IN THE COURT OF THE DRAWING ROOM KINGS
[The following is an excerpt from Marcel Proust's novel "Jean Santeuil", which was both a forerunner and a rough draft for his masterpiece "Remembrance of Things Past."]
Translated from the French by Russell Scheidelman–
“There is, in the time that follows a copious meal, a period of arrested activity full of sweet intelligence and quiet energy, where remaining without doing anything gives us the sentiment of the fullness of life, while the least effort would be insupportable. The anxieties weighing down on us at the start of the meal have disappeared; and if we think of them now, it’s with a smile, as of some past troubles that are long gone… Each of the guests has obtained a share in that ‘royalty of the banquet’ which was first introduced among the ancients, and which for an hour or so is conferred on all those who stay to take part in the experience. Each performs it differently, in a solitary manner, as can be seen upon entering a salon in which one has hastened to come before the coffee is served–because then one can no longer be sure of not disturbing, or of not being disturbed by, the others.
A moment of reflection
Regard them lounging about the several corners of the room, whether in the places they had claimed from the beginning, and–having no need to get up–are no longer willing to abandon, or occupying their places by habit, or accordingly as the calculations of refinement or prudence–when moving to a better spot might derange them at the very moment such derangement would be most disagreeable–have chosen for them to occupy. Each accords to a special pleasure, as to a docile slave, the care of being caressed by it, of being rendered more sensible and able to perceive it more intimately.
One guest is extended in the attitude of those who summon the presence of their favorite pets, with his well-loved pipe commodiously lodged in the corner of his mouth. What is merely flame and smoke for the others is for him a delicious caress of the throat and gullet, coming in with each mellow inhalation and mingling with the newly absorbed flavors of food and drink. While exhaling, he gently contracts his breast, which makes the soft chords of his well-being tingle. A small glass of cognac is beside him, on a small table whose proximity enables him to add this new and poignant sensation to his throat and gullet, without causing any disturbance to his calm repose.
Repose
Another guest, extended in a similar attitude before a grand bay window which looks out upon the sea, seems to derive all his pleasure through the windows of his eyes, before which pass all the colors of the seascape momentarily rekindled by the sun–the water’s green and blue hues, the white of canvas sails, the black of ships’ hulls, the gray of vapors volatilizing from their smokestacks–affording to his eyes all the passive pleasures they are capable of enjoying. But such visual pleasures tend to propagate additional pleasures in the other senses as well. In a meditation as profound as his neighbor’s with the pipe, this other drawing room monarch imagines he feels the wind that fills the sails and that wrinkles the sea’s surface; everywhere the play of light mingles with the agitating effects of the wind. He believes he hears the cry of the seagulls flying above the jetty and to taste the salted sea air. Then, without moving to get up or being otherwise overcome by fatigue, he lowers his eyelids over his eyes, like those translucent shades which continue to admit light while blocking the outside view. What he sees now is the light alone, which has succeeded in penetrating the membrane of his eyelids while leaving the spectacle of things behind. This light is delicately rose, white, and gold, without his knowing if it’s the color of the atmosphere or the color of his eyelids, similar to the sound we hear when we hold a seashell close to our ear–a sound so vague that we don’t know if it comes to us from the seashell or from our ear.
Another guest has moved his chair closer to the piano, where a young man seated on the piano stool–a person for whom the exercise of his talent is easy enough that it doesn’t fatigue him, or perhaps is necessary just to dissipate the fatigue that would result from not playing at all, or exciting enough to subdue it–plays an enchanting melody. The one who has brought his chair forward has done so perhaps in a manner that didn’t require getting up completely, by drawing the chair after him; if the piano is still too far away, he listens from where he’s settled himself. From whatever distance, it’s the melody which he charges–he the listener–with his well-being and with giving him the delicious movement he experiences without disturbing his repose. The melody carries him along, rapid and sinuous, making him pass and re-pass the same routes a hundred times over, or propelling him quite far off with a pleasure that’s always new. Sometimes he accompanies it with his voice, enjoying the sensation of it passing along his throat, and enabling him to quit the role of a simple auditor, signaling his despotism and enhancing his well-being without in any way disturbing his (or his neighbors’) repose.
Simple Pleasures...
If in such a moment a vehicle is heard stopping at the front door and some newcomers are seen through the windows waiting to be let in, one would be surprised by the speed in which these lucid sleepers take flight from the room; and similar to how some wild hares, interrupted while eating, will carry off their dinner to some nearby spot and continue with the repast, so each guest will abscond with some implement of his pleasures–the pipe, the cognac, a newspaper–, preferring a single violent disruption of his reverie if it will spare him from others and if it’s the price he must pay to definitively purchase his repose–a real repose, where one is not obliged to offer one’s chair, to get up to re-conduct someone, to remain seated in a relatively rigid position, to speak, to respond, and be deprived of one’s yawns, grimaces, and acts of stretching oneself or rubbing one’s eyes, which are the spontaneous manifestations of a necessary prolongation of well-being, and seem to consummate the pleasure caused by a sensation which detaches itself from the center of repose, as the last evanescent circles radiating on the water’s calm surface from where a pebble has lately fallen.”