Days, love and death

The Fugitive, or The Sweet Cheat Gone
Book Six, and chapter three of four.  I had quite forgotten how many wonderful lines there are in this little section of the narrator in Venice with Mama.  The first page has the wonderful description of days, which in the C. K. Scott Moncrieff original English translation appears as '...the whole world is merely a vast sun-dial, a single lighted segment of which enables us to tell what o’clock it is...', and in a much later translation by Peter Collier as '...the world is little more than a vast sundial where a single sunlit segment allows us to tell the time...'.
And as the narrator chases after young girls in Venice, he reflects on his original love of Albertine, and gives one of the most beautifully poetical lines of the whole work: 'We think we love a girl, and in her we love no more, alas, than that dawn which their face momentarily reflects.'   In the earlier translation this is given as the slightly different 'We think that we are in love with a girl, whereas we love in her, alas! only that dawn the glow of which is momentarily reflected on her face.'
Then on the very next page we have the marvellous 'Our love of life is no more than an old affair that we do not know how to discontinue.  Its strength lies in its permanence.  But death, which interrupts it, will cure us of our desire for immorality.'  Or 'Our love of life is only an old connexion of which we do not know how to rid ourself. Its strength lies in its permanence. But death which severs it will cure us of the desire for immortality.'

Words from 'The Prisoner', Marcel Proust

Probably one of the most famous quotes from the book, and certainly one of my favourites. This is from the new(ish) Penguin edition, translated by Carol Clark.

The only real journey, the only Fountain of Youth, would be to travel not towards new landscapes, but with new eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundreds of universes that each of them can see, or can be; and we can do that with the help of an Elstir (1), a Vinteuil (2); with them and their like we can truly fly from star to star.' 

(1) - a painter friend of the narrator
(2) - a composer

Some things cannot be borne.

The Baron was ready to fight a duel over Morel, or at least pretend he was. And I am too.

And so the Doctor refrained from any expression of indignation which could have made no difference, and, after murmuring, he the most timorous of men, that there were certain things which one could not overlook, added that it was better so, that this solution delighted him.

More treasures from the master.

As we move to the vernal equinox, it was a joy to reflect on beautiful summer evenings, as described by Proust. I've reached volume four in the recent translation, Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Scott Moncrieff version coyly calls The Cities of the Plain. Part one describes the encounter between the Baron de Charlus and the waistcoat maker Jupien. Part two takes us to the soiree of the Princess de Guermantes, and this wonderful description of a late summer evening:

As I was in no haste to arrive at this party at the Guermantes’, to which I was not certain that I had been invited, I remained sauntering out of doors; but the summer day seemed to be in no greater haste than myself to stir. Albeit it was after nine o’clock, it was still the light of day that on the Place de la Concorde was giving the Luxor obelisk the appearance of being made of pink nougat. Then it diluted the tint and changed the surface to a metallic substance, so that the obelisk not only became more precious but seemed to have grown more slender and almost flexible. You imagined that you might have twisted it in your fingers, had perhaps already slightly distorted its outline. The moon was now in the sky like a section of orange delicately peeled although slightly bruised. But presently she was to be fashioned of the most enduring gold. Sheltering alone behind her, a poor little star was to serve as sole companion to the lonely moon, while she, keeping her friend protected, but bolder and striding ahead, would brandish like an irresistible weapon, like an Oriental symbol, her broad and marvellous crescent of gold.

Rockers

Rockers, a set on Flickr.

The Chicken Run comes to Bewdley.

Glimpsed through the trees

Why does everything looks so much more beautiful and interesting when viewed through trees? Out in the forest on a Sunday afternoon - rays of sunshine dancing on the ferns, rabbits skipping back into the undergrowth, a young dear staring back at me through the leaves, glorious purple flowers enclosed by the greenery, streams and ponds supporting wildlife, a log-cabin, small paths meandering through the trees from the main path, bird of prey, song birds, game birds - all rather mundane in the open, but so mystical and romantic when seen through the trees.

Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life, little boy

More words from probably my favourite character, and possibly my favourite quote, if a little on the long side. Who could not identify with these sentiments? The narrator meets Legrandin, who shares his thoughts:

“Ah! So it’s you,” he exclaimed, “a man of fashion, and in a frock coat too! That is a livery in which my independent spirit would be ill at ease. It is true that you are a man of the world, I suppose, and go out paying calls! To go and dream, as I do, before some half ruined tomb, my flowing tie and jacket are not out of place. You know how I admire the charming quality of your soul; that is why I tell you how deeply I regret that you should go forth and deny it among the Gentiles. By being capable of remaining for a moment in the nauseating atmosphere — which I am unable to breathe — of a drawing-room, you pronounce on your own future the condemnation, the damnation of the Prophet. I can see it all, you frequent the ‘light hearts,’ the houses of the great, that is the vice of our middle class to-day. Ah! Those aristocrats! The Terror was greatly to blame for not cutting the heads off every one of them. They are all sinister debauchees, when they are not simply dreary idiots. Still, my poor boy, if that sort of thing amuses you! While you are on your way to your tea-party your old friend will be more fortunate than you, for alone in an outlying suburb he will be watching the pink moon rise in a violet sky. The truth is that I scarcely belong to this Earth upon which I feel myself such an exile; it takes all the force of the law of gravity to hold me here, to keep nie from escaping into another sphere. I belong to a different planet. Goodbye; do not take amiss the old-time frankness of the peasant of the Vivonne, who has also remained a peasant of the Danube. To prove to you that I am your sincere well-wisher, I am going to send you my last novel. But you will not care for it; it is not deliquescent enough, not fin de siècle enough for you; it is too frank, too honest; what you want is Bergotte, you have confessed it, high game for the jaded palates of pleasure-seeking epicures. I suppose I am looked upon, in your set, as an old campaigner; I do wrong to put my heart into what I write, that is no longer done; besides, the life of the people is not distinguished enough to interest your little snobbicules. Go, get you gone, try to recall at times the words of Christ: ‘Do this and ye shall live.’ Farewell, Friend.” It was not with any particular resentment against Legrandin that I parted from him. Certain memories are like friends in common, they can bring about reconciliations; set down amid fields starred with buttercups, upon which were piled the ruins of feudal greatness, the little wooden bridge still joined us, Legrandin and me, as it joined the two banks of the Vivonne.