'Within a Budding Grove'
(from 'In Seach of Lost Times')
by Marcel Proust
JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
Translation by N. Tilley
This passage, set in the casino at the seaside resort of Balbec, was not incorporated in the novel as published in 1919.
At the rear of the Casino's dance-hall was a stage, from which some overly steep and widely-spaced steps led up to an organ...
. . .
Meanwhile the organ recital had begun. At that moment a paralytic old man, who could walk only with some difficulty, and who was completely incapable of climbing the steps, had the strange idea of going to sit on a chair at the very top, beside the organ, and he was heaved up by three young men. But after some time, while the organ was playing its crisp, pastoral variations, he got up again, with the three young men following close behind. I presumed he had had a stroke, and I admired the obliviousness of the organist who, having ceased to uncoil the spirals of his rustic pipes, covered the descent of the unfortunate paralytic with a thunderous noise. Manoeuvred by the three young men, the old gentleman disappeared into the wings... But what surprised me more was that barely two minutes passed before the paralytic old man returned, apparently warming to that very exercise of which he was almost incapable, pushed by the three young men, to take his useless place at the side of the organ. He dozed there for a few minutes, then awoke and began to climb down again. As the organist was obscured behind his instrument, the stage was effectively occupied by the calamitous exertions of a clumsy, ancient squirrel. When, in turn, the organist came down to take his bow, it fell to him to assist the helpless dotard, whose every step made the frail executant stumble. But with a wiliness so often found in the moribund, the old man clung to the organist as if it was he who supported the man who was really carrying him, as if it were he protecting him, presenting him to the audience and receiving his share of the applause, which, out of pure modesty he deflected by gesturing towards the organist, who, stumbling beneath his human burden, and afraid of falling down the steep steps, could not make his bow.
