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By Root 1716 0

before we knew them, and first and foremost their nature. For what makes this sort of love painful is the fact that there pre-exists it a sort of original sin of Woman, a sin which makes us love them, so that, when we forget it, we feel less need of them, and to begin to love again we must begin to suffer again. At this moment, the thought that she must not meet the two girls again and the question whether or not she knew Lea were what was chiefly occupying my mind, in spite of the rule that one ought not to take an interest in particular facts except in relation to their general significance, and notwithstanding the childishness, as great as that of longing to travel or to make friends with women, of splintering one’s curiosity against such elements from the invisible torrent of painful realities, which will always remain unknown to one, as have fortuitously crystallised in one’s mind. Moreover, even if one succeeded in destroying those elements, they would at once be replaced by others. Yesterday I was afraid lest Albertine should go to see Mme Verdurin. Now my only thought was of Lea. Jealousy, which is blindfold, is not merely powerless to discover anything in the darkness that enshrouds it; it is also one of those tortures where the task must be incessantly repeated, like that of the Danaides, or of Ixion. Even if the two girls were not there, what impression might not Lea make on her, beautified by her stage attire, haloed with success, what thoughts might she not leave in Albertine’s mind, what desires, which, even if she repressed them in my company, would give her an aversion for a life in which she was unable to gratify them!

Besides, how could I be certain that she did not already know Lea, and would not pay her a visit in her dressing-room? And even if Lea did not know her, who could assure me that, having certainly seen her at Balbec, she would not recognise her and make a signal to her from the stage that would enable Albertine to gain admission back-stage? A danger seems perfectly avoidable when it has been averted. This one was not yet averted, and because I was afraid that it might never be, it seemed to me all the more terrible. And yet this love for Albertine, which I felt almost vanish when I attempted to realise it, seemed somehow at this moment to acquire a proof of its existence from the intensity of my anguish. I no longer cared about anything else, I thought only of how to prevent her from remaining at the Trocadéro, I would have offered any sum in the world to Lea to persuade her not to go there. If then we prove our predilection by the action that we perform rather than by the idea that we form, I must have been in love with Albertine. But this renewal of my suffering gave no greater consistency to the image of Albertine that I retained within me. She caused my ills like a deity who remains invisible. Making endless conjectures, I sought to ward off my suffering without thereby realising my love.

First of all, I must make certain that Lea was really going to perform at the Trocadéro. After dismissing the dairymaid, I telephoned to Bloch, whom I knew to be on friendly terms with Lea, in order to ask him. He knew nothing about it and seemed surprised that it could be of any interest to me. I decided that I must act quickly, remembered that Françoise was dressed and ready to go out and that I was not, and while I got up and dressed I told her to take a motor-car and go to the Trocadéro, buy a seat, search the auditorium for Albertine and give her a note from me. In this note I told Albertine that I was greatly upset by a letter which I had just received from that same lady on whose account she would remember that I had been so wretched one night at Balbec. I reminded her that, on the following day, she had reproached me for not having sent for her. And so I was taking the liberty, I told her, of asking her to sacrifice her matinee and to join me at home so that we might take the air together, which might help me to recover from the shock. But since it would be some time before I was dressed and