In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

by Marcel Proust

  ‘Come on, please, her mother said to her. You’ll just make us all have to wait for you.

  – But I’m so happy here with my nice old pater. I just want to stay here for a bit longer,’ Gilberte replied, nestling her head into her father’s shoulder, as he combed his fingers through her long fair hair.

  Swann was one of those men whose lives have been spent in the illusions of love, who, having afforded comforts and, through them, greater happiness to many women, have not been repaid by gratitude or tenderness towards themselves; but in their child they believe they can sense an affection which, by being materialized in the name they bear, will outlive them. A time would come when Charles Swann would have ceased to exist, but there would still be a Mlle Swann or a Mme X, née Swann, who would go on loving her dead father. Swann may even have thought Gilberte would love him too much, for he said to her now, in that emotional voice full of misgiving about the future of someone whose love for us is too passionate, and who is bound to live on after our death, ‘What a good girl you are.’ To conceal the fact that he was moved, he joined in the conversation about La Berma, pointing out to me, albeit in a detached, bored tone that sounded as though he was trying to remain at a distance from what he was saying, the actress’s percipience, the unexpected aptness of the way she had spoken to Oenone the words: ‘You knew about it!’ He was right: that intonation at any rate did convey a genuine and manifest effect, and should therefore have satisfied my desire to find irrefutable reasons for admiring La Berma. But it did not satisfy it, because of its very transparency. Her intonation had been so perceptive, so clear in its meaning and intent, that it seemed to exist in its own right, and any clever actress should have been able to think of it. It certainly was an inspired piece of acting; but anybody capable of grasping it so clearly would also have been capable of producing it. The fact remained that it was La Berma who had thought of it – but could she really be said to have ‘invented’ it, when the thing supposedly invented would have been no different if she had merely acquired it, a thing bearing no essential relation to her self, since it could be reproduced by someone else?

  ‘Goodness me!’ Swann said to me. ‘Doesn’t your presence among us “raise the tone” of the conversation?’ It sounded like a discreet apology to Bergotte from the man who had borrowed from his friends the Guermantes their simple ways of entertaining great artists, inviting them as friends to one’s table, serving them their favourite dish, playing parlour-games to please them or, in the country, arranging for them to practise the sport of their choice. ‘We do seem to be talking about “Art”, don’t we?’ Swann added. – I should think so too! I think it’s very nice,’ Mme Swann said, thanking me with a glance in which I read kindness towards myself and a reminder of her former hankerings after more intellectual conversation. Bergotte turned to talk with some of the others, in particular Gilberte. I was surprised to realize how freely I had spoken to him of my thoughts and feelings. But over so many years, for so many private hours of reading and solitude, during which he had been simply the best part of myself, I had been so accustomed to relating to him in total sincerity, frankness and trust that I was less shy with him than if I had been talking with someone else for the first time. And yet, for that very reason, I was full of qualms about the impression I must have made on him, as my expectation that he would scorn my ideas was no recent thing, but dated from the time long ago when I had first read him, sitting out in the garden at Combray. Perhaps it should have occurred to me that, since both my great attraction to the works of Bergotte and the unaccountable disappointment I had experienced at the theatre were sincere, spontaneous reactions of my own mind, these two instinctive and irresistible responses could not be very different from each other, but must be governed by the same laws; and that therefore the spirit of Bergotte, which I had admired so much in his books, was very likely not so utterly alien and hostile to my disappointment, or to my inability to articulate it. For after all, my mind had to be a single thing; or perhaps there is only a single mind, in which everybody has a share, a mind to which all of us look, isolated though each of us is within a private body, just as at the theatre where, though every spectator sits in a separate place, there is only one stage. No doubt the ideas which Bergotte was in the habit of investigating in his books were not those I enjoyed trying to disentangle; but if it was true that he and I were bound to have recourse to the same mind, then it followed that, hearing me try to expound those ideas, he must recall them, like them and smile on them, while probably keeping his inner eye, despite whatever else I thought he might be doing, fixed on an area of mind remote from the one which had left a remnant of itself in his books, and which had been the origin of all I had imagined about his mental universe. Just as the priests with the broadest knowledge of the heart are those who can best forgive the sins they themselves never commit, so the genius with the broadest acquaintance with the mind can best understand ideas most foreign to those which fill his own works. I should have thought of all this, unpleasant though its implications are: for the benevolence one encounters in the person of broad vision has its sorry counterpart in the obtuse and churlish ways of the petty; and the happiness one may derive from the kindly encounter with a writer through his books counts for much less than the unhappiness caused by the animosity of a woman whom one has not chosen for her qualities of mind, but whom one cannot help loving. I should have thought of all this; but it did not occur to me, and I was convinced that Bergotte thought I was stupid. Then Gilberte whispered to me:

  ‘I’m so happy! You’ve really bowled over my great friend Bergotte! He’s just told my mother that he thought you were highly intelligent.’

  ‘Where are we going? I asked her.

  – Well, you know me, I don’t really mind where we go …’56

  But ever since what had happened on the anniversary of her grandfather’s death, I had been wondering whether Gilberte’s character was not different from what I had believed, whether her equable indifference to our outings, her pleasing, mild manner, her unfailing biddableness, might not actually conceal intense desires, which pride made her disguise, and which she did not reveal until some chance event thwarted them and brought out a sudden obstinacy in her.

  As Bergotte lived not far from my parents’ house, he and I shared a carriage. On the way, he spoke about my health: ‘The Swanns tell me you’re not in the best of health. I am sorry to hear it. Although I must say I am not too sorry for you, as I can see you must enjoy the pleasures of the intellectual life. I daresay that’s what really counts for you, as it does for anybody who’s familiar with such pleasures.’

  Bergotte could not know how untrue this was, how indifferent I was to discussion, however elevated it might be, how happy I became with mere mental idleness, with simple contentment; but I was uneasily aware of how material were the things I looked for in life, of how unnecessary the intellectual life seemed to me. In my inability to distinguish between the disparate origins of certain pleasures, some of them deeper and more durable than others, it occurred to me, as I answered him, that the life I would enjoy would be one in which I could be on friendly terms with the Duchesse de Guermantes and have frequent opportunities of being reminded of Combray, as in the disused toll-booth at the Champs-Élysées, by a cool smell. And in that ideal way of life which I did not dare to speak of, intellectual pleasures had no part.

  ‘Well actually, no, sir. Intellectual pleasures don’t mean very much to me. I’m not at all fond of them. I’m not even sure I know what they are.

  – Really, is that so? he replied. No, look, honestly, you must be fond of them! Bound to be! I suspect you really are.’

  I remained unpersuaded; but I did feel happier, less cramped. M. de Norpois’s words had made me see my moments of idle reflection, enthusiasm and self-confidence as being purely subjective, devoid of reality. Yet Bergotte, who seemed quite familiar with the situation I found myself in, seemed to be implying that the symptoms to ignore were actually my self-di
sgust and doubts about my abilities. What he had said about M. de Norpois in particular had already done much to lessen the force of what had appeared to be a categorical judgment.

  ‘Tell me, have you got sound medical advice? Bergotte asked. Who’s looking after you?’ I told him I had been seeing Dr Cottard and would probably go on seeing him. ‘But, look here, my dear fellow, he said, I’m sure he’s not at all the right man. I must say I don’t know the chap as a doctor. But I have seen him at Mme Swann’s – and he’s a prize idiot! Even if we accept that a man can be an idiot and a good doctor – which I do find hard to swallow – no one can be an idiot and a proper doctor for intelligent people, artistically inclined people. People like you need appropriate doctors and, I might even add, individually designed regimens and medications. Cottard will bore you, and boredom alone will prevent his treatment from working. In any case, such treatment can’t possibly be the same for you as for any average individual. With intelligent people, three-quarters of the things they suffer from come from their intelligence. The thing they can’t do without is a doctor who’s aware of that form of illness. How on earth could Cottard cure you? He can foresee the ill effects of sauces on the digestion, he can predict the bilious attack, but he can’t conceive of the effect of reading Shakespeare! And so all his calculations are thrown out, the little Cartesian devil can’t remain stationary, and up he pops to the surface again. He’ll say what you’ve got is distension of the stomach! He doesn’t even need to examine you for that, because it’s already in his eye. You’ll see it if you look – it’s reflected from his monocle.’ I was bewildered by this way of speaking; and I thought, with the ineptitude of common sense: ‘But there’s no more distension of the stomach reflected from Cottard’s monocle than there are stupidities inside M. de Norpois’s white waistcoat!’ ‘If I were you, Bergotte went on, I’d go and see Dr du Boulbon. He’s a very clever man. – He’s a great admirer of your books,’ I said. I could see this was not news to Bergotte and decided that like minds seek each other out, that one has few ‘unknown’ admirers. What he said about Dr Cottard struck me, though it contradicted everything I believed. That my doctor might be a crashing bore did not bother me; all I required of him was that his art, the laws of which were beyond me, should enable him to examine my entrails and utter an infallible oracle on my health. My own intelligence was good enough for both of us, and I saw no need for him to understand it, as I saw it only as a possible means, of no great significance in itself, to the attainment of truth about the world. I was acutely sceptical of the notion that clever people have sanitary requirements which differ from those of fools, and I did not mind having to make do with theirs. ‘I’ll tell you someone who needs a good doctor,’ said Bergotte. ‘Our friend Swann.’ I asked him whether Swann was ill. ‘No, but here we have the man who married a trollop, who accepts being snubbed every day of the week by women who choose not to know his wife, or looked down on by men who have slept with her. You can see it in that twisted smile of his. Have a look, one evening when he comes back to the house, at the way he raises his eyebrows as he wonders who’s with his wife.’ The malice with which Bergotte spoke to a stranger about friends of long standing was as remarkable to me as the honeying manner he adopted with the Swanns when at their house. A person like my great-aunt, for instance, would have been incapable of treating any of us with the fulsome amiability of Bergotte towards the Swanns; and she could take pleasure in saying unpleasant things even to people she liked. But when they were absent, she would never have spoken a word about them that they would have been hurt to hear. Our little world of Combray was as remote as possible from smart society. The world of the Swanns was a first step closer to it, towards its untrustworthy waves. Though not quite the open sea, it was just inside the harbour bar. ‘This is just between you and me, of course,’ murmured Bergotte as he left me outside my parents’ house. A few years later, I would have said, ‘Of course, I never repeat anything I hear.’ This is the ritual statement of people in society, serving as a false reassurance for the scandalmonger. I might even have said it to Bergotte on that occasion, since one does not invent everything one says, especially when one is acting a social role; but I had not yet come across it. In similar circumstances, my great-aunt’s reply would have been: ‘Well, if you don’t want me to repeat it, why are you saying it?’ That is the reply of the unsociable, of those who do not mind being thought ‘awkward’. Not being one of those, I quietly acquiesced.

  Literary people who to me were personages of note had to scheme for years before succeeding in establishing a relationship with Bergotte; and even then their contacts were restricted to vaguely literary things, and never went beyond the walls of his study. Whereas, without ado, I had quietly stepped into the circle of the great writer’s friends, like a spectator who, instead of having to queue up with everyone else so as to get one of the worst seats in the house, is ushered into one of the very best, having been let in by a side door which is generally closed to the public. It had been opened for me by Swann, after the manner of a king who will naturally offer his children’s friends a seat in the royal box, or take them for a cruise on the royal yacht; so Gilberte’s parents admitted their daughter’s friends among the precious things they owned, letting them share in the even more precious moments of the private life which took place in that setting. But at that time I suspected, possibly rightly, that Swann’s kindness to me was indirectly aimed at my parents. Long before, in Combray, I had formed the impression that, because of my admiration for Bergotte, Swann had suggested to my parents that I should meet the writer over dinner at his house; this invitation my parents had declined, saying I was too young and too highly strung to attend such a function. The impression some people had of my parents, in particular those on whom I looked with great awe, was no doubt very different from my own impression of them; which was why, as on the occasion when the lady in pink had sung such praises of my father, who had then shown himself unworthy of them, I now wished my parents could appreciate the priceless compliment I had received, and longed for them to show proper gratitude to Swann, who in his kind, courteous way had done this for me – or rather for them! – without seeming to have any more sense of how great a gift he was bestowing than the charming King in Bernardino Luini’s57 fresco The Three Kings, the fair-haired one with the aquiline nose, who I believe had once been said to look exactly like Swann.

  Unfortunately, this great boon of Swann’s, which I announced as soon as I stepped inside, before I had even taken off my overcoat, in the hope that it would warm my parents’ hearts as it had warmed mine, and inspire them to some grand and decisive overture towards Swann and his family, did not appear to enthral them. ‘So, Swann has introduced you to Bergotte, has he? my father said in an ironic tone. Well, that’s a fine thing, I must say! Nice company you keep! What next?’ Then, when I told him Bergotte had nothing good to say about M. de Norpois, he added:

  ‘Well, of course! Which just goes to show what a nasty and bogus mind the man has! My dear boy, we already knew you weren’t gifted with a great deal of common sense. But it’s a shame to see you fall among people who can only make things much worse in that department.’

  My parents were already irked by the fact that I was on visiting terms with the Swanns. They now saw my introduction to Bergotte as an understandably adverse consequence of an initial fault, their own weakness, what my grandfather would have called their ‘unheedfulness’. I sensed that, to complete their ill-humour, all I had to say was that the immoral man who had such a low opinion of M. de Norpois had also concluded that I was highly intelligent. The fact was that, whenever my father was convinced that someone, for instance one of my school-friends or myself in this case, was not only risking perdition, but also enjoyed the good esteem of a third person whom he did not respect, he took that esteem as mere confirmation of his own adverse diagnosis. The danger he foresaw was only aggravated by it. I knew perfectly well what he would exclaim: ‘But what do you expect? It’s all
of a piece!’ This was a statement which, by the imprecision and immensity of the changes it suggested were about to be visited on my quiet little life, could strike terror into my heart. However, since not telling them of what Bergotte had said about me could in no way alter the poor impression my parents already had, it did not matter much if they ended up with a poorer one. I was so sure, too, that they were being unfair, so convinced they were mistaken, that I had not only no hope of making them take a more balanced view, but almost no desire to. So, though sensing even as I spoke the words how alarmed my parents would be to learn that I had earned the approval of a man who said intelligent men were stupid, who was roundly despised by all solid citizens, and whose praise was likely to lead me astray in the hope of receiving more of the same, I finished my account by delivering this last straw in a rather shamefaced mutter: ‘And then he told the Swanns he thought I was highly intelligent.’ As a poisoned dog in a field bites, without knowing why, at the herb which is the very antidote it requires to the toxin in its system, I had just uttered unawares the only possible statement which could counter my parents’ prejudice against Bergotte, when nothing else I could have said, no argument in his favour, however admirable, no praise of him, however lavish, would have prevailed against it. At once the situation changed: