Swann's Way
disappointed old man, who had lost his children, and had never found
any consolation. And so I would read, or rather sing his sentences in
my brain, with rather more _dolce_, rather more _lento_ than he himself
had, perhaps, intended, and his simplest phrase would strike my ears
with something peculiarly gentle and loving in its intonation. More than
anything else in the world I cherished his philosophy, and had pledged
myself to it in lifelong devotion. It made me impatient to reach the
age when I should be eligible to attend the class at school called
'Philosophy.' I did not wish to learn or do anything else there, but
simply to exist and be guided entirely by the mind of Bergotte, and,
if I had been told then that the metaphysicians whom I was actually to
follow there resembled him in nothing, I should have been struck down by
the despair a young lover feels who has sworn lifelong fidelity, when
a friend speaks to him of the other mistresses he will have in time to
come.
One Sunday, while I was reading in the garden, I was interrupted by
Swann, who had come to call upon my parents.
"What are you reading? May I look? Why, it's Bergotte! Who has been
telling you about him?"
I replied that Bloch was responsible.
"Oh, yes, that boy I saw here once, who looks so like the Bellini
portrait of Mahomet II. It's an astonishing likeness; he has the same
arched eyebrows and hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. When his beard
comes he'll be Mahomet himself. Anyhow he has good taste, for Bergotte
is a charming creature." And seeing how much I seemed to admire
Bergotte, Swann, who never spoke at all about the people he knew, made
an exception in my favour and said: "I know him well; if you would like
him to write a few words on the title-page of your book I could ask him
for you."
I dared not accept such an offer, but bombarded Swann with questions
about his friend. "Can you tell me, please, who is his favourite actor?"
"Actor? No, I can't say. But I do know this: there's not a man on the
stage whom he thinks equal to Berma; he puts her above everyone. Have
you seen her?"
"No, sir, my parents do not allow me to go to the theatre."
"That is a pity. You should insist. Berma in _Phèdre_, in the _Cid_;
well, she's only an actress, if you like, but you know that I don't
believe very much in the 'hierarchy' of the arts." As he spoke I
noticed, what had often struck me before in his conversations with
my grandmother's sisters, that whenever he spoke of serious matters,
whenever he used an expression which seemed to imply a definite opinion
upon some important subject, he would take care to isolate, to sterilise
it by using a special intonation, mechanical and ironic, as though he
had put the phrase or word between inverted commas, and was anxious
to disclaim any personal responsibility for it; as who should say "the
'hierarchy,' don't you know, as silly people call it." But then, if it
was so absurd, why did he say the 'hierarchy'? A moment later he went
on: "Her acting will give you as noble an inspiration as any masterpiece
of art in the world, as--oh, I don't know--" and he began to laugh,
"shall we say the Queens of Chartres?" Until then I had supposed that
his horror of having to give a serious opinion was something Parisian
and refined, in contrast to the provincial dogmatism of my grandmother's
sisters; and I had imagined also that it was characteristic of the
mental attitude towards life of the circle in which Swann moved,
where, by a natural reaction from the 'lyrical' enthusiasms of earlier
generations, an excessive importance was given to small and precise
facts, formerly regarded as vulgar, and anything in the nature of
'phrase-making' was banned. But now I found myself slightly shocked
by this attitude which Swann invariably adopted when face to face with
generalities. He appeared unwilling to risk even having an opinion, and
to be at his ease only when he could furnish, with meticulous accuracy,
some precise but unimportant detail. But in so doing he did not take
into account that even here he was giving an opinion, holding a brief
(as they say) for something, that the accuracy of his details had an
importance of its own. I thought again of the dinner that night, when I
had been so unhappy because Mamma would not be coming up to my room, and
when he had dismissed the balls given by the Princesse de Léon as being
of no importance. And yet it was to just that sort of amusement that he
was devoting his life. For what other kind of existence did he reserve
the duties of saying in all seriousness what he thought about things,
of formulating judgments which he would not put between inverted commas;
and when would he cease to give himself up to occupations of which at
the same time he made out that they were absurd? I noticed, too, in the
manner in which Swann spoke to me of Bergotte, something which, to do
him justice, was not peculiar to himself, but was shared by all that
writer's admirers at that time, at least by my mother's friend and
by Dr. du Boulbon. Like Swann, they would say of Bergotte: "He has a
charming mind, so individual, he has a way of his own of saying things,
which is a little far-fetched, but so pleasant. You never need to look
for his name on the title-page, you can tell his work at once." But
none of them had yet gone so far as to say "He is a great writer, he has
great talent." They did not even credit him with talent at all. They
did not speak, because they were not aware of it. We are very slow in
recognising in the peculiar physiognomy of a new writer the type which
is labelled 'great talent' in our museum of general ideas. Simply
because that physiognomy is new and strange, we can find in it no
resemblance to what we are accustomed to call talent. We say rather
originality, charm, delicacy, strength; and then one day we add up the
sum of these, and find that it amounts simply to talent.
"Are there any books in which Bergotte has written about Berma?" I asked
M. Swann.
"I think he has, in that little essay on Racine, but it must be out of
print. Still, there has perhaps been a second impression. I will find
out. Anyhow, I can ask Bergotte himself all that you want to know next
time he comes to dine with us. He never misses a week, from one year's
end to another. He is my daughter's greatest friend. They go about
together, and look at old towns and cathedrals and castles."
As I was still completely ignorant of the different grades in the social
hierarchy, the fact that my father found it impossible for us to see
anything of Swann's wife and daughter had, for a long time, had the
contrary effect of making me imagine them as separated from us by an
enormous gulf, which greatly enhanced their dignity and importance in
my eyes. I was sorry that my mother did not dye her hair and redden her
lips, as I had heard our neighbour, Mme. Sazerat, say that Mme. Swann
did, to gratify not her husband but M. de Charlus; and I felt that, to
her, we must be an object of scorn, which distressed me particularly on
account of the daughter, such a pretty little girl, as I had heard, and
one of whom I used often to dream, always imagining her with the same
features and appearance, which I bestowed upon her quite arbitrarily,
but with a charming effect. But from this afternoon, when I had learned
that Mlle. Swann was a creature living in such rare and fortunate
circumstances, bathed, as in her natural element, in such a sea of
privilege that, if she should ask her parents whether anyone were coming
to dinner, she would be answered in those two syllables, radiant with
celestial light, would hear the name of that golden guest who was to
her no more than an old friend of her family, Bergotte; that for her the
intimate conversation at table, corresponding to what my great-aunt's
conversation was for me, would be the words of Bergotte upon all those
subjects which he had not been able to take up in his writings, and on
which I would fain have heard him utter oracles; and that, above all,
when she went to visit other towns, he would be walking by her side,
unrecognised and glorious, like the gods who came down, of old, from
heaven to dwell among mortal men: then I realised both the rare worth
of a creature such as Mlle. Swann, and, at the same time, how coarse and
ignorant I should appear to her; and I felt so keenly how pleasant and
yet how impossible it would be for me to become her friend that I was
filled at once with longing and with despair. And usually, from this
time forth, when I thought of her, I would see her standing before the
porch of a cathedral, explaining to me what each of the statues meant,
and, with a smile which was my highest commendation, presenting me, as
her friend, to Bergotte. And invariably the charm of all the fancies
which the thought of cathedrals used to inspire in me, the charm of the
hills and valleys of the Ile-de-France and of the plains of Normandy,
would radiate brightness and beauty over the picture I had formed in my
mind of Mlle. Swann; nothing more remained but to know and to love
her. Once we believe that a fellow-creature has a share in some unknown
existence to which that creature's love for ourselves can win us
admission, that is, of all the preliminary conditions which Love exacts,
the one to which he attaches most importance, the one which makes him
generous or indifferent as to the rest. Even those women who pretend
that they judge a man by his exterior only, see in that exterior an
emanation from some special way of life. And that is why they fall
in love with a soldier or a fireman, whose uniform makes them less
particular about his face; they kiss and believe that beneath the
crushing breastplate there beats a heart different from the rest, more
gallant, more adventurous, more tender; and so it is that a young king
or a crown prince may travel in foreign countries and make the most
gratifying conquests, and yet lack entirely that regular and classic
profile which would be indispensable, I dare say, in an outside-broker.
While I was reading in the garden, a thing my great-aunt would never
have understood my doing save on a Sunday, that being the day on which
it was unlawful to indulge in any serious occupation, and on which she
herself would lay aside her sewing (on a week-day she would have said,
"How you can go on amusing yourself with a book; it isn't Sunday, you
know!" putting into the word 'amusing' an implication of childishness
and waste of time), my aunt Léonie would be gossiping with Françoise
until it was time for Eulalie to arrive. She would tell her that she had
just seen Mme. Goupil go by "without an umbrella, in the silk dress
she had made for her the other day at Châteaudun. If she has far to go
before vespers, she may get it properly soaked."
"Very likely" (which meant also "very likely not") was the answer,
for Françoise did not wish definitely to exclude the possibility of a
happier alternative.
"There, now," went on my aunt, beating her brow, "that reminds me that
I never heard if she got to church this morning before the Elevation. I
must remember to ask Eulalie... Françoise, just look at that black cloud
behind the steeple, and how poor the light is on the slates, you may be
certain it will rain before the day is out. It couldn't possibly keep on
like this, it's been too hot. And the sooner the better, for until the
storm breaks my Vichy water won't 'go down,'" she concluded, since, in
her mind, the desire to accelerate the digestion of her Vichy water was
of infinitely greater importance than her fear of seeing Mme. Goupil's
new dress ruined.
"Very likely."
"And you know that when it rains in the Square there's none too much
shelter." Suddenly my aunt turned pale. "What, three o'clock!" she