14. The Narrator eventually runs into Gilberte again...
The fourteenth instalment of 'Oh, That More Such Flowers May Come Tomorrow' in which our hero finally admits to his true feelings for the Travelling Companion.
The Narrator eventually runs into Gilberte again, some years later, while taking a stroll along the Champs-Elysées with the family’s ever-faithful servant, Francois...
He hears someone call out her name and realises it’s the very girl he saw on the Méséglise Way, who once gestured to him so provocatively. This is where she comes to play with her friends, and where he then makes it his business to go every day in the hope of ingratiating himself into her company. Eventually, she asks him to join in their games; and he soon falls madly in love.
The problem is that she does not visit every day: ‘there were days when she was prevented from coming by her lessons, by her catechism, by a tea-party, by the whole of that life, separated from my own, which twice only, condensed into the name Gilberte, I had felt so painfully close to me, in the hawthorn lane near Combray and on the grass of the Champs-Elysées.’
This trait of investing the totality of his feelings, thoughts and impressions in a single name becomes a familiar trope throughout the novel. With the renewal of his interest in Gilberte, we see a kind of growing insanity in him, in which every material thing comes to reflect, or to embody, the object of his affection. He obsesses over the particular street in which her family lives. In conversation with his parents, he tries to introduce the name ‘Swann’ at every turn. Later, after learning that she has left Paris, and caught in this web of magical thinking, he even comes to believe that he can summon her through the power of incantation:
‘I fell back upon subjects which still brought me into touch with Gilberte, I eternally repeated the same words, and it was no use my knowing that they were but words – words uttered in her absence, which she could not hear, words without virtue in themselves, repeating what were, indeed, facts, but powerless to modify them – for still it seemed to me that by dint of handling, of stirring in this way everything that had reference to Gilberte, I might perhaps make emerge from it something that would bring me happiness. I told my parents again that Gilberte was very fond of her governess, as if the statement, when repeated for the hundredth time, would at last have the effect of making Gilberte suddenly burst into the room, come to live with us forever.’
Eventually, after a prolonged period of ignoring her affections, my feelings for the Travelling Companion were to take a similar turn as the Narrator’s for Gilberte; all of which happened without me realising it. Unknown to me, there was a slow and steady war of attrition going on; my disingenuous dispassion was being eroded by her straight-shooting solicitude, by her open and honest tenderness, her cleverness and charm. Even I wasn’t perverse enough to deny it forever.
And so it was, that, after a while, I once again found myself tottering on that dizzying precipice that is the precursor to falling in love, in which everything in the world seems to resolve itself into the shape and form of the beloved. Suddenly, every action seemed contingent upon her; every thought catalysed by the need to placate, impress and woo; every this-way-and-that my mind went, it would always ultimately settle on her image.
The Travelling Companion was bright in a way I never knew possible. She was only 21, but I’d say she had a sophisticated, adult intelligence, way beyond her years. For a callow kid like me, this was rather like meeting an alien life form. Yes, we shared a love for literature, but, whereas I’d stuck mostly to the safe waters of the English canon, she’d ventured into new and fascinating territories, that stretched across the arts. The list of people she introduced me to is far too long to go into: Luis Buñuel was one. André Breton another. André Gide. Maurice Blanchot. Marguerite Duras. Thomas Mann. Henry Miller. Lee Miller. Méret Oppenheim. Max Ernst. Man Ray. Leonora Carrington. Claude Cahun. So many more. I just remember how exciting I found it all; opening myself up to her meant opening myself to a whole new world of cultural influence. A world of deeper reading, and looking, and listening, which was in many ways groundwork for what was to come, for Proust and the Search.
Here was a sensual, intelligent and rather glamorous woman who, for some inexplicable reason, had taken a liking to me and was only too happy to share her knowledge and passions. She made me tapes, leant me books, and introduced me to her friends, who, in their final year, all seemed so much older and worldly compared to my usual gaggle of greenhorns. I soon realised that this was what I wanted, that this was the life I’d been destined to discover. And so, all the doubt and hesitation, all the aloof pretence and counterfeit coolness, were cast aside, as I finally laid myself bare before the Travelling Companion, come what may.
Decision made, it wasn’t long before her very features began to transmute, her physiognomy transform, as my desire for everything she symbolised, and the external trappings that defined her, began to alter the way I saw her physically, so that suddenly her mole, scarred chin and convex fingernails became cherished attributes that only served to draw attention, through subtle contrast, to what I’d quickly come to regard as her supreme beauty.
Without noticing what had happened, within a matter of months, she’d become the blooming, diamond-bright centre of my world, which was to her a place to adorn and enhance through the careful application of her taste, whether that be the care she took over her handwriting in the perfervid love letters she sent me, the elegant glassware she deployed at dinner parties, or the addition of a perfectly placed button on a second-hand dress or stylish feather in the band of her hat. Everywhere we went, I could see that people’s eyes were drawn to us, although I knew they were really drawn to her. But that was fine by me. By then, I was more than happy to be envied.
Need to catch up on previous instalments? You can find links to all the previous chapters here.