she had touched at so many points during the last few years, and that had become, since the coming of Mr. Shatov, more and more clearly a continuation of the first beginnings at school … alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre au premier … à l’entrée de ce bassin, des arbres … se fit entendre … alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre … all one word on one tone … it must have been an extract from some dull mysterious story with an explanation or deliberately without an explanation; then a faint whispering was audible on the first floor; that was utterly different. It was the shape and sound of the sentences, without the meaning that was so wonderful— alors une faible parapluie se fit entendre au premier —Jan would scream, but it was just as wonderful … there must be some meaning in having so passionately loved the little book without having known that it was selections from French prose; in getting to Germany and finding there another world of beautiful shape and sound, apart from people and thoughts and things that happened. … Durch die ganze lange Nacht, bis tief in den Morgen hinein … it was opening again, drawing her in away from the tuneless shapeless—
Table of Contents
III
145