"I fancy nevertheless that, on that precise morning, and probably for the first and only time, Robert detached himself for a moment from the woman whom out of successive layers of tenders he had gradually created, and suddenly saw at some distance from himself another Rachel, the double of his but entirely different, who was nothing more not less than a little whore. We had left the blossoming orchard and were making for the train which was to take us back to Paris when, at the station, Rachel, who was walking by herself, was recognised and hailed by a pair of common little 'tarts' like herself, who first of all, thinking aht she was alone, call out: 'Hello Rachel, why don't you come with us? Lucienne and Germaine are in the train, and there's room for one more. Come on, we'll all go to the rink together.' . . . He not only glimpsed this lift, but saw also in the thick of it a Rachel quite different from the one he knew, a Rachel like those two little tarts, a twenty-franc Rachel. In short, Rachel had for the moment duplicated herself in his eyes; he had seen, at some distance from his own Rachel, the little tart Rachel, the real Rachel if it can be said that Rachel the tart was more real than the other. It may then have occurred to Robert that from the hell in which he was living, with the prospect and the necessity of a rich marriage, of the sale of his name, to enable him to go on giving Rachel a hundred thousand francs a year, he might easily perhaps have escaped, and have enjoyed the favours of his mistress, as the two counter-jumpers enjoyed those of their girls, for next to nothing. But how was it to be done? She had done nothing blameworthy. Less generously rewarded, she would be less nice to him, would stop saying and writing the things that so deeply touched him, things which he would quote, with a touch of boastfulness, to his comrades, taking care to point out how nice it was of her to say them, but omitting to mention that he was maintaining her in the most lavish fashion, or even that he ever gave her anything at all, that these inscriptions on photographs, or tenders greetings at the end of telegrams, were but the transformation of gold in its most exiguous but most precious form. If he took care not to admit that these rare kindnesses on Rachel's part were handsomely paid for, it would be wrong to say - and yet this over-simplification is applied, absurdly, to every lover who has to pay cash, and to a great many husbands - that this was from self-esteem or vanity. Saint-Loup was intelligent enough to realise that all the pleasures of vanity were freely available to him in society, thanks to his historic name and handsome face, and that his liaison with Rachel had if anything tended to cut him off from society, had led to his being less doubt after. No; this pride which seeks to appear to be getting for nothing the apparent marks of predilection of the woman one loves is simply a consequence of love, the need to figure in one's own eyes and in other people's as being loved by the person whom one loves so much."
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 162-164
Over the course of this reading and discussion of Proust, and, for that matter, my life, I've pondered (often over beers) some of the essential questions of love and life. For example, I can remember talking to a colleague once about whether or not it was better to be the lover or the beloved. Essentially, it it better to be crazy in love with someone else or to be the one who is loved passionately. It seems like an obvious choice, but I would argue that it's not. I think this particular passage brings up another conundrum: is it better to live a lie or to realize the truth? Robert's mistress runs into two of her friends, "two little tarts," and it's difficult for even Robert, desperately in love, to not understand her true nature. However, even when Robert knows the truth he can't seem to do anything to free himself. It seems that Proust is arguing that Robert can't escape because of his own pride as much as anything else. "No; this pride which seeks to appear to be getting for nothing the apparent marks of predilection of the woman one loves is simply a consequence of love, the need to figure in one's own eyes and in other people's as being loved by the person whom one loves so much."
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