My Year With Proust - Day 183

   "I had supposed that my love for Albertine was not based on the hope of carnal possession.  And yet, when the lesson to be drawn from my experience that evening was, apparently, that such possession was impossible; when, after having had no doubt, that first day on the beach, that Albertine was licentious, and having passed through various intermediate assumptions, it seemed to me to be established that she was absolutely virtuous; when on her return from her aunt's a week later, she greeted me coldly with: 'I forgive you; in fact I'm sorry to have upset you, but you must never do it again,' - then in contrast to what I had felt on learning from Block that one could have all the women one wanted, and as if, instead of a real girl, I had known a wax doll, my desire to penetrate into her life, to follow her through the places in which she had spent her childhood, to be initiated by her into the sporting life, gradually detaching itself from her; my intellectual curiosity as to thoughts on this subject or that did not survive my belief that I might kiss her if I chose.  My dreams abandoned her as soon as they ceased to be nourished by the hope of a possession of which I had supposed them to be independent."

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 996-997

Fallout from the ill-timed kiss of Albertine the night she spent in Proust's hotel.  I'm including this section partially because it provides useful background information on her and their relationship, but also because it raises interesting questions.  Mainly, I think it begs the question of whether you can have love without desire, at least at the beginning of a relationship?  Clearly, there is that sad point in most relationships where desire seems to dry up completely and both sides agree to the new normal.  However, by then you have a life time of memories and compromises to "justify" that decision.  No matter what your relationship turns into I would argue that it starts off based on desire.  You never look at that woman across the crowded room and think, "I really want to co-sign a mortgage we can't possibly afford with her."  It always starts with desire.

I was also amused by Proust's discussion of having a wax doll instead of a real girl, and not simply because of his choice of words in describing his desire to "penetrate" into her life.  It obviously reminded me of the scene in Lars and the Real Girl (a grossly underrated movie) where Lars introduces Bianca to his brother and sister-in-law.  The thing is, going back to the paragraph above, desire is easy, love is hard - so maybe Lars had the right idea.  Having said that, he eventually "decides" to kill off Bianca and found a true relationship with a real girl, so maybe there's hope for us all.