In Search of Lost Time, Volume II Read Online Free PDF

theatre, she would alight from it muffled in furs, and, crossly acknowledging people’s salutes, would send one of her attendants to find out whether a stage box had been kept for her friends, what the temperature was “in front,” who were in the other boxes, how the programme sellers were turned out; theatre and audience being to her no more than a second, outer cloak which she would put on, and the medium, the more or less good conductor, through which her talent would have to pass. I was happy, too, in the theatre itself; since I had made the discovery that—contrary to the notion so long entertained by my childish imagination—there was but one stage for everybody, I had supposed that I should be prevented from seeing it properly by the presence of the other spectators, as one is when in the thick of a crowd; now I registered the fact that, on the contrary, thanks to an arrangement which is, as it were, symbolical of all spectatorship, everyone feels himself to be the centre of the theatre; which explained to me why, when Françoise had been sent once to see some melodrama from the top gallery, she had assured us on her return that her seat had been the best in the house, and that instead of finding herself too far from the stage she had been positively frightened by the mysterious and living proximity of the curtain. My pleasure increased further when I began to distinguish behind this lowered curtain such obscure noises as one hears through the shell of an egg before the chicken emerges, sounds which presently grew louder and suddenly, from that world which, impenetrable to our eyes, yet scrutinised us with its own, addressed themselves indubitably to us in the imperious form of three consecutive thumps as thrilling as any signals from the planet Mars. And—once this curtain had risen—when on the stage a writing-table and a fireplace, in no way out of the ordinary, had indicated that the persons who were about to enter would be, not actors come to recite as I had once seen some of them do at an evening party, but real people, just living their lives at home, on whom I was thus able to spy without their seeing me, my pleasure still endured. It was broken by a momentary uneasiness: just as I was pricking up my ears in readiness before the piece began, two men appeared on the stage obviously furious with one another since they were talking so loud that in this auditorium where there were at least a thousand people one could hear every word, whereas in quite a small café one is obliged to ask the waiter what two individuals who appear to be quarrelling are saying; but at that moment, while I sat astonished to find that the audience was listening to them without protest, submerged as it was in a unanimous silence upon which presently a little wave of laughter broke here and there, that these insolent fellows were the actors, and that the short piece known as “the curtain-raiser” had now begun. It was followed by an interval so long that the audience, having returned to their seats, grew impatient and began to stamp their feet. I was terrified at this; for just as in the report of a criminal trial, when I read that some noble-minded person was coming, in defiance of his own interests, to testify on behalf of an innocent man, I was always afraid that they would not be nice enough to him, would not show enough gratitude, would not recompense him lavishly, and that he, in disgust, would then range himself on the side of injustice, so now, assimilating genius with virtue, I was afraid lest Berma, vexed by the bad behaviour of so ill-bred an audience—in which, on the contrary, I should have liked her to recognise with gratification a few celebrities to whose judgment she would be bound to attach importance—should express her displeasure and disdain by acting badly. And I looked round imploringly at these stamping brutes, who were about to shatter, in their insensate rage, the rare and fragile impression which I