Sodome et Gomorrhe
Esquisse V
(Cahier 36, 56-53v)
In the middle of the ball my eyes alighted unintentionally upon a
young girl with sparkling black eyes that were veiled with long silky
lashes amid a face that was an almost violet shade of pink and in which
she must have been aware of its precious and fragrant sweetness, because
in her corsage and in her hair she was wearing red roses which, going from
violet red and saffron red, seemed to turn into violet reds that were
almost black and which brought out like rouge the delightful glow of her
purple-tinged complexion. She saw that I was looking at her and
immediately and with unexpected boldness fixed upon me an expression of
uncertainty which to others might have appeared to have been fixed on
just anybody but to me could only have been interpreted as a sign of
complicity and almost a smile of consent. Then coming straight towards me
she turned as if to go to the buffet and as though checked by the crowd by
which she seemed to deliberately allow herself be pushed and shoved, she
crushed her breasts against me as if to reveal to me, as the only
confidence she could show me, their firmness and their shapeliness,
fluttering under my nose the fabric of a bodice whose colour and perfume
were just like the roses and must have been the same as that of her
cheeks. I hastened to discover her name, but by the time I had found the
mistress of the house she had left. But if nothing else, coming back to me
like those periods of exultation I had experienced in Combray, I felt
within me a life that was greater than death, my person being inextricably
attached to another creature, she, who she was, what her life was like, to
know who it was that I was in love with, this was the raison d'être, the
cause, the principle of existence of my own being, and my life was so
inextricably linked to hers, just as the intellect is necessary to
conceive an idea that is linked to it, that as long as this other lived
mine could never be extinguished. The prize of my life, the goal of my
life was no longer within my life, and my life could not dwindle away
before attaining it. One after another I went to visit all the people I
knew who had been at the ball and questioned them with an air of
carelessness. There was no doubt about it, she was Mlle Soliska, the
daughter of the Polish musician. I no longer cared for anybody else but
artists. I attempted to possess some part of her by playing Polish music,
I thought about travelling to Poland and trying to meet her there. And
above all I sought out those among my friends who were able to associate
with Polish musicians. All the others were of no value to me. I was told
that it was only by chance that she had been at Mme de Guermantes', and
that she never went into the Faubourg Saint-Germain. So that would
certainly be the last time that I would go there. The world of artists was
so much pleasanter. And I refused an invitation to dine with the
Guermantes. Some days later, hearing my description of the girl somebody
else told me: "There's no question about it, she is Mlle de
Guermantes-Lerrach, the Guermantes' niece, and as she is here for a few
weeks she goes to visit them whenever there are only a couple of people
there." I could have dined with her the day before! The Guermantes
regained all their charm in my eyes, while Poland, the music of Chopin,
the "world of artists" fell away into nothingness. Then a third person
knew exactly who I was talking about, Mlle Écuyer, the daughter of the
great industrialist. Oh! a bourgeois Parisienne, that was all there was
now that there was [incomplete]
Created 28.11.19