Latest / Swanns Way / 57 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Part four, Section three of Swan's Way by Marcel Preuss.
- 0:06Speaker 1: The sleebrivox recording is in the public domain recording by
- 0:09Speaker 1: expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Part four place names the name
- 0:15Speaker 1: Section three. Francoise found it too cold to stand about,
- 0:21Speaker 1: so we walked to the Pont de la Concour to
- 0:23Speaker 1: see the same frozen over onto which every one, even children,
- 0:27Speaker 1: walked fearlessly, as though upon an enormous whale stranded defenseless
- 0:33Speaker 1: and about to be cut up. We returned to the Champelisee.
- 0:37Speaker 1: I was growing sick with misery between the motionless wooden
- 0:41Speaker 1: horses and the white lawn caught in a net of
- 0:44Speaker 1: black paths from which the snow had been cleared, while
- 0:47Speaker 1: the statue that surmounted it held in its hand a
- 0:50Speaker 1: long pendent icicle, which seemed to explain its gesture. The
- 0:55Speaker 1: old lady herself, having folded up her debates, asked a
- 0:59Speaker 1: passing nurse maids, thanking her with how very good of you,
- 1:03Speaker 1: then begged the road sweeper to tell her grandchildren to come,
- 1:06Speaker 1: as she felt cold, adding a thousand thanks. I am
- 1:10Speaker 1: sorry to give you so much trouble. Suddenly the sky
- 1:13Speaker 1: was rent in too, between the punch and Judy and
- 1:17Speaker 1: the horses against the opening horizon. I had just seen,
- 1:21Speaker 1: like a miraculous sign, Mademoiselle's blue feather, And now Gilbert
- 1:26Speaker 1: was running at full speed towards me, sparkling and rosy
- 1:30Speaker 1: beneath a cap trimmed with fur, enlivened by the cold
- 1:34Speaker 1: by being late by her anxiety for a game. Shortly
- 1:37Speaker 1: before she reached me, she slipped on a piece of ice, and,
- 1:41Speaker 1: either to regain her balance or because it appeared to
- 1:44Speaker 1: her graceful, or else pretending that she was on skates.
- 1:48Speaker 1: It was with outstretched arms that she smilingly advanced as
- 1:51Speaker 1: though to embrace me. Bravo, bravo that splendid topping. I
- 1:56Speaker 1: should say, like you, sporting, I suppose I ought to say,
- 2:00Speaker 1: only I'm a hundred and one a woman of the
- 2:02Speaker 1: old school, exclaimed the lady, uttering on behalf of the
- 2:05Speaker 1: voiceless Champalisee. There thanks to Jilbert for having come without
- 2:10Speaker 1: letting herself be frightened away by the weather. You are,
- 2:14Speaker 1: like me, faithful at all costs to our old champ Elisee.
- 2:17Speaker 1: We are two brave souls. You wouldn't believe me. I
- 2:20Speaker 1: dare say if I told you that I'd love them
- 2:23Speaker 1: even like this this snow, I know you'll laugh at me.
- 2:26Speaker 1: It makes me think of ermine, and the old lady
- 2:29Speaker 1: began to laugh at herself. The first of these days,
- 2:33Speaker 1: to which the snow, a symbol of the powers that
- 2:36Speaker 1: were able to deprive me of the sight of Jilbert,
- 2:39Speaker 1: imparted the sadness of a day of separation almost the
- 2:43Speaker 1: aspect of a day of departure, because it changed the
- 2:46Speaker 1: outward form and almost forbade the use of the customary
- 2:50Speaker 1: scene of our only encounters, now altered, covered as it
- 2:55Speaker 1: were in dust sheets, that day nonetheless marked the stage
- 2:59Speaker 1: in the progress of my love, for it was, in
- 3:02Speaker 1: a sense the first sorrow that she was to share
- 3:04Speaker 1: with me. There were only our two selves, of our
- 3:07Speaker 1: little company, and to be thus alone with her was
- 3:11Speaker 1: not merely like a beginning of intimacy, but also on
- 3:14Speaker 1: her part, as though she had come there solely to
- 3:17Speaker 1: please me, and in such weather it seemed to me
- 3:20Speaker 1: as touching, as if on one of those days on
- 3:23Speaker 1: which she had been invited to a party, she had
- 3:25Speaker 1: given it up in order to come to me in
- 3:27Speaker 1: the champ elysee, I acquired more confidence in the vitality
- 3:32Speaker 1: in the future of a friendship which could remain so
- 3:35Speaker 1: much alive amid the torpor, the solitude, the decay of
- 3:39Speaker 1: our surroundings. And while she dropped pellets of snow down
- 3:43Speaker 1: my neck, I smiled lovingly at what seemed to me
- 3:46Speaker 1: at once a predilection that she showed for me in
- 3:49Speaker 1: this tolerating me as her traveling companion in this new
- 3:53Speaker 1: this wintry land, and a sort of loyalty to me
- 3:56Speaker 1: which she preserved through evil times. Presently, one after another,
- 4:01Speaker 1: like shyly hopping sparrows, her friends arrived, black against the snow.
- 4:07Speaker 1: We got ready to play, and since this day, which
- 4:10Speaker 1: had begun so sadly, was destined to end in joy,
- 4:13Speaker 1: As I went up before the game started to the
- 4:15Speaker 1: friend with a sharp voice whom I had heard that
- 4:18Speaker 1: first day calling Gilbert by name, she said to me, No, No,
- 4:22Speaker 1: I'm sure you'd much rather be in Gilbert's camp. Besides,
- 4:25Speaker 1: look she's signaling to you. She was, in fact summoning
- 4:29Speaker 1: me to cross the snowy lawn to her camp, to
- 4:32Speaker 1: take the field which the sun by casting over it
- 4:35Speaker 1: a rosy gleam, the metallic luster of old and worn
- 4:39Speaker 1: brocades had turned into a field of the cloth of gold.
- 4:43Speaker 1: This day, which I had begun with so many misgivings, was,
- 4:47Speaker 1: as it happened, one of the few on which I
- 4:49Speaker 1: was not unduly wretched. For although I no longer thought
- 4:53Speaker 1: now of anything save not to let a single day
- 4:56Speaker 1: pass without seeing Gilbert, so much so that one when
- 5:00Speaker 1: my grandmother had not come home by dinner time, I
- 5:03Speaker 1: could not resist the instinctive reflection that if she had
- 5:06Speaker 1: been run over in the street and killed, I should
- 5:09Speaker 1: not for some time be allowed to play in the
- 5:11Speaker 1: champ Elysee, when one is in love, one has no
- 5:15Speaker 1: love left for anyone. Yet those moments which I spent
- 5:18Speaker 1: in her company for which I had waited with so
- 5:21Speaker 1: much impatience all night and morning, for which I had
- 5:24Speaker 1: quivered with excitement to which I would have sacrificed everything
- 5:28Speaker 1: else in the world, were by no means happy moments.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Well did I know it, For they were the only
- 5:34Speaker 1: moments in my life and which I concentrated a scrupulous,
- 5:38Speaker 1: undistracted attention. And yet I could not discover in them
- 5:42Speaker 1: one atom of pleasure. All the time that I was
- 5:45Speaker 1: away from Jilbert. I wanted to see her, because, having
- 5:48Speaker 1: incessantly sought to form a mental picture of her, I
- 5:52Speaker 1: was unable in the end to do so, and did
- 5:55Speaker 1: not know exactly to what my love corresponded. Besides, she
- 5:59Speaker 1: had never yet told me that she loved me. Far
- 6:02Speaker 1: from it. She had often boasted that she knew other
- 6:04Speaker 1: little boys whom she preferred to myself, that I was
- 6:08Speaker 1: a good companion with whom she was always willing to play,
- 6:11Speaker 1: although I was too absent minded, not attentive enough to
- 6:15Speaker 1: the game. Moreover, she had often shown signs of apparent
- 6:19Speaker 1: coldness towards me, which might have shaken my faith that
- 6:22Speaker 1: I was, for her a creature different from the rest,
- 6:25Speaker 1: had that faith been founded upon a love that Jilbert
- 6:28Speaker 1: had felt for me, and not, as was the case,
- 6:32Speaker 1: upon the love that I felt for her, which strengthened
- 6:35Speaker 1: its resistance to the assaults of doubt by making it
- 6:38Speaker 1: depend entirely upon the manner in which I was obliged
- 6:41Speaker 1: by an internal compulsion to think of Jilbert. But my
- 6:45Speaker 1: feelings with regard to her I had never yet ventured
- 6:48Speaker 1: to express to her in words. Of course, on every
- 6:51Speaker 1: page of my exercise books, I wrote out in endless
- 6:55Speaker 1: repetition her name and address. But at the sight of
- 6:58Speaker 1: those vague lines which I might trace without her having
- 7:01Speaker 1: to think on that account of me, I felt discouraged,
- 7:05Speaker 1: because they spoke to me not of Gilbert, who would
- 7:08Speaker 1: never so much as see them, but of my own desire,
- 7:11Speaker 1: which they seemed to show me in its true colors,
- 7:14Speaker 1: as something purely personal, unreal, tedious, and ineffective. The most
- 7:20Speaker 1: important thing was that we should see each other, Gilbert
- 7:23Speaker 1: and I, and should have an opportunity of making a
- 7:26Speaker 1: mutual confession of our love, which until then would not officially,
- 7:30Speaker 1: so to speak, have begun. Doubtless, the various reasons which
- 7:34Speaker 1: made me so impatient to see her would have appeared
- 7:37Speaker 1: less urgent to a grown man. As life goes on,
- 7:41Speaker 1: we acquire such adroitness in the culture of our pleasures
- 7:45Speaker 1: that we content ourselves with that which we derive from
- 7:47Speaker 1: thinking of a woman, as I was thinking of Gilbert,
- 7:51Speaker 1: without troubling ourselves to ascertain whether the image corresponds to
- 7:55Speaker 1: the reality, and with the pleasure of loving her, without
- 7:59Speaker 1: needing to be sure also that she loves us, or
- 8:02Speaker 1: again that we renounced the pleasure of confessing our passion
- 8:05Speaker 1: for her, so as to preserve and enhance the passion
- 8:08Speaker 1: that she has for us, like those Japanese gardeners who
- 8:12Speaker 1: to obtain one perfect blossom will sacrifice the rest. But
- 8:16Speaker 1: at the period when I was in love with Jolbert,
- 8:19Speaker 1: I still believed that love did really exist apart from ourselves,
- 8:23Speaker 1: that allowing us at the most to surmount the obstacles
- 8:26Speaker 1: in our way, it offered us its blessings in an
- 8:29Speaker 1: order in which we were not free to make the
- 8:32Speaker 1: least alteration. It seemed to me that if I had,
- 8:35Speaker 1: on my own initiative, substituted for the sweetness of a
- 8:38Speaker 1: confession a pretense of indifference, I should not only have
- 8:42Speaker 1: been depriving myself of one of the joys of which
- 8:44Speaker 1: I had most often dreamed, I should have been fabricating,
- 8:48Speaker 1: of my own free will, a love that was artificial
- 8:51Speaker 1: and without value, that bore no relation to the truth,
- 8:55Speaker 1: whose mysterious and foreordained ways I should thus have been
- 8:58Speaker 1: declining to follow. But when I arrived at the champ Elysee,
- 9:03Speaker 1: and as at first sight it appeared, was in a
- 9:05Speaker 1: position to confront my love so as to make it
- 9:08Speaker 1: undergo the necessary modifications with its living and independent cause.
- 9:13Speaker 1: As soon as I was in the presence of that
- 9:15Speaker 1: Jilbert Swan on the side of whom I had counted
- 9:18Speaker 1: to revive the images that my tired memory had lost
- 9:22Speaker 1: and could not find again. Of that Jilbert Swan with
- 9:25Speaker 1: whom I had been playing the day before, and whom
- 9:28Speaker 1: I had just been prompted to greet and then to
- 9:30Speaker 1: recognize by a blind instinct, like that which, when we
- 9:34Speaker 1: are walking, sets one foot before the other without giving
- 9:37Speaker 1: us time to think what we are doing. Then at
- 9:40Speaker 1: once it became as though she and the little girl
- 9:42Speaker 1: who had inspired my dreams had been two different people. If,
- 9:47Speaker 1: for instance, I had retained in my memory over night
- 9:50Speaker 1: two fiery eyes above plump and rosy cheeks, Gilbert's face
- 9:55Speaker 1: would now offer me, and with emphasis, something that I
- 9:58Speaker 1: distinctly had not remember, a certain sharpening and prolongation of
- 10:03Speaker 1: the nose, which, instantaneously, associating itself with certain others of
- 10:08Speaker 1: her features, assumed the importance of those characteristics which in
- 10:12Speaker 1: natural history are used to define a species, and transformed
- 10:17Speaker 1: her into a little girl of the kind that have
- 10:19Speaker 1: sharpened profiles. While I was making myself ready to take
- 10:23Speaker 1: advantage of this long expected moment, and to surrender myself
- 10:27Speaker 1: to the impression of Jolbert, which I had prepared beforehand,
- 10:30Speaker 1: but could no longer find in my head to an
- 10:33Speaker 1: extent which would enable me, during the long hours which
- 10:36Speaker 1: I must spend alone, to be certain that it was
- 10:38Speaker 1: indeed herself whom I had in mind, that it was
- 10:41Speaker 1: indeed my love for her that I was gradually making grow,
- 10:45Speaker 1: as a book grows when one is writing it. She
- 10:47Speaker 1: threw me a ball, and, like the idealist philosopher whose
- 10:51Speaker 1: body takes account of the external world, in the reality
- 10:54Speaker 1: of which his intellect declines to believe, the same self
- 10:58Speaker 1: which had made me salute her before I had identified her,
- 11:01Speaker 1: now urged me to catch the ball that she tossed
- 11:04Speaker 1: to me, as though she had been a companion with
- 11:07Speaker 1: whom I had come to play, and not a sister
- 11:10Speaker 1: soul with whom my soul had come to be united.
- 11:13Speaker 1: Made me out of politeness until the time came when
- 11:16Speaker 1: she had to go address a thousand polite and trivial
- 11:20Speaker 1: remarks to her, and so prevented me both from keeping
- 11:23Speaker 1: a silence in which I might at last have laid
- 11:26Speaker 1: my hand upon the indispensable escaped idea, and from uttering
- 11:31Speaker 1: the words which might have made that definite progress in
- 11:33Speaker 1: the course of our love, on which I was always
- 11:36Speaker 1: obliged to count only for the following afternoon. There was, however,
- 11:40Speaker 1: an occasional development. One day, we had gone with Jilbert
- 11:44Speaker 1: to the stall of our own special vendor, who was
- 11:47Speaker 1: always particularly nice to us, since it was to her
- 11:50Speaker 1: that Monsieur Swan used to send for his gingerbread, of
- 11:53Speaker 1: which for reasons of health he suffered from a racial exzema,
- 11:58Speaker 1: and from the constipation of the price he consumed a
- 12:01Speaker 1: great quantity. Jilbert pointed out to me with a laugh,
- 12:04Speaker 1: two little boys who were like the Little Artist and
- 12:07Speaker 1: the Little Naturalist in the children's story books. For one
- 12:11Speaker 1: of them would not have a red stick of rock
- 12:13Speaker 1: because he preferred the purple, while the other, with tears
- 12:16Speaker 1: in his eyes, refused a plumb which his nurse was
- 12:19Speaker 1: buying for him, because, as he finally explained in passionate tones,
- 12:23Speaker 1: I want the other plum. It's got a worm in it.
- 12:26Speaker 1: I purchased two hapenny marbles with admiring eyes I saw
- 12:30Speaker 1: luminous and imprisoned in a bowl by themselves, the Agate marbles,
- 12:35Speaker 1: which seemed precious to me because they were as fair
- 12:38Speaker 1: and smiling as little girls, and because they cost five
- 12:41Speaker 1: pence each Jilbert, who was given a great deal more
- 12:45Speaker 1: pocket money than I ever had asked me, which I
- 12:48Speaker 1: thought the prettiest. They were as transparent as liquid, seeming
- 12:52Speaker 1: as life itself. I would not have had her sacrifice
- 12:55Speaker 1: a single one of them. I should have liked her
- 12:57Speaker 1: to be able to buy them, to liberate them. Still,
- 13:01Speaker 1: I pointed out one that had the same color as
- 13:03Speaker 1: her eyes. Gilbert took it, turned it about until it
- 13:06Speaker 1: shone with a ray of gold, fondled it, paid its ransom,
- 13:11Speaker 1: but at once handed me her captives, saying take it.
- 13:14Speaker 1: It is for you. I give it to you. Keep
- 13:16Speaker 1: it to remind yourself of me. Another time, being still
- 13:20Speaker 1: obsessed by the desire to hear Berrima and the classic drama,
- 13:24Speaker 1: I had asked her whether she had not a copy
- 13:26Speaker 1: of a pamphlet in which Bergot spoke of Racine, and
- 13:29Speaker 1: which was now out of print. She had told me
- 13:32Speaker 1: to let her know the exact title of it, and
- 13:34Speaker 1: that evening I had sent her a little telegram, writing
- 13:37Speaker 1: on its envelope the name Gilbert Swan, which I had
- 13:40Speaker 1: so often traced in my exercise books. Next day she
- 13:44Speaker 1: brought me in a parcel tied with pink bows and
- 13:47Speaker 1: sealed with white wax, the pamphlet, a copy of which
- 13:51Speaker 1: she had managed to find. You see, it is what
- 13:53Speaker 1: you asked me for, she said, taking from her muff
- 13:56Speaker 1: the telegram that I had sent her. But in the
- 13:59Speaker 1: address on the new message, which only yesterday was nothing,
- 14:03Speaker 1: was merely a little blue that I had written, and
- 14:06Speaker 1: after a messenger had delivered it to Jilbert's porter and
- 14:09Speaker 1: a servant had taken it to her in her room,
- 14:12Speaker 1: had become a thing without value or distinction, one of
- 14:15Speaker 1: the little blues that she had received. In the course
- 14:17Speaker 1: of the day. I had difficulty in recognizing the futile,
- 14:21Speaker 1: straggling lines of my own handwriting beneath the circles stamped
- 14:26Speaker 1: on it. At the post office, the inscriptions added in
- 14:29Speaker 1: pencil by a postman signs of effectual realization, seals of
- 14:33Speaker 1: the external world, violet bands symbolical of life itself, which
- 14:38Speaker 1: for the first time came to espouse, to maintain, to raise,
- 14:42Speaker 1: to rejoice my dream. And there was another day in
- 14:46Speaker 1: which she said to me, you know you may call
- 14:48Speaker 1: me Gilbert. In any case, I'm going to call you
- 14:51Speaker 1: by your first name. It's too silly not to. Yet
- 14:54Speaker 1: she continued for a while to address me by the
- 14:57Speaker 1: more formal vous. And when I drew her attention to this,
- 15:01Speaker 1: smiled and composing, constructing a phrase like those that are
- 15:04Speaker 1: put into the grammar books of foreign languages, would no
- 15:08Speaker 1: other object than to teach us to make use of
- 15:10Speaker 1: a new word, ended it with my Christian name. And
- 15:14Speaker 1: when I recalled later what I had felt at the time,
- 15:17Speaker 1: I could distinguish the impression of having been held for
- 15:20Speaker 1: a moment in her mouth myself naked, without any longer
- 15:24Speaker 1: any of the social qualifications which belonged equally to her
- 15:28Speaker 1: other companions. And when she used my surname to my
- 15:32Speaker 1: parents' accessories, of which her lips by the effort that
- 15:35Speaker 1: she made a little after her father's manner, to articulate
- 15:39Speaker 1: the words to which she wished to give a special
- 15:41Speaker 1: value at the air of stripping, of divesting me, as
- 15:45Speaker 1: one peels the skin from a fruit of which one
- 15:48Speaker 1: is going to put only the pulp into one's mouth.
- 15:51Speaker 1: While her glance adapting itself to the same new degree
- 15:54Speaker 1: of intimacy, as her speech fell on me, also more directly,
- 15:58Speaker 1: not without testifying to the consciousness, the pleasure, even the gratitude,
- 16:03Speaker 1: that it felt, accompanying itself with a smile. But at
- 16:07Speaker 1: that actual moment I was not able to appreciate the
- 16:10Speaker 1: worth of these new pleasures. They were given not by
- 16:13Speaker 1: the little girl whom I loved, to me who loved her,
- 16:16Speaker 1: but by the other her, with whom I used to play,
- 16:20Speaker 1: to my other self, who possessed neither the memory of
- 16:23Speaker 1: the true Jolbert, nor the fixed heart, which alone could
- 16:26Speaker 1: have known the value of a happiness for which it
- 16:29Speaker 1: alone had longed. Even after I had returned home, I
- 16:33Speaker 1: did not taste them, since every day the necessity which
- 16:36Speaker 1: made me hope that on the morrow I should arrive
- 16:38Speaker 1: at the clear, calm, happy contemplation of Jolbert, that she
- 16:42Speaker 1: would at last confess her love for me, explaining to
- 16:45Speaker 1: me the reasons by which she had been obliged hitherto
- 16:48Speaker 1: to conceal it. That sane necessity forced me to regard
- 16:52Speaker 1: the past as of no account, to look ahead of
- 16:55Speaker 1: me only to consider the little advantages that she had
- 16:58Speaker 1: given me, not in themselves, and as if they were
- 17:01Speaker 1: self sufficient, but like fresh rungs of the latter on
- 17:05Speaker 1: which I might step my feet, which were going to
- 17:07Speaker 1: allow me to advance a step further, and finally to
- 17:11Speaker 1: attain the happiness which I had not yet encountered. If
- 17:14Speaker 1: at times she showed me these marks of her affection,
- 17:18Speaker 1: she troubled me also by seeming not to be pleased
- 17:20Speaker 1: to see me. And this happened often on the very
- 17:23Speaker 1: days on which I had most counted for the realization
- 17:26Speaker 1: of my hopes. I was sure that Julbert was coming
- 17:29Speaker 1: to the champ Elisee, and I felt an elation which
- 17:32Speaker 1: seemed merely the anticipation of a great happiness. When going
- 17:37Speaker 1: into the drawing room in the morning to kiss Mamma,
- 17:40Speaker 1: who was already dressed to go out, the coils of
- 17:43Speaker 1: her black hair elaborately built up, and her beautiful hands
- 17:47Speaker 1: plump and white, fragrant, still with soap. I had been
- 17:51Speaker 1: apprized by seeing a column of dust standing by itself
- 17:54Speaker 1: in the air above the piano, and by hearing a
- 17:57Speaker 1: barrel organ playing beneath the window En revenant de la Revau,
- 18:02Speaker 1: that the winter had received until nightfall an unexpected radiant
- 18:06Speaker 1: visit from a day of spring while we sat at luncheon.
- 18:09Speaker 1: By opening her window, the lady opposite had sent, packing,
- 18:13Speaker 1: in the twinkling of an eye, from beside my chair,
- 18:17Speaker 1: to sweep in a single stride over the whole width
- 18:20Speaker 1: of our dining room a sunbeam which had lain down
- 18:23Speaker 1: there for its midday rest, and returned to continue it there.
- 18:26Speaker 1: A moment later at school, during the one o'clock lesson,
- 18:30Speaker 1: the sun made me sick with impatience and boredom, as
- 18:33Speaker 1: it let fall a golden stream that crept to the
- 18:36Speaker 1: edge of my desk, like an invitation to the feast
- 18:39Speaker 1: at which I could not myself arrive before three o'clock,
- 18:43Speaker 1: until the moment when Francoise came to fetch me at
- 18:46Speaker 1: the school gate, and we made our way toward the
- 18:48Speaker 1: Champs Elysee through streets decorated with sunlight, dense with people,
- 18:53Speaker 1: over which the balconies, detached by the sun and made vaporous,
- 18:58Speaker 1: seemed to float in front of the houses like clouds
- 19:00Speaker 1: of gold. Alas in the Champs de Lysee, I found
- 19:03Speaker 1: no Gilbert. She had not yet arrived, motionless on the lawn,
- 19:08Speaker 1: nurtured by the invisible sun, which here and there kindled
- 19:11Speaker 1: to a flame the point of a blade of grass,
- 19:14Speaker 1: while the pigeons that had alighted upon it at the
- 19:17Speaker 1: appearance of ancient sculptures which the gardener's pick had heaved
- 19:21Speaker 1: to the surface of a hallowed soil. I stood with
- 19:24Speaker 1: my eyes fixed on the horizon, expecting at every moment
- 19:28Speaker 1: to see appear the form of Gilbert, following that of
- 19:31Speaker 1: her governess, behind the statue that seemed to be holding
- 19:34Speaker 1: out the child which it had in its arms, and
- 19:36Speaker 1: which glistened in the stream of light, to receive benediction
- 19:40Speaker 1: from the sun. The old lady who read the debates
- 19:43Speaker 1: was sitting on her chair in her invariable place, and
- 19:47Speaker 1: had just accosted a park keeper with a friendly wave
- 19:50Speaker 1: of her hands towards them, as she exclaimed, what a
- 19:53Speaker 1: lovely day, And when the chairwoman came up to collect
- 19:56Speaker 1: her penny, with an infinity of smirks and affectations, she
- 20:00Speaker 1: folded the ticket away inside her glove, as though it
- 20:03Speaker 1: had been a posy of flowers for which she had sought,
- 20:06Speaker 1: in gratitude to the donor, the most becoming place upon
- 20:09Speaker 1: her person. When she had found it, she performed the
- 20:12Speaker 1: circular movement with her neck, straightened her boa and fastened
- 20:17Speaker 1: upon the collector as she showed her the end of
- 20:19Speaker 1: yellow paper that stuck out over her bare wrist. The
- 20:22Speaker 1: bewitching smiled with which a woman says to a young man,
- 20:26Speaker 1: pointing to her bosom, you see, I'm wearing your roses.
- 20:30Speaker 1: I dragged Francoise on the way towards Jiolbert as far
- 20:34Speaker 1: as the Arc de Trient. We did not meet her,
- 20:37Speaker 1: and I was returning towards the lawn, convinced now that
- 20:40Speaker 1: she was not coming, when in front of the wooden horses,
- 20:43Speaker 1: the little girl, with a sharp voice, flung herself upon me,
- 20:46Speaker 1: quick quick, Gilbert's been here a quarter of an hour.
- 20:49Speaker 1: She's just going. We've been waiting for you to make
- 20:52Speaker 1: up a prisoner's base. End of Part four, Section three
- 20:58Speaker 1: recording by expatriate and Banga or mean