24
Speaker 1: I did almost invariably see when I thought of ball Beck,
26:27
Speaker 1: were the hours which every morning, during the fine weather,
26:30
Speaker 1: as I was going out in the afternoon with Albertine
26:32
Speaker 1: and her friends, my grandmother, following the doctor's orders, insisted
26:37
Speaker 1: on my spending lying down with the room darkened. The
26:41
Speaker 1: manager gave instructions that no noise was to be made
26:43
Speaker 1: on my landing, and came up himself to see that
26:46
Speaker 1: they were obeyed. Because the light outside was so strong,
26:49
Speaker 1: I kept drawn for as long as possible the big
26:51
Speaker 1: violet curtains, which had adopted so hostile an attitude towards
26:54
Speaker 1: me the first evening. But as in spite of the
26:58
Speaker 1: pins with which so that the light should not enter,
27:01
Speaker 1: Fransois fastened them every night, pins which she alone knew
27:05
Speaker 1: how to unfasten. As in spite of the rugs, the
27:09
Speaker 1: red creatin table cover, the various fabrics collected here and there,
27:13
Speaker 1: which she fitted in to her defensive scheme, she never
27:16
Speaker 1: succeeded in making them meet exactly. The darkness was not complete,
27:21
Speaker 1: and they allowed to spill over the carpet, as it
27:23
Speaker 1: were a scarlet shower of anemone petals, among which I
27:26
Speaker 1: could not resist the temptation to plunge my bare feet
27:29
Speaker 1: for a moment. And on the wall which faced the
27:32
Speaker 1: window and so was partially lighted, a cylinder of gold,
27:35
Speaker 1: with no visible support was placed vertically and moved slowly along,
27:40
Speaker 1: like the pillar of fire which went before the Hebrews
27:42
Speaker 1: in the desert. I went back to bed, obliged to
27:45
Speaker 1: taste without moving in imagination only, and all at once.
27:49
Speaker 1: The pleasures of games, bathing walks, which the morning prompted joy,
27:54
Speaker 1: made my heart beat thunderingly, like a machine set going
27:57
Speaker 1: at full speed but fixed to the ground, which can
28:00
Speaker 1: spend its energy only by turning upon its own axis.
28:04
Speaker 1: I knew that my friends were on the front, but
28:06
Speaker 1: I did not see them as they passed before the
28:08
Speaker 1: links of the sea's uneven chain, far at the back
28:11
Speaker 1: of which, and nestling amid its bluish peaks like an
28:14
Speaker 1: Italian citadel, one would occasionally, in a clear moment, make
28:18
Speaker 1: out the little town of roof Bell, drawn in my
28:21
Speaker 1: nudest detail by the sun. I did not see my friends,
28:25
Speaker 1: but while there mounted to my belvidere, the shout of
28:27
Speaker 1: the newsboy the journalists, as Francois used to call them,
28:31
Speaker 1: the shouts of the bathers and of children at play,
28:34
Speaker 1: punctuating like the cries of sea birds the sound of
28:37
Speaker 1: the gently breaking waves. I guessed their presence. I heard
28:41
Speaker 1: their laughter, enveloped like the laughter of the nereids, in
28:45
Speaker 1: the smooth tide of sound that rose to my ears
28:49
Speaker 1: We looked up, said Albertine, in the evening to see
28:51
Speaker 1: if you were coming down, But your shutters were still closed.
28:54
Speaker 1: When the concerts began at ten o'clock, sure enough it
28:58
Speaker 1: broke out beneath my windows. In the intervals, in the
29:01
Speaker 1: blare of the instruments, if the tide were high, would
29:03
Speaker 1: begin again, slurred and continuous, the gliding surge of a
29:08
Speaker 1: wave which seemed to unfold the notes of the viotlin
29:10
Speaker 1: in its crystal spirals, and to be sprang its foam
29:13
Speaker 1: over echoes of a submarine music. I grew impatient, because
29:18
Speaker 1: no one had yet come with my things so that
29:20
Speaker 1: I might rise and dress. Twelve o'clock struck Francois arrived
29:24
Speaker 1: at last, and for months on end in this Ballbeck
29:28
Speaker 1: to which I had so looked forward, because I imagined
29:30
Speaker 1: it only as battered by the storm and buried in fogs.
29:34
Speaker 1: The weather had been so dazzling and so unchanging, that
29:37
Speaker 1: when she came to open the window, I could, always,
29:39
Speaker 1: without once being wrong, expect to see the same patch
29:43
Speaker 1: of sunlight folded in the corner of the outer wall,
29:46
Speaker 1: of an unalterable color, which was less moving as a
29:49
Speaker 1: sign of summer than depressing as the color of a
29:52
Speaker 1: lifeless and composed enamel, And after Francois had removed her
29:56
Speaker 1: pins from the moldings of the window frame, taken down
29:59
Speaker 1: her various cloth, and drawn back the curtains, the summer
30:02
Speaker 1: day which she disclosed seemed as dead, as immemorially as
30:07
Speaker 1: ancient as would have been a sumptuously attired dynastic mummy,
30:12
Speaker 1: from which our old servants had done no more than
30:14
Speaker 1: precautionally unwind the linen wrappings before displaying it to my gaze,
30:20
Speaker 1: embalmed in its vesture of gold. End of Section forty nine.
30:27
Speaker 1: End of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, translated
30:32
Speaker 1: by C. K. Scott Moncrief,