The train had stopped at Parville, and, as we were the only passengers in it, it was in a voice weakened by a sense of the futility of his task, by the force of habit which nevertheless made him perform it and inspired in him simultaneously excititude and indolence, and even more by a longing for sleep, that the porter shouted: "Parville!" Albertine, who stood facing me, seeing that she had arrived at her destination, stepped across the compartment and opened the door. But this movement which she thus made to get off the train tore my heart unendurably, just as if, contrary to the position independent of my body which Albertine's seemed to be occupying a yard away from it, this separation in space, which an accurate draughtsman would have been obliged to indicate between us, was only apparent, and anyone who wished to make a fresh drawing of things as they really were would now have had to place Albertine, not at a certain distance from me, but inside me. She gave me such pain by her withdrawal that, reaching after her, I caught her desperately by the arm.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1153-1154
Albertine is simply getting off the train, but nothing is simple in their relationship anymore. "But this movement which she thus made to get off the train tore my heart unendurably . . ." Proust devises a lovely scene, fraught with imagery. Albertine is a yard away, but also a million miles away. The problem is, as Proust tells us Marcel realizes, she is "not at a certain distance from me, but inside me." I guess all relationships, both the healthy and the dying, reach that point where nothing is simple, where everything is a metaphor for something far more profound. Maybe the key to promoting the former and avoiding the latter is to strive to remember that not everything means something, when, of course, it does.
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