In Search of Lost Time, Volume V_ The Captive, the Fugitive - Marcel Proust [28]
In general, apart from this isolated incident, everything would be quite normal when I returned from my visits to the Duchess. Since Albertine never knew whether I might not wish to go out with her before dinner, I usually found in the hall her hat, coat and umbrella, which she had left lying there in case they should be needed. As soon as I caught sight of them on opening the door, the atmosphere of the house became breathable once more. I felt that, instead of a rarefied air, it was happiness that filled it. I was rescued from my melancholy, the sight of these trifles gave me possession of Albertine, and I would rush to greet her.
On the days when I did not go down to Mme de Guermantes, so that time should not hang too heavy for me during the hour that preceded Albertine’s return, I would take up an album of Elstir’s work, one of Bergotte’s books, or Vinteuil’s sonata. Then, just as those works of art which seem to address themselves to the eye or ear alone require that, if we are to appreciate them, our awakened intelligence shall collaborate closely with those organs, I would unconsciously summon up from within me the dreams that Albertine had inspired in me long ago before I knew her and that had been quenched by the routine of everyday life. I would cast them into the composer’s phrase or the painter’s image as into a crucible, or use them to enrich the book that I was reading. And no doubt the latter appeared all the more vivid in consequence. But Albertine herself gained just as much by being thus transported from one into the other of the two worlds to which we have access and in which we can place alternately the same object, by escaping thus from the crushing weight of matter to play freely in the fluid spaces of the mind. I found myself suddenly and for an instant capable of passionate feelings for this wearisome girl. She had at that moment the appearance of a work by Elstir or Bergotte, I felt a momentary ardour for her, seeing her in the perspective of imagination and art.
Presently I would be told that she had returned; though there was a standing order that her name was not to be mentioned if I was not alone, and if, for instance, I had Bloch in the room with me, I would compel him to stay a little longer so that there should be no risk of his meeting my mistress in the hall. For I concealed the fact that she was staying in the house, and even that I ever saw her there, so afraid was I that one of my friends might become infatuated with her, and wait for her outside, or that in a momentary encounter in the passage or the hall she might make a signal and fix a rendezvous. Then I would hear the rustle of Albertine’s skirt on her way to her own room, for, out of tact and also no doubt in the spirit in which, when we used to go to dinner at La Raspelière, she went out to great lengths to ensure that I should have no cause for jealousy, she did not come to my room when she knew that I was not alone. But it was not only for this reason, as I suddenly realised. I remembered; I had known a different Albertine then all at once she had changed into another, the Albertine of today. And for this change I could hold no one responsible but myself. Everything that she would have admitted to me readily and willingly when we were simply good friends had ceased to flow from her as soon as she had suspected that I was in love with her, or, without perhaps thinking of the name of Love, had divined the existence in me of an inquisitorial sentiment that desires to know, yet suffers from knowing, and seeks to learn still more. Ever since that day, she had concealed everything from me. She kept away from my room