Latest / Within a Budding Grove / 47 - Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Transcript

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

0:00
Speaker 1: Section forty seven of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust,
0:05
Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Sca to Moncrief. This LibriVox recording
0:10
Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Kristen Hand Seascape
0:15
Speaker 1: with frieze of Girls, Part fourteen. We had left the
0:21
Speaker 1: little wood and had followed a network of overgrown paths
0:24
Speaker 1: through which Andrea managed to find her way with great skill. Suddenly,
0:28
Speaker 1: look now, she said to me, there are your famous crunier.
0:33
Speaker 1: And I say you are in luck. It's just the
0:35
Speaker 1: time of day, and the light is the same as
0:37
Speaker 1: when Elster painted them. But I was still too wretched
0:41
Speaker 1: at having fallen during the game of ferret from such
0:43
Speaker 1: a pinnacle of hopes, and so it was not with
0:46
Speaker 1: the pleasure which otherwise I should doubtless have felt, that
0:49
Speaker 1: I caught sight almost below my feet, crouching among the rocks,
0:53
Speaker 1: where they had gone for protection from the heat of
0:56
Speaker 1: marine goddesses for whom Elster had lain in wait, and
1:00
Speaker 1: surprised them there beneath a dark glaze as lovely as
1:03
Speaker 1: Leonardo would have painted, the marvelous shadows, sheltered and furtive,
1:09
Speaker 1: nimble and voiceless, ready at the first glimmer of light
1:12
Speaker 1: to slip behind the stone, to hide in a cranny,
1:15
Speaker 1: and prompt, once the menacing ray had passed, to return
1:19
Speaker 1: to rock or seaweed beneath the sun that crumbled the
1:21
Speaker 1: cliffs and the odorless ocean, over whose slumbers they seemed
1:26
Speaker 1: to be watching motionless light foot guardians letting appear on
1:30
Speaker 1: the water's surface, their viscous bodies and the attentive gaze
1:34
Speaker 1: of their deep blue eyes. We went back to the
1:37
Speaker 1: wood to pick up the other girls and go home together.
1:40
Speaker 1: I knew now that I was in love with Albertine,
1:42
Speaker 1: but alas I had no thought of letting her know it.
1:46
Speaker 1: This was because since the days of our games in
1:49
Speaker 1: the champe Leiset, my conception of love had become different,
1:53
Speaker 1: even if the persons to whom my love was successively
1:55
Speaker 1: assigned remained practically the same for one thing, the Eva.
2:00
Speaker 1: The declaration of my passion to her, whom I loved,
2:03
Speaker 1: no longer seemed to me one of the vital and
2:05
Speaker 1: necessary incidents of love, nor love itself an external reality,
2:10
Speaker 1: but simply a subjective pleasure. And as for this pleasure,
2:14
Speaker 1: I felt that Albertine would do everything necessary to furnish it,
2:17
Speaker 1: all the more since she would not know that I
2:20
Speaker 1: was enjoying it. As we walked home, the image of
2:23
Speaker 1: Albertine bathed in the light that streamed from the other
2:26
Speaker 1: girls was not the only one that existed for me.
2:30
Speaker 1: But as the moon, which is no more than a
2:33
Speaker 1: tiny white cloud of a more definite and fixed shape
2:36
Speaker 1: than other clouds during the day, assumes her full power
2:39
Speaker 1: as soon as daylight dies, so when I was once
2:42
Speaker 1: more in the hotel, it was Albertine's sole image that
2:45
Speaker 1: rose from my heart and began to shine. My room
2:49
Speaker 1: seemed to me to have become suddenly a new place.
2:52
Speaker 1: Of course, for a long time past, it had not
2:54
Speaker 1: been the hostile room of my first night. In it.
2:57
Speaker 1: All our lives we go on patiently modifying the surroundings
3:00
Speaker 1: in which we dwell, and gradually, as habit dispenses us
3:04
Speaker 1: from feeling them, we suppressed the noxious elements of color, shape,
3:08
Speaker 1: and smell, which were at the root of our discomfort.
3:11
Speaker 1: Nor was it any longer the room still potent enough
3:14
Speaker 1: over my sensibility, not certainly to make me suffer, but
3:18
Speaker 1: to give me joy. The fount of summer days like
3:21
Speaker 1: a marble basin in which halfway up its polished sides,
3:25
Speaker 1: they mirrored an azure surface steeped in light, over which
3:28
Speaker 1: glided for an instant impalpable and white as a wave
3:32
Speaker 1: of heat, a shadowy and fleeting cloud. Not the room
3:36
Speaker 1: wholly esthetic of the pictorial evening hours. It was the
3:40
Speaker 1: room in which I had been now for so many
3:42
Speaker 1: days that I no longer saw it. And now I
3:45
Speaker 1: was just beginning again to open my eyes to it,
3:49
Speaker 1: but this time from the selfish angle, which is that
3:51
Speaker 1: of love. I like to feel that the fine, big
3:55
Speaker 1: mirror across one corner, the handsome bookcases with their fronts
3:58
Speaker 1: of glass, would give out, if she came to see me,
4:02
Speaker 1: a good impression of myself. Instead of a place of
4:05
Speaker 1: transit in which I would stay for a few minutes
4:07
Speaker 1: before escaping to the beach or to riv Bell. My
4:10
Speaker 1: room became real and dear to me, fashioned itself anew
4:14
Speaker 1: for I looked at and appreciated each article of its
4:17
Speaker 1: furniture with the eyes of Albertine. A few days after
4:21
Speaker 1: the game of Ferret, when having allowed ourselves to wander
4:24
Speaker 1: rather too far afield, we had been fortunate in finding
4:28
Speaker 1: at Mainville a couple of little tubs with two seats
4:31
Speaker 1: in which would enable us to be back in time
4:33
Speaker 1: for dinner. The keenness, already intense of my love for Albertine,
4:38
Speaker 1: had the following effect. First of all, that it was
4:41
Speaker 1: Rosamond and Andrea in turn that I invited to be
4:44
Speaker 1: my companion, and never once Albertine. After which, in spite
4:48
Speaker 1: of pay manifest preference for Andrea or Rosamond, I led everybody,
4:53
Speaker 1: by secondary considerations of time and distance, cloaks, and so forth,
4:57
Speaker 1: to decide, as though against my wish, that the most
5:01
Speaker 1: practical policy was that I should take Albertine, to whose
5:04
Speaker 1: company I pretended to resign myself for good or ill. Unfortunately,
5:09
Speaker 1: since love tends to the complete assimilation of another person,
5:12
Speaker 1: while other people are not commscible by way of conversation alone,
5:16
Speaker 1: Albertine might be, and indeed was as friendly as possible
5:21
Speaker 1: to me on our way home. When I had deposited
5:24
Speaker 1: her at her own door, she left me happy, but
5:26
Speaker 1: more famished for her even than I had been at
5:28
Speaker 1: the start, and reckoning the moments that we had spent
5:31
Speaker 1: together as only a prelude of little importance in itself
5:35
Speaker 1: to those that were still to come, and yet this
5:38
Speaker 1: prelude had that initial charm which is not to be
5:41
Speaker 1: found again. I had not yet asked anything of Albertine.
5:45
Speaker 1: She could imagine what I wanted, but not being certain
5:48
Speaker 1: of it, would suppose that I was tending only toward
5:51
Speaker 1: relations without any definite purpose, in which my friend would
5:55
Speaker 1: find that delicious vagueness rich in surprising fulfillments of expectations,
6:00
Speaker 1: which is true romance. In the week that followed, I
6:03
Speaker 1: scarcely attempted to see Albertine. I made a show of
6:06
Speaker 1: preferring Andrea. Love is born. One would like to remain
6:10
Speaker 1: for her, whom one loves, the unknown, whom she may
6:14
Speaker 1: love in turn, But one has need of her. One
6:17
Speaker 1: requires contact, not so much with her body as with
6:19
Speaker 1: her attention her heart. One slips into a letter some
6:23
Speaker 1: spiteful expression which will force the indifferent reader to ask
6:26
Speaker 1: for some little kindness in compensation and love following an
6:30
Speaker 1: unvarying procedure sets going with an alternating movement, the machinery
6:35
Speaker 1: in which one can no longer either refrain from loving
6:38
Speaker 1: or be loved. I gave to Andrea the hours spent
6:42
Speaker 1: by the others at a party which I knew that
6:44
Speaker 1: she would sacrifice for my sake with pleasure, and would
6:47
Speaker 1: have sacrificed even with reluctance, from a moral nicety, so
6:51
Speaker 1: as not to let either the others or herself think
6:54
Speaker 1: that she attached any importance to a relatively frivolous amusement.
6:58
Speaker 1: I arranged in this way to have her entirely to
7:01
Speaker 1: myself every evening, meaning not to make Albertine jealous, but
7:06
Speaker 1: to improve my position in her eyes, or at any rate,
7:10
Speaker 1: not to imperil it by letting Albertine know that it
7:12
Speaker 1: was herself and not Andrea, that I loved. Nor did
7:16
Speaker 1: I confide this to Andrea either lest she should repeat
7:19
Speaker 1: it to her friend. When I spoke of Albertin to Andrea,
7:23
Speaker 1: I affected a coldness by which she was perhaps less
7:26
Speaker 1: deceived than I. By her apparent credulity. She made a
7:30
Speaker 1: show of believing in my indifference to Albertine, of desiring
7:33
Speaker 1: the closest possible union between Albertine and myself. It is
7:37
Speaker 1: probable that, on the contrary, she neither believed in the
7:40
Speaker 1: one nor wished for the other. While I was saying
7:43
Speaker 1: to her that I did not care very greatly for
7:45
Speaker 1: her friend, I was thinking of one thing only how
7:48
Speaker 1: to become acquainted with Madame Bontempe, who was staying for
7:51
Speaker 1: a few days near Baalbeck, and to whom Albertine was
7:54
Speaker 1: going presently on a short visit. Naturally, I did not
7:58
Speaker 1: let Andrea become aware of this, and when I spoke
8:01
Speaker 1: to her of Albertine's people, it was in the most
8:03
Speaker 1: careless manner possible. Andrea's direct answers did not appear to
8:08
Speaker 1: throw any doubt on my sincerity. Why then did she
8:12
Speaker 1: blurt out suddenly about that time, oh, guess who I've
8:15
Speaker 1: just seen, Albertine's aunt. It is true that she had
8:19
Speaker 1: not said, in so many words, I could see through
8:21
Speaker 1: your casual marks, all right, that the one thing you
8:23
Speaker 1: were really thinking of was how you could make friends
8:25
Speaker 1: with Aubertine's aunt. But it was clearly to the presence
8:29
Speaker 1: in Andrea's mind of some such idea which she felt
8:32
Speaker 1: it more becoming to keep from me, that the word
8:35
Speaker 1: just seemed to point it was of a kind with
8:38
Speaker 1: certain glances, certain gestures, which, for all they have not
8:42
Speaker 1: a form that is logical, rational, deliberately calculated to match
8:46
Speaker 1: the listener's intelligence, reach him, nevertheless, in their true significance,
8:51
Speaker 1: just as human speech converted into electricity in the telephone
8:55
Speaker 1: is turned into speech again when it strikes the ear.
8:58
Speaker 1: In order to remove from eyes Andre's minds the idea
9:01
Speaker 1: that I was interested in Madame Bontemp, I spoke of
9:04
Speaker 1: her from that time onwards, not only carelessly but with
9:07
Speaker 1: downright malice, saying that I had once met that idiot
9:10
Speaker 1: of a woman and trusted I should never have that
9:12
Speaker 1: experience again. Whereas I was seeking by every means in
9:16
Speaker 1: my power to meet her. I tried to induce Elster,
9:20
Speaker 1: but without mentioning to anyone else that I had asked
9:23
Speaker 1: him to speak to her about me and to bring
9:25
Speaker 1: us together. He promised to introduce me to her, though
9:28
Speaker 1: he seemed greatly surprised at my wishing it, for he
9:31
Speaker 1: regarded her as a contemptible woman, a born intriguer, as
9:35
Speaker 1: little interesting as she was disinterested. Reflecting that if I
9:39
Speaker 1: did see Madame Bontemp, Andrea would be sure to hear
9:42
Speaker 1: of it, sooner or later, I thought it best to
9:44
Speaker 1: warn her in advance. The thing one tries hardest to
9:48
Speaker 1: avoid are what one finds one cannot escape. I told
9:51
Speaker 1: her nothing in the world could bore me so much
9:54
Speaker 1: as meeting Madame Bontemp again, and yet I can't get
9:57
Speaker 1: out of it. Elster has arranged to invite us together.
10:01
Speaker 1: I have never doubted it for a single instant, exclaimed
10:04
Speaker 1: Andrea in a bitter tone, while her eyes, enlarged and
10:07
Speaker 1: altered by her annoyance, focused themselves upon some invisible object.
10:12
Speaker 1: These words of Andrea's were not the most reasoned statement
10:15
Speaker 1: of a thought, which might be expressed thus, I know
10:18
Speaker 1: that you are in love with Albertine, that you are
10:20
Speaker 1: working day and night to get in touch with her people.
10:24
Speaker 1: But they were the shapeless fragments easily pieced together again
10:27
Speaker 1: by me of some such thought which I had just
10:30
Speaker 1: exploited by striking it through the shield of Andrea's self control.
10:35
Speaker 1: Like her just these words had no meaning save in
10:38
Speaker 1: the second degree. That is to say, they were words
10:41
Speaker 1: of the sort which, rather than direct affirmatives, inspires in
10:46
Speaker 1: us respect or distrust for another person and leads to
10:49
Speaker 1: a rupture. If Andrea had not believed me when I
10:53
Speaker 1: told her that Albertine's relatives left me indifferent, that was
10:57
Speaker 1: because she thought that I was in love with Albertine,
11:00
Speaker 1: and probably she was none too happy in the thought.
11:03
Speaker 1: She was generally present as a third party at my
11:05
Speaker 1: meetings with her friend. And yet there were days when
11:08
Speaker 1: I was to see Albertine by herself, days to which
11:11
Speaker 1: I looked forward with feverish impatience, which passed without bringing
11:15
Speaker 1: me any decisive result, without having any of them been
11:19
Speaker 1: that cardinal day, whose part I immediately entrusted to the
11:21
Speaker 1: day that was to follow, which would prove no more
11:24
Speaker 1: apt to play it. Thus there crumbled and collapsed one
11:28
Speaker 1: after another, like waves of the sea. Those peaks at
11:32
Speaker 1: once replaced by others. About a month after the day
11:36
Speaker 1: on which we had played Ferret together, I learned that
11:38
Speaker 1: Albertine was going away the next morning to spend a
11:41
Speaker 1: couple of days with Madame Bontempe, and since she would
11:44
Speaker 1: have to start early, was coming to sleep that night
11:46
Speaker 1: at the Grand Hotel, from which, by taking the omnibus,
11:50
Speaker 1: she would be able without disturbing the friends with whom
11:52
Speaker 1: she was staying, to catch the first train in the morning.
11:56
Speaker 1: I mentioned this to Andrea. I don't believe a word
11:59
Speaker 1: of it, she replied, with a look of annoyance. Anyhow,
12:02
Speaker 1: it won't help you at all, for I'm quite sure
12:04
Speaker 1: Albertine won't want to see you. If she goes to
12:06
Speaker 1: the hotel by herself, it wouldn't be regulation, she added,
12:10
Speaker 1: employing an epithet which had recently come into favor with her,
12:14
Speaker 1: in the sense of what is done. I tell you
12:17
Speaker 1: this because I understand, Albertine. What difference do you suppose
12:20
Speaker 1: it makes to me whether you see her or not?
12:23
Speaker 1: Not the slightest I can assure you. We were joined
12:27
Speaker 1: by Octave, who had no hesitation in telling Andre the
12:29
Speaker 1: number of strokes he had gone round in the day
12:31
Speaker 1: before at golf, then by Albertine, counting her diabolo as
12:35
Speaker 1: she walked along like a nun, telling her beads. Thanks
12:39
Speaker 1: to this past time, she could be left alone for
12:41
Speaker 1: hours on end without growing bored. As soon as she
12:44
Speaker 1: joined us, I became conscious of the obstinate tip of
12:47
Speaker 1: her nose, which I had admitted from my mental pictures
12:50
Speaker 1: of her during the last few days, beneath her dark hair,
12:53
Speaker 1: the vertical front of her brow controverted, and not for
12:56
Speaker 1: the first time, the indefinite image that I had preserved
12:59
Speaker 1: of her while its whiteness made a vivid splash in
13:02
Speaker 1: my field of vision, Emerging from the dust of memory.
13:06
Speaker 1: Albertine was built up afresh before my eyes. Golf gives
13:09
Speaker 1: one a taste for solitary pleasures. The pleasure to be
13:12
Speaker 1: derived from diabolo is undoubtedly one of these. And yet
13:16
Speaker 1: after she had joined us, Albertine continued to toss up and
13:19
Speaker 1: catch her missile, just as a lady on whom friends
13:22
Speaker 1: have come to call does not, on their account stop
13:24
Speaker 1: working at her crochet. I hear that Madame de Ville Parisius,
13:29
Speaker 1: she remarked to Octave, has been complaining to your father.
13:33
Speaker 1: I could hear underlying the word one of those notes
13:36
Speaker 1: that were peculiar to Albertine. Always, just as I had
13:40
Speaker 1: made certain that I had forgotten them, I would be
13:42
Speaker 1: reminded of a glimpse caught through them before of Albertine's
13:46
Speaker 1: determined and typically gallic mien. I might have been blind,
13:50
Speaker 1: and yet have detected certain of her qualities, alert and
13:53
Speaker 1: slightly provincial from those notes, just as plainly as from
13:57
Speaker 1: the tip of her nose. These were equivalent and might
14:00
Speaker 1: have been substituted for one another. And her voice was
14:04
Speaker 1: like what we are promised in the photo telephone of
14:06
Speaker 1: the future. The visual image was clearly outlined in the sound.
14:10
Speaker 1: She's not written only to your father either. She wrote
14:13
Speaker 1: to the mayor of baal Beck at the same time
14:15
Speaker 1: to say we must stop playing diabolo on the front
14:18
Speaker 1: as someone hit her in the face with one yes,
14:21
Speaker 1: I was hearing about that. It's too silly. There's little
14:25
Speaker 1: enough to do here as it is. Andre did not
14:29
Speaker 1: join in the conversation. She was not acquainted any more
14:32
Speaker 1: than was Albertine or Octave with Madame de Villa Parsis.
14:36
Speaker 1: She did, however, remark, I can't think why this lady
14:38
Speaker 1: should make such a song about it. Old Madame de
14:41
Speaker 1: Camembrere got hit in the face and she never complained.
14:45
Speaker 1: I will explain the difference, replied Octave, greatly striking a
14:49
Speaker 1: match as he spoke, it's my belief that Madame de
14:52
Speaker 1: Caemembreier is a woman of the world, and Madame de
14:55
Speaker 1: Villa Persis is just an upstart? Are you playing golf
14:59
Speaker 1: this afternoon? And he left us, followed by Andrea. I
15:02
Speaker 1: was now alone with Albertine. Do you see? She began,
15:06
Speaker 1: I'm wearing my hair now the way you like it.
15:08
Speaker 1: Look at my ringlet They all laugh at me, and
15:10
Speaker 1: nobody knows who I'm doing it for. My aunt will
15:13
Speaker 1: laugh at me too, but I shan't tell her why either.
15:17
Speaker 1: I had a side long view of Albertine's cheeks, which
15:19
Speaker 1: often appeared pale, but seen thus were flushed with a
15:23
Speaker 1: coursing stream of blood, which lighted them up, gave them
15:26
Speaker 1: that dazzling dearness which certain winter mornings have when the stones,
15:30
Speaker 1: sparkling in the sun seem blocks of pink granite and
15:33
Speaker 1: radiate joy. The joy that I was drawing at this
15:37
Speaker 1: moment from the sight of Albertine's cheeks was equally keen,
15:40
Speaker 1: but led to another desire on my part, which was
15:43
Speaker 1: not to walk with her, but to take her in
15:45
Speaker 1: my arms. I asked her if the report of her
15:48
Speaker 1: plans which I had heard, were correct. Yes, she told me,
15:52
Speaker 1: I shall be sleeping at your hotel to night, and
15:54
Speaker 1: in fact, as i've got rather a chill, I shall
15:56
Speaker 1: be going to bed before dinner. You can come and
16:00
Speaker 1: sit by my bed and watch me eat if you like. Afterwards,
16:03
Speaker 1: we'll play at anything you choose. I should have liked
16:06
Speaker 1: you to come to the station tomorrow morning, but I'm
16:09
Speaker 1: afraid it might look rather odd. I don't say to Andrea,
16:12
Speaker 1: who is a sensible person, but to the others who
16:15
Speaker 1: will be there. If my aunt got to know, I
16:17
Speaker 1: should never hear the last of it. But we can
16:20
Speaker 1: spend the evening together. At any rate. My aunt will
16:23
Speaker 1: know nothing about that. I must go and say goodbye
16:25
Speaker 1: to Andrea. So long, then come early, so that we
16:29
Speaker 1: can have a nice, long time together, she added, smiling
16:33
Speaker 1: at these words, I was swept back past the days
16:36
Speaker 1: in which I loved Gilbert, to those in which love
16:39
Speaker 1: seemed to me not only an external entity, but one
16:42
Speaker 1: that could be realized as a whole. Whereas the Gilbert
16:45
Speaker 1: whom I used to see in the Champei Leiset was
16:48
Speaker 1: a different Gilbert from the one whom I found waiting
16:50
Speaker 1: inside myself when I was alone again. Suddenly, in the
16:53
Speaker 1: real Albertine, her whom I saw every day, whom I
16:57
Speaker 1: was supposed to be stuffed with middle class prejudice and
17:00
Speaker 1: entirely open with her aunt, there was incarnate the imaginary Albertine,
17:05
Speaker 1: she whom, when I still did not know her, I
17:08
Speaker 1: had suspected of casting furtive glances at myself on the front,
17:13
Speaker 1: She who had worn an air of being reluctant to
17:15
Speaker 1: go indoors when she saw me making off in the
17:17
Speaker 1: other direction. I went in to dinner with my grandmother,
17:22
Speaker 1: I felt within me a secret which she could never guess. Similarly,
17:26
Speaker 1: with Albertine tomorrow, her friends would be with her, not
17:29
Speaker 1: knowing what novel experience she and I had in common.
17:32
Speaker 1: And when she kissed her niece on the brow, Madame
17:35
Speaker 1: Beautemp would never imagine that I stood between them in
17:38
Speaker 1: that arrangement of Albertine's hair, which had for its object
17:42
Speaker 1: concealed from all the world to give me pleasure. Me
17:45
Speaker 1: who had until then so greatly envied Madame bald tempt
17:49
Speaker 1: because being related to the same people as her niece,
17:52
Speaker 1: she had the same occasions to don mourning, the same
17:55
Speaker 1: family visits to pay. And now I found myself meaning
17:58
Speaker 1: more to Albertine than did the aunt herself. When she
18:02
Speaker 1: was with her aunt. It was of me that she
18:04
Speaker 1: would be thinking what was going to happen that evening
18:08
Speaker 1: I scarcely knew. In any event, the Grand Hotel the
18:12
Speaker 1: evening would no longer seem empty to me. They contained
18:16
Speaker 1: my happiness. I rang for the lift boy to take
18:19
Speaker 1: me up to the room which Albertine had engaged, a
18:22
Speaker 1: room that looked over the valley. The slightest movements such
18:26
Speaker 1: as that of sitting down on the bench in the lift,
18:28
Speaker 1: were satisfying because they were in direct relation to my heart.
18:32
Speaker 1: I saw in the ropes that drew the cage upwards,
18:34
Speaker 1: in the few steps that I had still to climb,
18:37
Speaker 1: only a materialization of the machinery, the stages of my joy.
18:42
Speaker 1: I had only two or three steps to take now
18:45
Speaker 1: along the corridor before coming to that room, and which
18:47
Speaker 1: was enshrined the precious substance of that rosy form, that room, which,
18:52
Speaker 1: even if there were to be done in it delicious things,
18:55
Speaker 1: would keep that air of permanence, of being to a
18:59
Speaker 1: chance a visitor who knew nothing of its history, just
19:02
Speaker 1: like any other room which makes of inanimate things, the
19:05
Speaker 1: obstinately mute witnesses, the scrupulous confidants, the inviolable depositaries of
19:11
Speaker 1: our pleasure. Those few steps from the landing to Albertine's door,
19:17
Speaker 1: those few steps which no one now could prevent my taking,
19:20
Speaker 1: I took in delight with prudence, as if in going
19:24
Speaker 1: forward I had been gently displacing the liquid stream of happiness,
19:28
Speaker 1: and at the same time with a strange feeling of
19:31
Speaker 1: absolute power and of entering at length into an inheritance,
19:35
Speaker 1: which had belonged to me from all time. Then suddenly
19:39
Speaker 1: I reflected that it was wrong to be in any doubt.
19:42
Speaker 1: She had told me to come when she was in bed.
19:44
Speaker 1: It was as clear as daylight. I pranced for joy.
19:48
Speaker 1: I nearly knocked over Francois, who was standing in my way.
19:52
Speaker 1: I ran, with glowing eyes towards my friend's room. I
19:55
Speaker 1: found Albertine in her bed, leaving her throat to bear
19:59
Speaker 1: her white nightgown a altered. The proportions of her face,
20:01
Speaker 1: which flushed by being in bed, or by her cold,
20:04
Speaker 1: or by dinner, seemed pinker than before. I thought of
20:08
Speaker 1: the colors which I had had a few hours earlier
20:11
Speaker 1: displayed beside me on the front, the savor of which
20:14
Speaker 1: I was now at last to taste. Her cheek was
20:18
Speaker 1: crossed obliquely by one of those long, dark, curling tresses, which,
20:23
Speaker 1: to please me she had undone altogether. She looked at
20:27
Speaker 1: me and smiled beyond her through the window. The valley
20:31
Speaker 1: lay bright beneath the moon. The sight of Albertine's bare throat,
20:35
Speaker 1: of those strangely vivid cheeks, had so intoxicated me, that
20:40
Speaker 1: is to say, had placed the reality of the world
20:43
Speaker 1: for me, no longer in nature, but in the torrent
20:45
Speaker 1: of my sensations, which it was all I could do
20:48
Speaker 1: to keep within bounds, as to have destroyed the balance
20:52
Speaker 1: between the life immense and indestructible which circulated in my
20:56
Speaker 1: being and the life of the universe. So puny in comparison,
21:01
Speaker 1: the sea which was visible through the window, as well
21:03
Speaker 1: as the valley, the swelling breasts of the first of
21:06
Speaker 1: the Mainville cliffs, the sky in which the moon had
21:09
Speaker 1: not yet climbed to the zenith, all of these seemed
21:12
Speaker 1: less than a featherweight on my eyeballs, which between their
21:15
Speaker 1: lids I could feel dilated, resisting, ready to bear very
21:19
Speaker 1: different burdens. All the mountains of the world, upon their
21:22
Speaker 1: fragile surface, their orbit no longer found even the sphere
21:27
Speaker 1: of the horizon adequate to fill it, And everything that
21:30
Speaker 1: nature could have brought me of life would have seemed
21:33
Speaker 1: wretchedly meager. The sigh of the waves far too short
21:37
Speaker 1: a sound to express the enormous aspiration that was surging
21:40
Speaker 1: in my breast. I bent over Albertine to kiss her death,
21:44
Speaker 1: might have struck me down in that moment. It would
21:47
Speaker 1: have seemed to me a trivial, or rather an impossible thing,
21:51
Speaker 1: For life was not outside it was in me. I
21:54
Speaker 1: should have smiled pityingly had a philosopher then expressed the
21:58
Speaker 1: idea that some day, even some distant day, I should
22:01
Speaker 1: have to die, that the external forces of nature would
22:04
Speaker 1: survive me, the forces of that nature beneath whose godlike
22:08
Speaker 1: feet I was no more than a grain of dust,
22:11
Speaker 1: that after me, that there would still remain those rounded,
22:14
Speaker 1: swelling cliffs, that sea, that moonlight, and that sky. How
22:20
Speaker 1: was that possible? How could the world last longer than myself?
22:23
Speaker 1: Since it was it that was enclosed in me, in
22:27
Speaker 1: me whom it went a long way short of filling
22:30
Speaker 1: in me, where feeling that there was room to store
22:33
Speaker 1: so many other treasures, I flung contemptuously into a corner, sky,
22:38
Speaker 1: sea and cliffs. Stop that, or I'll ring the bell,
22:42
Speaker 1: cried Albertine, seeing that I was flinging myself upon her
22:45
Speaker 1: to kiss her. But I reminded myself that it was
22:49
Speaker 1: not for no purpose that a girl met a young
22:51
Speaker 1: man come to her room in secret, arranging that her
22:54
Speaker 1: aunt should not know that boldness. Moreover rewards those who
22:58
Speaker 1: know how to seize their opportunity. In the state of
23:02
Speaker 1: exaltation in which I was, the round face of Albertine,
23:06
Speaker 1: lighted by an inner flame, like the glass bowl of
23:09
Speaker 1: a lamp, started into such prominence that, copying the rotation
23:12
Speaker 1: of a burning sphere, it seemed to me to be
23:15
Speaker 1: turning like those faces of Michelangelo, which are being swept
23:18
Speaker 1: past in the arrested headlong flight of a whirlwind. I
23:22
Speaker 1: was going to learn the fragrance, the flavor which this
23:25
Speaker 1: strange pink fruit concealed. I heard a sound, precipitous, prolonged shrill.
23:34
Speaker 1: Albertine had pulled the bell with all her might. End
23:38
Speaker 1: of Section forty seven