In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (30 page)

It was not only the furniture of Odette's drawing–room, it was Odette
herself that Mme. Cottard and all those who had frequented the society
of Mme. de Crécy would have found it difficult, if they had not seen
her for some little time, to recognise. She seemed to be so much
younger. No doubt this was partly because she had grown stouter, was
in better condition, seemed at once calmer, more cool, more restful,
and also because the new way in which she braided her hair gave more
breadth to a face which was animated by an application of pink powder,
and into which her eyes and profile, formerly too prominent, seemed
now to have been reabsorbed. But another reason for this change lay
in the fact that, having reached the turning–point of life, Odette had
at length discovered, or invented, a physiognomy of her own, an
unalterable 'character,' a 'style of beauty' and on her incoherent
features—which for so long, exposed to every hazard, every weakness
of the flesh, borrowing for a moment, at the slightest fatigue, from
the years to come, a sort of flickering shadow of anility, had
furnished her, well or ill, according to how she was feeling, how she
was looking, with a countenance dishevelled, inconstant, formless and
attractive—had now set this fixed type, as it were an immortal
youthfulness.

Swann had in his room, instead of the handsome photographs that were
now taken of his wife, in all of which the same cryptic, victorious
expression enabled one to recognise, in whatever dress and hat, her
triumphant face and figure, a little old daguerreotype of her, quite
plain, taken long before the appearance of this new type, so that the
youth and beauty of Odette, which she had not yet discovered when it
was taken, appeared to be missing from it. But it is probable that
Swann, having remained constant, or having reverted to a different
conception of her, enjoyed in the slender young woman with pensive
eyes and tired features, caught in a pose between rest and motion, a
more Botticellian charm. For he still liked to recognise in his wife
one of Botticelli's figures. Odette, who on the other hand sought not
to bring out but to make up for, to cover and conceal the points in
herself that did not please her, what might perhaps to an artist
express her 'character' but in her woman's eyes were merely blemishes,
would not have that painter mentioned in her presence. Swann had a
wonderful scarf of oriental silk, blue and pink, which he had bought
because it was exactly that worn by Our Lady in the
Magnificat
. But
Mme. Swann refused to wear it. Once only she allowed her husband to
order her a dress covered all over with daisies, cornflowers,
forget–me–nots and campanulas, like that of the Primavera. And
sometimes in the evening, when she was tired, he would quietly draw my
attention to the way in which she was giving, quite unconsciously, to
her pensive hands the uncontrolled, almost distraught movement of the
Virgin who dips her pen into the inkpot that the angel holds out to
her, before writing upon the sacred page on which is already traced
the word "
Magnificat
." But he added, "Whatever you do, don't say
anything about it to her; if she knew she was doing it, she would
change her pose at once."

Save at these moments of involuntary relaxation, in which Swann
essayed to recapture the melancholy cadence of Botticelli, Odette
seemed now to be cut out in a single figure, wholly confined within a
line which, following the contours of the woman, had abandoned the
winding paths, the capricious re–entrants and salients, the radial
points, the elaborate dispersions of the fashions of former days, but
also, where it was her anatomy that went wrong by making unnecessary
digressions within or without the ideal circumference traced for it,
was able to rectify, by a bold stroke, the errors of nature, to make
up, along a whole section of its course, for the failure as well of
the human as of the textile element. The pads, the preposterous
'bustle' had disappeared, as well as those tailed corsets which,
projecting under the skirt and stiffened by rods of whalebone, had so
long amplified Odette with an artificial stomach and had given her the
appearance of being composed of several incongruous pieces which there
was no individuality to bind together. The vertical fall of fringes,
the curve of trimmings had made way for the inflexion of a body which
made silk palpitate as a siren stirs the waves, gave to cambric a
human expression now that it had been liberated, like a creature that
had taken shape and drawn breath, from the long chaos and nebulous
envelopment of fashions at length dethroned. But Mme. Swann had
chosen, had contrived to preserve some vestiges of certain of these,
in the very thick of the more recent fashions that had supplanted
them. When in the evening, finding myself unable to work and feeling
certain that Gilberte had gone to the theatre with friends, I paid a
surprise visit to her parents, I used often to find Mme. Swann in an
elegant dishabille the skirt of which, of one of those rich dark
colours, blood–red or orange, which seemed always as though they meant
something very special, because they were no longer the fashion, was
crossed diagonally, though not concealed, by a broad band of black
lace which recalled the flounces of an earlier day. When on a still
chilly afternoon in Spring she had taken me (before my rupture with
her daughter) to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, under her coat, which she
opened or buttoned up according as the exercise made her feel warm,
the dog–toothed border of her blouse suggested a glimpse of the lapel
of some non–existent waistcoat such as she had been accustomed to
wear, some years earlier, when she had liked their edges to have the
same slight indentations; and her scarf—of that same 'Scotch tartan'
to which she had remained faithful, but whose tones she had so far
softened, red becoming pink and blue lilac, that one might almost have
taken it for one of those pigeon's–breast taffetas which were the
latest novelty—was knotted in such a way under her chin, without
one's being able to make out where it was fastened, that one could not
help being reminded of those bonnet–strings which were—now no longer
worn. She need only 'hold out' like this for a little longer and young
men attempting to understand her theory of dress would say: "Mme.
Swann is quite a period in herself, isn't she?" As in a fine literary
style which overlays with its different forms and so strengthens a
tradition which lies concealed among them, so in Mme. Swann's attire
those half–hinted memories of waistcoats or of ringlets, sometimes a
tendency, at once repressed, towards the 'all aboard,' or even a
distant and vague allusion to the 'chase me' kept alive beneath the
concrete form the unfinished likeness of other, older forms which you
would not have succeeded, now, in making a tailor or a dressmaker
reproduce, but about which your thoughts incessantly hovered, and
enwrapped Mme. Swann in a cloak of nobility—perhaps because the
sheer uselessness of these fripperies made them seem meant to serve
some more than utilitarian purpose, perhaps because of the traces they
preserved of vanished years, or else because there was a sort of
personality permeating this lady's wardrobe, which gave to the most
dissimilar of her costumes a distinct family likeness. One felt that
she did not dress simply for the comfort or the adornment of her body;
she was surrounded by her garments as by the delicate and
spiritualised machinery of a whole form of civilisation.

When Gilberte, who, as a rule, gave her tea–parties on the days when
her mother was "at home," had for some reason to go out, and I was
therefore free to attend Mme. Swann's 'kettledrum,' I would find her
dressed in one of her lovely gowns, some of which were of taffeta,
others of grosgrain, or of velvet, or of
crêpe–de–Chine
, or satin
or silk, gowns which, not being loose like those that she generally
wore in the house but buttoned up tight as though she were just going
out in them, gave to her stay–at–home laziness on those afternoons
something alert and energetic. And no doubt the daring simplicity of
their cut was singularly appropriate to her figure and to her
movements, which her sleeves appeared to be symbolising in colours
that varied from day to day: one would have said that there was a
sudden determination in the blue velvet, an easy–going good humour in
the white taffeta, and that a sort of supreme discretion full of
dignity in her way of holding out her arm had, in order to become
visible, put on the appearance, dazzling with the smile of one who had
made great sacrifices, of the black
crêpe–de–Chine
. But at the same
time these animated gowns took from the complication of their
trimmings, none of which had any practical value or served any
conceivable purpose, something detached, pensive, secret, in harmony
with the melancholy which Mme. Swann never failed to shew, at least in
the shadows under her eyes and the drooping arches of her hands.
Beneath the profusion of sapphire charms, enamelled four–leaf clovers,
silver medals, gold medallions, turquoise amulets, ruby chains and
topaz chestnuts there would be, on the dress itself, some design
carried out in colour which pursued across the surface of an inserted
panel a preconceived existence of its own, some row of little satin
buttons, which buttoned nothing and could not be unbuttoned, a strip
of braid that sought to please the eye with the minuteness, the
discretion of a delicate reminder; and these, as well as the trinkets,
had the effect—for otherwise there would have been no possible
justification of their presence—of disclosing a secret intention,
being a pledge of affection, keeping a secret, ministering to a
superstition, commemorating a recovery from sickness, a granted wish,
a love affair or a 'philippine.' And now and then in the blue velvet
of the bodice a hint of 'slashes,' in the Henri II style, in the gown
of black satin a slight swelling which, if it was in the sleeves, just
below the shoulders, made one think of the 'leg of mutton' sleeves of
1830, or if, on the other hand, it was beneath the skirt, with its
Louis XV paniers, gave the dress a just perceptible air of being
'fancy dress' and at all events, by insinuating beneath the life of
the present day a vague reminiscence of the past, blended with the
person of Mme. Swann the charm of certain heroines of history or
romance. And if I were to draw her attention to this: "I don't play
golf," she would answer, "like so many of my friends. So I should have
no excuse for going about, as they do, in sweaters."

In the confusion of her drawing–room, on her way from shewing out one
visitor, or with a plateful of cakes to 'tempt' another, Mme. Swann as
she passed by me would take me aside for a moment: "I have special
instructions from Gilberte that you are to come to luncheon the day
after to–morrow. As I wasn't sure of seeing you here, I was going to
write to you if you hadn't come." I continued to resist. And this
resistance was costing me steadily less and less, because, however
much one may love the poison that is destroying one, when one has
compulsorily to do without it, and has had to do without it for some
time past, one cannot help attaching a certain value to the peace of
mind which one had ceased to know, to the absence of emotion and
suffering. If one is not altogether sincere in assuring oneself that
one does not wish ever to see again her whom one loves, one would not
be a whit more sincere in saying that one would like to see her. For
no doubt one can endure her absence only when one promises oneself
that it shall not be for long, and thinks of the day on which one
shall see her again, but at the same time one feels how much less
painful are those daily recurring dreams of a meeting immediate and
incessantly postponed than would be an interview which might be
followed by a spasm of jealousy, with the result that the news that
one is shortly to see her whom one loves would cause a disturbance
which would be none too pleasant. What one procrastinates now from
day to day is no longer the end of the intolerable anxiety caused by
separation, it is the dreaded renewal of emotions which can lead to
nothing. How infinitely one prefers to any such interview the docile
memory which one can supplement at one's pleasure with dreams, in
which she who in reality does not love one seems, far from that, to be
making protestations of her love for one, when one is by oneself; that
memory which one can contrive, by blending gradually with it a portion
of what one desires, to render as pleasing as one may choose, how
infinitely one prefers it to the avoided interview in which one would
have to deal with a creature to whom one could no longer dictate at
one's pleasure the words that one would like to hear on her lips, but
from whom one would meet with fresh coldness, unlooked–for violence.
We know, all of us, when we no longer love, that forgetfulness, that
even a vague memory do not cause us so much suffering as an
ill–starred love. It was of such forgetfulness that in anticipation I
preferred, without acknowledging it to myself, the reposeful
tranquillity.

Moreover, whatever discomfort there may be in such a course of
psychical detachment and isolation grows steadily less for another
reason, namely that it weakens while it is in process of healing that
fixed obsession which is a state of love. Mine was still strong enough
for me to be able to count upon recapturing my old position in
Gilberte's estimation, which in view of my deliberate abstention must,
it seemed to me, be steadily increasing; in other words each of those
calm and melancholy days on which I did not see her, coming one after
the other without interruption, continuing too without prescription
(unless some busy–body were to meddle in my affairs), was a day not
lost but gained. Gained to no purpose, it might be, for presently they
would be able to pronounce that I was healed. Resignation, modulating
our habits, allows certain elements of our strength to be indefinitely
increased. Those—so wretchedly inadequate—that I had had to support
my grief, on the first evening of my rupture with Gilberte, had since
multiplied to an incalculable power. Only, the tendency which
everything that exists has to prolong its own existence is sometimes
interrupted by sudden impulses to which we give way with all the fewer
scruples over letting ourselves go since we know for how many days,
for how many months even we have been able, and might still be able to
abstain. And often it is when the purse in which we hoard our savings
is nearly full that we undo and empty it, it is without waiting for
the result of our medical treatment and when we have succeeded in
growing accustomed to it that we abandon it. So, one day, when Mme.
Swann was repeating her familiar statement of what a pleasure it would
be to Gilberte to see me, thus putting the happiness of which I had
now for so long been depriving myself, as it were within arm's length,
I was stupefied by the realisation that it was still possible for me
to enjoy that pleasure, and I could hardly wait until next day, when I
had made up my mind to take Gilberte by surprise, in the evening,
before dinner.