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By Root 1860 0

we are just as astonished and amused to learn from our memory what her name meant originally to that other person we formerly were as if, after giving a cabman an address in the Boulevard des Capucines or the Rue du Bac, thinking only of the person we are going to see there, we remind ourselves that these names were once those of the Capuchin nuns whose convent stood on the site and of the ferry across the Seine.

At the same time, my Balbec desires had so generously ripened Albertine’s body, had gathered and stored in it savours so fresh and sweet that, during our expedition to the Bois, while the wind like a careful gardener shook the trees, brought down the fruit, swept up the fallen leaves, I told myself that had there been any risk of Saint-Loup’s being mistaken, or of my having misunderstood his letter, so that my dinner with Mme de Stermaria might lead to no satisfactory result, I should have made an appointment for later the same evening with Albertine, in order to forget, during an hour of purely sensual pleasure, holding in my arms a body of which my curiosity had once computed, weighed up all the possible charms in which it now abounded, the emotions and perhaps the regrets of this burgeoning love for Mme de Stermaria. And certainly, if I could have supposed that Mme de Stermaria would grant me none of her favours at our first meeting, I should have formed a slightly depressing picture of my evening with her. I knew only too well from experience how bizarrely the two stages which succeed one another in the first phase of our love for a woman whom we have desired without knowing her, loving in her rather the particular kind of existence in which she is steeped than her still unfamiliar self—how bizarrely those two stages are reflected in the domain of reality, that is to say no longer in ourselves but in our meetings with her. Without ever having talked to her, we have hesitated, tempted as we were by the poetic charm which she represented for us. Shall it be this woman or another? And suddenly our dreams become focused on her, are indistinguishable from her. The first meeting with her which will shortly follow should reflect this dawning love. Nothing of the sort. As if it were necessary for material reality to have its first phase also, loving her already we talk to her in the most trivial fashion: “I asked you to come and dine on this island because I thought the surroundings would amuse you. Mind you, I’ve nothing particular to say to you. But it’s rather damp, I’m afraid, and you may find it cold—” “Oh, no, not at all!” “You just say that out of politeness. Very well, Madame, I shall allow you to battle against the cold for another quarter of an hour, as I don’t want to pester you, but in fifteen minutes I shall take you away by force. I don’t want to have you catching a chill.” And without having said anything to her we take her home, remembering nothing about her, at the most a certain look in her eyes, but thinking only of seeing her again. Then at the second meeting (when we do not even find that look, our sole memory of her, but nevertheless still only thinking—indeed even more so—of seeing her again), the first stage is transcended. Nothing has happened in the interval. And yet, instead of talking about the comfort or want of comfort of the restaurant, we say, without apparently surprising the new person, who seems to us positively plain but to whom we should like to think that people were talking about us at every moment in her life: “We’re going to have our work cut out to overcome all the obstacles in our way. Do you think we shall be successful? Do you think we’ll get the better of our enemies, live happily ever after?” But these contrasting conversations, trivial to begin with, then hinting at love, would not be required; Saint-Loup’s letter was a guarantee of that. Mme de Stermaria would give herself on the very first evening, so that I should have no need to engage Albertine to come to me as a substitute later in the evening. It would be unnecessary; Robert never exaggerated, and his letter was