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him attempting). In short he tries to piece together a phenomenology of reading, a philosophical account of the nature of the act itself, similar to the consideration given to the act of listening to music in The Captive when the Narrator first hears Vinteuil’s septet. Commenting that the beauty of a written text is partly in the author’s thoughts and ‘fully realized only in the minds of his readers’ (F, 652; AD, 2033), he anticipates an important strand of twentieth-century literary theory, paradigmatically expressed in Roland Barthes’ key essay ‘The Death of the Author’ (1968).5 He also comes to the vital realization that writing might free him from his numbing worldly obligations: through writing he might wean himself off hollow social pleasures and find real satisfaction in literature (F, 654; AD, 2035).

Andrée, questioned at length in the first chapter, is grilled once more; having admitted to same-sex relations but denied they ever took place between her and Albertine during her first questioning, she now admits having previously lied. Her revelations – of the intricacies of the syringa incident; of assignations arranged between Morel and Albertine, where young girls were lured and corrupted by the former, then turned over to the desires of the latter; of liaisons, earlier categorically denied, in the Buttes-Chaumont and elsewhere – are, curiously, not entirely negative for the Narrator. They cause the pain associated with discovering unpalatable truths, but they also afford him the pleasure of seeing his jealous suspicions proved correct after a long spell of uncertainty. Repeatedly The Fugitive seems to tell us that the truth always hurts, but it is not without recompense since it tends to lead us towards a better understanding of the greater laws that determine our behaviour.

The process, however, is long and slow, and the world-weary Narrator is able to conclude at the close of Chapter Two only that ‘truth and life are very difficult to fathom’, a statement whose simplicity of sentiment and syntax contrasts strongly with the convolutions of so much of what we have laboured through to arrive at this point. Sad and exhausted, he embarks upon his long-anticipated journey to Venice with his mother. Finally his indifference towards Albertine seems complete: he explores the enchanted streets and canals of Venice, halfway between land and sea, evocative of Combray and Balbec, a city of art and the near-constant promise of erotic fulfilment. Previously multiplicity of character, of appearance, of behaviour (for example, the Martinville bell towers; the sea at Balbec; Odette; Charlus; Albertine) has introduced complexity and uncertainty. Now in Venice, multiplicity and mutability seem to be the norm, a source of delight, revelation and beauty. Changes in the tides conceal or reveal unexpected aspects of ancient buildings; as the waters and levels of sunlight shift, the historic city takes on a host of colourings and atmospheres in which the Narrator delights – maritime yet urban, familiar yet strange, exotic, Byzantine, ancient yet vibrantly alive and alluring.

His mother’s tenderness, the contemplation of art and architecture, and the promise of the abundant and (he imagines) willing young women of Venice, often metaphorically tied to the art of the city (such as the seventeen-year-old glassware seller whose ‘beauty was so noble, so radiant, that it was like acquiring a genuine Titian before leaving the place’; F, 735; AD, 2087), seem to have displaced Albertine from the Narrator’s mind. Then one day a telegram arrives, which reads ‘you think me dead, forgive me, I am quite alive, I long to see you, talk about marriage, when do you return? Affectionately. Albertine’ (F, 736; AD, 2088). Although we might expect such news to cause an unprecedented upheaval, it comes at a time when, in his mind, Albertine is now quite dead, so the emotional impact of the news is negligible. He realizes that she was ‘no more … than a bundle of thoughts’ and now that those have dissipated like the notes of the little phrase, nothing can