In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

by Marcel Proust

  This made me think that my situation with Albertine might improve. The mother of these two girls was a relative of Mme de Villeparisis’s, and she also knew the Princess of Luxembourg. M. and Mme d’Ambresac, who owned a small villa at Balbec, though exceedingly rich, lived very simply, the husband always wearing the same jacket, the wife always a dark dress. They always made a great show of bowing to my grandmother, but went no further. The daughters, both very pretty, were more elegant dressers, but it was Paris elegance, not seaside elegance. In their long dresses, under their expansive hats, they seemed to be a very different breed from Albertine. She was quite aware of who they were. ‘Oh, so you know the d’Ambresac girls, do you? In that case, you know some pretty posh people. Actually, they’re very simple people, she added, as though there was some contradiction in this. They’re very nice but so well bred that they’re not allowed to go to the Casino, especially because of us, because we’re so unladylike. Do you like them? Well, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. Little innocents, the pair of them. The sort of thing some people might find quite to their taste. If you fancy little innocents, there you are, plenty to choose from. And it seems there are people who like that sort of thing: one of them’s already betrothed to the Marquis de Saint-Loup. And the younger one, who was in love with the gentleman herself, is breaking her heart. I must say I can’t stand the way they speak, as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. And they wear such ludicrous things – imagine, playing golf in a silk frock! At their age, their get-up is more pretentious than older women who have a sense of dress. I mean, Mme Elstir for instance, there’s a woman who dresses well.’ I said Mme Elstir’s way of dressing had struck me as very simple. Albertine burst out laughing: ‘Of course she’s simple in her way of dressing! But her way is so delightfully right! And to get the effect that you see as simplicity, she spends a fortune.’ To someone whose taste in things of dress was poor or deficient, there was nothing remarkable in Mme Elstir’s dresses. Taste in these things, which I lacked, Elstir had in abundance, or so Albertine said. I had had no idea of this; nor had I noticed that the objects ranged about his studio were wonders of elegance, but also of simplicity, things he had yearned to possess for a long time, which he had kept an eye on at every auction, things whose whole history he knew, until the day came when he had made enough money to acquire them. Albertine, who was as ignorant as I was on this aspect of Elstir, could tell me nothing about it. However, on women’s dress, with her instinctive delight in attractive clothes, and perhaps also with something of the longing of the girl who, though poor, is disinterested and modest enough to enjoy the spectacle of rich people wearing what she will never be able to afford, she could tell me things about Elstir’s standards of taste, so refined and exacting that in his view all women were badly dressed, and that, with his concern for every proportion and slightest nuance, he would spend huge sums having his wife’s sunshades, hats and cloaks made, explaining to Albertine the while the charm of such things, to which a person devoid of taste would have been as oblivious as I had been. Albertine had also dabbled in painting, though she had, as she said herself, no ‘bent’ for it, and greatly admired Elstir; and, from what he had told her and shown her, she had acquired an appreciation of good painting which was in marked contrast with her liking for Cavalleria Rusticana. The fact was, invisible as this was to me at the time, she was highly intelligent; and though there was stupidity in things she said, it was not her own, but that of her peers. Elstir had influenced her for the better, but only partially. Not all modes of cultivation and sensibility were equally developed in her. Her appreciation of painting now almost equalled her liking for clothes and for all things fashionable, but it was unaccompanied by an appreciation of good music.

  Despite her awareness of the significance of the d’Ambresac family, despite my having greeted their daughters, since ability in greater things may accompany inability in lesser, I did not find Albertine any more prepared to introduce me to her group of girl-friends. ‘It’s very sweet of you to bother about them. But they’re nobody, just pay no attention to them. I mean, a chap as clever as you should have nothing to do with a group of silly girls like that. Actually, Andrée’s very clever, and she’s a very nice girl, although perfectly skittish. But honestly, the others are just silly.’ As soon as Albertine had gone, I felt very sad to realize that Saint-Loup had concealed his engagement from me and that he should be contemplating such an immoral thing as to marry without first giving up his mistress. A few days later, I was introduced to Andrée, and she having chatted with me for quite a while, I took the opportunity to say that I would like to meet her the following day; but she replied that it would not be possible, as she thought her mother was unwell and did not wish to leave her alone. Two days later I went to see Elstir, who told me how much Andrée had liked me; to which I replied, ‘Well, I liked her a lot too, from the very first! I asked her to meet me the next day, but she couldn’t manage it. – Yes, I know, Elstir said. She told me about it. She was rather sorry, but she had agreed to go on a picnic, an outing by break to a place more than twenty miles away, and she couldn’t get out of it.’ Even though the lie Andrée had told was negligible, she being such a new acquaintance, I ought not to have gone on seeing someone who was capable of it: what people have done once, they will go on doing for ever. If we make a point of paying an annual visit to a friend, who has broken several such engagements before, who has caught a cold, we shall find him with his cold on later occasions; he will fail to keep the other appointments – and the reason will be the same each time, although he will believe he has given a range of different reasons, each of them conditional on differing circumstances.

  One morning, not long after the day when Andrée had told me she had to stay with her mother, I was walking along beside Albertine, whom I had chanced to meet, and who was holding up a strange device on a string which made her look rather like Giotto’s Infidelitas: it was actually called a ‘diabolo’, and it is now so out of date that, faced with a picture of a girl holding it, scholars may discourse in the future, as they do now on certain allegorical figures in the Arena chapel, about what it is she is holding in her hand. After a moment, one of the group of girls, the one who looked rather poor and tough, who on the day when I first saw them had sneered in such a broad, unpleasant way about the old gentleman whose head had been endangered by Andrée’s flying feet, ‘He’d break yer heart, that poor old bloke!’ came over and said to Albertine, ‘Morning! Not in the way, I hope!’ Her hat had been a bother to her, so she had taken it off, and her hair, like some unfamiliar and beautiful botanical variety, lay on her forehead in all the delicate and minutely detailed luxuriance of its foliation. Albertine, who may have been annoyed with her for being bare-headed, gave no reply to her greeting and walked on, icily silent; despite which, the other girl did not move away, although Albertine kept her at a distance from me, at times moving closer to her than to me, at other times walking by my side and leaving the girl behind. In order to be introduced, I had to ask Albertine directly, in the other girl’s hearing. As Albertine spoke my name, I saw a smile, open and affectionate and full of blue eyes, flash across the face of the girl who had seemed so cruel when she said ‘Wot a poor old bloke – he’d break yer heart!’ and who now stood there holding out her hand to me. Her hair was golden, as was everything else about her: for though she had pink cheeks and eyes of blue, they too looked like the colours of the morning sky when everything is touched and tinted by the gold of summer sunlight.

  She went straight to my head: I told myself she was just a shy girl in love, that she had stayed with us, despite being snubbed by Albertine, for my sake, for the love of me, and that she must have been happy to be able to tell me at last, with this soft-hearted smile, that she would be as tender towards me as she was cruel towards others. She must have noticed me down on the beach, at a time when I had no knowledge of her, and must have been thinking about me ever since – perhaps her reason for laughing at the old gentlem
an had been so that I should admire her, perhaps her reason for going about, the following days, with such an unhappy look, was her displeasure at not being able to get to know me! Sitting in the hotel, I had often noticed her taking an evening stroll down by the beach. She must have been hoping to meet me! And now, as embarrassed by the presence of Albertine as she would have been by the whole gang of her girl-friends, it was clear that her only reason for dogging our footsteps, in the face of her friend’s increasing hostility towards her, was the hope of outstaying Albertine, of arranging a meeting with me for a moment when she would be able to slip away without the knowledge of her family or friends, and come to me at some secluded spot, before Mass or after her game of golf. It would be very difficult to see her, especially as she was on bad terms with Andrée, who hated her. ‘I’ve put up with her awful dishonesty for ages, Andrée told me, her nastiness, all the dirty tricks she’s played on me! I’ve put up with it all for the sake of the others. But the latest bad turn she’s done me is really the last straw.’ She told me something the girl had said against her, which could indeed have had serious consequences for Andrée.

  The words which Gisèle’s eyes promised would be spoken to me as soon as Albertine left us alone together were not to be uttered, as Albertine went on obstinately keeping us apart, giving shorter and shorter answers to the girl, and eventually ignoring her altogether, so that she at length gave up and walked away. I reproached Albertine for having been so unpleasant. ‘Well, that’ll learn her! I mean, why does she have to be so pushy? She’s not a bad sort, but she’s a pain in the neck. There’s no need for her to come and stick her nose in everywhere. Why does she have to come and play gooseberry when she’s not wanted? I’d a good mind to tell her to buzz off. Anyway, I can’t stand it when she shows her hair like that, it’s very unladylike.’ While Albertine was speaking, I watched her cheeks and wondered what flavour they might have, what fragrance: that day, she did not look cool, but all smooth and with a uniformly purplish pink blush, creamy, like certain roses with a waxy sheen. I had a passion for her cheeks, as one can have for a variety of flower. ‘I didn’t notice, I said. – Well, you took a good look at her,’ she said, unmollified by the fact that she was the one I was now taking a good look at. ‘You looked as if you wanted to paint her portrait. Anyway, I don’t think you’d like her: she’s definitely not a flirt, and I suppose you probably prefer girls that are flirts. In any case, her time for being a little pest to be got rid of is nearly up, because she’s going back to Paris this afternoon. – And are your other friends going back too? – No, just her, her and her English governess, because she’s got exams to re-sit – she’s going to have to do some swotting, poor kid. And that’s no joke, I can tell you. Still, you can always have the luck to get an easy paper – anything’s possible. One of us got “Describe an accident you have seen” – just a gift! But I know a girl that got “Who would you prefer to have as a friend: Alceste or Philinte?”100 – and in the written paper too! I wouldn’t have had a clue! I mean, for one thing, it’s not a question for girls! Girls are friends with other girls, and they’re not supposed to have gentlemen friends. (In this sentence I heard an intimation that I had little chance of being accepted by the little gang, which struck fear into my heart.) But even if boys were asked a question like that, what sort of an answer could they possibly write? Several families have written to the editor of Le Gaulois101 to complain of the difficulty of that sort of question. And the worst of it is that in a collection of the best essays by prize-winning pupils, that subject has been treated twice, but in completely opposite ways! So it all depends on which examiner you get. One of them wanted them to say Philinte is a scheming flatterer, and the other one wanted them to say you can’t help admiring Alceste, but that he’s too peevish, and so for a friend you have to prefer Philinte. How are poor girl-pupils supposed to make sense of things if teachers can’t agree among themselves? And in any case they’re making it harder every year. Gisèle’s only chance of passing is if she can get a string pulled for her.’

  When I got back to the hotel, my grandmother was not there; having waited a long time for her to come back, I begged her to let me go off on an excursion, unexpected but not to be missed, which might last for up to forty-eight hours. I lunched with her, ordered a carriage and was driven to the railway-station. Gisèle would not be surprised to see me; and once we had changed trains at Doncières, we would have a corridor-train to Paris: while the English governess dozed, I would have Gisèle all to myself, slipping off with her to dark corners and arranging times and places so that we could meet after my own return to Paris, which I would try to bring about as soon as possible. Depending on her attitude to me, I would travel with her as far as Caen or Évreux, then double back to Balbec by the next train. But whatever would she have thought, if she had known how long I had hesitated in my choice between her and her friends, and that I had been prepared to fall in love with Albertine, or the girl with the limpid eyes, or with Rosemonde, rather than with her! This thought filled me with remorse, now that Gisèle and I were to be joined together in a requited love. In any case, I could have assured her with total veracity that I was no longer attracted to Albertine. That morning, as she walked over to speak to Gisèle, I had caught a glimpse of her from behind: her head was bowed, a posture that made her look moody, and the hair at the back was different, even blacker than it was at the front, and shining as though she had just come out of the water. It had put me in mind of a wet hen and made me see her as embodying a soul very unlike the one which filled the mauve of her complexion and the mystery in her eyes. For a moment, she had been reduced to the sheen of this hair on the back of her head; and it was still the only thing I could see in my mind’s eye. Our memory is like one of those shop-windows where different photographs of a certain person are displayed on different days. Sometimes it is the most recent one which stays on show for a time, in isolation. While the coachman urged on his horse, I could hear Gisèle assuring me of her gratitude and tenderness, in words which were a direct translation of her lovely smile and ready handshake: for, at those moments in my life when I was not in love but wished I was, the ideal of physical beauty which I carried about with me – and which, as has been seen, I could recognize in a distant glimpse of any passing stranger who was far enough away for the imprecision of her features not to impede that recognition – was partnered by the emotional shadow, ever ready to be brought to real life, of the woman who was going to fall in love with me and step straight into the part already written for her in the comedy of fondness and passion which had been awaiting her since my childhood, and for which every young girl I met, as long as she had a pleasant disposition and some of the physical characteristics required by the role, appeared eager to be auditioned. In this play, whoever it was I cast as the new star or her under-study for this part of leading-lady, the outline of the plot, the main scenes and even the words to be spoken had long since taken the form of a definitive edition.

  A few days later, despite Albertine’s reluctance to bring us together, I had made the acquaintance of the whole group of girls I had seen on the first day, all of them having stayed on in Balbec (with the exception of Gisèle, whom I had been prevented from meeting at the station by a long delay at the barrier, whose train in any case had left five minutes early because the timetable had been changed, and who now could not have been further from my thoughts), plus two or three of their other friends whom I had asked to be introduced to. The hope of pleasure to be enjoyed with a new girl having been transmitted to her by the other girl who had introduced us, each of them came to seem like one of those new roses which can be developed from a rose of a different variety. Then, going back along my chain of flowers, from corolla to corolla, the joy of discovering each different specimen made me revert to the one who had led me to her, with as much desire in my gratitude to her as there was in my hope for the new one. Before long, I spent every day with the girls.

  In the freshest bud, alas, one may
read the all but imperceptible signs which tell the practised eye what the future, through the desiccation or fecundation of the flesh in full blossom today, holds for the seed, immutably predestined in form and outcome. We delight in the line of a young nose, as beautiful as a delicate ripple ruffling the surface of the morning sea, seemingly motionless and sketchable, the water being so calm that the rise of the tide is invisible. When we look at faces, they do not appear to be changing, the revolution they are undergoing being so long drawn out as to escape our notice. But to see one of these young girls standing beside her mother or her aunt was to glimpse the remoter reaches of ugliness to which, in response to an inner attraction, the features of most of them would have come less than thirty years later, the time of waning glances, the time when such a face receives no more light and slips for ever below the horizon. I knew that, under the present rosy blossoming of Albertine, Rosemonde or Andrée, unknown to them, biding its time, as deep-rooted and inescapable as Jewish clannishness or Christian atavism in people who believe they have risen above their race, there lurked an outsize nose, a graceless mouth, a propensity to overweight which would surprise people, but which had been standing by, awaiting only the favour of circumstance, as unforeseen, as fated as others’ Dreyfusism, clericalism, national and feudal heroisms, which the fullness of time suddenly summons from a nature predating the individual himself, through which he thinks, lives and evolves, from which he draws his sustenance and in which he dies, without ever being able to distinguish it from the particular motives he mistakes for it. Even mentally, we depend much more than we believe on natural laws; and our mind, like the humblest plant, the merest grass, contains particularities which we think we have chosen. All we can grasp, though, is the secondary ideas, while the first cause (Jewishness, French family, etc.), which gives rise to them, and which we respond to at a time of its choosing, remains beyond our ken. Though we think our thoughts are ours by choice, and our ills a mere consequence of our own recklessly unhealthy life, it may well be that, just as papilionaceous plants produce a seed of a certain shape, our family hands down to us the ideas which keep us alive, as well as the illness which will cause our death.