In Search of Lost Time, Volume II_ Within a Budding Grove - Marcel Proust [274]
“Are the rest of your friends going too?”
“No, only she and ‘Miss,’ because she’s got to take her exams again; she’ll have to swot for them, poor kid. It’s not much fun, I don’t mind telling you. Of course, you may be set a good subject, you never know. It’s such a matter of luck. One girl I know was given: Describe an accident that you have witnessed. That was a piece of luck. But I know another girl who had to discuss, in writing too: Which would you rather have as a friend, Alceste or Philinte? I’m sure I should have dried up altogether! Apart from everything else, it’s not a question to set to girls. Girls go about with other girls; they’re not supposed to have gentlemen friends.” (This announcement, which showed that I had small chance of being admitted to the little band, made me quake.) “But in any case, even if it was set for boys, what on earth would you expect them to find to say about it? Several parents wrote to the Gaulois, to complain of the difficulty of questions like that. The joke of it is that in a collection of prize-winning essays there were two which treated the question in absolutely opposite ways. You see, it all depends on the examiner. One wanted you to say that Philinte was a two-faced socialite flatterer, the other that you couldn’t help admiring Alceste, but that he was too cantankerous, and that as a friend you ought to choose Philinte. How can you expect a lot of unfortunate candidates to know what to say when the professors themselves don’t agree? But that’s nothing. It gets more difficult every year. Gisèle will have to pull a string or two if she’s to get through.”
I returned to the hotel. My grandmother was not there. I waited for her some time, and when at last she appeared, I begged her to allow me, in quite unexpected circumstances, to make an expedition which might keep me away for a couple of days. I had lunch with her, ordered a carriage and drove to the station. Gisèle would not be surprised to see me there. After we had changed at Doncières, in the Paris train there would be a carriage with a corridor, along which, while the governess dozed, I should be able to lead Gisèle into a dark corner and make an appointment to meet her on my return to Paris, which I would then try to put forward to the earliest possible date. I would travel with her as far as Caen or Evreux, whichever she preferred, and would take the next train back to Balbec. And yet, what would she have thought of me had she known that I had hesitated for a long time between her and her friends, that quite as much as with her I had contemplated falling in love with Albertine, with the girl with the bright eyes, with Rosemonde. I felt a pang of remorse, now that a bond of mutual affection was going to unite me with Gisèle. I could, however, truthfully have assured her that Albertine no longer attracted me. I had seen her that morning as she swerved aside, almost turning her back on me, to speak to Gisèle. Her head was sulkily lowered, and the hair at the back, which was different and darker still, glistened as though she had just been bathing. Like a wet hen, I had thought to myself, and this view of her hair had induced me to embody in Albertine a different soul from that implied hitherto by her violet face and mysterious gaze. That shining cataract of hair at the back of her head had been for a moment or two all that I was able to see of her, and continued to be all that I saw in retrospect. Our memory is like one of those shops in the window of which is exposed now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen. While the coachman whipped on his horse I sat there listening to the words of gratitude and tenderness that Gisèle was