furnish us not only with those habitual gestures which are the outlines of our face and voice, but also with certain mannerisms of speech, certain favourite expressions, which, almost as unconscious as our intonation, almost as profound, indicate likewise a definite point of view towards life. It is true that in the case of girls there are certain of these expressions which their parents do not hand on to them until they have reached a certain age, as a rule not before they are women. They are kept in reserve. Thus, for instance, if one were to speak of the pictures of one of Elstir’s friends, Andrée, whose hair was still “down,” could not yet personally make use of the expression which her mother and elder sister employed: “It appears the man is quite charming!” But that would come in due course, when she was allowed to go to the PalaisRoyal. And not long after her first communion, Albertine had begun to say, like a friend of her aunt: “It sounds to me pretty awful.” She had also inherited the habit of making one repeat whatever one said to her, so as to appear to be interested, and to be trying to form an opinion of her own. If you said that an artist’s work was good, or his house nice, “Oh, his painting’s good, is it?” “Oh, his house is nice, is it?” Finally, and more general still than the family heritage, was the rich layer imposed by the native province from which they derived their voices and of which their inflexions smacked. When Andrée sharply plucked a solemn note she could not prevent the Périgordian string of her vocal instrument from giving back a resonant sound quite in harmony, moreover, with the meridional purity of her features; while to the incessant japing of Rosemonde the substance of her northern face and voice responded willy-nilly in the accent of her province. Between that province and the temperament of the girl that dictated these inflexions, I perceived a charming dialogue. A dialogue, not in any sense a discord. No discord can possibly separate a young girl and her native place. She is herself, and she is still it. Moreover this reaction of local materials on the genius who utilises them and to whose work it imparts an added vigour, does not make the work any less individual, and whether it be that of an architect, a cabinet-maker or a composer, it reflects no less minutely the most subtle shades of the artist’s personality, because he has been compelled to work in the millstone of Senlis or the red sandstone of Strasbourg, has respected the knots peculiar to the ash-tree, has borne in mind, when writing his score, the resources and limits of the sonority and range of the flute and the viola.
All this I realised, and yet we talked so little! Whereas with Mme de Villeparisis or Saint-Loup I should have displayed by my words a great deal more pleasure than I should actually have felt, for I was worn out on leaving them, when, on the other hand, I was lying on the grass among these girls, the plenitude of what I felt infinitely outweighed the paucity, the infrequency of our speech, and brimmed over from my immobility and silence in waves of happiness that rippled up to die at the feet of these young roses.
For a convalescent who rests all day long in a flower-garden or an orchard, a scent of flowers or fruit does not more completely pervade the thousand trifles that compose his idle hours than did for me that colour, that fragrance in search of which my eyes kept straying towards the girls, and the sweetness of which finally became incorporated in me. So it is that grapes sweeten in the sun. And by their slow continuity these simple little games had gradually wrought in me also, as in those who do nothing else all day but lie outstretched by the sea, breathing the salt air and sunning themselves, a relaxation, a blissful smile, a vague dazzlement that had spread from brain to eyes.
Now and then a pretty attention from one or another of them would stir in me vibrations which dissipated for a time my desire for the rest. Thus one day Albertine suddenly asked: “Who has a pencil?” Andrée provided