What a difference there is between possessing a woman to whom one applies one's body alone, because she is no more than a piece of flesh, and possessing the girl whom one used to see on the beach with her friends on certain days without even knowing why one saw her on those days and not on others, so that one trembled at the thought that one might not see her again! Life had obligingly revealed to one in its whole extent the novel of this little girl's life, had lent one, for the study of her, first one optical instrument, then another, and had added to carnal desire the accompaniment, which multiplies and diversifies it, of those other desires, more spiritual and less easily assuaged, which do not emerge from their torpor but leave it to carry on alone when it aims only at the conquest of a piece of flesh, but which, to gain possession of a whole tract of memories from which they have felt nostalgically exiled, come surging round it, enlarge and extend it, are unable to follow it to the fulfillment, to the assimilation, impossible in the form in which it is looked for, of an immaterial reality, but wait for this desire half-way and at the moment of return, provide it once more with their escort; to kiss, instead of the cheeks of the first comer, anonymous, without mystery or glamour, however cool and fresh they may be, those of which I had so long been dreaming, would be to know the taste, the savour, of a colour on which I had endlessly gazed. One has seen a woman, a mere image in the decorative setting of life, like Albertine silhouetted against the sea, and then one has been able to take that image, to detach it, to bring it also to oneself, gradually to discern its volume, its colours, as though one had placed it behind the lens of a stereoscope. It is for this reason that women who are to some extent resistant, whom one cannot possess at once, of whom one dos not indeed know at first whether one will ever possess them, are alone interesting. For to know them, to approach the, to conquer them is to make the human image vary in shape, in dimension, in relief, is a lesson in relativity in the appreciation of a woman's body, a woman's life, so delightful to see afresh when it has resumed the slender proportions of a silhouette against the back-drop of life. The women one meets first of all in in a brothel are of no interest because they remain invariable.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 375-376
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite passages. Marcel continues to get closer to Albertine, both physically and, although he seems to be dismiss of the fact, emotionally, after assuming that she was gone for ever. A couple days ago I was talking about the clumsy courting techniques of Marcel, an allegedly experienced (albeit relatively so) man of the world. My theory was that he was resorting to "tricking" her into tickling him, and thus touching him, because he was not in fact no longer in love with her, but exactly the opposite. When we love someone we transition back to middle school emotionally, which displays itself in a stunted level of maturity.
What makes this more complicated is that his attachment to Albertine is not simply based on love, but has become almost a metaphor of his entire quest to regain time. As life lays out the :whole extent the novel of this little girl's life" it is also handing the past back to Marcel. So, it's not simply Albertine who is returning to him, but the entire life that she played a role, for which she acted as a silhouette. This means that it is not simply "the conquest of a piece of flesh." Rather, because you know and love the person it allows you "to gain possession of a whole tract of memories from which they have felt nostalgically exile" and thus the memories "come surging round it, enlarge and extend it"
And this is why, according to Proust, this experience is so much more powerful and profound than simply visiting a brothel, or, for that matter, in sleeping with any casual acquaintance. It's not necessarily something as trite as love vs lust, but rather the potential to regain memory or to view life more fully. "For to know them, to approach the, to conquer them is to make the human image vary in shape, in dimension, in relief, is a lesson in relativity in the appreciation of a woman's body, a woman's life, so delightful to see afresh when it has resumed the slender proportions of a silhouette against the back-drop of life."
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