"But you must be mad. Anybody would be delighted to live with you, just look how people run after you. They're always talking about you at Mme Verdurin's, and in high society too, I'm told. She can't have been at all nice to you, that lady, to make you lose confidence like that. I can see what she is, she's a sicked woman, I detest her. Ah, if I were in her shoes!"
"Not at all, she is very kind, far too kind. As for the Verdurins and all the rest, I don't care a hang. Apart from the woman I love, whom in any case I've given up, I care only for my little Albertine; she is the only person in the world who, by letting me see a great deal of her - that is, during the first few days," I added, in order not to alarm her and to be able to ask anything of her during those days, " - can bring me a little consolation."
I made only a vague allusion to the possibility of marriage, adding that it was quite impracticable since our characters were too different. Being, in spite of myself, still pursued in my jealousy by the memory of Saint-Loup's relations with "Rachel when from the Lord" and of Swann's with Odette, I was too inclined to believe that, once I was in love, I could not be loved in return, and that pecuniary interest alone could attach a woman to me. No doubt it was foolish to judge Albertine by Odette and Rachel. But it was afraid of, it was myself; it was the feelings that I was capable of inspiring that my jealousy made me underestimate. And from this judgment, possibly erroneous, sprang no doubt many of the calamities that were to befall us.
"Then you decline my invitation to come to Paris?"
"My aunt wouldn't like me to leave just a present. Besides, even if I can come later on, wouldn't it look rather odd, my descending on you like that? In Paris everybody will know that I'm not your cousin."
"Very well, then. We can say that we're more or less engaged. It can't make any difference, since you know that it isn't true."
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1161-1162
Marcel continues to try, almost against his own will, to convince Albertine to come live with him in Paris. Over the months that I've been reading and commenting on Proust I've often seen my friends in the actions of Marcel or Swann, but I'm going to have to take ownership of some of Marcel's comments in this particular passage. Marcel reflects, "I was too inclined to believe that, once I was in love, I could not be loved in return, and that pecuniary interest alone could attach a woman to me." Sadly, I've often felt this way, and in many ways still feel this way. I know I've shared that when I was separated from my first wife I took advantage of my six free visits to a therapist, and generally I was amused/appalled by the fact that often she seemed more impressed by what I said than I was impressed by what she said (although, also, to be fair, it was a remarkably positive experience and it helped a lot at a very low point in my life) with one very obvious exception. At one point in a discussion she pointed out that she thought I was starved for affection, and I remember being stunned by the truth of the observation. Now, the question is: how does one live one's life - or what has happened in one's life - wherein you end up starved for affection? How have you accepted a life wherein you are starved for affection? Maybe you reach that point because you are convinced that "pecuniary interest alone" would lead a woman to adhere to you. I'm sure this speaks to some profound level of self-loathing, but that's an observation not an explanation. Stupid Proust; time for more self-reflection.
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