Wednesday, May 3, 2017

My Years With Proust - Day 434

As often as not I went no further than the great lain which overlooks Gourville, and as it resembles slightly the plain that begins above Combray, in the direction of Meseglise, even at a considerable distance from Albertine I had the joy of thinking that, even if my eyes could not reach her, the powerful, soft sea breeze that was flowing past me, carrying further than they, must sweep down, with nothing to arrest it, as far as Quetteholme, until it stirred the branches of the trees that bury Saint-Jean-de-la-Haise in their foliage, caressing my beloved's face, and thus create a double link between us in this retreat indefinitely enlarged but free of dangers, as in those games in which two children find themselves momentarily out of sight and earshot of one another, and yet far apart remain together.  I returned by those roads from which there is a view of the sea, and where in the past, before it appeared among the branches, I used to shut my eyes to reflect that what I was about to see was indeed the plaintive ancestress of the earth, pursuing, as in the days when no living creature yet existed, her insane and immemorial agitation.  Now, these roads were simply the means of rejoining Albertine; when I recognised them, completely unchanged, knowing how far they would run in a straight line, where they would turn, I remembered that I had followed them while thinking of Mlle de Stermaria, and also that this impatience to be back with Albertine was the same feeling as I had had when I walked the streets along which Mme de Guermantes might pass; they assumed for me the profound monotony, the moral significance of a sort of ruled line that my character must follow.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1044-1045

Marcel reflecting on the road that will take him to Albertine, and the roads that might have taken him to Mlle de Stermaria and to Mme de Guermantes.  He proposes that it was "the same feeling," and that "they assumed for me the profound monotony, the moral significance of a sort of ruled line that my character must follow."  We've talked before about that the mythology (and, yes, I know that my friend Steve Wehmeyer would disapprove of my use of the term) that there is only one great love in our lives, and my personal theory that this represents both emotional immaturity as well as a desire to somehow make our lives more interesting than they really are.  I may have already discussed this topic, and, if so, I apologize in advance, but recently I had the chance to watch the film La La Land on the way to India.  I really liked the film and thought it was certainly worthy of, at least, a nomination for Best Picture.  What struck me was that when sitting in the Doha airport several of the students said that they sobbed at the end of La La Land, whereas I felt that it was wistful and sad and elegiac, but also redemptive.  This led my excellent friend Cyndi and I to propose that what we were seeing here was the impact of the passing years, either for better or worse.  She agreed with me on the end of the film, and we ended up thinking that once you reach your 50s you understand that, just as there are many paths to God, there are also different paths to happiness.  Our students found the ending crushing because the two of them weren't together, whereas we celebrated their love affair, which lived on in their memory, doubtless more vivid and real and passionate than if they had ended up together anyway.

And, obviously, after saying that, I freely admit that I'm a blindingly clumsy hypocrite because few people devoted more years waiting for that one woman than me.


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