But on certain such evenings I had recourse to a ruse which won me Albertine's kiss. Knowing how quickly sleep came to her as soon as she lay down (she knew it also, for, instinctively, before lying down, she would take off her slippers which I had given her, and her ring which she placed by the bedside, and she did in her own room when she went to bed), knowing how heavy her sleep was, how affectionate her awakening, I would find an excuse for going to look for something and make her lie down on my bed. When I returned she would be asleep and I saw before me the other woman that she became whenever one saw her full face. But her personality quickly changed when I lay down beside her and saw her again in profile. I could take her head, lift it up, press her face to my lips, put her arms round my neck, and she would continue to sleep, like a watch that never stops, like a climbing plant, a convolvulus which continues to thrust out its tendrils whatever support you give it. Only her breathing was altered by each touch of my fingers, as though she were an instrument on which I was playing and from which I extracted modulations by drawing different notes from one after another of its strings. My jealousy subsided, for I felt that Albertine had become a creature that breathes and is nothing else besides, as was indicated by that regular suspiration in which is expressed that pure physiological function which, wholly fluid, has the solidity neither of speech nor of silence; and, in its ignorance of all evil, drawn seemingly rather from a hollowed reed than from a human being, that breath, truly paradisaical to me who at such moments felt Albertine to be withdrawn from everything, not only physically but morally, was the pure song of the angels. And yet, in that breathing, I thought to myself of a sudden that perhaps many names of people, borne on the stream of memory, must be revolving.
Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 108-109
This is one of those passages where Proust walks the razor's edge between more than a bit creepy and beautifully philosophical. He is once again commenting on watching Albertine sleep, in this case arranging so that she'll fall asleep in his bed and also holding her in his arms. At the moment when all is calm he reflects, "My jealousy subsided, for I felt that Albertine had become a creature that breathes and is nothing else besides, as was indicated by that regular suspiration in which is expressed that pure physiological function which, wholly fluid, has the solidity neither of speech nor of silence; and, in its ignorance of all evil, drawn seemingly rather from a hollowed reed than from a human being, that breath, truly paradisaical to me who at such moments felt Albertine to be withdrawn from everything, not only physically but morally, was the pure song of the angels." I've proposed before that I think the single biggest problem with Marcel's relationship with Albertine is that he's not interested in a person, but rather in a concept. Essentially, what he wants and what he has can't begin to match up. In many ways my ex-wife and I mistook a deep friendship and respect for love; they are an essential part of love, and they can be a building block for love, but I think we didn't realize the disconnect at the time and thus never understood that we needed to work to transition from one to the other. It seems to me that Marcel's disconnect is more profound. Albertine sleeps, and the words that come to Marcel as "pure" and "paradisaical" and "angels", and in this moment she exists in a state of "ignorance of all evil." Of course he loves her most at that moment - and of course their waking hours are mainly colored by jealousy and disappointment; we don't actually get to sing, or even hear, the "pure song of the angels."
And why don't we use the word ruse more often?
Oh, and stupid Spell Checker, what's wrong with the word suspiration? Read a book sometime.
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