My Years With Proust - Day 383

I had before me a new Albertine, of whom I had already, it was true, caught more than one glimpse towards the end of my previous visit to Balbec, a frank, kind Albertine who, out of affection for myself, had just forgiven me my suspicions and tried to dispel them.  She made me sit down by her side on my bed.  I thanked her for what she had said to me, assuring her that our reconciliation was complete, and that I would never be harsh to her again.  I told her that she ought nevertheless to go home to dinner.  She asked me whether I was not glad to have her with me.  And drawing my head towards her for a caress which she had never given me before and which I owned perhaps to the healing of our quarrel, she drew her tongue lightly over my lips, which she attempted to force apart.  At first I kept them tight shut. "What an old spoilsport you are!" she said to me.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 863

A couple things jump to mind after reading this section.  First off, Marcel is blowing his opportunity at make-up sex, and we know that the only thing better than make-up sex is prison breakout sex.

More importantly, this section reveals something key about Marcel: for all of his sophistication in many ways he's a classic man who is dealing with the classic virgin/whore dichotomy that drives so many women crazy.  This is the same Marcel who has visited houses of assignation and who openly groped the serving girl in that cheap restaurant, but now he finds himself flummoxed because Albertine tries to shove her tongue in his mouth.  Why?  Simple, because he loves Albertine or he may love her or he fears that me may love her.  If she were a woman that he didn't know then he'd welcome her shoving her tongue down his throat, but he's now placed her in a different category and that whorish act is no longer acceptable.  And, certainly, it doesn't go one way.  Women can be equally at fault on that front; the depths of casual depravity to which they will happily explore when they are a girlfriend or a mistress would horrify their fiancee or wife avatars.