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54 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust · Swanns Way

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  Speaker 1: Part three, section twenty six of Swan's Way by Marcel Proust,
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  Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief eighteen eighty nine to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. The s Librivax recording is in the public
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  Speaker 1: domain recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Part three, Swan
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  Speaker 1: in Love, section twenty six. To compete with and so
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  Speaker 1: to stimulate the more abunded feelings as Swan had for Odette,
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  Speaker 1: Madame Coutard, a wiser physician in this case than ever
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  Speaker 1: her husband would have been, had grafted among them others
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  Speaker 1: more normal feelings of gratitude, of friendship, which, in Swan's
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  Speaker 1: mind were to make Odette seem again more human, more
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  Speaker 1: like other women, since other women could inspire the same
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  Speaker 1: feelings in him, were to hasten her final transformation back
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  Speaker 1: into that Odette loved with an undisturbed affection, who had
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  Speaker 1: taken him home one evening after or of revel at
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  Speaker 1: the painter's to drink, or in jade with Forcheville, that
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  Speaker 1: Odette with whom Swan had calculated that he might live
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  Speaker 1: in happiness in former times, having often thought with terror
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  Speaker 1: that a day must come when he would cease to
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  Speaker 1: be in love with Odette. He had determined to keep
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  Speaker 1: a sharp lookout, and as soon as he felt that
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  Speaker 1: love was beginning to escape him to cling tightly to
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  Speaker 1: it and to hold back. But now to the faintness
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  Speaker 1: of his love, there corresponded a simultaneous faintness in his
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  Speaker 1: desire to remain her lover. For a man cannot change,
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  Speaker 1: that is to say, become another person while he continues
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  Speaker 1: to obey the dictates of the self, which he has
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  Speaker 1: ceased to be. Occasionally, the name if it caught his
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  Speaker 1: eye in a newspaper of one of the men whom
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  Speaker 1: he supposed to have been Odette's lovers, reawakened his jealousy.
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  Speaker 1: But it was very slight, and inasmuch as it proved
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  Speaker 1: to him that he had not completely emerged from that
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  Speaker 1: period in which he had so keenly suffered, although in
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  Speaker 1: it he had also known a way of feeling so
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  Speaker 1: intensely happy, and that the accidents of his course might
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  Speaker 1: still enable him to catch an occasional glimpse, stealthily and
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  Speaker 1: at a distance, of its beauties. This jealousy gave him,
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  Speaker 1: if anything, an agreeable thrill. As to the sad Parisian,
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  Speaker 1: when he has left Venice behind him and must return
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  Speaker 1: to France. A last mosquito proves that Italy and summer
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  Speaker 1: are still not too remote. But as a rule, with
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  Speaker 1: this particular period of his life from which he was emerging,
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  Speaker 1: when he made an effort, if not to remain in it,
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  Speaker 1: at least to obtain while still he might, an uninterrupted
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  Speaker 1: view of it, he discovered that already it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: He would have looked back to distinguish, as it might be,
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  Speaker 1: a landscape that was about to disappear, that love from
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  Speaker 1: which he had departed. But it is so difficult to
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  Speaker 1: enter into a state of complete duality and to present
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  Speaker 1: to oneself the lifelike spectacle of a feeling which one
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  Speaker 1: has ceased to possess, that very soon, the clouds gathering
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  Speaker 1: in his brain he could see nothing. He would abandon
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  Speaker 1: the attempt, would take the glasses from his nose and
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  Speaker 1: wipe them. And he told himself that he would do
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  Speaker 1: better to rest for a little, that there would be
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  Speaker 1: time enough later on, and settled back into his corner
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  Speaker 1: with as little curiosity, with as much torquour as a
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  Speaker 1: drowsy traveler who pulls his cap down over his eyes
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  Speaker 1: so as to get some sleep in the railway carriage
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  Speaker 1: that is drawing him. He feels faster and faster out
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  Speaker 1: of the country in which he has lived for so long,
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  Speaker 1: and which he vowed that he would not allow to
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  Speaker 1: slip away from him without looking out to bid it
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  Speaker 1: a last farewell. Indeed, like the same traveler if he
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  Speaker 1: does not awake until he has crossed the frontier and
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  Speaker 1: is again in France. When Swan happened to alight close
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  Speaker 1: at hand upon something which proved that Forcheville had been
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  Speaker 1: Odette's lover, he discovered that it caused him no pain,
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  Speaker 1: that love was now utterly ree and he regretted that
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  Speaker 1: he had had no warning of the moment in which
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  Speaker 1: he had emerged from it forever, and just as before
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  Speaker 1: kissing Odette for the first time, he had sought to
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  Speaker 1: imprint upon his memory the face that for so long
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  Speaker 1: had been familiar before it was altered by the additional
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  Speaker 1: memory of their kiss. So he could have wished, in
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  Speaker 1: thought at least to have been in a position to
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  Speaker 1: bid farewell while she still existed, to that Odette who
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  Speaker 1: had inspired love in him, and jealousy to that Odette
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  Speaker 1: who had caused him so to suffer, and whom now
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  Speaker 1: he would never see again. He was mistaken. He was
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  Speaker 1: destined to see her once again. A few weeks later.
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  Speaker 1: It was while he was asleep in the twilight of
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  Speaker 1: a dream. He was walking with Madame verduand doctor Cotard,
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  Speaker 1: a young man in a fez, whom he failed to identify,
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  Speaker 1: the painter Odette, Napoleon the Third and my grandfather along
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  Speaker 1: a path which followed the line of the coast and
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  Speaker 1: overhung the sea, now at a great, great height, now
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  Speaker 1: by a few feet only, so that they were continually
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  Speaker 1: going up and down. Those of the party who had
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  Speaker 1: reached the downward slope were no longer visible to those
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  Speaker 1: who were still climbing. What little daylight yet remained was failing,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed as though a black knight was immediately
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  Speaker 1: to fall on them. Now and then the waves dashed
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  Speaker 1: against the cliff, and Swan could feel on his cheek
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  Speaker 1: a shower of freezing spray. Odette told him to wipe
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  Speaker 1: this off, but he could not, and felt confused and
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  Speaker 1: helpless in her company, as well as because he was
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  Speaker 1: in his night shirt. He hoped that in the darkness
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  Speaker 1: as might pass unnoticed. Madame Verdurant, however, fixed her astonished
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  Speaker 1: gaze upon him for an endless moment, in which he
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  Speaker 1: saw her face change its shape, her nose grow longer,
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  Speaker 1: while beneath it there sprouted a heavy mustache. He turned
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  Speaker 1: away to examine Odette. Her cheeks were pale with little
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  Speaker 1: fiery spots, her features drawn and ringed with shadows. But
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  Speaker 1: she looked back at him, and with eyes welling with affection,
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  Speaker 1: ready to detach themselves like tears and to fall upon
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  Speaker 1: his face. And he felt that he loved her so
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  Speaker 1: much that he would have liked to carry her off
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  Speaker 1: with him at once. Suddenly Audette turned her wrist, glanced
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  Speaker 1: at a tiny watch, and said, I must go. She
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  Speaker 1: took leave of everyone in the same formal manner, without
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  Speaker 1: taking Swann aside, without telling him where they were to
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  Speaker 1: meet that evening or next day. He dared not ask
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  Speaker 1: he would have liked to follow her. He was obliged,
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  Speaker 1: without turning back in her direction, to answer with a
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  Speaker 1: smile some question by Madame Verdurant. But his heart was
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  Speaker 1: frantically beating. He felt that he now hated Odette. He
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  Speaker 1: would gladly have crushed those eyes, which a moment ago
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  Speaker 1: he had loved so dearly, have torn the blood into
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  Speaker 1: those lifeless cheeks. He continued to climb with Madame Verdurant.
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  Speaker 1: That is to say that each step took him farther
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  Speaker 1: from Odette, who was going downhill and in the other direction.
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  Speaker 1: A second passed, and it was many hours since she
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  Speaker 1: had left him. The painter remarked the Swan that Napoleon
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  Speaker 1: the Third had eclipsed himself immediately after Odette. They had
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  Speaker 1: obviously arranged it between them, he added, They must have
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  Speaker 1: agreed to meet at the foot of the cliff, but
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  Speaker 1: they wouldn't say goodbye together. It might have looked odd.
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  Speaker 1: She is his mistress. The strange young man burst into tears.
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  Speaker 1: Swan endeavored to console him. After all, she is quite right,
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  Speaker 1: he said to the young man, drying his eyes for
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  Speaker 1: him and taking off the fez to make him feel
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  Speaker 1: more at ease. I've advised her to do that myself
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  Speaker 1: a dozen times. Why be so distressed? He was obviously
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  Speaker 1: the man to understand her, So Swan reasoned with himself,
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  Speaker 1: for the young man, whom he had failed at first
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  Speaker 1: to identify, was himself. Also, like certain novelists, he had
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  Speaker 1: distributed his own personality between two characters, him who was
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  Speaker 1: the first person in the dream, and another whom he
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  Speaker 1: saw before him, capped with a fez as for Napoleon
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  Speaker 1: the third. It was to force via that some vague
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  Speaker 1: association of ideas, then a certain modification of the baron's
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  Speaker 1: usual physiognomy, and lastly the broad ribbon of the Legion
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  Speaker 1: of Honor across his breast had made Swan give that name.
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  Speaker 1: But actually, and in everything that the person who appeared
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  Speaker 1: in his dream represented and recalled to him, if it
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  Speaker 1: was indeed for Cheville. For from an incomplete and changing
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  Speaker 1: set of images, Swan, in his sleep drew false deductions,
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  Speaker 1: enjoying at the same time such creative power that he
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  Speaker 1: was able to reproduce himself by a simple act of division,
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  Speaker 1: like certain lower organisms. With a warmth that he felt
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  Speaker 1: in his own palm. He modeled the hollow of a
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  Speaker 1: strange hand which he thought that he was clasping, and
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  Speaker 1: out of feelings and impressions of which he was not
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  Speaker 1: yet conscious, he brought about sudden vicissitudes, which, by a
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  Speaker 1: chain of logical sequences, would produce at definite points in
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  Speaker 1: his dream the person required to receive his love or
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  Speaker 1: to startle him awake. In an instant, night grew black
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  Speaker 1: about him, and alarum rang. The inhabitants ran past him,
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  Speaker 1: escaping from their blazing houses. He could hear the thunder
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  Speaker 1: of the surging waves, and also of his own heart,
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  Speaker 1: which with equal violence, was anxiously beating in his breast. Suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: the speed of these palpitations redoubled. He felt a pain,
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  Speaker 1: a nausea that was inexplicable. A peasant dreadfully burned, flung
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  Speaker 1: at him as he passed. Come and ask Charleu where
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  Speaker 1: Odette spent the night with her friend. He used to
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  Speaker 1: go about with her, and she tells him everything. It
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  Speaker 1: was they that started the fire. It was his valet
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  Speaker 1: come to awaken him and saying, sir, it is eight
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  Speaker 1: o'clock and the barber is here. I have told him
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  Speaker 1: to call again in an hour. But these words, as
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  Speaker 1: they dived down through the waves of sleep in which
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  Speaker 1: Swan was submerged, did not reach his consciousness without undergoing
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  Speaker 1: that refraction which turns a ray of light at the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of a bowl of water into another sun. Just
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  Speaker 1: as a moment earlier, the sound of the door bell
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  Speaker 1: swelling in the depths of his abyss of sleep into
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  Speaker 1: the clangor of an alarum had engendered the episode of
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  Speaker 1: the fire. Meanwhile, the scenery of his dream stage scattered
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  Speaker 1: in dust. He opened his eyes heard for the last
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  Speaker 1: time the boom of a wave in the sea, grown
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  Speaker 1: very distant. He touched his cheek. It was dry, and
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  Speaker 1: yet he could feel the sting of the cold spray
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  Speaker 1: and the taste of salt on his lips. He rose
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  Speaker 1: and dressed himself. He had made the barber come early,
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  Speaker 1: because he had written the day before to my grandfather
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  Speaker 1: to say that he was going that afternoon to Combrie,
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  Speaker 1: having learned that Madame de Combremire, Mademoiselle le Grandin that
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  Speaker 1: had been was spending a few days there. The association,
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  Speaker 1: in his memory of her young and charming face with
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  Speaker 1: a place in the country which he had not visited
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  Speaker 1: for so long, offered him a combined attraction which had
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  Speaker 1: made him decide at last to leave Paris for a while.
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  Speaker 1: As the different changes and chances that bring us into
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  Speaker 1: the company of certain other people in this life do
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  Speaker 1: not coincide with the periods in which we are in
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  Speaker 1: love with those people, but overlapping them may occur before
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  Speaker 1: love has begun, and may be repeated after love is ended.
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  Speaker 1: The earliest appearances in our life of a creature who
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  Speaker 1: is destined to afford us pleasure later on assume retrospectively
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  Speaker 1: in our eyes a certain value, as an indication, a warning,
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  Speaker 1: a presage. It was in this fashion that Swan had
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  Speaker 1: often carried back his mind to the image of Odette
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  Speaker 1: encountered in the theater on that first evening, when he
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  Speaker 1: had no thought of ever seeing her again, and that
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  Speaker 1: he now recalled the party of Madame de Saint Hubert's,
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  Speaker 1: at which he had introduced General de Fauberville to Madame
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  Speaker 1: de Cambremire. So manifold are our interests in life that
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  Speaker 1: it is not uncommon that, on a single occasion the
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  Speaker 1: foundations of a happiness which does not yet exist are
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  Speaker 1: life laid down simultaneously with aggravations of a grief from
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  Speaker 1: which we are still suffering. And no doubt that might
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  Speaker 1: have occurred to Swan elsewhere than at Madame de Saint Avert's,
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  Speaker 1: who indeed can say whether, in the event of his
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  Speaker 1: having gone that evening somewhere else, other happinesses, other griefs
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  Speaker 1: would not have come to him which later would have
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  Speaker 1: appeared to have been inevitable. But what did seem to
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  Speaker 1: him to have been inevitable was what had indeed taken place.
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  Speaker 1: And he was not far short of seeing something providential
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  Speaker 1: in the fact that he had at last decided to
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  Speaker 1: go to Madame de Saint Huvert's that evening, because his mind,
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  Speaker 1: anxious to admire the richness of invention that life shows,
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  Speaker 1: and incapable of facing a difficult problem for any length
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  Speaker 1: of time, such as to discover what actually had been
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  Speaker 1: most to be wished for, came to the conclusion that
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  Speaker 1: the sufferings through which he had passed that evening and
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  Speaker 1: the pleasures at that time unsuspected, which were already being
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  Speaker 1: brought to birth, the exact balance between which was too
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  Speaker 1: difficult to establish, were linked by a sort of concatenation
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  Speaker 1: of necessity. But while an hour after his awakening he
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  Speaker 1: was giving instructions to the barber so that his stiffly
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  Speaker 1: brushed hair should not become disarranged. On the journey, he
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  Speaker 1: thought once again of his dream. He saw, once again,
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  Speaker 1: as he had felt them close beside him, Odette's pallid complexion,
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  Speaker 1: her two thin cheeks, her drawn features, her tired eyes,
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  Speaker 1: all the things which, in the course of those successive
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  Speaker 1: bursts of affection, which had made of his enduring love
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  Speaker 1: for Odette, a long oblivion of the first impression that
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  Speaker 1: he had formed of her, he had ceased to observe
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  Speaker 1: after the first few days of their intimacy, days to which, doubtless,
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  Speaker 1: while he slept, his memory had returned to seek the
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  Speaker 1: exact sensation of those things. And with that old intermittent
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  Speaker 1: fatuity which reappeared in him now that he was no
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  Speaker 1: longer unhappy and lowered at the same time the average
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  Speaker 1: life level of his morality, he cried out in his
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  Speaker 1: heart to think that I have wasted years of my life,
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  Speaker 1: that I have longed for death, that the greatest love
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  Speaker 1: that I have ever known has been for a woman
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  Speaker 1: who did not please me, who was not in my style.
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  Speaker 1: And of Part three Swan in Love recording by expatriate
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  Speaker 1: in Bangor, Maine,