Page 201 - swanns-way

geological skeleton that underlies our soil, the true Ar-mor,
the sea, the land’s end, the accursed region which Anatole
France—an enchanter whose works our young friend ought
to read—has so well depicted, beneath its eternal fogs, as
though it were indeed the land of the Cimmerians in the
Odyssey. Balbec; yes, they are building hotels there now,
superimposing them upon its ancient and charming soil,
which they are powerless to alter; how delightful it is, down
there, to be able to step out at once into regions so primitive
and so entrancing.’
‘Indeed! And do you know anyone at Balbec?’ inquired
my father. ‘This young man is just going to spend a couple
of months there with his grandmother, and my wife too,
perhaps.’
Legrandin, taken unawares by the question at a moment
when he was looking directly at my father, was unable to
turn aside his gaze, and so concentrated it with steadily in-
creasing intensity—smiling mournfully the while—upon
the eyes of his questioner, with an air of friendliness and
frankness and of not being afraid to look him in the face, un-
til he seemed to have penetrated my father’s skull, as it had
been a ball of glass, and to be seeing, at the moment, a long
way beyond and behind it, a brightly coloured cloud, which
provided him with a mental alibi, and would enable him
to establish the theory that, just when he was being asked
whether he knew anyone at Balbec, he had been thinking
of something else, and so had not heard the question. As a
rule these tactics make the questioner proceed to ask, ‘Why,
what are you thinking about?’ But my father, inquisitive,

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