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51 - Swanns Way by Marcel Proust · Swanns Way

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  Speaker 1: Part three, section twenty three 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. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Part three, Swan in Love,
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  Speaker 1: Section twenty three. From that evening, Swan understood that the
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  Speaker 1: feeling which Odette had once had for him would never revive,
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  Speaker 1: that his hopes of happiness would not be realized now
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  Speaker 1: in the days on which, by a lucky chance, she
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  Speaker 1: had once more shown herself kind and loving to him,
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  Speaker 1: or if she had paid him any attention, He recorded
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  Speaker 1: those apparent and misleading signs of a slight movement on
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  Speaker 1: her part, towards them with the same tender and skeptical solicitude.
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  Speaker 1: The desperate joy that people reveal who when they are
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  Speaker 1: nursing a friend in the last days of an incurable malady,
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  Speaker 1: relate as signific in facts of infinite value. Yesterday he
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  Speaker 1: went through his accounts himself and actually corrected a mistake
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  Speaker 1: that we had made in adding them up. He ate
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  Speaker 1: an egg today and seemed quite to enjoy it if
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  Speaker 1: he digest it. Properly. We shall try him with a
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  Speaker 1: cutlet tomorrow, although they themselves know that these things are
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  Speaker 1: meaningless on the eve of an inevitable death. No doubt,
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  Speaker 1: Swan was assured that if he had been living at
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  Speaker 1: a distance from Odette, he would gradually have lost all
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  Speaker 1: interest in her, so that he would have been glad
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  Speaker 1: to learn that she was leaving Paris forever. He would
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  Speaker 1: have had the courage to remain there, But he had
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  Speaker 1: not the courage to go. He had often thought of going.
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  Speaker 1: Now that he was once again at work upon his
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  Speaker 1: essay on Vermire, he wanted to return for a few
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  Speaker 1: days at least to the Hague, to Dresden, to Brunswick.
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  Speaker 1: He was certain that a toilette of Diana, which had
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  Speaker 1: been acquired by the Morrishus at the Goldschmidt's sale, as
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  Speaker 1: to Nicholas Maya's, was in reality of Vermire, and he
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  Speaker 1: would have liked to be able to examine the picture
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  Speaker 1: on the spot so as to strengthen his conviction. But
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  Speaker 1: to leave Paris while Odette was there, and even when
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  Speaker 1: she was not there. For in strange places, where our
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  Speaker 1: sensations have not been nune by habit, we refresh we
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  Speaker 1: revive in old pain was for him so cruel a
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  Speaker 1: project that he felt himself to be capable of entertaining
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  Speaker 1: it incessantly in his mind, only because he knew himself
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  Speaker 1: to be resolute in his determination never to put it
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  Speaker 1: into effect. But it would happen that while he was asleep,
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  Speaker 1: the intention to travel would reawaken in him, without his
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  Speaker 1: remembering that this particular tour was impossible and would be realized.
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  Speaker 1: One night, he dreamed that he was going away for
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  Speaker 1: a year, leaning from the window of the train towards
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  Speaker 1: a young man on the platform who wept as he
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  Speaker 1: bade him farewell. He was seeking to persuade this young
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  Speaker 1: man to come away. Also the train began to move.
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  Speaker 1: He awoke in alarm and remembered that he was not
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  Speaker 1: going away, that he would see Odea that evening and
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  Speaker 1: next day, and almost every day, And then, being still
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  Speaker 1: deeply moved by his dream, he would thank Heaven for
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  Speaker 1: those special circumstances which made him independent, thanks to which
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  Speaker 1: he could remain in Odette's vicinity and could even succeed
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  Speaker 1: in making her allow him to see her sometimes. And
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  Speaker 1: counting over the list of his advantages, his social position,
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  Speaker 1: his fortune, from which she stood too often in need
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  Speaker 1: of assistance, not to shrink from the prospect of a
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  Speaker 1: definite rupture. Having even so, people said an ulterior plan
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  Speaker 1: of getting him to marry her. His friendship with Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: de Charleeu, which it must be confessed, had never won
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  Speaker 1: him any very great favor from Odette, but which gave
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  Speaker 1: him the pleasant feeling that she was always hearing complimentary
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  Speaker 1: things said about him by this common friend for whom
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  Speaker 1: she had so great an esteem, and even his own intelligence,
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  Speaker 1: the whole of which he employed in weaving every day
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  Speaker 1: a fresh plot, which would make his presence, if not agreeable,
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  Speaker 1: at any rate, necessary to Odette. He thought of what
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  Speaker 1: might have happened to him if all these advantages had
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  Speaker 1: been lacking. He thought that if he had been, like
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  Speaker 1: so many other men, poor and humble, without resources, forced
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  Speaker 1: to undertake any task that might be offered to him,
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  Speaker 1: or tied down by parents or by a wife, he
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  Speaker 1: might have been obliged to part from Odette. That that dream,
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  Speaker 1: the terror of which was still so recent, might well
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  Speaker 1: have been true. And he said to himself, people don't
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  Speaker 1: know when they are happy. They're never so unhappy as
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  Speaker 1: they think they are. But he reflected that this existence
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  Speaker 1: had lasted already for several years, that all he could
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  Speaker 1: now hope for was that it should last forever. That
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  Speaker 1: he would sacrifice his work, his pleasures, his friends, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: the whole of his life, to the daily expectation of
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  Speaker 1: a meeting, which, when it occurred, would bring him no happiness.
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  Speaker 1: And he asked himself whether he was not mistaken, whether
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances that had favored their relation and had prevented
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  Speaker 1: a final rupture had not done a disservice to his career,
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  Speaker 1: whether the outcome to be desired was not that as
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  Speaker 1: to which he rejoiced, that had happened only in dreams
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  Speaker 1: his own departure. And he said to himself that people
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  Speaker 1: did not know when they were unhappy, that they were
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  Speaker 1: never so happy as they supposed. Sometimes he hoped that
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  Speaker 1: she would die painlessly in some accident, she who was
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  Speaker 1: out of doors in the streets, crossing busy thoroughfares from
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  Speaker 1: morning to night. And as she always returned safe and sound,
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  Speaker 1: he marveled at the strength that the suppleness of the
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  Speaker 1: human body, which was able continually to hold in check,
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  Speaker 1: to outwit all the perils that environed it, which to
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  Speaker 1: Swan seemed innumerable, since his own secret desire had strewn
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  Speaker 1: them in her path and so allowed its occupant, the soul,
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  Speaker 1: to abandon itself day after day and almost with impunity,
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  Speaker 1: to its career of mendacity to the pursuit of pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: And Swan felt very cordial sympathy with the Mahomet the second,
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  Speaker 1: whose portrait by Bellini he admired, who, on finding that
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  Speaker 1: he had fallen madly in love with one of his wives,
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  Speaker 1: stabbed her in order, as his Venetian biographer artlessly relates,
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  Speaker 1: to recover his spiritual freedom. Then he would be ashamed
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  Speaker 1: of thinking thus only of himself and his own sufferings,
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  Speaker 1: which seemed to deserve no pity, now that he himself
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  Speaker 1: was disposing so cheaply of Odette's very life, since he
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  Speaker 1: was unable to separate himself from her without a subsequent return,
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  Speaker 1: if at least he had seen her continuously and without separations,
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  Speaker 1: his grief would ultimately have been assuaged, and his love
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  Speaker 1: would perhaps have died. And from the moment when she
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  Speaker 1: did not wish to leave Paris forever, he had hoped
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  Speaker 1: that she would never go, as he knew that her
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  Speaker 1: one prolonged absence every year was in August and September.
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  Speaker 1: He had abundant opportunity several months in advance to dissociate
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  Speaker 1: from it. The grim picture of her absence throughout eternity,
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  Speaker 1: which was lodged in him by anticipation, and which consisting
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  Speaker 1: of days closely akin to the days through which he
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  Speaker 1: was then passing, floated in a cold transparency in his mind,
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  Speaker 1: which it saddened and depressed, though without causing him any
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  Speaker 1: intolerable pain. But that conception of the future, that flowing stream,
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  Speaker 1: colorless and unconfined, a single word from Odette, sufficed to
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  Speaker 1: penetrate through all Swan's defenses, and, like a block of ice, immobilized,
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  Speaker 1: it congealed. Its fluidity made it freeze altogether, and Swan
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  Speaker 1: felt himself suddenly filled with an enormous and unbreakable mass,
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  Speaker 1: which pressed on the inner walls of his consciousness until
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  Speaker 1: he was fain to burst asunder. For Odette had said, casually,
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  Speaker 1: watching him with a malicious smile, for Scheville is going
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  Speaker 1: for a fine trip at whitsuntide. He's going to Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: And Swan had at once understood that this meant I
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  Speaker 1: am going to Egypt at whitsuntide with foresee and in fact,
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  Speaker 1: if a few days later Swan began about that trip
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  Speaker 1: that you told me you were going to take with Forcheville,
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  Speaker 1: she would answer carelessly, Yes, my dear boy, we're starting
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  Speaker 1: on the nineteenth. Will send you a view of the Pyramids.
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  Speaker 1: Then he was determined to know whether she was Forcheville's mistress,
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  Speaker 1: to ask her point blank to insist upon her telling
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  Speaker 1: him he knew that there were some perjuries which, being
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  Speaker 1: so superstitious, she would not commit. And besides the fear
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  Speaker 1: which had hitherto restrained his curiosity of making Odette angry
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  Speaker 1: if he questioned her, of making himself odious, had ceased
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  Speaker 1: to exist. Now that he had lost all hope of
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  Speaker 1: ever being loved by her, one day he received an
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  Speaker 1: anonymous letter which told him that Odette had been the
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  Speaker 1: mistress of countless men, several of whom it named, among
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  Speaker 1: them Forcheville, Monsieur de Brote, and the painter and women,
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  Speaker 1: and that she frequented houses of ill fame. He was
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  Speaker 1: tormented by the discovery that there was to be numbered
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  Speaker 1: among his friends a creature capable of sending him such
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  Speaker 1: a letter, for certain details betrayed in the writer a
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  Speaker 1: familiarity with his private life. He wondered who it could be,
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  Speaker 1: But he had never had any suspicion with regard to
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  Speaker 1: the unknown actions of other people, those which had no
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  Speaker 1: visible connection with what they said. And when he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to know whether it was rather beneath the apparent character
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  Speaker 1: of Monsieur de Charleu, or of Monsieur de Lom, or
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  Speaker 1: of Monsieur d'orsan, that he must place the untraveled region
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  Speaker 1: in which this ignoble action might have had its birth.
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  Speaker 1: As none of these men had ever in conversation with
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  Speaker 1: Swan suggested that he approved of anonymous letters, and as
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  Speaker 1: everything that they had ever said to him implied that
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  Speaker 1: they strongly disapproved, he saw no further reason for associating
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  Speaker 1: this infamy with the character of any one of them,
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  Speaker 1: more than with the rest. Monsieur de Charleus was somewhat
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  Speaker 1: inclined to eccentricity, but he was fundamentally good and kind.
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur de lom was a trifle dry, but wholesome and strait.
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  Speaker 1: As for Monsieur d'orsan, Swan had never met anyone who,
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  Speaker 1: even in the most depressing circumstances, would come to him
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  Speaker 1: with a more heartfelt utterance, would act more properly or
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  Speaker 1: with more discretion, so much so that he was unable
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  Speaker 1: to understand the rather indelicate part commonly attributed to Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: d'orsan in his relations with a certain wealthy woman, and
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  Speaker 1: that whenever he thought of him, he was obliged to
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  Speaker 1: set that evil reputation on one side, as irreconcilable with
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  Speaker 1: so many unmistakable proofs of his genuine sincerity and refinement.
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  Speaker 1: For a moment, Swan felt that his mind was becoming clouded,
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  Speaker 1: and he thought of something else so as to recover
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  Speaker 1: a little light until he had the courage to return
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  Speaker 1: to those other reflections. But then, after not having been
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  Speaker 1: able to suspect anyone, he was forced to suspect everyone
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  Speaker 1: that he knew. After all, Monsieur de Charleu might be
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  Speaker 1: most fond of him, might be most good natured, but
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  Speaker 1: he was a neuropath. Tomorrow, perhaps he would burst into
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  Speaker 1: tears on hearing that Swan was ill, and today, from
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  Speaker 1: jealousy or in anger, or carried away by some sudden idea,
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  Speaker 1: he might have wished to do him a deliberate injury. Really,
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  Speaker 1: that kind of man was the worst of all. The
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  Speaker 1: Prince Dulon was certainly far less devoted to Swan than
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  Speaker 1: was Monsieur de Charleeud, but for that very reason he
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  Speaker 1: had not the same susceptibility with regard to him. And besides,
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  Speaker 1: his was a nature which, though no doubt it was cold,
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  Speaker 1: was as incapable of a base as of a magnanimous action.
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  Speaker 1: Swan regretted that he had formed no attachments in his
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  Speaker 1: life except to such people. Then he reflected that what
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  Speaker 1: prevents men from doing harm to their neighbors is fellow
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  Speaker 1: feeling that he could not, in the last resort, answer
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  Speaker 1: for any but men whose natures were analogous to his own,
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  Speaker 1: as was so far as the heart went that of
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur de Charleeud. The mere thought of causing Swan so
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  Speaker 1: much disas stress would have been revolting to him. But
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  Speaker 1: with a man who was insensible of another order of humanity,
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  Speaker 1: as was the Prince de Loan, I was one to
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  Speaker 1: foresee the actions to which he might be led by
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  Speaker 1: the promptings of a different nature. To have a good
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  Speaker 1: heart was everything, and Monsieur de Charleu had one but
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur d'orson was not lacking in that either, and his
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  Speaker 1: relations with Swan cordial but scarcely intimate, arising from the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure which, as they held the same views about everything
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  Speaker 1: they found in talking together, were more quiescent than the
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  Speaker 1: enthusiastic affection of Monsieur de Charleu, who was apt to
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  Speaker 1: be led into passionate activity good or evil. If there
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  Speaker 1: was anyone by whom Swan felt that he had always
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  Speaker 1: been understood and with delicacy loved, it was Monsieur d'arson, yes,
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  Speaker 1: but the life he led it could hardly be called honorable.
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  Speaker 1: Swan regretted that he had never taken any notice of
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  Speaker 1: those rumors that he himself had admitted, jesting that he
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  Speaker 1: had never felt so keen a sense of sympathy or
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  Speaker 1: of respect as when he was in thoroughly detrimental society.
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  Speaker 1: It is not for nothing, he now assured himself, that
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  Speaker 1: when people pass judgment upon their neighbor, their finding is
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  Speaker 1: based upon his actions. It is those alone that are significant,
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  Speaker 1: and not at all what we say or what we think.
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  Speaker 1: Charleu and Derlau may have this or that fault, but
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  Speaker 1: they are men of honor or. Song perhaps has not
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  Speaker 1: the same fault, but he is not a man of honor.
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  Speaker 1: He may have acted dishonorably once again. Then he suspected Remi,
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  Speaker 1: who it was true, could only have inspired the letter.
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  Speaker 1: But he now felt himself, for a moment to be
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  Speaker 1: on the right track to begin with, Loredan had his
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  Speaker 1: own reasons for wishing harm to owe death. And then
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  Speaker 1: how are we not to suppose that our servants, living
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  Speaker 1: in a situation inferior to our own, adding to our fortunes,
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  Speaker 1: into our frailties, imaginary riches and vices for which they
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  Speaker 1: at once envy and despised us, should not find themselves
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  Speaker 1: led by fate to act in a manner abhorrent to
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  Speaker 1: people of our own class. He also suspected my grandfather
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  Speaker 1: on every occasion when Swan had asked him to do
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  Speaker 1: him any service, had he not invariably declined. Besides, with
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  Speaker 1: his ideas of middle class respectability, he might have thought
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  Speaker 1: that he was acting for Swan's good. He suspected in
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  Speaker 1: turn the painter. The Verderans paused for a moment to
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  Speaker 1: admire once again the wisdom of people in society who
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  Speaker 1: refused to mix in the artistic circles in which such
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  Speaker 1: things were possible, were perhaps even openly avowed as excellent jokes.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But then he recalled the marks of honesty that were
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  Speaker 1: to be observed in those bohemians, and contrasted them with
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  Speaker 1: the life of expedients, often boarding to which the want
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  Speaker 1: of money, the craving for luxury, the corrupting influence of
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  Speaker 1: their pleasures often drove members of the aristocracy. In a word, this,
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  Speaker 1: this synonymous letter proved that he himself knew a human
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  Speaker 1: being capable of the most infamous conduct. But he could
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  Speaker 1: see no reason why that infamy should lurk in the
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  Speaker 1: depths which no strange I might explore. Of the warm
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  Speaker 1: heart rather than the cold, the artists rather than the
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  Speaker 1: business man's, the nobles rather than the flunkies. What criterion
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  Speaker 1: ought one to adopt in order to judge one's fellows?
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  Speaker 1: After all, there was not a single one of the
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  Speaker 1: people whom he knew who might not, in certain circumstances,
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  Speaker 1: prove capable of a shameful action. Must he then cease
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  Speaker 1: to see them? All? His mind grew clouded. He passed
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  Speaker 1: his hands two or three times across his brow, wiped
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  Speaker 1: his glasses with his handkerchief, and remembering that, after all,
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  Speaker 1: men who were as good as himself frequented the society
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur de Charleou, the Prince de Loam, and the rest,
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  Speaker 1: he persuaded himself that this meant, if not that they
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  Speaker 1: were incapable of shameful actions, at least that it was
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  Speaker 1: a necessity in human life to which everyone must submit
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  Speaker 1: to frequent this society of people who were perhaps not
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  Speaker 1: incapable of such actions. And he continued to shake hands
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  Speaker 1: with all the friends whom he had suspected, with the
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  Speaker 1: purely formal reservation that each one of them had possibly
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  Speaker 1: been seeking to drive him to despair. As for the
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  Speaker 1: actual contents of the letter, they did not disturb him,
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  Speaker 1: for in not one of the charges which it formulated
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  Speaker 1: against Odette could he see the least vestige of fact.
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  Speaker 1: Like many other men, Swan had a naturally lazy mind
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  Speaker 1: and was slow in invention. He knew quite well as
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  Speaker 1: a general truth that human life is full of contrast.
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  Speaker 1: But in the case of any one human being, he
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  Speaker 1: imagined all that part of his or her life with
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  Speaker 1: which he was not familiar as being identical with the
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  Speaker 1: part with which he was he imagined what was kept
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  Speaker 1: secret from him in the light of what was revealed
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  Speaker 1: at such times as he spent with Odette. If their
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: conversation turned upon an indelicate act committed, or an indelicate
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  Speaker 1: sentiment expressed by some third person, she would ruthlessly condemn
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  Speaker 1: the culprit by virtue of the same moral principles which
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  Speaker 1: Swan had always heard expressed by his own parents, and
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  Speaker 1: to which he himself had remained loyal. And then she
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  Speaker 1: would arrange her flowers, would sip her tea, would show
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  Speaker 1: an interest in his work. So Swan extended those habits
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  Speaker 1: to fill the rest of her life. He reconstructed those
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: actions when he wished to form a picture of the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: moments in which he and she were apart. If anyone
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  Speaker 1: had portrayed her to him as she was, or rather
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  Speaker 1: as she had been for so long with himself, but
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  Speaker 1: had substituted some other men, he would have been distressed,
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  Speaker 1: for such a portrait would have struck him as lifelike.
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  Speaker 1: Who to suppose that she went to bad houses, that
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  Speaker 1: she abandoned herself to orgies with other women, that she
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  Speaker 1: led the crapulous existence of the most abject, the most
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  Speaker 1: contemptible of mortals would be an insane wandering of the mind,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: for the realization of which, thank Heaven the chrysanthemums, that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: he could imagine the daily cups of tea. The verse
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  Speaker 1: rtuous indignation left neither time nor place. Only now and
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  Speaker 1: again he gave Odette to understand that people maliciously kept
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  Speaker 1: him informed of everything that she did, and making opportune
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  Speaker 1: use of some detail insignificant but true, which he had
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  Speaker 1: accidentally learned, as though it were the sole fragment which
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  Speaker 1: he would allow, in spite of himself, to pass his
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  Speaker 1: lips out of the numberless other fragments of that complete
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  Speaker 1: reconstruction of her daily life which he carried secretly in
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  Speaker 1: his mind. He led her to suppose that he was
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  Speaker 1: perfectly informed upon matters which in reality he neither knew
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  Speaker 1: nor suspected. For if he often adjured Odette, never to
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  Speaker 1: swerve from or make alteration of the truth, that was
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  Speaker 1: only whether he realized it or no, in order that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Odette should tell him everything that she did. No doubt,
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  Speaker 1: as he used to assure Odette, he loved sincerity, but
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  Speaker 1: only as he might love a pander who could keep
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: him in touch with the daily life of his mistress. Moreover,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: his love of sincerity, not be being disinterested, had not
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: improved his character. The truth which he cherished was that
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: which Odette would tell him, But he himself, in order
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: to extract that truth from her, was not afraid to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: have recourse to falsehood, that very falsehood which he never
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: ceased to depict to Odette as leading every human creature
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: down to utter degradation. In a word, he lied as
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: much as did Odette, because while more unhappy than she,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: he was no less egotistical, and she, when she heard
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: him repeating thus to her the things that she had done,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: would stare at him with a look of distrust and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: at all hazards of indignation, so as not to appear
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to be humiliated and to be blushing for her actions.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: One day, after the longest period of calm through which
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: he had yet been able to exist without being overtaken
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: by an attack of jealousy, he had accepted an invitation
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to spend the evening at the theater with the Princess Derlane,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: having opened his newspaper to find out what was being played.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The sight of the title Le fill der Marbre by
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Theodor barrier struck him so cruel a blow that he
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: recoiled instinctively from it and turned his head away, illuminated,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: as though by a row of footlights. In the new
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: surroundings in which it now appeared, that word marble, which
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: he had lost the power to distinguish so often had
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it passed in print beneath his eyes, had suddenly become
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: visible once again, and had at once brought back to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: his mind the story which Odette had told him long
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: ago at the Palace of Industry, with Madame Verdurand, who
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: had said to her, take care now, and know how
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to melt you all right, You're not made of marble.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Odette had assured him that it was only a joke,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and he had not attached any importance to it at
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the time, But he had had more confidence in her
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: then than he had now, and the anonymous letter referred
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: explicitly to relations of that sort. Without daring to lift
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: his eyes to the newspaper, he opened it, turned the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: page so as not to see again the word feed
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to Mabra, and began to read mechanically the news from
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the provinces. There had been a storm in the channel,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and damage was reported from Dieppe Kaburg Bouseval. Suddenly he
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: recoiled again in horror. End of Part three, Section twenty
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: three recording by expatriate in Bangor Main