Swann's Way
would let himself go so far as to utter a criticism of a work of art, or
of some one's interpretation of life, but then he would cloak his words
in a tone of irony, as though he did not altogether associate himself
with what he was saying. But now, like a confirmed invalid whom, all
of a sudden, a change of air and surroundings, or a new course of
treatment, or, as sometimes happens, an organic change in himself,
spontaneous and unaccountable, seems to have so far recovered from his
malady that he begins to envisage the possibility, hitherto beyond
all hope, of starting to lead--and better late than never--a wholly
different life, Swann found in himself, in the memory of the phrase that
he had heard, in certain other sonatas which he had made people play
over to him, to see whether he might not, perhaps, discover his phrase
among them, the presence of one of those invisible realities in which
he had ceased to believe, but to which, as though the music had had upon
the moral barrenness from which he was suffering a sort of recreative
influence, he was conscious once again of a desire, almost, indeed, of
the power to consecrate his life. But, never having managed to find out
whose work it was that he had heard played that evening, he had been
unable to procure a copy, and finally had forgotten the quest. He had
indeed, in the course of the next few days, encountered several of the
people who had been at the party with him, and had questioned them;
but most of them had either arrived after or left before the piece was
played; some had indeed been in the house, but had gone into another
room to talk, and those who had stayed to listen had no clearer
impression than the rest. As for his hosts, they knew that it was a
recently published work which the musicians whom they had engaged for
the evening had asked to be allowed to play; but, as these last were now
on tour somewhere, Swann could learn nothing further. He had, of
course, a number of musical friends, but, vividly as he could recall the
exquisite and inexpressible pleasure which the little phrase had given
him, and could see, still, before his eyes the forms that it had traced
in outline, he was quite incapable of humming over to them the air. And
so, at last, he ceased to think of it.
But to-night, at Mme. Verdurin's, scarcely had the little pianist begun
to play when, suddenly, after a high note held on through two whole
bars, Swann saw it approaching, stealing forth from underneath that
resonance, which was prolonged and stretched out over it, like a curtain
of sound, to veil the mystery of its birth--and recognised, secret,
whispering, articulate, the airy and fragrant phrase that he had loved.
And it was so peculiarly itself, it had so personal a charm, which
nothing else could have replaced, that Swann felt as though he had met,
in a friend's drawing-room, a woman whom he had seen and admired, once,
in the street, and had despaired of ever seeing her again. Finally the
phrase withdrew and vanished, pointing, directing, diligent among the
wandering currents of its fragrance, leaving upon Swann's features a
reflection of its smile. But now, at last, he could ask the name of
his fair unknown (and was told that it was the _andante_ movement of
Vinteuil's sonata for the piano and violin), he held it safe, could
have it again to himself, at home, as often as he would, could study its
language and acquire its secret.
And so, when the pianist had finished, Swann crossed the room and
thanked him with a vivacity which delighted Mme. Verdurin.
"Isn't he charming?" she asked Swann, "doesn't he just understand it,
his sonata, the little wretch? You never dreamed, did you, that a piano
could be made to express all that? Upon my word, there's everything in
it except the piano! I'm caught out every time I hear it; I think
I'm listening to an orchestra. Though it's better, really, than an
orchestra, more complete."
The young pianist bent over her as he answered, smiling and underlining
each of his words as though he were making an epigram: "You are most
generous to me."
And while Mme. Verdurin was saying to her husband, "Run and fetch him a
glass of orangeade; it's well earned!" Swann began to tell Odette how he
had fallen in love with that little phrase. When their hostess, who was
a little way off, called out, "Well! It looks to me as though some one
was saying nice things to you, Odette!" she replied, "Yes, very
nice," and he found her simplicity delightful. Then he asked for some
information about this Vinteuil; what else he had done, and at what
period in his life he had composed the sonata;--what meaning the little
phrase could have had for him, that was what Swann wanted most to know.
But none of these people who professed to admire this musician (when
Swann had said that the sonata was really charming Mme. Verdurin had
exclaimed, "I quite believe it! Charming, indeed! But you don't dare to
confess that you don't know Vinteuil's sonata; you have no right not to
know it!"--and the painter had gone on with, "Ah, yes, it's a very fine
bit of work, isn't it? Not, of course, if you want something 'obvious,'
something 'popular,' but, I mean to say, it makes a very great
impression on us artists."), none of them seemed ever to have asked
himself these questions, for none of them was able to reply.
Even to one or two particular remarks made by Swann on his favourite
phrase, "D'you know, that's a funny thing; I had never noticed it; I may
as well tell you that I don't much care about peering at things through
a microscope, and pricking myself on pin-points of difference; no; we
don't waste time splitting hairs in this house; why not? well, it's not
a habit of ours, that's all," Mme. Verdurin replied, while Dr. Cottard
gazed at her with open-mouthed admiration, and yearned to be able to
follow her as she skipped lightly from one stepping-stone to another
of her stock of ready-made phrases. Both he, however, and Mme. Cottard,
with a kind of common sense which is shared by many people of humble
origin, would always take care not to express an opinion, or to pretend
to admire a piece of music which they would confess to each other, once
they were safely at home, that they no more understood than they could
understand the art of 'Master' Biche. Inasmuch as the public cannot
recognise the charm, the beauty, even the outlines of nature save in the
stereotyped impressions of an art which they have gradually assimilated,
while an original artist starts by rejecting those impressions, so
M. and Mme. Cottard, typical, in this respect, of the public, were
incapable of finding, either in Vinteuil's sonata or in Biche's
portraits, what constituted harmony, for them, in music or beauty in
painting. It appeared to them, when the pianist played his sonata, as
though he were striking haphazard from the piano a medley of notes which
bore no relation to the musical forms to which they themselves were
accustomed, and that the painter simply flung the colours haphazard upon
his canvas. When, on one of these, they were able to distinguish a human
form, they always found it coarsened and vulgarised (that is to say
lacking all the elegance of the school of painting through whose
spectacles they themselves were in the habit of seeing the people--real,
living people, who passed them in the streets) and devoid of truth, as
though M. Biche had not known how the human shoulder was constructed, or
that a woman's hair was not, ordinarily, purple.
And yet, when the 'faithful' were scattered out of earshot, the Doctor
felt that the opportunity was too good to be missed, and so (while Mme.
Verdurin was adding a final word of commendation of Vinteuil's sonata)
like a would-be swimmer who jumps into the water, so as to learn, but
chooses a moment when there are not too many people looking on:
"Yes, indeed; he's what they call a musician _di primo cartello_!" he
exclaimed, with a sudden determination.
Swann discovered no more than that the recent publication of Vinteuil's
sonata had caused a great stir among the most advanced school of
musicians, but that it was still unknown to the general public.
"I know some one, quite well, called Vinteuil," said Swann, thinking of
the old music-master at Combray who had taught my grandmother's sisters.
"Perhaps that's the man!" cried Mme. Verdurin.
"Oh, no!" Swann burst out laughing. "If you had ever seen him for a
moment you wouldn't put the question."
"Then to put the question is to solve the problem?" the Doctor
suggested.
"But it may well be some relative," Swann went on. "That would be bad
enough; but, after all, there is no reason why a genius shouldn't have
a cousin who is a silly old fool. And if that should be so, I swear
there's no known or unknown form of torture I wouldn't undergo to
get the old fool to introduce me to the man who composed the sonata;
starting with the torture of the old fool's company, which would be
ghastly."
The painter understood that Vinteuil was seriously ill at the moment,
and that Dr. Potain despaired of his life.
"What!" cried Mme. Verdurin, "Do people still call in Potain?"
"Ah! Mme. Verdurin," Cottard simpered, "you forget that you are speaking
of one of my colleagues--I should say, one of my masters."
The painter had heard, somewhere, that Vinteuil was threatened with the
loss of his reason. And he insisted that signs of this could be detected
in certain passages in the sonata. This remark did not strike Swann as
ridiculous; rather, it puzzled him. For, since a purely musical work
contains none of those logical sequences, the interruption or confusion
of which, in spoken or written language, is a proof of insanity, so
insanity diagnosed in a sonata seemed to him as mysterious a thing as
the insanity of a dog or a horse, although instances may be observed of
these.
"Don't speak to me about 'your masters'; you know ten times as much as
he does!" Mme. Verdurin answered Dr. Cottard, in the tone of a woman who
has the courage of her convictions, and is quite ready to stand up to
anyone who disagrees with her. "Anyhow, you don't kill your patients!"
"But, Madame, he is in the Academy." The Doctor smiled with bitter
irony. "If a sick person prefers to die at the hands of one of the
Princes of Science... It is far more smart to be able to say, 'Yes, I
have Potain.'"
"Oh, indeed! More smart, is it?" said Mme. Verdurin. "So there are
fashions, nowadays, in illness, are there? I didn't know that.... Oh,
you do make me laugh!" she screamed, suddenly, burying her face in her
hands. "And here was I, poor thing, talking quite seriously, and never
seeing that you were pulling my leg."
As for M. Verdurin, finding it rather a strain to start laughing again
over so small a matter, he was content with puffing out a cloud of smoke
from his pipe, while he reflected sadly that he could never again hope
to keep pace with his wife in her Atalanta-flights across the field of
mirth.
"D'you know; we like your friend so very much," said Mme. Verdurin,
later, when Odette was bidding her good night. "He is so unaffected,
quite charming. If they're all like that, the friends you want to bring
here, by all means bring them."
M. Verdurin remarked that Swann had failed, all the same, to appreciate
the pianist's aunt.
"I dare say he felt a little strange, poor man," suggested Mme.
Verdurin. "You can't expect him to catch the tone of the house the first
time he comes; like Cottard, who has been one of our little 'clan' now
for years. The first time doesn't count; it's just for looking round and
finding out things. Odette, he understands all right, he's to join us
to-morrow at the Châtelet. Perhaps you might call for him and bring
him."
"No, he doesn't want that."