My Years With Proust - Day 487

   By this time, I would hear my mistress leaving or returning to her room.  I would ring the bell, for it was time now for Andree to arrive with the chauffeur, Morel's friend, lent me by the Verdurins, to take Albertine out.  I had spoken to the latter of the remote possibility of our marriage; but I had never made her any formal promise; she herself, from discretion, when I said to her: "I don't know, but it might perhaps be possible," had shaken her head with a melancholy smile, as much as to say "Oh, no it won't," which meant: "I'm too poor." And so, while I continued to say: "Nothing could be less certain" when speaking of plans for the future, for the present I did everything in my power to amuse her, to make her life agreeable, with perhaps the unconscious design of thereby making her wish to marry me.  She herself laughed at my lavish generosity.  "Andree's mother would pull a bit of a face if she saw me turn into a rich lady like herself, what she calls a lady who has her own 'horses, carriages, pictures,' What? Did I never tell you that she says that.  Oh, she's quite a type! What surprises me is that she raises pictures to the same dignity as horses and carriages."

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 9

I'm beginning to think that Marcel and Albertine may have the most passive-aggressive relationship in history.  Here they are sort of talking about potentially and theoretically entering into a dialogue about the possibility of getting married.  This, doubtless, reflects my own generational sexism, but I always thought of women as being more likely to be passive-aggressive, not because they are genetically designed to obfuscate and prevaricate, but rather because of the structural power dynamics of a misogynistic society; essentially, you find, or construct, your power where you can find it.  However, as I've reached my dotage I'm pretty certain that men are equally at fault on that front.  I have been, and continue to be, in relationships with women who are world class purveyors of the passive-aggressive doctrine.  However, as I've admitted several times, my great crime in relationships is just to fade chameleon-like into the background until I finally disappear, which is really just its own version of being passive-aggressive.

Once again class rears its ugly head - and once again Marx is correct, it's always about class and economic conditions.  However, even here in one of Albertine's most class-defined states - "Andree's mother would pull a bit of a face if she saw me turn into a rich lady like herself, what she calls a lady who has her own 'horses, carriages, pictures'" - she is attempting to play Marcel. "Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please," said Brer Rabbit, "Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch."