At the same time, my Balbec desires had so generously ripened Albertine's body, had gathered and stored in it savours so fresh and sweet that, during our expedition to the Bois, while the wind like a careful gardener shook the trees, brought down the fruit, swept up the fallen leaves, I told myself that had there been any risk of Saint-Loup's being mistaken, or of my having misunderstood his letter, so that my dinner with Mme de Stermaria might lead to no satisfactory result, I should have made an appointment for later the same evening with Albertine, in order to forget, during an hour of purely sensual pleasure, holding in my arms a body of which my curiosity had once computed, weighed up all the possible charms in which it now abounded, the emotions and perhaps the regrets of this burgeoning love for Mme de Stermaria. And certainly, if I could have supposed that Mme de Stermaria would grant me none of her favours at our first meeting, I should have formed a slightly depressing picture of my evening with her. I knew only too well from experience how bizarrely the two stages which succeed one another in the first phase of our love for a woman whom we have desired without knowing her, loving her rather the particular kind of existence in which she is steeped than her still unfamiliar self- how bizarrely those two stages are reflected in the domain of reality, that is to say no longer in ourselves but in our meetings with her. Without ever having talked to her, we have hesitated, tempted as we were by the poetic charm which she represented for us. Shall it be this woman or another? And suddenly our dreams becomes focused on her, are indistinguishable from her. The first meeting with her which will shortly follow should reflect this dawning love. Nothing of the sort. As if it were necessary for material reality to have its first phase also, loving her already we talk to her in the most trivial fashion: "I asked you to come and dine on this island because I thought the surround would amuse you. Mind you, I've nothing particular to say to you. But it's rather damp, I'm afraid, and you may find it cold - - -" "Oh, no, not at all!" "You just say that out of politeness. Very well, Madame, I shall allow you to battle against the cold for another quarter of an hour, as I don't want to pester you, but in fifteen minutes I shall take you away by force. I don't want to have you catching a chill." And without having said anything ot her we take her home, remembering nothing about her, at the most a certain look in her eyes, but thinking only of seeing her again. Then at the second meeting (when we do not even find that look, our sole memory of her, but nevertheless still only thinking - indeed even more so - of seeing her again), the first stage is transcended. Nothing has happened in the interval. And yet, instead of talking about the comfort or want of comfort of the restaurant, we say, without apparently surprising the new person, who seems to us positively plain but to whom we should like to think that people were talking about us at every moment in her life: "We're going to have our work cut our to overcome all the obstacles in our way. Do you think we shall be successful? Do you think we'll get the better of our enemies - live happily ever after, and all that sort of thing?" But these contrasting conversations, trivial to begin with, then hinting at love, would not be required; Saint-Loup's letter was a guarantee of that. Mme de Stermaria would give herself on the very first evening, so that I should have no need to engage Albertine to come to me as a substitute later in the evening. It would be unnecessary; Robert never exaggerated, and his letter was quite clear.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 402-403
You have to give Proust credit for honesty here, because he's certainly not painting a particularly pleasant picture of Marcel. He points out that if for some reason his planned assignation with Mme de Stermaria didn't end as planned, then "I should have made an appointment for later the same evening with Albertine, in order to forget, during an hour of purely sensual pleasure, holding in my arms a body of which my curiosity had once computed, weighed up all the possible charms in which it now abounded, the emotions and perhaps the regrets of this burgeoning love for Mme de Stermaria." So, failing the expected consummation of a new love, he considered constructing a backup planning using a woman he now claimed to no longer love. As he tells us, "my Balbec desires had so generously ripened Albertine's body, had gathered and stored in it savours so fresh and sweet", but his interest in her now seems purely physical if not totally carnal, if we can believe him, of course.
Has Marcel actually reached a point where he is so sophisticated, so much a man of the world, that he has developed the appropriate emotional and moral callous that men of that stature attain? In an amusing section he details the folly of first and second dates, and how he will not have to worry about that idiocy with Mme de Stermaria. Why? Because his friend had guaranteed that she "would give herself on the very first evening," and "Robert never exaggerated." As I've said before, I'm still not completely convinced in this new more worldly, almost proudly amoral, Marcel; it seems he might be posing a tad.
OK, it is pretty childish, but I'm suddenly having strange visions of Proust as John Cucask's Gib from the 1980s film The Sure Thing, with Mme de Stermaria as "the sure thing."
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