Naturalness

"But as for my grandmother, in all weathers, even in downpour when Françoise had rushed the precious wicker armchairs indoors so that they would not get wet, we would see her in the empty, rain-lashed garden, pushing back her disordered gray locks so that her forehead could more freely drink in the salubriousness of the wind and rain. She would say, 'At last, one can breathe!' and would roam the soaked paths – too symmetrically aligned for her liking by the new gardener, who lacked all feeling for nature... - with her jerky, enthusiastic little step, regulated by the various emotions excited in her soul by the intoxication of the storm, the power of good health, the stupidity of my upbringing, and the symmetry of the gardens, rather than by the desire, quite unknown to her, to spare her plum-coloured skirt the spots of mud under which it would disappear up to a height that was always, for her maid, a source of despair and a problem."

"...who was always glad to have a pretext for taking one more walk around the garden and who would profit from it by surreptitiously pulling up a few rose stakes on the way so as to make the roses look a little more natural, like a mother who runs her hand through her son's hair to fluff it up after the barber has flattened it too much."

"I believe above all that, confusedly, my grandmother found in the steeple of Combray what for her had the highest value in the world, an air of naturalness and an air of distinction. Knowing nothing about architecture, she would say, 'My children, make fun of me if you like, perhaps it isn't beautiful according to the rules, but I like its strange old face. I'm sure that if it could play the piano it would not play dryly.'"

《追憶似水年華》裡率性自然，看輕俗世法度的祖母，總是讓我想到女皇。前幾晚我們由尖沙咀經廟街行到百老匯電影中心接 FPO 同事，天一直飄著陰冷的雨，她卻不要躲在傘下；有條小路雨水滴滴答答在人家的簷蓬滾下來，像個小瀑布，她也想照衝過去。