"I realised then how much a human imagination can put behind a little scrap of a face, such as this woman's was, if it is the imagination that has come to know it first; and conversely into what wretched elements, crudely material and utterly valueless, something that had been the inspiration of countless dreams might be decomposed if, on the contrary, it has been perceived in the opposite manner, by the most casual and trivial acquaintance. I saw that what had appeared to me to be not worth twenty francs when it had been offered to me for twenty francs in the brothel, where it was then for me simply a woman desirous of earning twenty francs, might be worth more than a million, more than family affection, more than all the most coveted positions in life, if one had begun by imagining her as a mysterious being, interesting to know, difficult to seize and to hold. No doubt it was the same thin and narrow face that we saw, Robert and I. But we had arrived at it by two opposite ways which would never converge, and we would never both see it from the same side. That face, with its looks, its smiles, the movements of its mouth, I had known from the outside as being that of a woman of the sort who for twenty francs would do anything that I asked. And so her looks, her smiles, the movements of her mouth had seemed to me expressive merely of generalised actions with no individual quality, and beneath them I should not have had the curiosity to look for a person. But what to me had in a sense been offered at the start, that consenting face, had been for Robert an ultimate goal towards which he had made his way through endless hopes and doubts, suspicions and dreams. Yes, he had given more than a million francs in order to have, in order that others should not have, what had been offered to me, as to all and sundry, for twenty"
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 161-162
Proust continues to reflect upon the seemingly inexplicable situation wherein his friend Robert's mistress is the same prostitute that years before he, Proust, could have purchased for twenty francs. "Yes, he had given more than a million francs in order to have, in order that others should not have, what had been offered to me, as to all and sundry, for twenty." First off, the notion that Robert had spent a million francs so that he could have her - but also so that others could not have her - I think is key here. I wonder how often our love affairs and marriages are based on an almost Mercantilist vision of a limited world of commodities; if I have something then you, by definition, don't have something, so I am richer. Are marriages really just emotional protectionism? Truthfully, we don't really want that woman all that dramatically, but insert the image of her committing some carnal gymnastics with another man and we go insane. We're really much more interested with someone not sleeping with our wives than we actually sleeping with them ourselves.
This is another passage dealing with the role of emotion in stamping perception and memory. "I realised then how much a human imagination can put behind a little scrap of a face, such as this woman's was, if it is the imagination that has come to know it first; and conversely into what wretched elements, crudely material and utterly valueless, something that had been the inspiration of countless dreams might be decomposed if, on the contrary, it has been perceived in the opposite manner, by the most casual and trivial acquaintance." As Proust recounts, he and Robert had arrived at their perception of Rachel by two very different paths, and those paths, and thus their perception of her, would never merge. I'm beginning to think that there is really no such thing as a legitimate, real relationship, simply because there is no such thing as a legitimate, real understanding of another person. Everything is a jumbled series of perceptions driven by emotions and physical urges. It's amazing any of us get through the weekend with the same person.
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