and Mme. Cottard, typical,
in this respect, of the public, were incapable of finding, either in
Vinteuil's sonata or in Biche's portraits, what constituted 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 medley 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 canvas. 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
painting 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 earshot, 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 looking on: "Yes,
indeed; he's what they call a musician _di primo cartello_!" he exclaimed,
with a sudden determination.
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