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By Root 607 0

(something Albertine had denied), the Narrator’s reaction illustrates a recurring concern of The Fugitive, the painful interrelation of mind and body. It is not just a mental torment he suffers: ‘I might have picked up the wrong bottle of pills and, instead of swallowing a few veronal tablets on a day when I felt that I had drunk too many cups of tea, might have swallowed as many caffeine tablets, and my heart would not have pounded more violently’ (F, 530; AD, 1953). This analogy shows how the force of mental activity, here the thought that Albertine was ‘kept’ by another person, can assail our vulnerable bodies with little warning. The Narrator’s moments of greatest joy arise from the conjunction of his bodily, sensory engagements with the world (with a scent, a flavour, a certain musical signature) and the mental activity they provoke (such as a flood of memories or a rush of happiness then expressed through metaphors for the experience itself). The destabilizing impact of finding these rings is a reminder of the negative and potentially damaging nature of the mind–body relation to which the Narrator is so sensitive. As the volume progresses we encounter many more images of troubled or disturbed interactions between mind and body which remind us how coming to terms with loss is both mental and corporeal.

The following comment, made after hearing of Albertine’s death, reveals how out of synch the Narrator’s emotions are with the events he has just learned about: ‘for the death of Albertine to have been able to eliminate my suffering’ (that is, the suffering caused by her lies, infidelities and her departure), he reflects, ‘the shock of the fall would have had to kill her not only in Touraine but in myself. There, she had never been more alive’ (F, 546; AD, 1963). He superficially takes cognizance of her death (the phrase ‘Albertine was dead’ and variants on it occur repeatedly in the pages that follow, as if to show his attempts at acceptance) but he cannot face this reality, let alone mourn her, until his jealous preoccupations are worked through. And they are legion.

Her death makes little initial difference to the Narrator’s state of mind: after all, the mental images we have of someone do not differ greatly according to whether that person is alive or dead; it is impossible ‘to picture to ourselves anything but life’ (F, 594; AD, 1995). But often these pictures are painfully vivid: when Aimé reports back on Albertine’s liaisons with a girl who worked in a bath-house she frequented, his messages are all too detailed and feed yet another round of anguished imaginings, built upon Albertine’s phrase ‘oh it’s too heavenly!’ (F, 600; AD, 1999), uttered in the throes of passion. Additionally, in the course of his daily business, the Narrator’s actions provoke involuntary memories of Albertine that offer a curious blend of pleasure (past happiness is relived) and pain (from the realization that the Albertine and the self remembered are no more):

occasionally, as one recovers the remnants of a squandered fortune, I recaptured [‘retrouvais’] some of them [happy memories of Albertine] which I had thought to be lost [‘perdus’]: for instance, tying a scarf behind my neck instead of in front, I remembered a drive which I had never thought of since, during which … Albertine had arranged my scarf for me in this way after first kissing me. (F, 607; AD, 2004)

Lost and found, the past as treasure: word and image choices here subtly recall the goals of the Search, announced from its title page. Perhaps, the optimistic reader might think, spotting these keywords, there is a way out of the labyrinth, a spark of hope beyond the Narrator’s lengthy ponderings in the dark.

Approaching the close of Chapter One, he refers to his ‘waning love’, alludes to the possibility of new amorous adventures; but, predictably, he soon suggests that taking lovers is merely an attempt to fill a vacuum that cannot be filled. He had earlier reflected in an uncompromising (not to say breathtakingly misogynistic) moment that ‘there is not a woman in