At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I had seen above the big window-curtains what tone the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like. The first sounds from the street had told me, according to whether they came to my ears deadened and distorted by the moisture of the atmosphere or quivering like arrows in the resonant, empty expanses of a spacious, frosty, pure morning; as soon as I heard the rumble of the first tramcar, I could tell whether it was sodden with rain or setting forth into the blue. And perhaps these sounds had themselves been forestalled by some swifter and more pervasive emanation which, stealing into my sleep, diffused in it a melancholy that seems to presage snow or gave utterance (through the lips of a little person who occasionally reappeared there) to so many hymns to the glory of the sun that, having first of all begun to smile in my sleep, having prepared my eyes, behind their shut lids, to be dazzled, I would awake finally amid deafening strains of music. It was, in fact, principally from my bedroom that I took in the life of the outer world during this period. I know that Bloch reported that, when he called to see me in the evenings, he could heard the sound of conversation; as my mother was at Combray and he never found anybody in my room, he concluded that I was talking to myself. When, much later, he learned that Albertine had been staying with me at the time, and realised that I had concealed her presence from my friends, he declared that he saw at last the reason why, during that phase of my life, I had always refused to go out of doors. He was wrong. His mistake was, however, perfectly excusable, for the truth, even if it is logically necessary, is not always foreseeable as a whole. People who learn some correct detail about another person's life at once draw conclusions from it which are not accurate, and see in the newly discovered fact an explanation of things that have no connexion with it whatsoever.
Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 1-2
And so we've finally begun The Captive, and Marcel has begun his new life with Albertine. I don't think that any of us expect it to be a happy one. Proust begins with a lovely description of the break of day, which fits naturally into the dawn of a new volume, but also ties us back to the heartbreaking section at the end of Cites of the Plain where Marcel reflects upon the brutally sorrowful morning. "At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I had seen above the big window-curtains what tone the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like." Marcel may be able to predict the weather from scant evidence, but he doesn't show the same prescience in regards to his relationship with Albertine (and he has much more evidence to work with).
As I've proposed before, it's very difficult to read certain sections of Proust without thinking about his solitary existence in Paris as he was rushing to finish Remembrance of Things Past, such as the line: "It was, in fact, principally from my bedroom that I took in the life of the outer world during this period." It all seems like such a metaphor for Proust's life. He was a person who was such an extraordinary and intricate student of humanity, and it seemed to be a humanity that he seldom if ever joined. He tells us that Bloch, not knowing that Albertine had moved in thought that Marcel had started talking to himself. Proust reflects, "His mistake was, however, perfectly excusable, for the truth, even if it is logically necessary, is not always foreseeable as a whole. People who learn some correct detail about another person's life at once draw conclusions from it which are not accurate, and see in the newly discovered fact an explanation of things that have no connexion with it whatsoever." What's amazing is that Proust himself, even in his isolation, was able to foresee the truth even if he was cut off from the whole.
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