Latest / Within a Budding Grove / 41 - Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Transcript

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

0:00
Speaker 1: Section forty one of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust,
0:04
Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief. This LibriVox recording is
0:09
Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by Kristen hand Se Escape
0:14
Speaker 1: with Frieze of Girls, Part eight. But apart from this,
0:20
Speaker 1: had the portrait been not anterior like Swan's favorite photograph
0:25
Speaker 1: to the systematization of Odette's features in a fresh type
0:29
Speaker 1: majestic and charming, but subsequent to it, Elster's version would
0:34
Speaker 1: alone have sufficed to disorganize that type. Artistic genus, in
0:38
Speaker 1: its reactions, is like those extremely high temperatures, which have
0:42
Speaker 1: the power to disintegrate combinations of atoms, which they proceed
0:45
Speaker 1: to combine afresh in a diametrically opposite order, following another type,
0:51
Speaker 1: all that artificially harmonious whole into which a woman has
0:54
Speaker 1: succeeded in bringing her limbs in features, the persistence of
0:58
Speaker 1: which every day, before going out she studies in her glass,
1:02
Speaker 1: changing the angle of her hat, smoothing her hair, exercising
1:05
Speaker 1: the sprightliness in her eyes, so as to ensure its continuity.
1:09
Speaker 1: That harmony. The keen eye of the great painter instantly
1:12
Speaker 1: destroys substituting for it a rearrangement of that woman's features,
1:17
Speaker 1: such as will satisfy a certain pictorial ideal of femininity
1:21
Speaker 1: which he carries in his head. Similarly, it often happens
1:25
Speaker 1: that after a certain age, the eye of a great
1:27
Speaker 1: seeker after truth will find everywhere the elements necessary to
1:31
Speaker 1: establish those relations which alone are of interest to him.
1:35
Speaker 1: Like those craftsmen, those players who, instead of making a
1:39
Speaker 1: fuss and asking for what they cannot, have, content themselves
1:42
Speaker 1: with the instrument that comes to their hand, the artist
1:45
Speaker 1: might say of anything, no matter what, that it would
1:48
Speaker 1: serve his purpose. Thus a cousin of the Princess de Luxembourg,
1:53
Speaker 1: a beauty of the most queenly type, having succumbed to
1:56
Speaker 1: a form of art which was new at that time,
1:58
Speaker 1: had asked the leading painter the Naturalist school to do
2:01
Speaker 1: her portrait. At once the artist's eye had found what
2:05
Speaker 1: he sought everywhere in life, and on his canvas there appeared,
2:09
Speaker 1: in place of the proud lady a street boy, and
2:11
Speaker 1: behind him a vast, sloping purple background, which made one
2:15
Speaker 1: think of the place pigal. But even without going so
2:19
Speaker 1: far as that, not only will the portrait of a
2:21
Speaker 1: woman by a great artist not seek in the least
2:23
Speaker 1: to give satisfaction to various demands on the woman's part,
2:27
Speaker 1: such as, for instance, when she begins to age, make
2:30
Speaker 1: her have herself photographed in dresses that are almost those
2:33
Speaker 1: of a young girl, which bring out her still youthful figure,
2:36
Speaker 1: and make her appear like the sister or even the
2:39
Speaker 1: daughter of her own daughter, who, if need be, is
2:42
Speaker 1: tricked out for the occasion as a perfect fright by
2:45
Speaker 1: her side. It will, on the contrary, emphasize those very
2:49
Speaker 1: drawbacks which she seeks to hide, and which, as for
2:53
Speaker 1: instance a feverish that is to say, a livid complexion,
2:57
Speaker 1: are all the more tempting to him, since they give
2:59
Speaker 1: his character. They are quite enough, however, to destroy all
3:03
Speaker 1: the illusions of the ordinary man, who, when he sees
3:06
Speaker 1: the picture, sees crumble into dust the ideal which the
3:09
Speaker 1: woman herself has so proudly sustained for him, which has
3:12
Speaker 1: placed her in her unique, her unalterable form, so far apart,
3:18
Speaker 1: so far above the rest of humanity, fallen now represented
3:23
Speaker 1: otherwise than in her own type in which she sat
3:26
Speaker 1: unassailably throned, she has become nothing more than just an
3:30
Speaker 1: ordinary woman in the legend of whose superiority we have
3:34
Speaker 1: lost all faith in this type we are so accustomed
3:37
Speaker 1: to regard as included not only the beauty of an Odette,
3:41
Speaker 1: but her personality, her identity. That standing before the portrait,
3:45
Speaker 1: which has thus transposed her from it, we are inclined
3:48
Speaker 1: to protest, not simply how plain he has made her,
3:52
Speaker 1: but why it isn't the least bit like her. We
3:56
Speaker 1: find it hard to believe that it can be she.
3:59
Speaker 1: We do not recognize her. And yet there is a
4:01
Speaker 1: person there on the canvas whom we are quite conscious
4:04
Speaker 1: of having seen before. But that person is not Odette.
4:08
Speaker 1: The face of the person, her body, her general appearance
4:11
Speaker 1: seem familiar. They recall to us not this particular woman,
4:15
Speaker 1: who never held herself like that, whose natural pose had
4:18
Speaker 1: no suggestion of any such strange and teasing arabesque in
4:22
Speaker 1: its outlines. But other women, all the women whom Elster
4:26
Speaker 1: has ever painted, Women whom, invariably, however they may differ
4:30
Speaker 1: from one another, he has chosen to plant thus on
4:33
Speaker 1: his canvas, facing you, with an arched foot thrust out
4:37
Speaker 1: from under the skirt, a large round hat in one hand,
4:40
Speaker 1: symmetrically corresponding at the level of the knee which it
4:43
Speaker 1: hides to what also appears as a disc higher up
4:46
Speaker 1: in the picture, the face. And furthermore, not only does
4:50
Speaker 1: a portrait by the hand of genius disintegrate and destroy
4:53
Speaker 1: a woman's type as it has been defined by her
4:56
Speaker 1: coquetry and her selfish conception of beauty, but if it
5:00
Speaker 1: is also old, it is not content with aging the
5:04
Speaker 1: original in the same way as a photograph ages its
5:07
Speaker 1: sitter by showing her dressed in the fashions of long ago.
5:11
Speaker 1: In a portrait, it is not only the manner the
5:13
Speaker 1: woman then had of dressing that dates it. There is
5:15
Speaker 1: also the manner the artist had of painting. And this
5:19
Speaker 1: Elster's earliest manner was the most damaging of birth certificates
5:23
Speaker 1: for Odette, because it not only established her, as did
5:26
Speaker 1: her photographs of the same period as the younger sister
5:29
Speaker 1: of various time honored Cortissans, but made her portrait contemporary
5:34
Speaker 1: with the countless portraits that Manette or Whistler had painted
5:38
Speaker 1: of all those vanished models, models who already belonged to
5:42
Speaker 1: oblivion or to history. It was along this train of
5:46
Speaker 1: thought meditated in silence by the side of Elster as
5:49
Speaker 1: I accompanied him to his door, that I was being
5:52
Speaker 1: led by the discovery that I had just made of
5:54
Speaker 1: the identity of his model. When this original discovery caused
5:58
Speaker 1: me to make a second, more disturbing, still involving the
6:01
Speaker 1: identity of the artist he had painted the portrait of
6:05
Speaker 1: Odette de Cresie. Could it possibly be that this man
6:09
Speaker 1: of genius, this sage, this eramite, this philosopher with his
6:13
Speaker 1: marvelous flow of conversation, who towered over everyone and everything,
6:18
Speaker 1: was the foolish, corrupt little painter who had at one
6:21
Speaker 1: time been taken up by the Verderine. I asked him
6:25
Speaker 1: if he had known them, whether, by any chance it
6:27
Speaker 1: was he that they used to call Monsieur Beche. He
6:31
Speaker 1: answered me in the affirmative, with no trace of embarrassment,
6:34
Speaker 1: as if my question referred to a period in his
6:37
Speaker 1: life that was ended and already somewhat remote, with no
6:41
Speaker 1: suspicion of what a cherished illusion. His words were shattering
6:44
Speaker 1: in me, until looking up he read my disappointment upon
6:47
Speaker 1: my face. His own assumed an expression of annoyance, and
6:52
Speaker 1: as we were now almost at the gate of his house,
6:54
Speaker 1: a man of less outstanding eminence in heart and brain
6:57
Speaker 1: might simply have said goodbye to me a trifle dryly,
7:01
Speaker 1: and taking care to avoid seeing me again. This, however,
7:04
Speaker 1: was not Elster's way with me, like the master that
7:07
Speaker 1: he was, And this was, perhaps, from the point of
7:10
Speaker 1: view of sheer creative genius, his one fault, that he
7:13
Speaker 1: was a master in that sense of the word. For
7:15
Speaker 1: an artist, if he is to live the true life
7:18
Speaker 1: of the spirit in its full extent, must be alone
7:21
Speaker 1: and not bestow himself with profusion, even upon disciples. From
7:25
Speaker 1: every circumstance, whether involving himself or other people, he sought
7:29
Speaker 1: to extract for the better edification of the young the
7:32
Speaker 1: element of truth that it contained. He chose, therefore, rather
7:36
Speaker 1: than say anything that might have avenged the injury to
7:39
Speaker 1: his pride, to say what he thought would prove instructive
7:42
Speaker 1: to me. There is no man, he began, however wise,
7:46
Speaker 1: who has not, at some period of his youth, said
7:49
Speaker 1: things or lived in a way, the consciousness of which
7:52
Speaker 1: is so unpleasant to him in later life that he
7:54
Speaker 1: would gladly if he could expunge it from his memory.
7:58
Speaker 1: And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because
8:01
Speaker 1: he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a
8:03
Speaker 1: wise man, so far as it is possible for any
8:06
Speaker 1: of us to be wise, unless he has passed through
8:09
Speaker 1: all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate
8:13
Speaker 1: stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows,
8:18
Speaker 1: the sons and grandsons of famous men, whose masters have
8:21
Speaker 1: instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement in
8:24
Speaker 1: their school days. They have, perhaps, when they look back
8:27
Speaker 1: upon their past lives, nothing to retract. They can, if
8:31
Speaker 1: they choose, publish a signed account of everything they have
8:33
Speaker 1: ever said or done. But they are poor creatures, feeble
8:37
Speaker 1: descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile.
8:41
Speaker 1: We are not provided with wisdom. We must discover it
8:44
Speaker 1: for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no
8:47
Speaker 1: one else can take for us, an effort which no
8:50
Speaker 1: one can spare us. For our wisdom is the point
8:52
Speaker 1: of view from which we come at last to regard
8:55
Speaker 1: the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that
8:58
Speaker 1: seem noble to you, are not result of training at
9:01
Speaker 1: home by a father or by masters at school. They
9:04
Speaker 1: have sprung from beginnings of a very different order by
9:07
Speaker 1: reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that
9:11
Speaker 1: prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory.
9:16
Speaker 1: I can see that the picture of what we want
9:18
Speaker 1: were in early youth may not be recognizable and cannot
9:21
Speaker 1: certainly be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we
9:25
Speaker 1: must not deny the truth of it, for it is
9:27
Speaker 1: evidence that we have really lived. That it is in
9:30
Speaker 1: accordance with the laws of life and of the mind,
9:33
Speaker 1: that we have from the common element of life, of
9:36
Speaker 1: the life of studios, of artistic groups, assuming that one
9:39
Speaker 1: is a painter, extracted something that goes beyond them. Meanwhile,
9:45
Speaker 1: we had reached his door. I was disappointed at not
9:48
Speaker 1: having met the girls, but after all, there was now
9:50
Speaker 1: the possibility of meeting them again later on. They had
9:53
Speaker 1: ceased to do no more than passed beyond a horizon
9:56
Speaker 1: on which I had been ready to suppose that I
9:58
Speaker 1: should never see them reappear. Around them no longer swirled
10:02
Speaker 1: that sort of great eddy which had separated me from them,
10:05
Speaker 1: which had been merely the expression of the perpetually active
10:09
Speaker 1: desire mobile compelling fed ever on fresh anxieties which was
10:13
Speaker 1: aroused in me, by their inaccessibility, their flight from me,
10:17
Speaker 1: possibly forever, my desire for them, I could now set
10:21
Speaker 1: it at rest. Hold it I reserve among all those
10:24
Speaker 1: other desires, the realization of which, as soon as I
10:27
Speaker 1: knew it to be possible, I would cheerfully postpone. I
10:31
Speaker 1: took leave of Elster. I was alone once again. Then,
10:34
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, despite my recent disappointment, I saw
10:38
Speaker 1: in my mind's eye all that chain of coincidence which
10:40
Speaker 1: I had not supposed could possibly come about, that Elster
10:43
Speaker 1: should be a friend of those very girls, That they,
10:46
Speaker 1: who only that morning had been to me merely figures
10:49
Speaker 1: in a picture with the sea for the background, had
10:51
Speaker 1: seen me, had seen me walking in friendly intimacy with
10:54
Speaker 1: a great painter, who was now informed of my secret longing,
10:57
Speaker 1: and would no doubt to do what he could to
10:59
Speaker 1: assuasion all. This had been a source of pleasure to me,
11:03
Speaker 1: But that pleasure had remained hidden. It was one of
11:06
Speaker 1: those visitors who wait before letting us know that they
11:08
Speaker 1: are in the room until all the rest have gone
11:11
Speaker 1: and we are by ourselves. Then only do we catch
11:14
Speaker 1: sight of them and can say to them, I am
11:17
Speaker 1: at your service, and listen to what they have to
11:20
Speaker 1: tell us. Sometimes, between the moment at which these pleasures
11:24
Speaker 1: have entered our consciousness and the moment at which we
11:26
Speaker 1: are free to entertain them, so many hours have passed.
11:30
Speaker 1: We have, in the interval seen so many people that
11:32
Speaker 1: we are afraid lest they should have grown tired of waiting.
11:35
Speaker 1: But they are patient, they do not grow tired, and
11:38
Speaker 1: as soon as the crowd has gone, we find them
11:40
Speaker 1: there ready for us. Sometimes it is then we who
11:44
Speaker 1: are so exhausted, that it seems as though our weary
11:47
Speaker 1: mind will not have the strength left to seize and
11:50
Speaker 1: retain those memories, those impressions for which our frail self
11:55
Speaker 1: is the one habitable place, the sole means of realization.
12:00
Speaker 1: And we should regret that failure. For existence to us
12:03
Speaker 1: is hardly interesting, save on the days on which the
12:05
Speaker 1: dust of realities is shot with magic sand, on which
12:09
Speaker 1: some trivial incident of life becomes a spring of romance.
12:13
Speaker 1: Then a whole promontory of the inaccessible world rises dear
12:16
Speaker 1: in the light of our dream and enters into our life,
12:19
Speaker 1: our life in which, like the sleeper awakened, we actually
12:23
Speaker 1: see the people of whom we have been so ardently,
12:25
Speaker 1: dreaming that we came to believe that we should never
12:28
Speaker 1: behold them save in our dreams. The sense of comfort
12:32
Speaker 1: that I drew from the probability of my now being
12:34
Speaker 1: able to meet the little band whenever I chose was
12:37
Speaker 1: all the more precious to me because I should not
12:40
Speaker 1: have been able to keep watch for them during the
12:42
Speaker 1: next few days, which would be taken up with preparations
12:45
Speaker 1: for San Lup's departure. My grandmother was anxious to offer
12:49
Speaker 1: my friends some proof of her gratitude for all the
12:51
Speaker 1: kindnesses he had shown to her and myself. I told
12:55
Speaker 1: her that he was a great admirer of Prudhon, and
12:58
Speaker 1: this put it into our head to say and for
13:00
Speaker 1: a collection of autograph letters by that philosopher which she
13:03
Speaker 1: had once bought. San Luke came to her room to
13:06
Speaker 1: look at them on the day of their arrival, which
13:08
Speaker 1: was also his last day at Baalbeck. He read them eagerly,
13:12
Speaker 1: fingering each page with reverence, trying to get the sentences
13:15
Speaker 1: by heart, and then, rising from the table, was beginning
13:18
Speaker 1: to apologize to my grandmother for having stayed so long,
13:22
Speaker 1: when he heard her say, no, no, take them with you.
13:26
Speaker 1: They are for you to keep. That was why I
13:28
Speaker 1: sent for them to give them to you. He was
13:31
Speaker 1: overpowered by a joy which he could no more control
13:34
Speaker 1: than we can a physical condition that arises without the
13:37
Speaker 1: intervention of our will. He blushed scarlet as a child
13:41
Speaker 1: who has just been whipped. And my grandmother was a
13:43
Speaker 1: great deal more touched to see all the efforts that
13:46
Speaker 1: he was making without success to control the joy that
13:49
Speaker 1: convulsed him, than she would have been to hear any
13:52
Speaker 1: words of thanks that he could have uttered. But he,
13:55
Speaker 1: fearing that he had failed to show his gratitude, properly
13:58
Speaker 1: begged me to make his excis uses to her again.
14:01
Speaker 1: Next day, leaning from the window of the little train
14:04
Speaker 1: of the local railway company, which was to take him
14:06
Speaker 1: back to his regiment, The distance was, as a matter
14:09
Speaker 1: of fact, nothing he had thought of going, as he
14:11
Speaker 1: had frequently done that summer when he was to return
14:14
Speaker 1: the same evening and was not encumbered with luggage by road.
14:18
Speaker 1: But this time he would have had anyhow to put
14:20
Speaker 1: all his heavy luggage in the train, and he found
14:23
Speaker 1: it simpler to take the train himself, also following the
14:25
Speaker 1: advice of the manager, who, on being consulted, replied that
14:29
Speaker 1: carriage or train. It was more or less equivocal. He
14:33
Speaker 1: meant us to understand that they were equivalent, in fact,
14:36
Speaker 1: very much what Frescois would have expressed as coming to
14:39
Speaker 1: as near as made no difference. Very well. Sonlup had decided,
14:43
Speaker 1: I will take the little crawler. I should have taken
14:46
Speaker 1: it too, had I not been tired and gone with
14:48
Speaker 1: my friend to Doncier. Failing this, I kept on promising
14:52
Speaker 1: all the time that we waited in the ball back station,
14:55
Speaker 1: the time, that is to say, which the driver of
14:57
Speaker 1: the little train spent in waiting for unpunctual friends, without
15:00
Speaker 1: whom he refused to start, and also in seeking some
15:03
Speaker 1: refreshment for himself to go over there and see him
15:06
Speaker 1: several times a week, as Bloch had come to the station,
15:10
Speaker 1: also much to Saint Lup's disgust, the latter, seeing that
15:14
Speaker 1: our companion could hear him begging me to come to luncheon,
15:17
Speaker 1: to dinner, to stay altogether at Dulcieer finally turned to
15:20
Speaker 1: him and, in the most forbidding tone, intended to counteract
15:24
Speaker 1: the forced civility of the invitation and to prevent block
15:27
Speaker 1: from taking it. Seriously. If you ever happened to be
15:30
Speaker 1: passing through Dulcier any afternoon when I am off duty.
15:34
Speaker 1: You might ask for me at the barracks, but I
15:37
Speaker 1: hardly ever am off duty. Perhaps also Robert felt lest
15:42
Speaker 1: if left to myself, I might not come, and, thinking
15:44
Speaker 1: that I was more intimate with Bloch than I made out,
15:47
Speaker 1: was providing me in this way with a traveling companion,
15:50
Speaker 1: one who would urge me on. I was afraid that
15:53
Speaker 1: this tone, this way of inviting a person while warning
15:56
Speaker 1: him not to come, might have wounded Bloch, and felt
15:59
Speaker 1: that San Lup would have done better saying nothing. But
16:02
Speaker 1: I was mistaken, for after the train had gone, while
16:05
Speaker 1: we were walking back together, as far as the cross
16:07
Speaker 1: roads at which we should have to part, one road
16:10
Speaker 1: going to the hotel, the other to the blochs villa,
16:13
Speaker 1: he never ceased from asking me on what day we
16:15
Speaker 1: should go to Dulcieer, For after all the civilities that
16:18
Speaker 1: Saint Lup had shown him, it would be too unmannerly
16:21
Speaker 1: on his part not to accept the invitation. I was
16:25
Speaker 1: glad that he had not noticed, or was so little
16:27
Speaker 1: displeased as to wish to let it be thought that
16:30
Speaker 1: he had not noticed. On how far from pressing, how
16:33
Speaker 1: barely polite a note the invitation had been sounded. At
16:36
Speaker 1: the same time, I should have liked Bloch, for his
16:39
Speaker 1: own sake, to refrain from making a fool of himself
16:41
Speaker 1: by going over at once to Dulcier. But I dared
16:45
Speaker 1: not offer a piece of advice which could only have
16:47
Speaker 1: offended him by hinting that Saint Lup had been less
16:49
Speaker 1: pressing than himself. Impressed, he was a great deal too
16:53
Speaker 1: ready to respond. And even if all his faults of
16:55
Speaker 1: this nature were atoned for by remarkable qualities which others,
16:59
Speaker 1: with more resort than he would not possess, he carried
17:02
Speaker 1: indiscretion to a pitch that was almost maddening. The week
17:06
Speaker 1: must not to hear him speak, pass without our going
17:09
Speaker 1: to Dancier, he said hour, for I think that he
17:12
Speaker 1: counted to some extent on my presence there as an
17:15
Speaker 1: excuse for his own. All the way home, opposite the Gymnasium,
17:19
Speaker 1: in its grove of trees, opposite the lawn tennis courts,
17:22
Speaker 1: the Mayor's office, the shell fish stall, he stopped me,
17:26
Speaker 1: imploring me to fix a day, and as I did not,
17:28
Speaker 1: left me in a towering rage. Saying, as your lordship
17:31
Speaker 1: pleases for my part, I am obliged to go, since
17:34
Speaker 1: he has invited me. Sanlup was still so much afraid
17:39
Speaker 1: of not having thanked my grandmother properly, that he charged
17:42
Speaker 1: me once again to express his gratitude to her. A
17:44
Speaker 1: day or two later, in a letter I received from
17:47
Speaker 1: him from the town in which he was quartered, a
17:49
Speaker 1: town which seemed on the envelope where the postmark had
17:52
Speaker 1: stamped its name, to be hastening to me across country
17:55
Speaker 1: to tell me that within its walls in the Louis
17:58
Speaker 1: the sixteenth Cavalry barracks he was thinking of me. The
18:02
Speaker 1: paper was embossed with the arms of Marsant, in which
18:06
Speaker 1: I could make out a lion surmounted by a coronet
18:09
Speaker 1: formed by the cap of a peer of France. After
18:13
Speaker 1: a journey, which he wrote, passed pleasantly enough. With a
18:16
Speaker 1: book I bought at the station by Arvad Bahreen, a
18:20
Speaker 1: Russian author. I fancy it seemed to me remarkably well
18:23
Speaker 1: written for a foreigner. But you shall give me your
18:25
Speaker 1: critical opinion. You are bound to know all about it.
18:28
Speaker 1: You found of knowledge to have read everything. Here I
18:30
Speaker 1: am again in the thick of this debased existence, where
18:33
Speaker 1: alas I feel a sad exile, not having here what
18:36
Speaker 1: I had to leave at Bullbeck, this life in which
18:39
Speaker 1: I cannot discover one affectionate memory, any intellectual attraction, an
18:43
Speaker 1: environment on which you would probably look with contempt, and
18:46
Speaker 1: yet it has a certain charm. Everything seems to have
18:50
Speaker 1: changed since I was last here. For in the interval
18:53
Speaker 1: one of the most important periods in my life, that
18:55
Speaker 1: from which our friendship dates has begun. I hope that
18:59
Speaker 1: it may never come to an end. I have spoken
19:02
Speaker 1: of our friendship of you to one person, only to
19:04
Speaker 1: the friend I told you of, who has just paid
19:06
Speaker 1: me a surprise visit here. She would like immensely to
19:10
Speaker 1: know you, and I feel that you would get on
19:11
Speaker 1: well together, for she too is extremely literary. I, on
19:16
Speaker 1: the other hand, to go over in my mind all
19:18
Speaker 1: our talk, to live over again, those hours which I
19:21
Speaker 1: shall never forget. Have shut myself off from my comrades,
19:24
Speaker 1: excellent fellows, but altogether incapable of understanding that sort of thing,
19:29
Speaker 1: this remembrance of moments spent with you. I should almost
19:32
Speaker 1: have preferred, on my first day here to call up
19:35
Speaker 1: for my own solitary enjoyment without writing. But I was
19:39
Speaker 1: afraid lest you, with your subtle mind and ultra sensitive heart, might,
19:43
Speaker 1: if you did not hear from me, needlessly torment yourself.
19:47
Speaker 1: If that is to say, you still condescend to occupy
19:51
Speaker 1: your thoughts with this blunt trooper, whom you will have
19:53
Speaker 1: a hard task to polish and refine, and make a
19:56
Speaker 1: little more subtle and worthier of your company. On the whole,
20:01
Speaker 1: this letter, in its affectionate spirit, was not at all
20:04
Speaker 1: unlike those which, when I did not yet know Sandlup,
20:07
Speaker 1: I had imagined that he would write to me in
20:10
Speaker 1: those day dreams from which the coldness of his first
20:12
Speaker 1: greeting had shaken me, by bringing me face to face
20:15
Speaker 1: with an icy reality, which was not, however, to endure.
20:19
Speaker 1: Once I had received this letter, whenever at luncheon time
20:22
Speaker 1: the post was brought in, I could tell at once
20:24
Speaker 1: when it was from him that a letter came, for
20:27
Speaker 1: it had always that second face which a person assumes
20:30
Speaker 1: when he is absent in the features of which the
20:32
Speaker 1: characters of his script. There is no reason why we
20:35
Speaker 1: should not suppose that we are tracing an individual soul,
20:38
Speaker 1: just as much as in the line of a nose,
20:40
Speaker 1: or the inflections of a voice. I would now gladly
20:43
Speaker 1: remain at the table while it was being cleared. And
20:46
Speaker 1: if it was not a moment at which the girls
20:48
Speaker 1: of the little band might be passing, it was no
20:50
Speaker 1: longer solely towards the sea that I would turn my eyes.
20:53
Speaker 1: Since I had seen such things depicted in water colors
20:56
Speaker 1: by Elster, I sought to find again in reality, cherished
21:00
Speaker 1: as though for their poetic beauty. The broken gestures of
21:03
Speaker 1: the knives still lying across one another, the swollen convexity
21:07
Speaker 1: of a discarded napkin upon which the sun would patch
21:09
Speaker 1: a scrap of yellow velvet, the half empty glass, which
21:12
Speaker 1: thus showed to greater advantage, the noble sweep of its
21:15
Speaker 1: curved sides, and in the heart of its translucent, crystal
21:19
Speaker 1: clear as frozen daylight. A drag of wine, dusky but
21:22
Speaker 1: sparkling with reflected lights. The displacement of solid objects, the
21:26
Speaker 1: transmutation of liquids by the effect of light and shade.
21:30
Speaker 1: The shifting color of the plums, which passed from green
21:33
Speaker 1: to blue and from blue to golden yellow. In the
21:35
Speaker 1: half plundered dish, the chairs like a group of old
21:38
Speaker 1: ladies that came twice daily to take their places round
21:41
Speaker 1: the white cloth spread on the table as on an altar,
21:44
Speaker 1: at which were celebrated the rites of the Palate, where
21:47
Speaker 1: in the hollows of oyster shells a few drops of
21:50
Speaker 1: lustril water had gathered, as in tiny holy water stoops
21:54
Speaker 1: of stone. I tried to find beauty there where I
21:57
Speaker 1: had never imagined before that it could exist in the
22:00
Speaker 1: most ordinary things, in the profundities of still life and
22:06
Speaker 1: of Section forty one