Page 329 - swanns-way

rejecting those impressions, so M. and Mme. Cottard, typi-
cal, in this respect, of the public, were incapable of finding,
either in Vinteuil’s sonata or in Biche’s portraits, what con-
stituted harmony, for them, in music or beauty in painting.
It appeared to them, when the pianist played his sonata, as
though he were striking haphazard from the piano a med-
ley of notes which bore no relation to the musical forms
to which they themselves were accustomed, and that the
painter simply flung the colours haphazard upon his can-
vas. When, on one of these, they were able to distinguish a
human form, they always found it coarsened and vulgarised
(that is to say lacking all the elegance of the school of paint-
ing through whose spectacles they themselves were in the
habit of seeing the people—real, living people, who passed
them in the streets) and devoid of truth, as though M. Biche
had not known how the human shoulder was constructed,
or that a woman’s hair was not, ordinarily, purple.
And yet, when the ‘faithful’ were scattered out of ear-
shot, the Doctor felt that the opportunity was too good to
be missed, and so (while Mme. Verdurin was adding a final
word of commendation of Vinteuil’s sonata) like a would-
be swimmer who jumps into the water, so as to learn, but
chooses a moment when there are not too many people look-
ing on: ‘Yes, indeed; he’s what they call a musician di primo
cartello!’ he exclaimed, with a sudden determination.
Swann discovered no more than that the recent publica-
tion of Vinteuil’s sonata had caused a great stir among the
most advanced school of musicians, but that it was still un-
known to the general public.

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