The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust (31 page)

A servant in brown livery and gold buttons opened the door quite promptly and showed
me to a small drawing room that had pine paneling, walls hung with cretonne, and a
view of the sea. When I entered, a young man, rather handsome indeed, stood up, greeted
me coldly, then sat back down in his easy chair and continued reading his newspaper
while smoking his pipe. I remained standing, a bit embarrassed, I might say even preoccupied
with the reception I would be given here. Was I doing the right thing after so many
years, coming to this house, where they might have forgotten me long ago?—this once
hospitable house, where I had spent profoundly tender hours, the happiest of my life?

The garden surrounding the house and forming a terrace at one end, the house itself
with its two red-brick turrets encrusted with diversely colored faiences, the long,
rectangular vestibule, where we had spent our rainy days, and even the furnishings
of the small drawing room to which I had just been led—nothing had changed.

Several moments later an old man with a white beard shuffled in; he was short and
very bent. His indecisive gaze lent him a highly indifferent expression. I instantly
recognized Monsieur de N. But he could not place me. I repeated my name several times:
it evoked no memory in him. I felt more and more embarrassed. Our eyes locked without
our really knowing what to
say. I vainly struggled to give him clues: he had totally forgotten me. I was a stranger
to him. Just as I was about to leave, the door flew open: “My sister Odette,” said
a pretty girl of ten or twelve in a soft, melodious voice, “my sister has just found
out that you’re here. Would you like to come and see her? It would make her so happy!”
I followed the little girl, and we went down into the garden. And there, indeed, I
found Odette reclining on a chaise longue and wrapped in a large plaid blanket. She
had changed so greatly that I would not, as it were, have recognized her. Her features
had lengthened, and her dark-ringed eyes seemed to perforate her wan face. She had
once been so pretty, but this was no longer the case at all. In a somewhat constrained
manner she asked me to sit at her side. We were alone. “You must be quite surprised
to find me in this state,” she said after several moments. “Well, since my terrible
illness I’ve been condemned, as you can see, to remain lying without budging. I live
on feelings and sufferings. I stare deep into that blue sea, whose apparently infinite
grandeur is so enchanting for me. The waves, breaking on the beach, are so many sad
thoughts that cross my mind, so many hopes that I have to abandon. I read, I even
read a lot. The music of poetry evokes my sweetest memories and makes my entire being
vibrate. How nice of you not to have forgotten me after so many years and to come
and see me! It does me good! I already feel much better. I can say so—can’t I?—since
we were such good friends. Do you remember the tennis games we used to play here,
on this very spot? I was agile back then; I was merry. Today I can no longer be agile;
I can no longer be merry. When I watch the sea ebbing far out, very far, I often think
of our solitary strolls at low tide. My enchanting memory of them could suffice to
keep me happy, if I were not so selfish, so wicked. But, you know, I can hardly resign
myself, and, from time to time, in spite of myself, I rebel against my fate. I’m bored
all alone, for I’ve been alone since Mama died. As for Papa, he’s too sick and too
old to concern himself with me. My brother suffered a terrible blow from a woman who
deceived him horrendously. Since then, he’s been living alone; nothing can console
him or even distract him. My little sister is so young, and besides, we have to let
her live happily, to the extent that she can.”

As she spoke to me, her eyes livened up; her cadaverous pallor disappeared. She resumed
her sweet expression of long ago. She was pretty again. My goodness, how beautiful
she was! I would have liked to clasp her in my arms: I would have liked to tell her
that I loved her. . . . We remained together for a long time. Then she was moved indoors,
since the evening was growing cool. I now had to say goodbye to her. My tears choked
me. I walked through that long vestibule, that delightful garden, where the graveled
paths would never, alas, grind under my feet again. I went down to the beach; it was
deserted. Thinking about Odette, I strolled, pensive, along the water, which was ebbing,
tranquil and indifferent. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon; but its purple
rays still splattered the sky.

Pierre de Touche

Nicole combines Italian grace with the mystery of northern women. She has their blond
hair, their eyes as clear as the transparency of the sky in a lake, their lofty bearing.
However, she breathes a knowing softness that has virtually ripened in that Tuscan
sun, which inundates the eyes of women, lengthens their arms, raises the corners of
their mouths, and rhythmically scans their gait, ultimately making all their beauty
divinely languorous. And not for nothing have the charms of both climates and both
races fused together to make up Nicole’s charm, for she is the perfect courtesan,
if this simply means that in her the art of pleasing has reached a truly unique degree,
that it is composed of both talents and efforts, that it is both natural and refined.
Thus, the tiniest flower between her breasts or in her hand, the most ordinary compliment
on her lips, the most banal act, like offering her arm to whoever escorts her to the
table—all these things, when she does them, are imbued with a grace as poignant as
an artistic emotion. Everything softens around her in a delightful harmony that is
summed up in the folds of her gown. But Nicole is unconcerned about the artistic pleasure
that she provides, and as for her eyes, which seem to promise so much bliss, she barely
knows for certain on whom her gaze has fallen—barely knows for no other reason most
likely than that its fall was lovely. She is concerned only about good, loves it enough
to do it, loves it too much to be content with just doing
it, without trying to grasp what—in doing it—she does. One cannot say that she is
pedantic in her magnanimity, for it appeals to her too sincerely. Let us say rather
that she is erudite about it, an enchanting erudition that places only the agreeable
names of the Virtues in her mind and on her lips. This makes her charm all the sweeter,
as if it were perfumed with a saintly fragrance. One can seldom admire what one loves.
Hence, it is all the more exquisite to understand the seductions, the fecundity of
a great heart in Nicole’s soft and rich beauty, in her
lactea ubertas
[her milky abundance], in her whole alluring person.

“Even though I’m still quite strong, you know” (she spoke with a more intimate sweetness,
the way accentuation can mellow the overly harsh things that one must say to the people
one loves), “you know I could die any day now—even though I may just as easily live
another few months. So I can no longer wait to reveal to you something that has been
weighing on my conscience; afterwards you will understand how painful it was to tell
you.” Her pupils, symbolic blue flowers, discolored as if they were fading. I thought
she was about to cry, but she did nothing of the kind. “I’m quite sad about intentionally
destroying my hope of still being esteemed by my best friend after my death, about
tarnishing and shattering his memory of me, in terms of which I often imagine my own
life in order to see it as more beautiful and more harmonious. But my concern about
an aesthetic arrangement” (she smiled while pronouncing that epithet with the slightly
ironic exaggeration accompanying her extremely rare use of such words in conversation)
“cannot repress the imperious need for truth that forces me to speak. Listen, Leslie,
I have to tell you this. But first, hand me my coat. This terrace is a bit chilly,
and the doctor forbade me to get up if it’s not necessary.” I handed her the coat.
The sun was already gone, and the sea, which could be spotted through the apple trees,
was mauve. As airy as pale, withered wreaths and as persistent as regrets, blue and
pink cloudlets floated on the horizon. A
melancholy row of poplars sank into the darkness, leaving their submissive crowns
in churchlike rosiness; the final rays, without grazing their trunks, stained their
branches, hanging festoons of light on these balustrades of darkness. The breeze blended
the three smells of sea, wet leaves, and milk. Never had the Norman countryside more
voluptuously softened the melancholy of evening, but I barely savored it—deeply agitated
as I was by my friend’s mysterious words.

“I loved you very much, but I’ve given you little, my poor friend.”

Forgive me for defying the rules of this literary genre by interrupting a
confession
to which I should listen in silence,” I cried out, trying to use humor to calm her
down, but in reality mortally sad. “What do you mean you’ve given me little? And the
less I’ve asked for, the more you’ve given me, indeed far more than if our senses
had played any part in our affection. You were as supernatural as a Madonna and as
tender as a wet nurse; I worshiped you, and you nurtured me. I loved you with an affection
whose tangible prudence was not disturbed by any hope for carnal pleasure. Did you
not requite my feelings with incomparable friendship, exquisite tea, naturally embellished
conversation, and how many bunches of fresh roses? You alone, with your maternal and
expressive hands, could cool my feverish brow, drip honey between my withered lips,
put noble images into my life. Dear friend, I do not want to hear that absurd confession.
Give me your hands so I may kiss them: it’s cold, why don’t we go inside and talk
about something else.”

“Leslie, you must listen to me all the same, my poor dear. It’s crucial. Have you
never wondered whether I, after becoming a widow at twenty, have remained one . . . ?”

“I’m certain of it, but it’s none of my business. You are a creature so superior to
anyone else that any weakness of yours would have a nobility and beauty that are not
to be found in other people’s good deeds. You’ve acted as you’ve seen fit, and I’m
certain that you’ve never done anything that wasn’t pure and delicate.”

“Pure! Leslie, your trust grieves me like an anticipated reproach. Listen . . . I
don’t know how to tell you this. It’s far worse than if I had loved you, say, or someone
else, yes, truly, anyone else.”

I turned as white as a sheet, as white as she, alas, and, terrified that she might
notice it, I tried to laugh and I repeated without really knowing what I was saying:
“Ah! Ah! Anyone else—how strange you are.”

“I said far worse, Leslie, I can’t decide at this moment, however luminous it may
be. In the evening one sees things more calmly, but I don’t see this clearly, and
there are enormous shadows on my life. Still, if, in the depths of my conscience,
I believe that it was not worse, why be ashamed to tell you?”

“Was it worse?” I did not understand; but, prey to a horrible agitation that was impossible
to disguise, I started trembling in terror as in a nightmare. I did not dare look
at the garden path, which, now filled with night and dread, opened before us, nor
did I dare to close my eyes. Her voice, which, broken by deeper and deeper sadness,
had faded, suddenly grew louder, and, in a clear and natural tone, she said to me:

“Do you remember when my poor friend Dorothy was caught with a soprano, whose name
I’ve forgotten?” (I was delighted with this diversion, which, I hoped, would definitively
lead us away from the tale of her sufferings.) “Do you recall explaining to me that
we could not despise her? I remember your exact words: ‘How can we wax indignant about
habits that Socrates (it involved men, but isn’t that the same thing?), who drank
the hemlock rather than commit an injustice, cheerfully approved of among his closest
friends? If fruitful love, meant to perpetuate the race, noble as a familial, social,
human duty, is superior to purely sensual love, then there is no hierarchy of sterile
loves, and such a love is no less moral—or, rather, it is no more immoral for a woman
to find pleasure with another woman than with a person of the opposite sex. The cause
of such love is a nervous impairment which is too exclusively nervous to have any
moral content. One cannot say that, because
most people see as red the objects qualified as red, those people who see them as
violet are mistaken. Furthermore,’ you added, ‘if we refine sensuality to the point
of making it aesthetic, then, just as male and female bodies can be equally beautiful,
there is no reason why a truly artistic woman might not fall in love with another
woman. In a truly artistic nature, physical attraction and repulsion are modified
by the contemplation of beauty. Most people are repelled by a jellyfish. Michelet,
who appreciated the delicacy of their hues, gathered them with delight. I was revolted
by oysters, but after musing’ (you went on) ‘about their voyages through the sea,
which their taste would now evoke for me, they have become a suggestive treat, especially
when I am far from the sea. Thus, physical aptitudes, the pleasure of contact, the
enjoyment of food, the pleasures of the senses are all grafted to where our taste
for beauty has taken root.’

“Don’t you think that these arguments could help a woman physically predisposed to
this kind of love to come to terms with her vague curiosity, particularly if, for
example, certain statuettes of Rodin’s have triumphed—artistically—over her repugnance;
don’t you think that these arguments would excuse her in her own eyes, appease her
conscience—and that this might be a great misfortune?”

I don’t know how I managed to stifle my cry: a sudden flash of lightning illuminated
the drift of her confession, and I simultaneously felt the brunt of my dreadful responsibility.
But, letting myself be blindly led by one of those loftier inspirations that tear
off our masks and recite our roles extempore when we fail to do justice to ourselves,
when we are too inadequate to play our roles in life, I calmly said: “I can assure
you that I would have no remorse whatsoever, for I truly feel no scorn, not even pity,
for those women.”