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

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Speaker 1: Section forty two 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 nine. When some days after Saint
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Speaker 1: Lupe's departure, I had succeeded in persuading Elster to give
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Speaker 1: a small tea party at which I was to meet Albertine.
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Speaker 1: That freshness of appearance, that smartness of attire, both alas fleeting,
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Speaker 1: which were to be observed in me at the moment
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Speaker 1: of my starting out from the Grand Hotel, and were
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Speaker 1: due respectively to a longer rest than usual and to
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Speaker 1: special pains over my toilette. I regretted my inability to
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Speaker 1: reserve them, and also the credit accruing from Elster's friendship
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Speaker 1: for the captivation of some other more interesting person. I
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Speaker 1: regretted having to use them all up on a simple
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Speaker 1: playasure of making Albertine's acquaintance. My brain assessed this pleasure
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Speaker 1: at a very low value, now that it was assured me,
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Speaker 1: But inside my will did not for a moment share
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Speaker 1: this illusion. That will which is the persevering and unalterable
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Speaker 1: servants of our successive personalities, hiding itself in secret places, despised, downtrodden,
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Speaker 1: untiringly faithful, toiling without intermission, with no thought for the
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Speaker 1: variability of the self its master, if only that master
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Speaker 1: may never lack what he requires. Whereas, at the moment,
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Speaker 1: when we are just about to start on a long planned,
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Speaker 1: an eagerly awaited holiday, our brain our nerves begin to
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Speaker 1: ask themselves whether it is really worth all the trouble involved.
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Speaker 1: The will, knowing that those lazy masters would at once
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Speaker 1: begin to consider their journey the most wonderful experience if
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Speaker 1: it became impossible for them to take it. The will
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Speaker 1: leaves them explaining their difficulties outside the station, multiplying their hesitation,
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Speaker 1: but busies itself with taking the tickets and putting us
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Speaker 1: into the carriage before the train starts. It is as
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Speaker 1: invariable as brain and nerves are fickle, but as it
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Speaker 1: is silent, gives no account of its actions, it seems
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Speaker 1: almost nonexistent. It is by its dogged determination that the
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Speaker 1: other constituent parts of our personality are led, but without
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Speaker 1: seeing it, while they distinguish clearly all their own uncertainties,
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Speaker 1: My nerves and brain then started a discussion as to
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Speaker 1: the real value of the pleasure that there would be
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Speaker 1: in knowing Albertine. While I studied in the glass vain
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Speaker 1: and perishable attractions, which nerves and brain would have preserved
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Speaker 1: intact for use on some other occasion. But my will
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Speaker 1: would not let the hour pass at which I must start,
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Speaker 1: And it was Elster's address that it called out to
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Speaker 1: the driver. Brain and nerves were at liberty now that
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Speaker 1: the die was cast. To think this a pity. If
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Speaker 1: my will had given the man a different address, they
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Speaker 1: would have been finely sold. When I arrived at Elster's
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Speaker 1: a few minutes later, my first impression was that Mademoiselle
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Speaker 1: Seiemnet was not in the studio. There was certainly a
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Speaker 1: girl sitting there in a silk frock, bare headed, but
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Speaker 1: one whose marvelous hair her nose meant nothing to me,
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Speaker 1: in whom I did not recognize the human entity that
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Speaker 1: I had formed out of a young cyclist strolling past
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Speaker 1: in a polo cap between myself and the sea. It
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Speaker 1: was Albertine, nevertheless, But even when I knew it to
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Speaker 1: be her, I gave her no thought on entering any
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Speaker 1: social gathering when we are young, we lose consciousness of
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Speaker 1: our old self. We become a different man, every drawing
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Speaker 1: room being a fresh universe, in which, coming under the
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Speaker 1: sway of a new moral perspective, we fastened our attention,
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Speaker 1: as if they were to matter to us for all time,
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Speaker 1: on people, dances, card tables, all of which we shall
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Speaker 1: have forgotten by the morning, obliged to follow if I
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Speaker 1: was to arrive at the goal of conversation with Albertine,
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Speaker 1: a road in no way of my own planning, which
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Speaker 1: first brought me to a halt at elster, passed by
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Speaker 1: other groups of guests, to whom I was presented, then
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Speaker 1: along the table at which I was offered, and ate
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Speaker 1: a strawberry tart or two, while I listened motionless to
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Speaker 1: the music that was beginning in another part of the room.
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Speaker 1: I found myself giving to these various incidents the same
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Speaker 1: importance as to my introduction to Mademoiselle Siemnet, an introduction
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Speaker 1: which was now nothing more than one among several such incidents,
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Speaker 1: having entirely forgotten that it had been but a few
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Speaker 1: minutes since my sole object in coming there that day.
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Speaker 1: But is it not ever thus in the bustle of
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Speaker 1: daily life, with every true happiness, every great sorrow. In
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Speaker 1: a room full of other people, we receive from her
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Speaker 1: whom we love, the answer propitious or fatal, which we
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Speaker 1: have been awaiting for the last year. But we must
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Speaker 1: go on talking. Ideas come one after another, forming a
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Speaker 1: smooth surface which is pricked at the very most now
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Speaker 1: and then by a dull throb from within of the
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Speaker 1: memory deep rooted enough but of very slender growth, that
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Speaker 1: misfortune has come upon us. If instead of misfortune it
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Speaker 1: is happiness, it may be that, not until many years
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Speaker 1: had elapsed, will we recall that the most important event
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Speaker 1: in our sentimental life occurred without our having time to
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Speaker 1: give it any prolonged attention, or even to become aware
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Speaker 1: of it. Almost at a social gathering it may have been,
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Speaker 1: to which we had gone solely in expectation of that event.
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Speaker 1: When Elster asked me to come with him so that
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Speaker 1: he might introduce me to Albertine, who was sitting a
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Speaker 1: little farther down the room, I first of all finished
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Speaker 1: eating a coffee a clayre, and with a show of
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Speaker 1: keen interest, asked an old gentleman whose acquaintance I had
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Speaker 1: just made, and thought that I might perhaps offer him
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Speaker 1: the rose in my button hole which he had admired,
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Speaker 1: to tell me more about the old Norman fairs. This
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Speaker 1: is not to say that the introduction which followed did
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Speaker 1: not give me any pleasure, nor assume a definite importance
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Speaker 1: in my eyes. But so far as the pleasure was concerned,
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Speaker 1: I was not conscious of it naturally, until some time later,
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Speaker 1: when once more in the hotel and in my room alone,
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Speaker 1: I had become myself again. Pleasure in this respect is
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Speaker 1: like photography. What we take in the presence of the
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Speaker 1: beloved object is merely a negative film. We develop it
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Speaker 1: later when we are at home and have once again
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Speaker 1: found at our disposal that inner dark room, the entrance
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Speaker 1: to which is barred to us so long as we
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Speaker 1: are with other people. If my consciousness of the pleasure
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Speaker 1: it had brought me was thus retarded by a few hours,
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Speaker 1: the importance of this introduction I felt immediately at such
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Speaker 1: moments of introduction, for all that we feel ourselves to
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Speaker 1: have been suddenly enriched, to have been furnished with a
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Speaker 1: pass that will admit us henceforward to pleasures which we
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Speaker 1: have pursuing for weeks past, but in vain we realize
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Speaker 1: only too clearly that this acquisition puts an end for
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Speaker 1: us not merely to hours of toilsome search, a relief
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Speaker 1: that could only fill us with joy, but also to
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Speaker 1: the very existence of a certain person, her whom our
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Speaker 1: imagination had wildly distorted. Our anxious fear that we might
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Speaker 1: never become known to her enlarged at the moment when
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Speaker 1: our name sounds on the lips of the person introducing us,
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Speaker 1: especially if he amplifies it, as Elster was now doing
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Speaker 1: with a flattering account of us in that sacramental moment,
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Speaker 1: as when in a fairy tale the magician commands a
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Speaker 1: person suddenly to become someone else. She to whose presence
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Speaker 1: we have been longing to attain vanishes. How could she
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Speaker 1: remain the same when, for one thing, owing to the
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Speaker 1: attention which the stranger is obliged to pay to the
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Speaker 1: announcement of our name, and the sight of our person
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Speaker 1: in the eyes that only yesterday were situated at an
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Speaker 1: infinite distance, where we suppose that our eyes wandering, uncontrolled, desperate, divergent,
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Speaker 1: would never succeed in meeting them. The conscious gaze, the
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Speaker 1: incommunicable thought which we have been seeking, have been miraculously
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Speaker 1: and simply replaced by our own image painted in them,
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Speaker 1: as though behind the glass of a smiling mirror. If
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Speaker 1: this incarnation of ourself in the person who seems to
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Speaker 1: differ most from us, is what does most to modify
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Speaker 1: the appearance of the person to whom we have just
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Speaker 1: been introduced, the form of that person still remains quite vague,
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Speaker 1: and we are free to ask ourself whether she will
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Speaker 1: turn out to be a god, a table, or a basin.
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Speaker 1: But as nimble as the wax modelers who will fashion
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Speaker 1: a bust before our eyes in five minutes, the few
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Speaker 1: words which the stranger is now going to say to
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Speaker 1: us will substantiate her form, will give her something positive
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Speaker 1: and final that will exclude all the hypotheses by which
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Speaker 1: a moment ago, our desire, our imagination were being tempted. Doubtless,
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Speaker 1: even before her coming to this party, Albertine had ceased
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Speaker 1: to be to me simply that sole phantom worthy to
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Speaker 1: haunt our life, which is what remains of a passing
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Speaker 1: stranger of whom we know nothing and have caught but
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Speaker 1: the barest glimpse. Her relation to Madame Bontempe had already
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Speaker 1: restricted the scope of those marvelous hypotheses by stopping one
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Speaker 1: of the channels along which they might have spread. As
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Speaker 1: I drew closer to the girl and began to know
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Speaker 1: her better, my knowledge of her underwent a process of
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Speaker 1: subtraction all the factors of imagination and desire, giving place
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Speaker 1: to a notion which was worth infinitely less, a notion
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Speaker 1: to which it must be admitted, there was added, presently,
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Speaker 1: what was more or less the equivalent in the domain
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Speaker 1: of real life of what joint stock companies give one
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Speaker 1: after paying interest on one's capital, and call a bonus
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Speaker 1: her name. Her family connections had been the original limit
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Speaker 1: set to my suppositions. Her friendly greeting. While standing close
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Speaker 1: beside her, I saw once again the tiny mole on
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Speaker 1: her cheek below her eye marked another stage. Last of all,
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Speaker 1: I was surprised to hear her use the adverb perfectly
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Speaker 1: in place of quite of two people whom she mentioned,
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Speaker 1: saying of one, she is perfectly mad, but very nice
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Speaker 1: for all that, and of the other, he is a
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Speaker 1: perfectly common man, a perfect bore. However, little to be
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Speaker 1: commended this use of perfectly may be. It indicates a
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Speaker 1: degree of civilization and culture which I could never have
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Speaker 1: imagined as having been attained by the beauchampt with the bicycle,
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Speaker 1: the frenzied muse of the golf course. Nor did it
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Speaker 1: mean that after this first transformation, Albertine was not to
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Speaker 1: change again. For me. Many times, the good and bad
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Speaker 1: qualities which a person presents to us exposed to view
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Speaker 1: on the surface of his or her face rearrange themselves
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Speaker 1: in a totally different order if we approach them from
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Speaker 1: another angle, just as in town, buildings that appear strung
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Speaker 1: irregularly along a single line from another aspect retire into
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Speaker 1: graduated distance, and their relative heights are altered. To begin with,
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Speaker 1: Albertine now struck me as not implacable, so much as
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Speaker 1: almost frightened. She seemed to me rather respectably than ill bred,
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Speaker 1: judging by the description bad style, a comic manner, which
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Speaker 1: she applied to each in turn, of the girls of
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Speaker 1: whom I spoke to her. Finally, she presented as a
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Speaker 1: target from my line of sight, a temple that was
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Speaker 1: distinctly flushed and hardly attractive to the eye, and no
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Speaker 1: longer the curious gaze which I had always connected with
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Speaker 1: her until then. But this was merely a second impression,
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Speaker 1: and there were doubtless others through which I was successively
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Speaker 1: to pass. Thus it can be only after one has recognized,
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Speaker 1: not without having had to feel one's way the optical
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Speaker 1: illusions of one's first impression, that one can arrive at
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Speaker 1: an exact knowledge of another person, supposing such knowledge to
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Speaker 1: be ever possible. But it is not, for while our
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Speaker 1: original impression of him undergoes correction, the person himself, not
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Speaker 1: being an inanimate object, changes in himself. We think that
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Speaker 1: we have caught him, he moves, And when we imagine
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Speaker 1: that at last we are seeing him clearly, it is
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Speaker 1: only the old impressions which we had already formed of
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Speaker 1: him that we have succeeded in making clearer when they
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Speaker 1: no longer represent him. And Yet, whatever the inevitable disappointments
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Speaker 1: that it must bring in its train, this movement towards
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Speaker 1: what we have only half seen, what we have been
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Speaker 1: free to dwell upon and imagine at our leisure, this
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Speaker 1: movement is the only one that is wholesome for the
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Speaker 1: senses that whets the appetite. How dreary a monotony must
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Speaker 1: pervade those people's lives who, from indolence or timidity, drive
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Speaker 1: in their carriages straight to the doors of friends whom
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Speaker 1: they have got to know, without having first dreamed of
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Speaker 1: knowing them, without ever daring on the way to stop
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Speaker 1: and examine what arouses their desire. I returned home, my
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Speaker 1: mind full of the party, the coffee a claire, which
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Speaker 1: I had finished eating before I let Ulster take me
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Speaker 1: up to Albertine, the rose which I had given the
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Speaker 1: old gentleman, all the details selected without our knowledge by
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Speaker 1: the circumstances of the occasion, which compose in especial and
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Speaker 1: quite fortuitous order, the picture that we retain of a
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Speaker 1: first meeting. But this picture I had the impression that
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Speaker 1: I was seeing it from a fresh point of view,
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Speaker 1: a long way remote for myself, realizing that it had
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Speaker 1: not existed only for me, When some months later, to
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Speaker 1: my great surprise, on my speaking to Albertine on the
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Speaker 1: day on which I had first met her, she reminded
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Speaker 1: me of the eclaire, the flower that I had given away.
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Speaker 1: All those things which I had supposed to have been
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Speaker 1: I will not say of importance only to myself, but
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Speaker 1: perceived only by myself, and which I now found thus
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Speaker 1: transcribed in a version of the existence of which I
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Speaker 1: had never expected in the mind of Albertine on this
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Speaker 1: first day itself. When on my return to the hotel,
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Speaker 1: I was able to visualize the memory which I had
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Speaker 1: brought away with me, I realized the consummate adroitness with
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Speaker 1: which the sleight of hand had been performed, and how
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Speaker 1: I had talked for a moment or two with a
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Speaker 1: person who, thanks to the skill of the conjuror, without
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Speaker 1: actually embodying anything of that other person whom I had
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Speaker 1: for so long been following she paced beside the sea,
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Speaker 1: had been effectively substituted for her. I might, for that
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Speaker 1: matter have guessed as much in advance. Since the girl
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Speaker 1: of the beach was a fabrication invented by myself, in
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Speaker 1: spite of which, as I had in my conversations with Elster,
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Speaker 1: identified her with this other girl, I felt myself in
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Speaker 1: honor bound to fulfill to the real the promises of
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Speaker 1: love made to the imagined Albertine. We betrothed ourselves by proxy,
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Speaker 1: and think ourselves obliged in the sequel to marry the
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Speaker 1: person who has intervened. Moreover, if there had disappeared, provisionally
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Speaker 1: at any rate, from my life, an anguish that found
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Speaker 1: adequate consolation in the memory of polite manners, of that
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Speaker 1: expression perfectly common, and of the glowing temple. That memory
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Speaker 1: awakened in me desire of another kind, which, for all
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Speaker 1: that it was placid and not at all painful, resembling
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Speaker 1: rather brotherly love, might in the long run, become fully
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Speaker 1: as dangerous by making me feel, at every moment a
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Speaker 1: compelling need to kiss this new person, whose charming way,
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Speaker 1: her shyness, her unlooked for accessibility, arrested the feudal process
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Speaker 1: of my imagination, but gave birth to a sentimental gratitude.
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Speaker 1: And then, since's memory begins at once to record photographs
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Speaker 1: independent of one another, eliminates every link, any kind of sequence,
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Speaker 1: from between the scenes portrayed in the collection, which it
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Speaker 1: exposes to our view. The most recent does not necessarily
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Speaker 1: destroy or cancel those that came before. Confronted with the commonplace,
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Speaker 1: though appealing Albertine, to whom I had spoken that afternoon,
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Speaker 1: I still saw the other, mysterious Albertine, outlined against the sea.
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Speaker 1: These were now memories, that is to say, pictures, neither
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Speaker 1: of which now seemed to me any more true than
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Speaker 1: the other. But to make an end of this first
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Speaker 1: afternoon of my introduction to Albertine, when trying to recapture
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Speaker 1: that little mole on her cheek, just under the eye,
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Speaker 1: I remembered that, looking from Elster's window, when Albertine had
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Speaker 1: gone by, I had seen the mole on her chin.
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Speaker 1: In fact, whenever I saw her, I noticed that she
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Speaker 1: had a mole. But my inaccurate many memory made it
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Speaker 1: wander about the face of Albertine, fixing it now in
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Speaker 1: one place, now in another. Whatever my disappointment in finding
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Speaker 1: Mademoiselle Siemnet, a girl so little different from those that
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Speaker 1: I knew already, just as my rude awakening when I
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Speaker 1: saw Baalbeck Church did not prevent me from wishing still
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Speaker 1: to go to Kimperles, Point A Venn and Venice, I
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Speaker 1: confronted myself with the thought that through Albertine, at any rate,
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Speaker 1: even if she herself was not all that I had hoped,
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Speaker 1: I might make the acquaintance of her comrades of the
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Speaker 1: little band. I thought at first that I should fail,
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Speaker 1: as she was to be staying and I too, For
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Speaker 1: a long time still at Baulbeck, I had decided that
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Speaker 1: the best thing was not to make my efforts to
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Speaker 1: meet her to a parent, but to wait for an
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Speaker 1: accidental encounter. But should this occur every day, even it
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Speaker 1: was greatly to be feared that she would confine herself
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Speaker 1: to acknowledging my bow from a distance, and such meetings,
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Speaker 1: repeated day after day throughout the whole season, would benefit
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Speaker 1: me not at all. Shortly after this, one morning, when
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Speaker 1: it had been raining and was almost cold, I was
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Speaker 1: accosted on the front by a girl wearing a close
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Speaker 1: fitting tuke and carrying a muff so different from the
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Speaker 1: girl whom I had met at Ulster's party that to
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Speaker 1: recognize in her the same person seemed an operation beyond
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Speaker 1: the power of the human mind. Mine was nevertheless successful
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Speaker 1: in performing it, but after a momentary surprise which did not,
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Speaker 1: I think, escape Albertine's notice. On the other hand, when
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Speaker 1: I instinctively recalled the good breeding which had so impressed
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Speaker 1: me before, she filled me with a converse astonishment by
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Speaker 1: her rude tone and manners typical of the little Band.
17:36
Speaker 1: Apart from these, her temple had ceased to be the
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Speaker 1: optical center on which the eye might comfortably rest of
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Speaker 1: her face, either because I was now on her other side,
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Speaker 1: or because her tuk hid it or else, possibly because
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Speaker 1: its inflammation was not a constant thing. What weather she began, Really,
17:53
Speaker 1: the perpetual summer of ball Beck is all stuff and nonsense.
17:57
Speaker 1: You don't go in for anything special here, do you.
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Speaker 1: We don't ever see you playing golf, for dancing at
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Speaker 1: the casino. You don't ride either. You must be bored stiff.
18:06
Speaker 1: You don't find it too deadly staying about on the
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Speaker 1: beach all day. I see you just bask in the
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Speaker 1: sun like a lizard. You enjoy that. You must have
18:14
Speaker 1: plenty of time on your hands. I can see you're
18:17
Speaker 1: not like me. I simply adore all sports. You weren't
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Speaker 1: at the Sugen races. We went in the tram, and
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Speaker 1: I can quite believe you don't see the fun of
18:26
Speaker 1: going in an old tin pot like that. It took
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Speaker 1: us two whole hours. I could have gone there and
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Speaker 1: back three times on my bike. I, who had been
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Speaker 1: lost in admiration of San Lute when he, in the
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Speaker 1: most natural manner in the world, called the little local
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Speaker 1: train the crawler because of the ceaseless windings of its line,
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Speaker 1: was positively alarmed by the glibness with which Albertine spoke
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Speaker 1: of the tram and called it a tin pot. I
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Speaker 1: could feel her mastery of a form of speech in
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Speaker 1: which I was afraid of her detecting and scorning my inferiority.
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Speaker 1: And yet the full wealth of the synonyms that the
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Speaker 1: little band pus zest to denote this railway had not
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Speaker 1: yet been revealed to me. In speaking, Albertine kept her
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Speaker 1: head motionless, her nostrils closed, allowing only the corners of
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Speaker 1: her lips to move, the result of this was a
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Speaker 1: drawling nasal sound, into the composition of which there entered
19:15
Speaker 1: perhaps a provincial descent, a juvenile affectation of British phlegm,
19:20
Speaker 1: the teaching of a foreign governess, in a congestive high
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Speaker 1: pertrophy of the mucus of the nose. This enunciation, which
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Speaker 1: as it happened, soon disappeared when she knew people better,
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Speaker 1: giving place to a natural girlish tone, might have been
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Speaker 1: thought unpleasant, but it was peculiar to herself and delighted me.
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Speaker 1: Whenever I had gone for several days without seeing her,
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Speaker 1: I would refresh my spirit by repeating to myself, we
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Speaker 1: don't ever see you playing golf. With the nasal intonation
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Speaker 1: in which she had uttered the words point blank, without
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Speaker 1: moving a muscle of her face. And I thought then
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Speaker 1: that there could be no one in the world so desirable.
19:57
Speaker 1: We formed that morning one of those couples who dotted
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Speaker 1: the front here and there with their conjunction, their stopping
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Speaker 1: together for time enough just to exchange a few words,
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Speaker 1: before breaking apart, each to resume separately his or her
20:08
Speaker 1: divergent stroll. I seized the opportunity while she stood still,
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Speaker 1: to look again and discover once and for all where
20:16
Speaker 1: exactly the little mole was placed then, just as a
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Speaker 1: phrase of ventoil which had delighted me in the sonata
20:23
Speaker 1: in which my recollection allowed to wander from the andante
20:26
Speaker 1: to the finale, until the day, when having the score
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Speaker 1: in my hands, I was able to find it and
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Speaker 1: fix it in my memory in its proper place in
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Speaker 1: the scarzo. So this mole, which I had visualized now
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Speaker 1: on her cheek, now on her chin, came to rest
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Speaker 1: forever on her upper lip, just below her nose. In
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Speaker 1: the same way, too, do we not come with amazement
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Speaker 1: upon lines that we know by heart in a poem
20:49
Speaker 1: in which we never dreamed that they were to be
20:51
Speaker 1: found at that moment, as if in order that against
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Speaker 1: the sea there might multiply in freedom, in the variety
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Speaker 1: of its forms, all the rich decorative hole, which was
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Speaker 1: the lovely unfolding of the train of maidens, at once
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Speaker 1: golden and rosy, baked by sun and wind. Albertine's friends,
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Speaker 1: with their shapely limbs, their supple figures, but so different
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Speaker 1: one from another, came into sight in a cluster that
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Speaker 1: expanded as it approached, advancing towards us, but keeping closer
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Speaker 1: to the sea along a parallel line. I asked Albertine's
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Speaker 1: permission to walk for a little way with her. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: all she did was to wave her hands to them
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Speaker 1: in greeting. But your friends will be disappointed if you
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Speaker 1: don't go with them, I hinted, hoping that we might
21:34
Speaker 1: all walk together. A young man with regular features, carrying
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Speaker 1: a bag of golf clubs, sauntered up to us. It
21:41
Speaker 1: was the baccarat player, whose fast ways so enraged the
21:45
Speaker 1: Chief Magistrate's wife. In a frigid, impassive tone, which he
21:48
Speaker 1: evidently regarded as an indication of the highest refinement, he
21:53
Speaker 1: bad Albertine good day. Been playing golf octave, She asked,
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Speaker 1: how did the game go? Were you in form? Oh,
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Speaker 1: it's too sickening. I can't play for nuts, he replied,
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Speaker 1: was Andre playing? Yes, she went round in seventy seven.
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Speaker 1: Why that's a record. I went round in eighty two yesterday.
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Speaker 1: He was the son of an immensely rich manufacturer who
22:17
Speaker 1: was to take an important part in the organization of
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Speaker 1: the coming World's Fair. I was struck by the extreme
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Speaker 1: degree to which in this young man, and in the
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Speaker 1: other by no means numerous male friends of the band
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Speaker 1: of girls, the knowledge of everything that pertained to clothes
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Speaker 1: and how to wear them, cigars, English drinks, horses, a
22:34
Speaker 1: knowledge which he possessed in its minutest details with a
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Speaker 1: haughty infallibility that approached the reticent modesty of the true expert.
22:41
Speaker 1: Had been developed in complete isolation, unaccompanied by the least
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Speaker 1: trace of any intellectual culture. He had no hesitation as
22:49
Speaker 1: to the right time and place for a dinner, jacket
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Speaker 1: or pajamas. But neither had he any suspicion of the
22:55
Speaker 1: circumstances in which one might or might not employ this
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Speaker 1: or that word, or even of the simplest rules of grammar.
23:02
Speaker 1: This disparity between the two forms of culture must have
23:05
Speaker 1: existed also in his father the president of the syndicate
23:08
Speaker 1: that ran Ballbeck for in an open letter to the electors,
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Speaker 1: which he had recently had posted on all the walls,
23:14
Speaker 1: he announced, I desired to see the mayor to speak
23:18
Speaker 1: to him of the matter. He would not listen to
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Speaker 1: my righteous plaint. Octave at the casino took prizes in
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Speaker 1: all the dancing competitions for Boston's Tangos and what not,
23:29
Speaker 1: an accomplishment that would entitle him if he chose to
23:32
Speaker 1: make a fine marriage in that seaside society, where it
23:36
Speaker 1: is not figuratively but in sober earnest that the young
23:39
Speaker 1: woman marry their dance partners. He lighted a cigar with
23:44
Speaker 1: a geamined to Albertine as one who asks permission to
23:48
Speaker 1: finish while going on talking an urgent piece of work,
23:52
Speaker 1: for he was one of those people who can never
23:53
Speaker 1: be doing nothing, although there was nothing, for that matter
23:57
Speaker 1: that he could ever be said to do. And as
24:00
Speaker 1: complete inactivity has the same effect on us in the
24:03
Speaker 1: end as prolonged overwork, and on the character as much
24:06
Speaker 1: as on the life of body and muscles. The unimpaired
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Speaker 1: nullity of intellect that was enshrined behind Octave's meditative brow
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Speaker 1: had ended by giving him, despite his air of unruffled, calm,
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Speaker 1: ineffectual longings to think, which kept him awake at night
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Speaker 1: for all the world like an overwrought philosopher. End of
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Speaker 1: Section forty two