In Search of Lost Time Volume II Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Author:Marcel Proust [Marcel Proust]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Unknown, Classics, Fiction
ISBN: 9780375752193
Google: JvdcAAAAMAAJ
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 2003-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

hours of the day, broke the angles of the

wall, thrust in a reflexion of the beach,

made of the chest of drawers a festal altar,

variegated as a bank of field-flowers,

attached to the wall the wings, folded,

quivering, warm, of a radiance that would,

at any moment, resume its flight, warmed

like a bath a square of provincial carpet

before the window overlooking the well,

which the sun festooned and patterned like

a climbing vine, added to the charm and

complexity of the room’s furniture by

seeming to pluck and scatter the petals of

the silken flowers on the chairs, and to

make their silver threads stand out from

the fabric, this room in which I lingered

for a moment before going to get ready for

our drive suggested a prism in which the

colours of the light that shone outside

were broken up, or a hive in which the

sweet juices of the day which I was about

to taste were distilled, scattered,

intoxicating, visible, a garden of hope

which dissolved in a quivering haze of

silver threads and rose leaves. But before

all this I had drawn back my own curtains,

impatient to know what Sea it was that

was playing that morning by the shore,

like a Nereid. For none of those Seas ever

stayed with us longer than a day. On the

morrow there would be another, which

sometimes resembled its predecessor. But

I never saw the same one twice.

There were some that were of so rare a

beauty that my pleasure on catching sight

of them was enhanced by surprise. By

what privilege, on one morning rather than

another, did the window on being

uncurtained disclose to my wondering

eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy

beauty, gently breathing, had the

transparence of a vaporous emerald

beneath whose surface I could see teeming

the ponderable elements that coloured it?

She made the sun join in her play, with a

smile rendered languorous by an invisible

haze which was nought but a space kept

vacant about her translucent surface,

which, thus curtailed, became more

appealing, like those goddesses whom the

sculptor carves in relief upon a block of

marble, the rest of which he leaves

unchiselled. So, in her matchless colour,

she invited us out over those rough

terrestrial roads, from which, seated

beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her

barouche, we should see, all day long and

without ever reaching it, the coolness of

her gentle palpitation.

Mme. de Villeparisis used to order her

carriage early, so that we should have

time to reach Saint-Mars le Vêtu, or the

rocks of Quetteholme, or some other goal

which, for a somewhat lumbering vehicle,

was far enough off to require the whole

day. In my joy at the long drive we were

going to take I would be humming some

tune that I had heard recently as I strolled

up and down until Mme. de Villeparisis

was ready. If it was Sunday hers would

not be the only carriage drawn up outside

the hotel; several hired flies would be

waiting there, not only for the people who

had been invited to Féterne by Mme. de

Cambremer, but for those who, rather than

stay at home all day, like children in

disgrace, declared that Sunday was

always quite impossible at Balbec and

started off immediately after luncheon to

hide themselves in some neighbouring

watering-place or to visit one of the

‘sights’ of the district. And indeed

whenever (which was often) anyone asked

Mme.

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