I saw his wife once again, as a matter of fact, because she had said that my "cousin" behaved rather weirdly, and I wished to know what she meant by this. She denied having said it, but at length admitted that she had been speaking of a person whom she thought she had seen with my cousin. She did not know the person's name and said finally that, if she was not mistaken, it was the wife of a banker, who was called Lina, Linette, Lisette, Lia, anyhow something like that. I felt that "wife of a banker" was inserted merely to put me off the scent. I wanted to ask Albertine whether it was true. But I preferred to give the impression of knowing rather than inquiring. Besides, Albertine would not have answered me at all, or would have answered me only with a "no" of which the "n" would have been to hesitant and the "o" to emphatic. Albertine never related facts that were damaging to her, but always other facts which could be explained only by the former, the truth being rather a current which flows from what people say to us, and which we pick up, invisible though it is, than the actual things they have said. Thus, when I assured her that a woman whom she had known as Vichy was disreputable, she swore to me that this woman was not at all what I supposed and had never attempted to make her do anything improper. But she added, another day, when I was speaking of my curiosity as to people of what sort, that the Vichy lady had a friend too, whom she, Albertine, did not know, but whom the lady had "promised to introduce to her." That she should have promised her this could only mean that Albertine wished it, or that the lady had known that by offering the introduction she would be giving her pleasure. But if I had pointed this out to Albertine, I should have given the impression that my revelations came exclusively from her; I should have put a stop to them at once, never having learned anything more, and ceased to make myself feared. Besides, we were at Balbec, and the Vichy lady was her friend lived at Menton; the remoteness, the impossibility of the danger made short work of my suspicions.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1133-1134
Marcel's suspicions of Albertine continue unabated, and he sees potential lovers for her everywhere. I suppose I should be getting sick of Marcel's endless jealousy, but somehow, in peeling away new layers of the onion, Proust is able to reveal more aspects of complexity of human nature. With that in mind, a couple things jump to mind.
When my friend Steve and I were bumming around on the recent trip to Zanzibar, as part of a broader discussion of white privilege (and, yes, that very statement reeks of white privilege), I brought up the notion of how even easy to consume food is a mark of privilege. We were picking the bones out of a delicious fish dinner in Stone Town, and discussing about how some of our students would have whined about it, and I opined that one typically un-examined aspect of privilege is having food prepared in such a way that it was easy (and fast) to eat (and, of course, and metaphorically appropriate, less interesting and delicious). This makes me think about so many of Marcel's comments. Is the ability to mope endlessly about a love gone wrong or to immerse yourself fully into a jealous rage a product of a certain type or privilege? Proust writes, when discussing the folly of asking Albertine about his suspicions, "Besides, Albertine would not have answered me at all, or would have answered me only with a "no" of which the "n" would have been to hesitant and the "o" to emphatic." Heartbreak certainly transcends class differences, but I think I would argue that our willingness, or ability, to revel in it endlessly speaks to an existence where you are cut off from many of the day to day demands of real life.
Now, the other side of privilege is his simple privilege as a man, which we've discussed several time so I don't think it's necessary to go into it in great detail here. That said, Proust points out that, "But if I had pointed this out to Albertine, I should have given the impression that my revelations came exclusively from her; I should have put a stop to them at once, never having learned anything more, and ceased to make myself feared." The few simple words at the end, "and ceased to make myself feared" speaks volumes about the difference in power dynamics in any relationship.
I'm also really intrigued by this statement: "Albertine never related facts that were damaging to her, but always other facts which could be explained only by the former, the truth being rather a current which flows from what people say to us, and which we pick up, invisible though it is, than the actual things they have said." Maybe I'm over-reacting to these words because of the farcical "post-truth" age in which we live, but I think his words express never-ending role of perception and the fluidity of truth.
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