Tuesday, March 14, 2017

My Years With Proust - Day 396

   As for Albertine, I cannot say that anywhere, whether at the Casino or on the beach, her behavior with any girl was unduly free.  I found in it indeed an excess of coldness and indifference which seemed to be more than good breeding, to be a ruse planned to avert suspicion.  When questioned by some girl, she had a quick, icy, prim way of replying in a very loud voice: "Yes, I shall be at the tennis-court about five.  I shall go for a bathe to-morrow morning about eight," and of at once turning away from the person to whom she had said this - all of which had a horrible appearance of being meant to put one off the scent, and either to make an assignation, or rather, the assignation having already been made in a whisper, to utter these perfectly harmless words aloud so as not to attract undue attention. And when later on I saw her mount her bicycle and scorch away into the distance, I could not help thinking that she was on her way to join the girl to whom she had barely spoken.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 881-882

Marcel continues to create worlds within worlds, and while I'm pretty certain that Albertine is guilty of at least some measure of his suspicion, his paranoia has reached a point where she cannot possibly say anything that doesn't prove his worst fears.  Here she proves her sapphic "crimes" merely by paying no attention to the other women she meets.



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