My Year With Proust - Day 301

   All that I have just said, however, I was not to understand until several minutes had elapsed, to such an extent is reality encumbered by those those properties of invisibility until a chance occurrence has divested it of them.  At all events, for the moment I was great annoyed at not being able to hear any more of the conversation between the ex-tailor and the Baron.  I then bethought myself of the vacant shop, separated from Jupien's only by an extremely thin partition.  In order to get to it, I had merely to go up to our flat, pass through the kitchen, go down by the service stairs to the cellars, make my way through them across the breadth of the courtyard above, and on arriving at the place in the basement where a few months ago the joiner had still been storing his timber and where Jupien intended to keep his coal, climb the flight of steps which led to the interior of the shop.  Thus the whole of my journey would be made under cover, and I should not be seen by anyone.  this was the most prudent method.  It was not the one that I adopted; instead, keeping close to the walls, I edged my way round the courtyard in the open, trying not to let myself be seen.  If I was not, I owe it more, I am sure, to chance than to my own sagacity.  And for the fact that I took so imprudent a course, when the way through the cellar was so safe, I see three possible reasons, assuming that I had any reason at all.  First of all, my impatience.  Secondly, perhaps, a dim memory of the scene at Monejouvain, when I crouched concealed outside Mlle Vinteuil's window. Certainly the affairs of this sort of which Ihave been a spectator have always been, as far as their setting is concerned, of the most imprudent and less probable character, as if such revelations were to be the reward of an action full of risk, though in part clandestine.  I hardly dare confess to the third and final reason, so childish does it seem, in order to follow - and see controverted - the military principles enunciated by Saint-Loup, I had been following in close detail the course of the Boer War, I had been led from that to re-read old accounts of travel and exploration.  These narratives had thrilled me, and I applied them to the events of my daily life to give myself courage.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 629-630

I'm including this section for a couple reasons.  First off, the sexual imagery made me laugh out loud, and considering what a great writer Proust was I can't believe it was an accident.  Seriously, the joiner storing his timber where Jupien kept his coal?  Although, as Freud reminded us, sometimes a cigar was just a cigar.  Secondly, I love Proust's explanation for his actions, although of them terribly human: 1) impatience, 2) a fairly perverse desire to spy on others, and 3) a pretty childish sense of adventure, using military techniques culled from the Boer War to bolster your courage.  Proust often leaves you intellectually breathless due to the intricate nature of his observation and the depth of his analysis, but he is also at times wonderfully human.