Believe me,"
he went on with emphasis, "the waters of that bay--more Breton than
Norman--may exert a sedative influence, though even that is of
questionable value, upon a heart which, like mine, is no longer unbroken,
a heart for whose wounds there is no longer anything to compensate. But at
your age, my boy, those waters are contra-indicated.... Good night to you,
neighbours," he added, moving away from us with that evasive abruptness to
which we were accustomed; and then, turning towards us, with a
physicianly finger raised in warning, he resumed the consultation: "No
Balbec before you are fifty!" he called out to me, "and even then it must
depend on the state of the heart."
My father spoke to him of it again, as often as we met him, and tortured
him with questions, but it was labour in vain: like that scholarly
swindler who devoted to the fabrication of forged palimpsests a wealth of
skill and knowledge and industry the hundredth part of which would have
sufficed to establish him in a more lucrative--but an honourable
occupation, M. Legrandin, had we insisted further, would in the end have
constructed a whole system of ethics, and a celestial geography of Lower
Normandy, sooner than admit to us that, within a mile of Balbec, his own
sister was living in her own house; sooner than find himself obliged to
offer us a letter of introduction, the prospect of which would never have
inspired him with such terror had he been absolutely certain--as, from his
knowledge of my grandmother's character, he really ought to have been
certain--that in no circumstances whatsoever would we have dreamed of
making use of it.
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