A FIELD GUIDE TO LOST THINGS PETER JAEGER A FIELD GUIDE TO LOST THINGS v if p then q classics 41 Fulford Street, Old Trafford, Manchester, M16 9PX www.ifpthenq.co.uk [email protected] Published by if p then q if p then q classics is part of the wider if p then q family © Peter Jaeger 2015 ISBN 978-0-9571827-7-6 With a passion unknown to any writer before him, Proust took as his subject the fidelity of things that have crossed our path in life. Fidelity to an afternoon, to a tree, a spot of sun on the carpet . Walter Benjamin Upon the sort of screen, patterned with different states and impressions, which my consciousness would quietly unfold while I was reading, and which ranged from the most deeply hidden aspirations of my heart to the wholly external view of the horizon spread out before my eyes at the foot of the garden, what was from the first the most permanent and the most intimate part of me, the lever whose incessant movements controlled all the rest, was my belief in the philosophic richness and beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate these to myself, whatever the book might be. Marcel Proust Acacias I walked towards don’t stay here all day; you the Allée des Acacias. On can go up to your room if certain days when I had you are too hot outside, but missed her in the Allée des get a little fresh air first; Acacias I would be so don’t start reading fortunate as to meet her in immediately after your the Allée de la Reine food.” The fresh air made Marguerite, where women one hungry. Then after went who wished to be patterning everywhere the alone, or to appear to be violet velvet of the evening wishing to be alone. air, abruptly soothed, they would return and be Afternoon Sky Sometimes absorbed in the tower. in the afternoon sky a white “You’ll come away more ‘up moon would creep up like a in the air’ than I am!” little cloud, furtive, without display. All Manner of Birds All the hats now were immense; Agate Marble I kissed the covered with fruits and agate marble, which was the flowers and all manner of better part of my love’s birds. heart, the part that was not frivolous but faithful. I read Almonds I felt suddenly, as over again a page which, I rose again, a bitter-sweet although it had not been fragrance of almonds steal written to me by Gilberte, towards me from the came to me, none the less, hawthorn-blossom. I from her, that page by imagined that this fragrance Bergotte upon the beauty of must lie concealed, as the the old myths from which taste of an almond cake lay Racine drew his inspiration, in the burned parts, or the which (with the agate sweetness of Mlle. Vinteuil’s marble) I always kept within cheeks beneath their reach. freckles. Air Her hand, at the same American Eye “Upon my time, sketched in the air an word and soul, you can see indelicate gesture. “Now, at a glance she’s got the 9 American eye, that girl has.” take everywhere. It’s a most engaging animal. It’s not Ampelopsis Elsewhere, often you see an animal so again, might be seen the well-behaved at that age. first awakening of this The very words which the Maytime of the leaves, and last convulsions of an those of an ampelopsis, a inoffensive animal in its smiling miracle, like a red death agony wring from the hawthorn flowering in peasant who is engaged in winter, had that very taking its life. morning all ‘come out,’ so to speak, in blossom. Animal’s Consciousness I had only the most Ancient Trees I aspired rudimentary sense of already to be an author, and existence, such as may lurk truly nothing can be finer, and flicker in the depths of sweeter, more refreshing for an animal’s consciousness. a writer than the sight of this sombre mass of foliage Animals He now noticed, formed by the ancient trees for the first time, roused by of the garden. the unexpected arrival of so belated a guest, the Animal But all the things scattered pack of splendid in life that have once existed effortless animals. tend to recur, and, like a dying animal that is once Ankle Ah! if he could only more stirred by the throes of manage to prevent it, if she a convulsion which was, could sprain her ankle apparently, ended, upon before starting, if the driver Swann’s heart, spared for a of the carriage which was to moment only, the same take her to the station would agony returned of its own consent (no matter how accord to trace the same great the bribe) to smuggle cross again. He knew that her to some place where she this thought had jumped in could be kept for a time in after him and had settled seclusion, that perfidious down upon his knee, like a woman. pet animal which he might 10 Ant Hill Words present to arm to Spartacus, to let him us little pictures of things, take one down! Mamma lucid and normal, like the pinched my arm sharply and pictures that are hung on said in a loud voice: “Good the walls of schoolrooms to morning, Françoise.” M. give children an illustration Swann seized my of what is meant by a grandfather by the arm and carpenter’s bench, a bird, an cried, “Oh, my dear old ant hill. friend, how fortunate we are to be walking here together Apple Trees It was while on such a charming day!” going the ‘Méséglise way’ When he proposed to take that I first noticed the leave of Odette, and to circular shadow which apple return home, she begged trees cast upon the sunlit him to stay a little longer, ground, and also those and even detained him impalpable threads of forcibly, seizing him by the golden silk which the setting arm as he was opening the sun weaves slantingly door to go. downwards from beneath their leaves. Arms Custom came to take me in her arms, carried me Apricots Apricots, because all the way up to my bed, they were still hard to get. and laid me down there like a little child. “Elevated...to Aquatic Gardening But the height of an Institute!” farther on the current interrupted Cottard, raising slackened, where the stream his arms with mock ran through a property solemnity. How readily thrown open to the public would I have sacrificed by its owner, who had made them all, just to be able to a hobby of aquatic cry, all night long, in the gardening. arms of Mamma! I would fall into the arms of my Arm I touch your arm. It’s mother. In my new-found often quite boring enough to confidence and joy I wept have to give a dinner-party, upon his printed page, as in but if one had to offer one’s the arms of a long-lost 11 father. “Most fortunate for past with some asparagus France!” he recited twice the size of what wickedly, shooting up both mother Callot has.” “It’s a arms with great vigour. She regular disease of asparagus had entered the room with you have got this year: you her arms pressed close to will make our Parisians sick her sides, even when there of it.” “I’ve still to dress the was no crowd to be asparagus.” Many years squeezed through. She later we discovered that, if might perhaps be seized by we had been fed on the whim (which, it was asparagus day after day possible, had never yet throughout that whole seized her) of falling into the season, it was because the arms of Forcheville. She smell of the plants gave the would jump in beside him, poor kitchen-maid, who had and hold him in her arms to prepare them, such until the carriage drew up at violent attacks of asthma the Verdurins’. She would that she was finally obliged procure an invitation for to leave my aunt’s service. him also, and to lull to rest The light crowns of azure in her arms the anguish that which capped the asparagus still tormented him. Yet he shoots above their pink would have wished to live jackets would be finely and until the time came when he separately outlined, star by no longer loved her, when star, as in Giotto’s fresco are she would have no reason the flowers banded about for lying to him, when at the brows. What fascinated length he might learn from me would be the asparagus, her whether, on the day tinged with ultramarine and when he had gone to see her rosy pink which ran from in the afternoon, she had or their heads, finely stippled had not been in the arms of in mauve and azure, Forcheville. through a series of imperceptible changes to Asparagus “Françoise, if their white feet, still stained you had come in five a little by the soil of their minutes ago, you would garden bed: a rainbow- have seen Mme. Imbert go loveliness that was not of 12 this world. “What, provoke in me that Françoise, more asparagus!” modulation, without there “You know quite well that being any need for me to he can never grow anything await the return of a season.