In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV (57 page)

Coming to the foot of the cliff road, the car climbed effortlessly, with a continuous sound like that of a knife being ground, while the sea, falling away, widened beneath us. The old rustic houses of Montsurvent came rushing towards us, clasping to their bosoms vine or rose-bush; the firs of La Raspelière, more agitated than when the evening breeze was rising, ran in every direction to escape from us, and a new servant whom I had never seen before came to open the door for us on the terrace while the gardener’s son, betraying a precocious bent, gazed intently at the engine. As it was not a Monday we did not know whether we should find Mme Verdurin, for except on that day, when she had guests, it was unsafe to call upon her without warning. No doubt she was “in principle” at home, but this expression, which Mme Swann employed at the time when she too was seeking to form her little clan and attract customers without herself moving (even though she often did not get her money’s worth) and which she mistranslated into “on principle,” meant no more than “as a general rule,” that is to say with frequent exceptions. For not only did Mme Verdurin like going out, but she carried her duties as a hostess to extreme lengths, and when she had had people to lunch, immediately after the coffee, liqueurs and cigarettes (notwithstanding the first somnolent effects of heat and digestion in which they would have preferred to watch through the leafy boughs of the terrace the Jersey packet sailing across the enamelled sea), the programme included a series of excursions in the course of which her guests, forced into carriages, were conveyed willy-nilly to look at one or other of the beauty spots that abound in the neighbourhood of Douville. This second part of the entertainment was, as it happened (once the effort to get up and climb into a carriage had been made), no less satisfying than the other to the guests, already conditioned by the succulent dishes, the vintage wines or sparkling cider to be easily intoxicated by the purity of the breeze and the magnificence of the sights. Mme Verdurin used to show these to visitors rather as though they were annexes (more or less detached) of her property, which you could not help going to see if you came to lunch with her and which conversely you would never have known had you not been entertained by the Mistress. This claim to arrogate to herself the exclusive right over the local sights, as over Morel’s and formerly Dechambre’s playing, and to compel the landscapes to form part of the little clan, was not in fact as absurd as it appears at first sight. Mme Verdurin deplored not only the lack of taste which in her opinion the Cambremers showed in the furnishing of La Raspelière and the arrangement of the garden, but also the excursions they made, with or without their guests, in the surrounding countryside. Just as, according to her, La Raspelière was only beginning to become what it should always have been now that it was the asylum of the little clan, so she insisted that the Cambremers, perpetually exploring in their barouche, along the railway line, by the shore, the one ugly road in the district, had been living in the place all their lives but did not know it. There was a grain of truth in this assertion. From force of habit, lack of imagination, want of interest in a country which seemed hackneyed because it was so near, the Cambremers when they left their home went always to the same places and by the same roads. To be sure, they laughed heartily at the Verdurins’ pretensions to teach them about their own countryside. But if they were driven into a corner they and even their coachman would have been incapable of taking us to the splendid, more or less secret places to which M. Verdurin brought us, now breaking through the fence of a private but deserted property into which other people would not have thought it possible to venture, now leaving the carriage to follow a path which was not wide enough for wheeled traffic, but in either case with the certain recompense of a marvellous view. It must also be said that the garden at La Raspelière was in a sense a compendium of all the excursions to be made in a radius of many miles—in the first place because of its commanding position, overlooking on one side the valley, on the other the sea, and also because, on one and the same side, the seaward side for instance, clearings had been made through the trees in such a way that from one point you embraced one horizon, from another a different one. There was at each of these vantage points a bench; you went and sat down in turn upon the bench from which there was the view of Balbec, or Parville, or Douville. Even to command a single direction, one bench would have been placed more or less on the edge of the cliff, another set back. From the latter you had a foreground of verdure and a horizon which seemed already the vastest imaginable, but which became infinitely larger if, continuing along a little path, you went to the next bench from which you embraced the whole amphitheatre of the sea. There you could catch distinctly the sound of the waves, which did not penetrate to the more secluded parts of the garden, where the sea was still visible but no longer audible. These resting-places were known by the occupants of La Raspelière by the name of “views.” And indeed they assembled round the château the finest views of the neighbouring villages, beaches or forests, seen greatly diminished by distance, as Hadrian collected in his villa reduced models of the most famous monuments of different regions. The name that followed the word “view” was not necessarily that of a place on the coast, but often that of the opposite shore of the bay which you could make out, standing out in a certain relief notwithstanding the extent of the panorama. Just as you took a book from M. Verdurin’s library to go and read for an hour at the “view of Balbec,” so if the sky was clear the liqueurs would be served at the “view of Rivebelle,” on condition however that the wind was not too strong, for, in spite of the trees planted on either side, the air up there was keen.

To revert to the afternoon drives which Mme Verdurin used to organise, if on her return she found the cards of some social butterfly “on a visit to the coast,” the Mistress would pretend to be overjoyed but was actually broken-hearted at having missed his visit and (albeit people at this date came only to “see the house” or to make the acquaintance for a day of a woman whose artistic salon was famous but outside the pale in Paris) would at once get M. Verdurin to invite him to dine on the following Wednesday. As the tourist was often obliged to leave before that day, or was afraid to be out late, Mme Verdurin had arranged that on Mondays she was always to be found at tea-time. These tea-parties were not at all large, and I had known more brilliant gatherings of the sort in Paris, at the Princesse de Guermantes’s, at Mme de Galliffet’s or Mme d’Arpajon’s. But this was not Paris, and the charm of the setting enhanced, in my eyes, not merely the pleasantness of the occasion but the merits of the visitors. A meeting with some society person, which in Paris would have given me no pleasure but which at La Raspelière, whither he or she had come from a distance via Féterne or the forest of Chantepie, changed in character and importance, became an agreeable incident. Sometimes it was a person whom I knew quite well and would not have gone a yard to meet at the Swanns’. But his name had a different reverberation on this cliff, like the name of an actor one has constantly seen in the theatre printed in a different colour on a poster for some special gala performance, where his fame is suddenly heightened by the unexpectedness of the context. As in the country people behave without ceremony, the social celebrity often took it upon himself to bring the friends with whom he was staying, murmuring to Mme Verdurin by way of excuse that he could not leave them behind as he was living in their house; to his hosts on the other hand he pretended to be offering as a sort of courtesy this diversion, in a monotonous seaside life, of being taken to a centre of wit and intellect, of visiting a magnificent mansion and of having an excellent tea. This composed at once an assembly of several persons of semi-distinction; and if a little slice of garden with a few trees, which would seem paltry in the country, acquires an extraordinary charm in the Avenue Gabriel or the Rue de Monceau, where only multi-millionaires can afford such a luxury, conversely noblemen who would be background figures at a Parisian reception were shown to full advantage on a Monday afternoon at La Raspelière. No sooner did they sit down at the table covered with a cloth embroidered in red, beneath the painted panels, to partake of pancakes, Norman puff pastry, trifles, boat-shaped tartlets filled with cherries like coral beads, cabinet puddings, than these guests were subjected, by the proximity of the great bowl of azure upon which the window opened and which you could not help seeing at the same time as them, to a profound alteration, a transmutation which changed them into something more precious than before. What was more, even before you set eyes on them, when you came on a Monday to Mme Verdurin’s, people who in Paris would scarcely turn their jaded heads to look at the string of elegant carriages stationed outside a great house, felt their hearts throb at the sight of the two or three shabby dog-carts drawn up in front of La Raspelière, beneath the tall firs. No doubt this was because the rustic setting was different, and social impressions thanks to this transposition regained a certain freshness. It was also because the broken-down carriage that one hired to pay a call upon Mme Verdurin conjured up a pleasant drive and a costly bargain struck with a coachman who had demanded “so much” for the whole day. But the slight stir of curiosity with regard to fresh arrivals whom it was still impossible to distinguish arose also from the fact that everyone wondered, “Who can this be?”—a question which it was difficult to answer, when one did not know who might have come down to spend a week with the Cambremers or elsewhere, but which people always enjoy putting to themselves in rustic, solitary environments where a meeting with a human being whom one has not seen for a long time, or an introduction to somebody one does not know, ceases to be the tedious affair that it is in the life of Paris, and forms a delicious break in the empty monotony of lives that are too isolated, in which even the arrival of the mail becomes a pleasure. And on the day on which we arrived by motorcar at La Raspelière, as it was not Monday, M. and Mme Verdurin must have been devoured by that craving to see people which attacks both men and women and inspires a longing to throw himself out of the window in the patient who has been shut up away from his family and friends in an isolation clinic. For the new and more swift-footed servant, who had already made himself familiar with these expressions, having replied that “if Madame hasn’t gone out she must be at the view of Douville,” and that he would go and look for her, came back immediately to tell us that she was coming to welcome us. We found her slightly dishevelled, for she had come from the flower-beds, the poultry-yard and the kitchen garden, where she had gone to feed her peacocks and hens, to look for eggs, to gather fruit and flowers to “make her table-runner,” which would recall her garden path in miniature, but would confer on the table the distinction of making it support the burden of only such things as were useful and good to eat; for round those other presents from the garden—the pears, the whipped eggs—rose the tall stems of bugloss, carnations, roses and coreopsis, between which one saw, as between blossoming boundary posts, the ships out at sea moving slowly across the glazed windows. From the astonishment which M. and Mme Verdurin, interrupted while arranging their flowers to receive the visitors who had been announced, showed upon finding that these visitors were merely Albertine and myself, it was easy to see that the new servant, full of zeal but not yet familiar with my name, had repeated it wrongly and that Mme Verdurin, hearing the names of guests whom she did not know, had nevertheless bidden him let them in, in her need of seeing somebody, no matter whom. And the new servant stood contemplating this spectacle from the door in order to learn what part we played in the household. Then he made off at a loping run, for he had entered upon his duties only the day before. When Albertine had quite finished displaying her toque and veil to the Verdurins, she gave me a warning look to remind me that we had not too much time left for what we meant to do. Mme Verdurin begged us to stay to tea, but we refused, when all of a sudden a suggestion was mooted which would have made an end of all the pleasures that I had promised myself from my drive with Albertine: the Mistress, unable to face the thought of leaving us, or perhaps of letting slip a new diversion, decided to accompany us. Accustomed for years past to the experience that similar offers on her part were not well received, and being probably uncertain whether this offer would find favour with us, she concealed beneath an excessive assurance the timidity that she felt in making it to us and, without even appearing to suppose that there could be any doubt as to our answer, asked us no question but said to her husband, referring to Albertine and myself, as though she were conferring a favour on us: “I shall see them home myself.” At the same time there hovered over her lips a smile that did not strictly belong to them, a smile which I had already seen on the faces of certain people when they said to Bergotte with a knowing air: “I’ve bought your book, it’s not bad,” one of those collective, universal smiles which, when they feel the need of them—as one makes use of railways and removal vans—individuals borrow, except a few who are extremely refined, like Swann or M. de Charlus, on whose lips I never saw that smile appear. From that moment my visit was ruined. I pretended not to have understood. A moment later it became evident that M. Verdurin was to be of the party. “But it will be too far for M. Verdurin,” I objected. “Not at all,” replied Mme Verdurin with a condescending, cheerful air, “he says it will amuse him immensely to go with you young people over a road he has travelled so many times; if necessary, he will sit beside the driver, that doesn’t frighten him, and we shall come back quietly by the train like good spouses. Look at him, he’s quite delighted.” She seemed to be speaking of an aged and famous painter full of good nature, who, younger than the youngest, takes a delight in daubing pictures to amuse his grandchildren. What added to my gloom was that Albertine seemed not to share it and to find some amusement in the thought of dashing all over the countryside with the Verdurins. As for myself, the pleasure that I had been looking forward to enjoying with her was so imperious that I refused to allow the Mistress to spoil it; I made up lies which were justified by Mme Verdurin’s irritating threats but which Albertine unfortunately contradicted. “But we have a call to make,” I said. “What call?” asked Albertine. “I’ll explain to you later, there’s no getting out of it.” “Very well, we can wait outside,” said Mme Verdurin, resigned to anything. At the last minute my anguish at being deprived of a happiness for which I had so longed gave me the courage to be impolite. I refused point-blank, whispering in Mme Verdurin’s ear that because of some trouble which had befallen Albertine and about which she wished to consult me, it was absolutely essential that I should be alone with her. The Mistress looked furious: “All right, we shan’t come,” she said to me in a voice trembling with rage. I felt her to be so angry that, so as to appear to be giving way a little: “But we might perhaps . . .” I began. “No,” she replied, more furious than ever, “when I say no, I mean no.” I supposed that I had irrevocably offended her, but she called us back at the door to urge us not to “let her down” on the following Wednesday, and not to come with that contraption, which was dangerous at night, but by the train with the little group, and she stopped the car, which was already moving downhill through the park, because the footman had forgotten to put in the back the slice of tart and the short-bread which she had had wrapped up for us. We set off again, escorted for a moment by the little houses that came running to meet us with their flowers. The face of the countryside seemed to us entirely changed, for in the topographical image that we form in our minds of separate places the notion of space is far from being the most important factor. We have said that the notion of time segregates them even further. It is not the only factor either. Certain places which we see always in isolation seem to us to have no common measure with the rest, to be almost outside the world, like those people whom we have known in exceptional periods of our life, in the army or during our childhood, and whom we do not connect with anything. During my first stay at Balbec there was a hill which Mme de Villeparisis liked to take us up because from it you saw only the sea and the woods, and which was called Beaumont. As the road that she took to approach it, and preferred to other routes because of its old trees, went uphill all the way, her carriage was obliged to go at a crawling pace and took a very long time. When we reached the top we used to get down, walk for a while, get back into the carriage, and return by the same road, without seeing a single village, a single country house. I knew that Beaumont was something very special, very remote, very high, but I had no idea of the direction in which it was to be found, having never taken the Beaumont road to go anywhere else; besides, it took a very long time to get there in a carriage. It was obviously in the same department (or in the same province) as Balbec, but was situated for me on another plane, enjoyed a special privilege of extraterritoriality. But the motor-car respects no mystery, and, having passed through Incarville, whose houses still danced before my eyes, as we were going down the by-road that leads to Parville (
Paterni villa
), catching sight of the sea from a natural terrace over which we were passing, I asked the name of the place, and before the chauffeur had time to reply recognised Beaumont, close by which I passed thus without knowing it whenever I took the little train, for it was within two minutes of Parville. Like an officer in my regiment who might have struck me as someone special, too kindly and unassuming to be a nobleman, or altogether too remote and mysterious to be merely a nobleman, and whom I then might have discovered to be the brother-in-law or the cousin of people with whom I often dined, so Beaumont, suddenly linked with places from which I supposed it to be so distinct, lost its mystery and took its place in the district, making me think with terror that Madame Bovary and the Sanseverina might perhaps have seemed to me to be like ordinary people, had I met them elsewhere than in the closed atmosphere of a novel. It may be thought that my love of enchanted journeys by train ought to have kept me from sharing Albertine’s wonder at the motor-car which takes even an invalid wherever he wishes to go and prevents one from thinking—as I had done hitherto—of the actual site as the individual mark, the irreplaceable essence of irremovable beauties. And doubtless this site was not, for the motor-car, as it had formerly been for the railway train when I came from Paris to Balbec, a goal exempt from the contingencies of ordinary life, almost ideal at the moment of departure and remaining so at the moment of arrival in that great dwelling where nobody lives and which bears only the name of the town, the station, with its promise at last of accessibility to the place of which it is, as it were, the materialisation. No, the motor-car did not convey us thus by magic into a town which we saw at first as the collectivity summed up in its name, and with the illusions of a spectator in a theatre. It took us backstage into the streets, stopped to ask an inhabitant the way. But, as compensation for so homely a mode of progress, there are the gropings of the chauffeur himself, uncertain of his way and going back over his tracks; the “general post” of the perspective which sets a castle dancing about with a hill, a church and the sea, while one draws nearer to it however much it tries to huddle beneath its age-old foliage; those ever-narrowing circles described by the motor-car round a spellbound town which darts off in every direction to escape, and which finally it swoops straight down upon in the depths of the valley where it lies prone on the ground; so that this site, this unique point, which on the one hand the motor-car seems to have stripped of the mystery of express trains, on the other hand it gives us the impression of discovering, of pinpointing for ourselves as with a compass, and helps us to feel with a more lovingly exploring hand, with a more delicate precision, the true geometry, the beautiful proportions of the earth.