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By Root 1452 0

in telling ourselves that we never wish to see the one we love again, we would not be a whit more sincere in saying that we do. For no doubt we can endure her absence only by promising ourselves that it will not be for long, and thinking of the day when we shall see her again, but at the same time we feel how much less painful are those daily recurring dreams of an imminent and constantly postponed meeting than would be an interview which might be followed by a spasm of jealousy, with the result that the news that we are shortly to see her would create a disagreeable turmoil in our mind. What we now put off from day to day is no longer the end of the intolerable anxiety caused by separation, it is the dreaded renewal of emotions which can lead to nothing. How infinitely we prefer to any such interview the docile memory which we can supplement at will with dreams in which she who in reality does not love us seems, on the contrary, to be making protestations of her love, when we are all alone! How infinitely we prefer that memory which, by blending gradually with it a great deal of what we desire, we can contrive to make as sweet as we choose, to the deferred interview in which we would have to deal with a person to whom we could no longer dictate at will the words that we want to hear on her lips, but from whom we can expect to meet with new coldness, unforeseen aggressions! We know, all of us, when we no longer love, that forgetfulness, or even a vague memory, does not cause us so much suffering as an ill-starred love. It was the reposeful tranquillity of such forgetfulness that in anticipation I preferred, without acknowledging it to myself.

Moreover, however painful such a course of psychical detachment and isolation may be, it grows steadily less so for another reason, namely that it weakens while it is in process of healing that fixed obsession which is a state of love. Mine was still strong enough for me to wish to recapture my old position in Gilberte’s estimation, which in view of my voluntary abstention must, it seemed to me, be steadily increasing, so that each of those calm and melancholy days on which I did not see her, coming one after the other without interruption, continuing too without prescription (unless some busy-body were to meddle in my affairs), was a day not lost but gained. Gained to no purpose, perhaps, for presently I might be pronounced cured. Resignation, modulating our habits, allows certain elements of our strength to be indefinitely increased. Those—so wretchedly inadequate—that I had had to support my grief, on the first evening of my rupture with Gilberte, had since multiplied to an incalculable power. Only, the tendency of everything that exists to prolong its own existence is sometimes interrupted by sudden impulses to which we allow ourselves to surrender with all the fewer qualms because we know for how many days, for how many months even, we have been able, and might still be able to abstain. And often it is when the purse in which we hoard our savings is nearly full that we suddenly empty it, it is without waiting for the result of our treatment and when we have succeeded in growing accustomed to it that we abandon it. And so, one day, when Mme Swann repeated her familiar words about the pleasure it would be to Gilberte to see me, thus putting the happiness of which I had now for so long been depriving myself as it were within arm’s reach, I was stupefied by the realisation that it was still possible for me to enjoy it; and I could hardly wait until next day; for I had made up my mind to pay a surprise visit to Gilberte before her dinner.

What helped me to remain patient throughout the long day that followed was a little plan that I made. As soon as everything was forgotten, as soon as I was reconciled with Gilberte, I no longer wished to visit her except as a lover. Every day she would receive from me the finest flowers that grew. And if Mme Swann, although she had no right to be too severe a mother, should forbid my making a daily offering of flowers, I should find other gifts,