In Search of Lost Time, Volume II_ Within a Budding Grove - Marcel Proust [250]
sex of the model, so that I did not know exactly what I had before my eyes, except that it was a most luminous piece of painting. And the pleasure which it afforded me was troubled only by the fear that Elstir, by delaying further, would make me miss the girls, for the declining sun now hung low in the little window. Nothing in this water-colour was merely set down there as a fact and painted because of its practical relevance to the scene, the costume because the young woman must be wearing something, the vase to hold the flowers. The glass of the vase, cherished for its own sake, seemed to be holding the water in which the stems of the carnations were dipped in something as limpid, almost as liquid as itself; the woman’s clothes enveloped her in a material that had an independent, fraternal charm, and, if the products of industry can compete in charm with the wonders of nature, as delicate, as pleasing to the touch of the eye, as freshly painted as the fur of a cat, the petals of a flower, the feathers of a dove. The whiteness of the shirt-front, as fine as soft hail, with its gay pleats gathered into little bells like lilies of the valley, was spangled with bright gleams of light from the room, themselves sharply etched and subtly shaded as if they were flowers stitched into the linen. And the velvet of the jacket, with its brilliant sheen, had something rough, frayed and shaggy about it here and there that recalled the crumpled brightness of the carnations in the vase. But above all one felt that Elstir, heedless of any impression of immorality that might be given by this transvestite costume worn by a young actress for whom the talent she would bring to the role was doubtless of less importance than the titillation she would offer to the jaded or depraved senses of some of her audience, had on the contrary fastened upon this equivocal aspect as on an aesthetic element which deserved to be brought into prominence, and which he had done everything in his power to emphasise. Along the lines of the face, the latent sex seemed to be on the point of confessing itself to be that of a somewhat boyish girl, then vanished, and reappeared further on with a suggestion rather of an effeminate, vicious and pensive youth, then fled once more and remained elusive. The dreamy sadness in the expression of the eyes, by its very contrast with the accessories belonging to the world of debauchery and the stage, was not the least disturbing element in the picture. One imagined moreover that it must be feigned, and that the young person who seemed ready to submit to caresses in this provoking costume had probably thought it intriguing to enhance the provocation with this romantic expression of a secret longing, an unspoken grief. At the foot of the picture was inscribed: “Miss Sacripant, October, 1872.” I could not contain my admiration. “Oh, it’s nothing, only a rough sketch I did when I was young: it was a costume for a variety show. It’s all ages ago now.” “And what has become of the model?” A bewilderment provoked by my words preceded on Elstir’s face the indifferent, absent-minded air which, a moment later, he displayed there. “Quick, give it to me!” he said, “I hear Madame Elstir coming, and though, I assure you, the young person in the bowler hat never played any part in my life, still there’s no point in my wife’s coming in and finding the picture staring her in the face. I’ve kept it only as an amusing sidelight on the theatre of those days.” And, before putting it away behind the pile, Elstir, who perhaps had not set eyes on the sketch for years, gave it a careful scrutiny. “I must keep just the head,” he murmured, “the lower part is really too shockingly bad, the hands are a beginner’s work.” I was miserable at the arrival of Mme Elstir, who could only delay us still further. The window-sill was already aglow. Our excursion would be a pure waste of time. There was no longer the slightest chance of our seeing the girls, and consequently it mattered now not at all how quickly Mme Elstir left us. In fact she did not stay very long.