My Year With Proust - Day 395

   One day I saw the unknown woman whom Albertine had appeared not to recognise at a moment when Bloch's cousin was passing by.  The young woman's eyes flashed, but it was quite evident that she did not know the Jewish girl.  She beheld her for the first time, felt a desire, scarcely any doubt, but by no means the same certainty as in the case of Albertine, Albertine upon whose friendship she must so far have counted that, in the face of her coldness, she had felt the surprise of a foreigner familiar with Paris but not resident there, who, having return to spend a few weeks there, finds the site of the little theatre where he was in the habit of spending pleasant evenings occupied now by a bank.

   Bloch's cousin went and sat down at a table where she turned the pages of a magazine.  Presently the young woman came and sat down beside her with an abstracted air.  But under the table one could presently see their feet wiggling, then their legs and hands intertwined.  Words followed, a conversation began, and the young woman's guileless husband, who had been looking everywhere for her, was astonished to find her making plans for that very evening with a girl whom he did not know.  His wife introduced Bloch's cousin to him as childhood friend, under an inaudible name, for she had forgotten to ask her what her name was.  But the husband's presence made their intimacy advance a stage further, for they addressed each other as tu having known each other at their convent, an incident at which they laughed heartily later on, as well as at the hoodwinked husband, with a gaiety which afford them an excuse for further caresses.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 881

Proust continues to unearth evidence of a rich and vibrant lesbian community, which may or may not have existed, and which may or may not have contained Albertine.  If he was correct, then this must have been one of the first descriptions of gaydar.  One woman passed another sitting at a table, and very quickly: "Presently the young woman came and sat down beside her with an abstracted air.  But under the table one could presently see their feet wiggling, then their legs and hands intertwined."  I really need to do some more research on the response to Remembrance of Things Past in Proust's own lifetime.  It is often described, fairly or unfairly, as the first modern novel, but I'm not certain how scandalously it was received at its publication, and, for that matter, were people more shocked by the enormity of the novel and the depth of his detail and analysis than by the subject matter itself.