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Concise Guide to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Concise
Guides 3rd Edition Robert J. Ursano Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Robert J. Ursano, Stephen M. Sonnenberg, Susan G. Lazar
ISBN(s): 9781585627295, 1585627291
Edition: 3
File Details: PDF, 1.17 MB
Year: 2004
Language: english
 CONCISE GUIDE TO
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Principles and Techniques of

Brief, Intermittent, and Long-Term
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Third Edition
 CONCISE GUIDE TO
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Principles and Techniques of

Brief, Intermittent, and Long-Term
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Third Edition

Robert J. Ursano, M.D.

Stephen M. Sonnenberg, M.D.

Susan G. Lazar, M.D.

Washington, DC
London, England
Note: The authors have worked to ensure that all information in this book is accurate at the time of
publication and consistent with general psychiatric and medical standards, and that information
concerning drug dosages, schedules, and routes of administration is accurate at the time of publication
and consistent with standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the general medical
community. As medical research and practice continue to advance, however, therapeutic standards
may change. Moreover, specific situations may require a specific therapeutic response not included
in this book. For these reasons and because human and mechanical errors sometimes occur, we
recommend that readers follow the advice of physicians directly involved in their care or the care of
a member of their family.
Books published by American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., represent the views and opinions of the
individual authors and do not necessarily represent the policies and opinions of APPI or the American
Psychiatric Association.
Copyright © 2004 American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Typeset in Adobe’s Times and Helvetica
Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free paper
08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1
Third Edition
American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
1000 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22209-3901
www.appi.org
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ursano, Robert J., 1947–
Concise guide to psychodynamic psychotherapy : principles and techniques of brief, intermittent,
and long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy / Robert J. Ursano, Stephen M. Sonnenberg, Susan G.
Lazar.—3rd ed.
p. ; cm. — (Concise guides / American Psychiatric Publishing)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58562-173-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Psychodynamic psychotherapy. 2. Psychotherapist and patient. I. Title: Psychodynamic
psychotherapy. II. Sonnenberg, Stephen M., 1940– III. Lazar, Susan G., 1944– IV. Title. V. Concise
guides (American Psychiatric Publishing).
[DNLM: 1. Psychotherapy—methods. WM 420 U82c 2004]
RC489.P72U77 2004
616.89′14—dc22 2004050260
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP record is available from the British Library.
 CONTENTS
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
Introduction to the
Concise Guides Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
Preface to the Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

1 Why Psychotherapy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Psychiatric Illness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Contribution of Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Psychotherapy and Medical Illness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Basic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

The Focus of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Setting of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. . . . . . . . . . 17
The Technique of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy . . . . . . . 18
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Patient Evaluation, I:
Assessment, Diagnosis, and
the Prescription of Psychotherapy . . . . . . . .23
Beginning the Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Selection Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4 Patient Evaluation, II:
Psychodynamic Listening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
The Four Psychologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The Clinical Moment and Clinical Assessment . . . . . . . . . 36
Psychodynamic Listening in a Consultation-Liaison
Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Psychodynamic Listening in a Psychotherapy Evaluation . 43
Psychodynamic Listening in a
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Listening to Oneself Outside of the Consulting Room . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5 Patient Evaluation, III:

Psychodynamic Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
The Chief Complaint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The History of the Present Illness, the Past History,
and the Family History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Early Memories and Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Developmental Deficit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Assessment of the Patient’s Conscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

6 Beginning Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

First, Do No Harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Abstinence and Free Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Atmosphere of Safety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Attitude of Physicianly Concern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Disappointment in the Opening Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The Early Experience of Transference, Defense,
and Resistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Initial Use of Dreams in Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

7 Resistance and Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Repression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Denial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Reaction Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Reversal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Inhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Identification With the Aggressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Asceticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Intellectualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Isolation of Affect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Sublimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Interpreting Resistances and Defense Mechanisms . . . . . . 94
Transference Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

8 Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103
The Need to Repeat the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Transference in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. . . . . . . . 105
Forms of Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Working With the Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Transference as Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Erotic and Aggressive Transferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Working Through the Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Enactment and Projective Identification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Dealing With “No” Transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
 9 Countertransference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
Concordant and Complementary Countertransferences . . 122
Countertransference in Work With
Borderline Personality Disorder Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Other Countertransferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The Therapist’s Need for Personal Psychoanalysis
and Supervision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

10 Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
The Use of Dreams in Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Introducing the Patient to the Use of Dreams . . . . . . . 133
Use of Dreams During the Middle Phase of Therapy . 135
Use of Dreams During the Latter Phases of Therapy . 136
The Dream as an Indicator of Unconscious Conflict . . . . 138
The Dream as an Indicator of Transference . . . . . . . . . . . 139
The Dream as Indicator of Genetic Data
or Adaptational Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Dreams as a Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Termination Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Words of Caution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

11 Termination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
Recognizing When the Termination Phase
Is Approaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Tasks of the Termination Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Review the Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Experience the Loss of the Psychotherapy
and the Therapist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Reexperience and Remaster the Transference . . . . . . . 151
 Increase Skills in Self-Inquiry as a
Method of Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Disappointment in the Termination Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
When the Treatment Is Unsuccessful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
When the Patient Refuses to Terminate Despite
Successful Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Leave-Taking: The Reactions of the Therapist. . . . . . . . . 157
Terminations That Do Not Take Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

12 Practical Problems and

Their Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
The Office: Decor and Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Medical Insurance and Managed Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Pharmacotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Telephone Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Vacation Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Suicidal Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Dangerous Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Advice Giving: The Psychotherapist as Physician . . . . . . 173
Illness in the Patient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Therapist Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
General Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Suggested Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

13 Brief Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177

Selection of Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Duration of Treatment and Termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
14 Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality
Disorder and Other Severe
Character Pathology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187
Borderline Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Beginning Psychotherapy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
The Patient’s Defense Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Countertransference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Narcissistic and Schizoid Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

15 Supportive Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Selection of Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Techniques. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Appendix: A Brief History of

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy . . . . . . . .211
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Traditional Classics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Modern Classics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .233

 LIST OF TABLES
1 Why Psychotherapy?
1–1 Benefits and features of psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Basic Principles
2–1 Psychodynamic psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3 Patient Evaluation, I:
Assessment, Diagnosis, and
the Prescription of Psychotherapy
3–1 Psychodynamic perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3–2 Beginning the evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3–3 Patient selection criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4 Patient Evaluation, II:

Psychodynamic Listening
4–1 The four psychodynamic psychologies
of mental function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4–2 Psychodynamic listening from the perspective
of the four psychologies of mental function . . . . . . 37

5 Patient Evaluation, III:

Psychodynamic Evaluation
5–1 Psychodynamic assessment guidelines . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 Beginning Treatment
6–1 Establishing the atmosphere of safety:
the therapist’s task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6–2 Beginning treatment: the patient’s task . . . . . . . . . . 76

7 Resistance and Defense

7–1 Mechanisms of defense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7–2 Principles of interpreting resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

8 Transference
8–1 Factors influencing development of
the transference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8–2 Uses of the transference in psychodynamic
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

9 Countertransference
9–1 Types of countertransference reactions . . . . . . . . . 123
9–2 Processing the countertransference. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

10 Dreams
10–1 Goals for the use of dreams in psychotherapy . . . . 133
10–2 Techniques for using dreams in psychotherapy . . . 134

11 Termination
11–1 Criteria for termination of psychodynamic
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
11–2 The work of termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
11–3 Techniques to help the psychotherapist during
the termination of treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
12 Practical Problems and
Their Management
12–1 Common practical problems in psychodynamic
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
12–2 General guidelines for the management of
practical problems in psychodynamic
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

13 Brief Psychotherapy
13–1 Patient selection for brief psychodynamic
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
13–2 Identifying the focal conflict in brief
psychodynamic psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
13–3 Duration, techniques, and features of brief
psychodynamic psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

14 Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality

Disorder and Other Severe
Character Pathology
14–1 Defense mechanisms in patients with
borderline personality disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
14–2 Principles of treatment for patients with
borderline personality disorder and
other severe character pathology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
14–3 Helpful therapeutic attitudes in the treatment of
patients with borderline personality disorder . . . . . 199

15 Supportive Psychotherapy
15–1 Supportive psychotherapy: goal, patient
selection, and duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
15–2 Techniques of supportive psychotherapy. . . . . . . . 206
15–3 Use of interpretation in supportive
psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Appendix: A Brief History of
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
APP–1 History of psychodynamic psychotherapy . . . . . 212
 xv

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Robert J. Ursano, M.D., is Professor and Chairman of the Depart-

ment of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences, F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, in Be-
thesda, Maryland. He is also on the teaching faculty of the Wash-
ington Psychoanalytic Institute in Washington, D.C.

Stephen M. Sonnenberg, M.D., is Adjunct Professor in the De-

partment of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences, F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, in Be-
thesda, Maryland, and Clinical Professor in the Department of Psy-
chiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He is also
Training and Supervising Analyst at the Houston-Galveston Psy-
choanalytic Institute, based in Austin, Texas.

Susan G. Lazar, M.D., is Adjunct Professor in the Department of

Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sci-
ences, F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, in Bethesda, Mary-
land, and at the George Washington University School of Medicine,
Washington, D.C. She is also Training and Supervising Analyst at
the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute in Washington, D.C.
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 xvii

INTRODUCTION
to the Concise Guides Series

The Concise Guides series from American Psychiatric Publishing,

Inc., provides, in an accessible format, practical information for
psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, and medical students working in
a variety of treatment settings, such as inpatient psychiatry units,
outpatient clinics, consultation-liaison services, and private office
settings. The Concise Guides are meant to complement the more
detailed information to be found in lengthier psychiatry texts.
The Concise Guides address topics of special concern to psy-
chiatrists in clinical practice. The books in this series contain a de-
tailed table of contents, along with an index, tables, figures, and
other charts for easy access. The books are designed to fit into a lab
coat pocket or jacket pocket, which makes them a convenient source
of information. References have been limited to those most relevant
to the material presented.

Robert E. Hales, M.D., M.B.A.

Series Editor, American Psychiatric Publishing Concise Guides
This page intentionally left blank
 xix

PREFACE TO THE
THIRD EDITION

Unlike in previous years, the beginning therapist today often does

not have an extensive psychoanalytic background. In fact, there is
often limited opportunity during training to study a particular psy-
chotherapy in detail. Yet as a clinician, the beginning therapist
may want to understand and use psychodynamic psychotherapy as
part of the therapeutic armamentarium and also use psychody-
namic techniques in the evaluation and treatment of patients for
whom a full psychotherapy may not be appropriate or may not be
possible.
Developing skill in psychodynamic psychotherapy and its tech-
niques is a lifetime endeavor. This treatment modality provides the
clinician with a window on the meaning of behaviors that are inex-
plicable from other vantage points. Psychodynamic psychotherapy
may be brief, long-term, or intermittent. The principles and tech-
niques are similar, but each of these forms of therapy has its advan-
tages and limitations. Psychodynamic psychotherapy requires the
therapist to recognize patterns of interpersonal interaction without
engaging in the “drama.” In this process, the psychotherapist comes
to recognize and understand his or her own reactions as early indi-
cators of events transpiring in the treatment and as potential road-
blocks to successful treatment. This knowledge and this skill are
also applicable to other psychiatric treatment modalities, including
the other psychotherapies, medication management, consultation-
liaison psychiatry, outpatient and emergency room assessment and
evaluation, and inpatient treatment.
Other documents randomly have
different content
attractive to the latter. Andrée replied that she too was very fond of
Albertine, thought her charming; in spite of which the compliments
that I was paying to her friend did not seem altogether to please
her. Suddenly, in the little sunken path, I stopped short, touched to
the heart by an exquisite memory of my childhood. I had just
recognised, by the fretted and glossy leaves which it thrust out
towards me, a hawthorn-bush, flowerless, alas, now that spring was
over. Around me floated the atmosphere of far off Months of Mary,
of Sunday afternoons, of beliefs, or errors long ago forgotten. I
wanted to stay it in its passage. I stood still for a moment, and
Andrée, with a charming divination of what was in my mind, left me
to converse with the leaves of the bush. I asked them for news of
the flowers, those hawthorn flowers that were like merry little girls
headstrong, provocative, pious. "The young ladies have been gone
from here for a long time now," the leaves told me. And perhaps
they thought that, for the great friend of those young ladies that I
pretended to be, I seemed to have singularly little knowledge of
their habits. A great friend, but one who had never been to see
them again for all these years, despite his promises. And yet, as
Gilberte had been my first love among girls, so these had been my
first love among flowers. "Yes, I know all that, they leave about the
middle of June," I answered, "but I am so delighted to see the place
where they stayed when they were here. They came to see me, too,
at Combray, in my room; my mother brought them when I was ill in
bed. And we used to meet on Saturday evenings, too, at the Month
of Mary devotions. Can they get to them from here?" "Oh, of course!
Why, they make a special point of having our young ladies at Saint-
Denis du Désert, the church near here." "Then, if I want to see them
now?" "Oh, not before May, next year." "But I can be sure that they
will be here?" "They come regularly every year." "Only I don't know
whether it will be easy to find the place." "Oh, dear, yes! They are so
gay, the young ladies, they stop laughing only to sing hymns
together, so that you can't possibly miss them, you can tell by the
scent from the other end of the path."
I caught up Andrée, and began again to sing Albertine's praises. It
was inconceivable to me that she would not repeat what I said to
her friend, seeing the emphasis that I put into it. And yet I never
heard that Albertine had been told. Andrée had, nevertheless, a far
greater understanding of the things of the heart, a refinement of
nice behaviour; finding the look, the word, the action that could
most ingeniously give pleasure, keeping to herself a remark that
might possibly cause pain, making a sacrifice (and making it as
though it were no sacrifice at all) of an afternoon's play, or it might
be an "at home" or a garden-party in order to stay beside a friend
who was feeling sad, and thus shew him or her that she preferred
the simple company of a friend to frivolous pleasures; these were
her habitual delicacies. But when one knew her a little better one
would have said that it was with her as with those heroic cravens
who wish not to be afraid, and whose bravery is especially
meritorious, one would have said that in her true character there
was none of that generosity which she displayed at every moment
out of moral distinction, or sensibility, or a noble desire to shew
herself a true friend. When I listened to all the charming things she
was saying to me about a possible affection between Albertine and
myself it seemed as though she were bound to do everything in her
power to bring it to pass. Whereas, by mere chance perhaps, not
even of the least of the various minor opportunities which were at
her disposal and might have proved effective in uniting me to
Albertine did she ever make any use, and I would not swear that my
effort to make myself loved by Albertine did not—if not provoke in
her friend secret stratagems destined to bring it to nought—at any
rate arouse in her an anger which however she took good care to
hide and against which even, in her delicacy of feeling, she may
herself have fought. Of the countless refinements of goodness which
Andrée shewed Albertine would have been incapable, and yet I was
not certain of the underlying goodness of the former as I was to be,
later on, of the latter's. Shewing herself always tenderly indulgent to
the exuberant frivolity of Albertine, Andrée would greet her with
speeches, with smiles which were those of a friend, better still, she
always acted towards her as a friend. I have seen her, day after day,
in order to give the benefit of her own wealth, to bring some
happiness to this penniless friend take, without any possibility of
advantage to herself, more pains than a courtier would take who
sought to win his sovereign's favour. She was charmingly gentle
always, charming in her choice of sweet, pathetic expressions, when
you said to her what a pity it was that Albertine was so poor, and
took infinitely more trouble on her behalf than she would have taken
for a wealthy friend. But if anyone were to hint that Albertine was
perhaps not quite so poor as people made out, a just discernible
cloud would veil the light of Andrée's eyes and brow; she seemed
out of temper. And if you went on to say that after all Albertine
might perhaps be less difficult to marry off than people supposed,
she would vehemently contradict you, repeating almost angrily: "Oh
dear, no; she will never get married! I am quite certain of it; it is a
dreadful worry to me!" In so far as I myself was concerned, Andrée
was the only one of the girls who would never have repeated to me
anything not very pleasant that might have been said about me by a
third person; more than that, if it were I who told her what had
been said she would make a pretence of not believing it, or would
furnish some explanation which made the remark inoffensive; it is
the aggregate of these qualities that goes by the name of tact. Tact
is the attribute of those people who, if we have called a man out in a
duel, congratulate us and add that there was no necessity, really; so
as to enhance still further in our own eyes the courage of which we
have given proof without having been forced to do so. They are the
opposite of the people who, in similar circumstances, say: "It must
have been a horrid nuisance for you, fighting a duel, but on the
other hand you couldn't possibly swallow an insult like that, there
was nothing else to be done." But as there is always something to
be said on both sides, if the pleasure, or at least the indifference
shewn by our friends in repeating something offensive that they
have heard said about us, proves that they do not exactly put
themselves in our skin at the moment of speaking, but thrust in the
pin-point, turn the knife-blade as though it were gold-beater's skin
and not human, the art of always keeping hidden from us what
might be disagreeable to us in what they have heard said about our
actions, or in the opinion which those actions have led the speakers
themselves to form of us, proves that there is in the other kind of
friends, in the friends who are so full of tact, a strong vein of
dissimulation. It does no harm if indeed they are incapable of
thinking evil, and if what is said by other people only makes them
suffer as it would make us. I supposed this to be the case with
Andrée, without, however, being absolutely sure.
We had left the little wood and had followed a network of overgrown
paths through which Andrée managed to find her way with great
skill. Suddenly, "Look now," she said to me, "there are your famous
Creuniers, and, I say, you are in luck, it's just the time of day, and
the light is the same as when Elstir painted them." But I was still too
wretched at having fallen, during the game of "ferret", from such a
pinnacle of hopes. And so it was not with the pleasure which
otherwise I should doubtless have felt that I caught sight, almost
below my feet, crouching among the rocks, where they had gone for
protection from the heat, of marine goddesses for whom Elstir had
lain in wait and surprised them there, beneath a dark glaze as lovely
as Leonardo would have painted, the marvellous Shadows, sheltered
and furtive, nimble and voiceless, ready at the first glimmer of light
to slip behind the stone, to hide in a cranny, and prompt, once the
menacing ray had passed, to return to rock or seaweed beneath the
sun that crumbled the cliffs and the odourless ocean, over whose
slumbers they seemed to be watching, motionless lightfoot
guardians letting appear on the waters surface their viscous bodies
and the attentive gaze of their deep blue eyes.
We went back to the wood to pick up the other girls and go home
together. I knew now that I was in love with Albertine; but, alas! I
had no thought of letting her know it. This was because, since the
days of our games in the Champs-Elysées, my conception of love
had become different, even if the persons to whom my love was
successively assigned remained practically the same. For one thing,
the avowal, the declaration of my passion to her whom I loved no
longer seemed to me one of the vital and necessary incidents of
love, nor love itself an external reality, but simply a subjective
pleasure. And as for this pleasure, I felt that Albertine would do
everything necessary to furnish it, all the more since she would not
know that I was enjoying it.
As we walked home the image of Albertine, bathed in the light that
streamed from the other girls, was not the only one that existed for
me. But as the moon, which is no more than a tiny white cloud of a
more definite and fixed shape than other clouds during the day,
assumes her full power as soon as daylight dies, so when I was once
more in the hotel it was Albertine's sole image that rose from my
heart and began to shine. My room seemed to me to have become
suddenly a new place. Of course, for a long time past, it had not
been the hostile room of my first night in it. All our lives, we go on
patiently modifying the surroundings in which we dwell; and
gradually, as habit dispenses us from feeling them, we suppress the
noxious elements of colour, shape and smell which were at the root
of our discomfort. Nor was it any longer the room, still potent
enough over my sensibility, not certainly to make me suffer, but to
give me joy, the fount of summer days, like a marble basin in which,
half-way up its polished sides, they mirrored an azure surface
steeped in light over which glided for an instant, impalpable and
white as a wave of heat, a shadowy and fleeting cloud; not the
room, wholly aesthetic, of the pictorial evening hours; it was the
room in which I had been now for so many days that I no longer
saw it. And now I was just beginning again to open my eyes to it,
but this time from the selfish angle which is that of love. I liked to
feel that the fine big mirror across one corner, the handsome
bookcases with their fronts of glass would give Albertine, if she came
to see me, a good impression of myself. Instead of a place of transit
in which I would stay for a few minutes before escaping to the
beach or to Rivebelle, my room became real and dear to me,
fashioned itself anew, for I looked at and appreciated each article of
its furniture with the eyes of Albertine.
A few days after the game of "ferret", when having allowed
ourselves to wander rather too far afield, we had been fortunate in
finding at Maineville a couple of little "tubs" with two seats in each
which would enable us to be back in time for dinner, the keenness,
already intense, of my love for Albertine, had the following effect,
first of all, that it was Rosemonde and Andrée in turn that I invited
to be my companion, and never once Albertine, after which, in spite
of my manifest preference for Andrée or Rosemonde, I led
everybody, by secondary considerations of time and distance, cloaks
and so forth, to decide, as though against my wishes, that the most
practical policy was that I should take Albertine, to whose company I
pretended to resign myself for good or ill. Unfortunately, since love
tends to the complete assimilation of another person, while other
people are not comestible by way of conversation alone, Albertine
might be (and indeed was) as friendly as possible to me on our way
home; when I had deposited her at her own door she left me happy
but more famished for her even than I had been at the start, and
reckoning the moments that we had spent together as only a
prelude, of little importance in itself, to those that were still to come.
And yet this prelude had that initial charm which is not to be found
again. I had not yet asked anything of Albertine. She could imagine
what I wanted, but, not being certain of it, would suppose that I was
tending only towards relations without any definite purpose, in which
my friend would find that delicious vagueness, rich in surprising
fulfilments of expectations, which is true romance.
In the week that followed I scarcely attempted to see Albertine. I
made a show of preferring Andrée. Love is born; one would like to
remain, for her whom one loves, the unknown whom she may love
in turn, but one has need of her, one requires contact not so much
with her body as with her attention, her heart. One slips into a letter
some spiteful expression which will force the indifferent reader to
ask for some little kindness in compensation, and love, following an
unvarying procedure, sets going with an alternating movement the
machinery in which one can no longer either refrain from loving or
be loved. I gave to Andrée the hours spent by the others at a party
which I knew that she would sacrifice for my sake, with pleasure,
and would have sacrificed even with reluctance, from a moral nicety,
so as not to let either the others or herself think that she attached
any importance to a relatively frivolous amusement. I arranged in
this way to have her entirely to myself every evening, meaning not
to make Albertine jealous, but to improve my position in her eyes, or
at any rate not to imperil it by letting Albertine know that it was
herself and not Andrée that I loved. Nor did I confide this to Andrée
either, lest she should repeat it to her friend. When I spoke of
Albertine to Andrée I affected a coldness by which she was perhaps
less deceived than I by her apparent credulity. She made a show of
believing in my indifference to Albertine, of desiring the closest
possible union between Albertine and myself. It is probable that, on
the contrary, she neither believed in the one nor wished for the
other. While I was saying to her that I did not care very greatly for
her friend, I was thinking of one thing only, how to become
acquainted with Mme. Bontemps, who was staying for a few days
near Balbec, and to whom Albertine was going presently on a short
visit. Naturally I did not let Andrée become aware of this desire, and
when I spoke to her of Albertine's people, it was in the most careless
manner possible. Andrée's direct answers did not appear to throw
any doubt on my sincerity. Why then did she blurt out suddenly,
about that time: "Oh, guess who' I've just seen—Albertine's aunt!" It
is true that she had not said in so many words: "I could see through
your casual remarks all right that the one thing you were really
thinking of was how you could make friends with Albertine's aunt."
But it was clearly to the presence in Andrée's mind of some such
idea which she felt it more becoming to keep from me that the word
"just" seemed to point. It was of a kind with certain glances, certain
gestures which, for all that they have not a form that is logical,
rational, deliberately calculated to match the listener's intelligence,
reach him nevertheless in their true significance, just as human
speech, converted into electricity in the telephone, is turned into
speech again when it strikes the ear. In order to remove from
Andrée's mind the idea that I was interested in Mme. Bontemps, I
spoke of her from that time onwards not only carelessly but with
downright malice, saying that I had once met that idiot of a woman,
and trusted I should never have that experience again. Whereas I
was seeking by every means in my power to meet her.
I tried to induce Elstir (but without mentioning to anyone else that I
had asked him) to speak to her about me and to bring us together.
He promised to introduce me to her, though he seemed greatly
surprised at my wishing it, for he regarded her as a contemptible
woman, a born intriguer, as little interesting as she was
disinterested. Reflecting that if I did see Mme. Bontemps, Andrée
would be sure to hear of it sooner or later, I thought it best to warn
her in advance. "The things one tries hardest to avoid are what one
finds one cannot escape," I told her. "Nothing in the world could
bore me so much as meeting Mme. Bontemps again, and yet I can't
get out of it, Elstir has arranged to invite us together." "I have never
doubted it for a single instant," exclaimed Andrée in a bitter tone,
while her eyes, enlarged and altered by her annoyance, focussed
themselves upon some invisible object. These words of Andrée's
were not the most reasoned statement of a thought which might be
expressed thus: "I know that you are in love with Albertine, and that
you are working day and night to get in touch with her people." But
they were the shapeless fragments, easily pieced together again by
me, of some such thought which I had exploded by striking it,
through the shield of Andrée's self-control. Like her "just", these
words had no meaning save in the second degree, that is to say they
were words of the sort which (rather than direct affirmatives)
inspires in us respect or distrust for another person, and leads to a
rupture.
If Andrée had not believed me when I told her that Albertine's
relatives left me indifferent, that was because she thought that I was
in love with Albertine. And probably she was none too happy in the
thought.
She was generally present as a third party at my meetings with her
friend. And yet there were days when I was to see Albertine by
herself, days to which I looked forward with feverish impatience,
which passed without bringing me any decisive result, without
having, any of them, been that cardinal day whose part I
immediately entrusted to the day that was to follow, which would
prove no more apt to play it; thus there crumbled and collapsed, one
after another, like waves of the sea, those peaks at once replaced by
others.
About a month after the day on which we had played "ferret"
together, I learned that Albertine was going away next morning to
spend a couple of days with Mme. Bontemps, and, since she would
have to start early, was coming to sleep that night at the Grand
Hotel, from which, by taking the omnibus, she would be able,
without disturbing the friends with whom she was staying, to catch
the first train in the morning. I mentioned this to Andrée. "I don't
believe a word of it," she replied, with a look of annoyance. "Anyhow
it won't help you at all, for I'm quite sure Albertine won't want to see
you if she goes to the hotel by herself. It wouldn't be 'regulation',"
she added, employing an epithet which had recently come into
favour with her, in the sense of "what is done". "I tell you this
because I understand Albertine. What difference do you suppose it
makes to me whether you see her or not? Not the slightest, I can
assure you!"
We were joined by Octave who had no hesitation in telling Andrée
the number of strokes he had gone round in, the day before, at golf,
then by Albertine, counting her diabolo as she walked along, like a
nun telling her beads. Thanks to this pastime she could be left alone
for hours on end without growing bored. As soon as she joined us I
became conscious of the obstinate tip of her nose, which I had
omitted from my mental pictures of her during the last few days;
beneath her dark hair the vertical front of her brow controverted—
and not for the first time—the indefinite image that I had preserved
of her, while its whiteness made a vivid splash in my field of vision;
emerging from the dust of memory, Albertine was built up afresh
before my eyes. Golf gives one a taste for solitary pleasures. The
pleasure to be derived from diabolo is undoubtedly one of these.
And yet, after she had joined us, Albertine continued to toss up and
catch her missile, just as a lady on whom friends have come to call
does not on their account stop working at her crochet. "I hear that
Mme. de Villeparisis," she remarked to Octave, "has been
complaining to your father." I could hear, underlying the word, one
of those notes that were peculiar to Albertine; always, just as I had
made certain that I had forgotten them, I would be reminded of a
glimpse caught through them before of Albertine's determined and
typically Gallic mien. I might have been blind, and yet have detected
certain of her qualities, alert and slightly provincial, from those
notes, just as plainly as from the tip of her nose. These were
equivalent and might have, been substituted for one another, and
her voice was like, what we are promised in the photo-telephone of
the future; the visual image was clearly outlined in the sound. "She's
not written only to your father, either, she wrote to the Mayor of
Balbec at the same time, to say that we must stop playing diabolo
on the 'front' as somebody hit her in the face with one." "Yes, I was
hearing about that. It's too silly. There's little enough to do here as it
is." Andrée did not join in the conversation; she was not acquainted,
any more than was Albertine or Octave, with Mme. de Villeparisis.
She did, however, remark: "I can't think why this lady should make
such a song about it. Old Mme. de Cambremer got hit in the face,
and she never complained." "I will explain the difference," replied
Octave gravely, striking a match as he spoke. "It's my belief that
Mme. de Cambremer is a woman of the world, and Mme. de
Villeparisis is just an upstart. Are you playing golf this afternoon?"
and he left us, followed by Andrée. I was alone now with Albertine.
"Do you see," she began, "I'm wearing my hair now the way you like
—look at my ringlet. They all laugh at me and nobody knows who'
I'm doing it for. My aunt will laugh at me too. But I shan't tell her
why, either." I had a sidelong view of Albertine's cheeks, which often
appeared pale, but, seen thus, were flushed with a coursing stream
of blood which lighted them up, gave them that dazzling dearness
which certain winter mornings have when the stones sparkling in the
sun seem blocks of pink granite and radiate joy. The joy that I was
drawing at this moment from the sight of Albertine's cheeks was
equally keen, but led to another desire on my part, which was not to
walk with her but to take her in my arms. I asked her if the report of
her plans which I had heard were correct. "Yes," she told me, "I
shall be sleeping at your hotel to-night, and in fact as I've got rather
a chill, I shall be going to bed before dinner. You can come and sit
by my bed and watch me eat, if you like, and afterwards we'll play at
anything you choose. I should have liked you to come to the station
to-morrow morning, but I'm afraid it might look rather odd, I don't
say to Andrée, who is a sensible person, but to the others who will
be there; if my aunt got to know, I should never hear the last of it.
But we can spend the evening together, at any rate. My aunt will
know nothing about that. I must go and say good-bye to Andrée. So
long, then. Come early, so that we can have a nice long time
together," she added, smiling. At these words I was swept back past
the days in which I loved Gilberte to those in which love seemed to
me not only an external entity but one that could be realised as a
whole. Whereas the Gilberte whom I used to see in the Champs-
Elysées was a different Gilberte from the one whom I found waiting
inside myself when I was alone again, suddenly in the real Albertine,
her whom I saw every day, whom I supposed to be stuffed with
middle class prejudices and entirely open with her aunt, there was
incarnate the imaginary Albertine, she whom, when I still did not
know her, I had suspected of casting furtive glances at myself on the
"front", she who had worn an air of being reluctant to go indoors
when she saw me making off in the other direction.
I went in to dinner with my grandmother. I felt within me a secret
which she could never guess. Similarly with Albertine; to-morrow her
friends would be with her, not knowing what novel experience she
and I had in common; and when she kissed her niece on the brow
Mme. Bontemps would never imagine that I stood between them, in
that arrangement of Albertine's hair which had for its object,
concealed from all the world, to give me pleasure, me who had until
then so greatly envied Mme. Bontemps because, being related to the
same people as her niece, she had the same occasions to don
mourning, the same family visits to pay; and now I found myself
meaning more to Albertine than did the aunt herself. When she was
with her aunt, it was of me that she would be thinking. What was
going to happen that evening, I scarcely knew. In any event, the
Grand Hotel, the evening would no longer seem empty to me; they
contained my happiness. I rang for the lift-boy to take me up to the
room which Albertine had engaged, a room that looked over the
valley. The slightest movements, such as that of sitting down on the
bench in the lift, were satisfying, because they were in direct relation
to my heart; I saw in the ropes that drew the cage upwards, in the
few steps that I had still to climb, only a materialisation of the
machinery, the stages of my joy. I had only two or three steps to
take now along the corridor before coming to that room in which
was enshrined the precious substance of that rosy form—that room
which, even if there were to be done in it delicious things, would
keep that air of permanence, of being, to a chance visitor who knew
nothing of its history, just like any other room, which makes of
inanimate things the obstinately mute witnesses, the scrupulous
confidants, the inviolable depositaries of our pleasure. Those few
steps from the landing to Albertine's door, those few steps which no
one now could prevent my taking, I took with delight, with
prudence, as though plunged into a new and strange element, as if
in going forward I had been gently displacing the liquid stream of
happiness, and at the same time with a strange feeling of absolute
power, and of entering at length into an inheritance which had
belonged to me from all time. Then suddenly I reflected that it was
wrong to be in any doubt; she had told me to come when she was in
bed. It was as clear as daylight; I pranced for joy, I nearly knocked
over Françoise who was standing in my way, I ran, with glowing
eyes, towards my friend's room. I found Albertine in bed. Leaving
her throat bare, her white nightgown altered the proportions of her
face, which, flushed by being in bed or by her cold or by dinner,
seemed pinker than before; I thought of the colours which I had
had, a few hours earlier, displayed beside me, on the "front", the
savour of which I was now at last to taste; her cheek was crossed
obliquely by one of those long, dark, curling tresses, which, to
please me, she had undone altogether. She looked at me and
smiled. Beyond her, through the window, the valley lay bright
beneath the moon. The sight of Albertine's bare throat, of those
strangely vivid cheeks, had so intoxicated me (that is to say had
placed the reality of the world for me no longer in nature, but in the
torrent of my sensations which it was all I could do to keep within
bounds), as to have destroyed the balance between the life,
immense and indestructible, which circulated in my being, and the
life of the universe, so puny in comparison. The sea, which was
visible through the window as well as the valley, the swelling breasts
of the first of the Maineville cliffs, the sky in which the moon had not
yet climbed to the zenith, all of these seemed less than a
featherweight on my eyeballs, which between their lids I could feel
dilated, resisting, ready to bear very different burdens, all the
mountains of the world upon their fragile surface. Their orbit no
longer found even the sphere of the horizon adequate to fill it. And
everything that nature could have brought me of life would have
seemed wretchedly meagre, the sigh of the waves far too short a
sound to express the enormous aspiration that was surging in my
breast. I bent over Albertine to kiss her. Death might have struck me
down in that moment; it would have seemed to me a trivial, or
rather an impossible thing, for life was not outside, it was in me; I
should have smiled pityingly had a philosopher then expressed the
idea that some day, even some distant day, I should have to die,
that the external forces of nature would survive me, the forces of
that nature beneath whose god-like feet I was no more than a grain
of dust; that, after me, there would still remain those rounded,
swelling cliffs, that sea, that moonlight and that sky! How was that
possible; how could the world last longer than myself, since it was it
that was enclosed in me, in me whom it went a long way short of
filling, in me, where, feeling that there was room to store so many
other treasures, I flung contemptuously into a corner sky, sea and
cliffs. "Stop that, or I'll ring the bell!" cried Albertine, seeing that I
was flinging myself upon her to kiss her. But I reminded myself that
it was not for no purpose that a girl made a young man come to her
room in secret, arranging that her aunt should not know—that
boldness, moreover, rewards those who know how to seize their
opportunities; in the state of exaltation in which I was, the round
face of Albertine, lighted by an inner flame, like the glass bowl of a
lamp, started into such prominence that, copying the rotation of a
burning sphere, it seemed to me to be turning, like those faces of
Michael Angelo which are being swept past in the arrested headlong
flight of a whirlwind. I was going to learn the fragrance, the flavour
which this strange pink fruit concealed. I heard a sound, precipitous,
prolonged, shrill. Albertine had pulled the bell with all her might.
*
* *
I had supposed that the love which I felt for Albertine was not based
on the hope of carnal possession. And yet, when the lesson to be
drawn from my experience that evening was, apparently, that such
possession was impossible; when, after having had not the least
doubt, that first day, on the beach, of Albertine's being unchaste,
and having then passed through various intermediate assumptions, I
seemed to have quite definitely reached the conclusion that she was
absolutely virtuous; when, on her return from her aunt's, a week
later, she greeted me coldly with: "I forgive you; in fact I'm sorry to
have upset you, but you must never do it again,"—then, in contrast
to what I had felt on learning from Bloch that one could always have
all the women one liked, and as if, in place of a real girl, I had
known a wax doll, it came to pass that gradually there detached
itself from her my desire to penetrate into her life, to follow her
through the places in which she had spent her childhood, to be
initiated by her into the athletic life; my intellectual curiosity to know
what were her thoughts on this subject or that did not survive my
belief that I might take her in my arms if I chose. My dreams
abandoned her, once they had ceased to be nourished by the hope
of a possession of which I had supposed them to be independent.
Thenceforward they found themselves once more at liberty to
transmit themselves, according to the attraction that I had found in
her on any particular day, above all according to the chances that I
seemed to detect of my being, possibly, one day, loved by her—to
one or another of Albertine's friends, and to Andrée first of all. And
yet, if Albertine had not existed, perhaps I should not have had the
pleasure which I began to feel more and more strongly during the
days that followed in the kindness that was shewn me by Andrée.
Albertine told no one of the check which I had received at her
hands. She was one of those pretty girls who, from their earliest
youth, by their beauty, but especially by an attraction, a charm
which remains somewhat mysterious and has its source perhaps in
reserves of vitality to which others less favoured by nature come to
quench their thirst, have always—in their home circle, among their
friends, in society—proved more attractive than other more beautiful
and richer girls; she was one of those people from whom, before the
age of love and ever so much more after it is reached, one asks
more than they ask in return, more even than they are able to give.
From her childhood Albertine had always had round her in an
adoring circle four or five little girl friends, among them Andrée who
was so far her superior and knew it (and perhaps this attraction
which Albertine exerted quite involuntarily had been the origin, had
laid the foundations of the little band). This attraction was still
potent even at a great social distance, in circles quite brilliant in
comparison, where if there was a pavane to be danced, they would
send for Albertine rather than have it danced by another girl of
better family. The consequence was that, not having a penny to her
name, living a hard enough life, moreover, on the hands of M.
Bontemps, who was said to be "on the rocks", and was anyhow
anxious to be rid of her, she was nevertheless invited, not only to
dine but to stay, by people who, in Saint-Loup's sight, might not
have had any distinction, but to Rosemonde's mother or Andrée's,
women who though very rich themselves did not know these other
and richer people, represented something quite incalculable. Thus
Albertine spent a few weeks every year with the family of one of the
Governors of the Bank of France, who was also Chairman of the
Board of Directors of a great Railway Company. The wife of this
financier entertained people of importance, and had never
mentioned her "day" to Andrée's mother, who thought her wanting
in politeness, but was nevertheless prodigiously interested in
everything that went on in her house. Accordingly she encouraged
Andrée every year to invite Albertine down to their villa, because, as
she said, it was a real charity to offer a holiday by the sea to a girl
who had not herself the means to travel and whose aunt did so little
for her; Andrée's mother was probably not prompted by the thought
that the banker and his wife, learning that Albertine was made much
of by her and her daughter, would form a high opinion of them both;
still less did she hope that Albertine, good and clever as she was,
would manage to get her invited, or at least to get Andrée invited to
the financier's garden-parties. But every evening at the dinner-table,
while she assumed an air of indifference slightly tinged with
contempt, she was fascinated by Albertine's accounts of everything
that had happened at the big house while she was staying there,
and the names of the other guests, almost all of them people whom
she knew by sight or by name. True, the thought that she knew
them only in this indirect fashion, that is to say did not know them at
all (she called this kind of acquaintance knowing people "all my
life"), gave Andrée's mother a touch of melancholy while she plied
Albertine with questions about them in a lofty and distant tone,
speaking with closed lips, and might have left her doubtful and
uneasy as to the importance of her own social position had she not
been able to reassure herself, to return safely to the "realities of
life", by saying to the butler: "Please tell the chef that he has not
made the peas soft enough." She then recovered her serenity. And
she was quite determined that Andrée was to marry nobody but a
man—of the best family, of course—but rich enough for her too to
be able to keep a chef and a couple of coachmen. This was the
proof positive, the practical indication of "position". But the fact that
Albertine had dined at the banker's house in the country with this or
that great lady, and that the said great lady had invited the girl to
stay with her next winter, did not invalidate a sort of special
consideration which Albertine shewed towards Andrée's mother,
which went very well with the pity, and even repulsion, excited by
the tale of her misfortunes, a repulsion increased by the fact that M.
Bontemps had proved a traitor to the cause (he was even, people
said, vaguely Panamist) and had rallied to the Government. Not that
this deterred Andrée's mother, in her passion for abstract truth, from
withering with her scorn the people who appeared to believe that
Albertine was of humble origin. "What's that you say? Why, they're
one of the best families in the country. Simonet with a single 'n', you
know!" Certainly, in view of the class of society in which all this went
on, in which money plays so important a part, and mere charm
makes people ask you out but not marry you, a "comfortable"
marriage did not appear to be for Albertine a practical outcome of
the so distinguished patronage which she enjoyed but which would
not have been held to compensate for her poverty. But even by
themselves, and with no prospect of any matrimonial consequence,
Albertine's "successes" in society excited the envy of certain spiteful
mothers, furious at seeing her received like one of the family by the
banker's wife, even by Andrée's mother, neither of whom they
themselves really knew. They therefore went about telling common
friends of those ladies and their own that both ladies would be very
angry if they knew the facts, which were that Albertine repeated to
each of them everything that the intimacy to which she was rashly
admitted enabled her to spy out in the household of the other, a
thousand little secrets which it must be infinitely unpleasant to the
interested party to have made public. These envious women said
this so that it might be repeated and might get Albertine into trouble
with her patrons. But, as often happens, their machinations met with
no success. The spite that prompted them was too apparent, and
their only result was to make the women who had planned them
appear rather more contemptible than before. Andrée's mother was
too firm in her opinion of Albertine to change her mind about her
now. She looked upon her as a "poor wretch", but the best-natured
girl living, and one who would do anything in the world to give
pleasure.
If this sort of select popularity to which Albertine had attained did
not seem likely to lead to any practical result, it had stamped
Andrée's friend with the distinctive marks of people who, being
always sought after, have never any need to offer themselves, marks
(to be found also, and for analogous reasons, at the other end of the
social scale among the leaders of fashion) which consist in their not
making any display of the successes they have scored, but rather
keeping them to themselves. She would never say to anyone: "So-
and-so is anxious to meet me," would speak of everyone with the
greatest good nature, and as if it had been she who ran after, who
sought to know other people, and not they. If you spoke of a young
man who, a few minutes earlier, had been, in private conversation
with her, heaping the bitterest reproaches upon her because she had
refused him an assignation, so far from proclaiming this in public, or
betraying any resentment she would stand up for him: "He is such a
nice boy!" Indeed it quite annoyed her when she attracted people,
because that compelled her to disappoint them, whereas her natural
instinct was always to give pleasure. So much did she enjoy giving
pleasure that she had come to employ a particular kind of falsehood,
found among utilitarians and men who have "arrived". Existing
besides in an embryonic state in a vast number of people, this form
of insincerity consists in not being able to confine the pleasure
arising out of a single act of politeness to a single person. For
instance, if Albertine's aunt wished her niece to accompany her to a
party which was not very lively, Albertine might have found it
sufficient to extract from the incident the moral profit of having
given pleasure to her aunt. But being courteously welcomed by her
host and hostess, she thought it better to say to them that she had
been wanting to see them for so long that she had finally seized this
opportunity and begged her aunt to take her to their party. Even this
was not enough: at the same party there happened to be one of
Albertine's friends who was in great distress. "I did not like the idea
of your being here by yourself. I thought it might do you good to
have me with you. If you would rather come away from here, go
somewhere else, I am ready to do anything you like; all I want is to
see you look not so sad."—Which, as it happened, was true also.
Sometimes it happened however that the fictitious object destroyed
the real. Thus, Albertine, having a favour to ask on behalf of one of
her friends, went on purpose to see a certain lady who could help
her. But on arriving at the house of this lady—a kind and
sympathetic soul—the girl, unconsciously following the principle of
utilising a single action in a number of ways, felt it to be more
ingratiating to appear to have come there solely on account of the
pleasure she knew she would derive from seeing the lady again. The
lady was deeply touched that Albertine should have taken a long
journey purely out of friendship for herself. Seeing her almost
overcome by emotion, Albertine began to like the lady still better.
Only, there was this awkward consequence: she now felt so keenly
the pleasure of friendship which she pretended to have been her
motive in coming, that she was afraid of making the lady suspect the
genuineness of sentiments which were actually quite sincere if she
now asked her to do the favour, whatever it may have been, for her
friend. The lady would think that Albertine had come for that
purpose, which was true, but would conclude also that Albertine had
no disinterested pleasure in seeing her, which was not. With the
result that she came away without having asked the favour, like a
man sometimes who has been so good to a woman, in the hope of
winning her, that he refrains from declaring his passion in order to
preserve for his goodness an air of nobility. In other instances it
would be wrong to say that the true object was sacrificed to the
subordinate and subsequently conceived idea, but the two were so
far incompatible that if the person to whom Albertine endeared
herself by stating the second had known of the existence of the first,
his pleasure would at once have been turned into the deepest
annoyance. At a much later point in this story, we shall have
occasion to see this kind of incompatibility expressed in clearer
terms. Let us say for the present, borrowing an example of a
completely different order, that they occur very frequently in the
most divergent situations that life has to offer. A husband has
established his mistress in the town where he is quartered with his
regiment. His wife, left by herself in Paris, and with an inkling of the
truth, grows more and more miserable, and writes her husband,
letters embittered by jealousy. Very well; the mistress is obliged to
go up to Paris for the day. The husband cannot resist her entreaties
that he will go with her, and applies for short leave, which is
granted. But as he is a good-natured fellow, and hates to make his
wife unhappy, he goes to her and tells her, shedding a few quite
genuine tears, that, driven to desperation by her letters, he has
found the means of getting away from his duties to come to her, to
console her in his arms. He has thus contrived by a single journey to
furnish wife and mistress alike with proofs of his affection. But if the
wife were to learn the reason for which he has come to Paris, her
joy would doubtless be turned into grief, unless her pleasure in
seeing the faithless wretch outweighed, in spite of everything, the
pain that his infidelities had caused her. Among the men who have
struck me as practising with most perseverance this system of what
might be called killing any number of birds with one stone, must be
included M. de Norpois. He would now and then agree to act as
intermediary between two of his friends who had quarrelled, which
led to his being called the most obliging of men. But it was not
sufficient for him to appear to be doing a service to the friend who
had come to him to demand it; he would represent to the other the
steps which he was taking to effect a reconciliation as undertaken
not at the request of the first friend but in the interest of the second,
an attitude of the sincerity of which he had never any difficulty in
convincing a listener already influenced by the idea that he saw
before him the "most serviceable of men". In this fashion, playing in
two scenes turn about, what in stage parlance is called "doubling"
two parts, he never allowed his influence to be in the slightest
degree imperilled, and the services which he rendered constituted
not an expenditure of capital but a dividend upon some part of his
credit. At the same time every service, seemingly rendered twice
over, correspondingly enhanced his reputation as an obliging friend,
and, better still, a friend whose interventions were efficacious, one
who did not draw bows at a venture, whose efforts were always
justified by success, as was shewn by the gratitude of both parties.
This duplicity in rendering services was—allowing for
disappointments such as are the lot of every human being—an
important element of M. de Norpois's character. And often at the
Ministry he would make use of my father, who was a simple soul,
while making him believe that it was he, M. de Norpois, who was
being useful to my father.
Attracting people more easily than she wished, and having no need
to proclaim her conquests abroad, Albertine kept silence with regard
to the scene with myself by her bedside, which a plain girl would
have wished the whole world to know. And yet of her attitude during
that scene I could not arrive at any satisfactory explanation. Taking
first of all the supposition that she was absolutely chaste (a
supposition with which I had originally accounted for the violence
with which Albertine had refused to let herself be taken in my arms
and kissed, though it was by no means essential to my conception of
the goodness, the fundamentally honourable character of my friend),
I could not accept it without a copious revision of its terms. It ran so
entirely counter to the hypothesis which I had constructed that day
when I saw Albertine for the first time. Then ever so many different
acts, all acts of kindness towards myself (a kindness that was
caressing, at times uneasy, alarmed, jealous of my predilection for
Andrée) came up on all sides to challenge the brutal gesture with
which, to escape from me, she had pulled the bell. Why then had
she invited me to come and spend the evening by her bedside? Why
had she spoken all the time in the language of affection? What
object is there in your desire to see a friend, in your fear that he is
fonder of another of your friends than of you; why seek to give him
pleasure, why tell him, so romantically, that the others will never
know that he has spent the evening in your room, if you refuse him
so simple a pleasure and if to you it is no pleasure at all? I could not
believe, all the same, that Albertine's chastity was carried to such a
pitch as that, and I had begun to ask myself whether her violence
might not have been due to some reason of coquetry, a disagreeable
odour, for instance, which she suspected of lingering about her
person, and by which she was afraid that I might be disgusted, or
else of cowardice, if for instance she imagined, in her ignorance of
the facts of love, that my state of nervous exhaustion was due to
something contagious, communicable to her in a kiss.
She was genuinely distressed by her failure to afford me pleasure,
and gave me a little gold pencil-case, with that virtuous perversity
which people shew who, moved by your supplications and yet not
consenting to grant you what those supplications demand, are
anxious all the same to bestow on you some mark of their affection;
the critic, an article from whose pen would so gratify the novelist,
asks him instead to dinner; the duchess does not take the snob with
her to the theatre but lends him her box on an evening when she
will not be using it herself. So far are those who do least for us, and
might easily do nothing, driven by conscience to do something. I
told Albertine that in giving me this pencil-case she was affording me
great pleasure, and yet not so great as I should have felt if, on the
night she had spent at the hotel, she had permitted me to embrace
her. "It would have made me so happy; what possible harm could it
have done you? I was simply astounded at your refusing to let me
do it." "What astounds me," she retorted, "is that you should have
thought it astounding. Funny sort of girls you must know if my
behaviour surprises you." "I am extremely sorry if I annoyed you,
but even now I cannot say that I think I was in the wrong. What I
feel is that all that sort of thing is of no importance, really, and I
can't understand a girl who could so easily give pleasure not
consenting to do so. Let us be quite clear about it," I went on,
throwing a sop of sorts to her moral scruples, as I recalled how she
and her friends had scarified the girl who went about with the
actress Léa, "I don't mean to say for a moment that a girl can
behave exactly as she likes, or that there's no such thing as
immorality. Take, let me see now, yes, what you were saying the
other day about a girl who is staying at Balbec and her relations with
an actress; I call that degrading, so degrading that I feel must all
have been made up by the girl's enemies, and that there can't be
any truth in the story. It strikes me as improbable, impossible. But to
let a friend kiss you, and go farther than that even—since you say
that I am your friend . . ." "So you are, but I have had friends before
now, I have known lots of young men who were every bit as
friendly, I can assure you. There wasn't one of them would ever
have dared to do a thing like that. They knew they'ld get their ears
boxed if they tried it on. Besides, they never dreamed of trying, we
would shake hands in an open, friendly sort of way, like good pals,
but there was never a word said about kissing, and yet we weren't
any the less friends for that. Why, if it's my friendship you are after,
you've nothing to complain of; I must be jolly fond of you to forgive
you. But I'm sure you don't care two straws about me, really. Own
up now, it's Andrée you're in love with. After all, you're quite right;
she is ever so much prettier than I am, and perfectly charming! Oh!
You men!" Despite my recent disappointment, these words so
frankly uttered, by giving me a great respect for Albertine, made a
very pleasant impression on me. And perhaps this impression was to
have serious and vexatious consequences for me later on, for it was
round it that there began to form that feeling almost of brotherly
intimacy, that moral core which was always to remain at the heart of
my love for Albertine. A feeling of this sort may be the cause of the
keenest pain. For in order really to suffer at the hands of a woman
one must have believed in her completely. For the moment, that
embryo of moral esteem, of friendship, was left embedded in me like
a stepping-stone in a stream. It could have availed nothing, by itself,
against my happiness if it had remained there without growing, in an
inertia which it was to retain the following year, and still more during
the final weeks of this first visit to Balbec. It dwelt in me like one of
those foreign bodies which it would be wiser when all is said to
expel, but which we leave where they are without disturbing them,
so harmless for the present does their weakness, their isolation amid
a strange environment render them.
My dreams were now once more at liberty to concentrate on one or
another of Albertine's friends, and returned first of all to Andrée,
whose kindnesses might perhaps have appealed to me less strongly
had I not been certain that they would come to Albertine's ears.
Undoubtedly the preference that I had long been pretending to feel
for Andrée had furnished me—in the habit of conversation with her,
of declaring my affection—with, so to speak, the material, prepared
and ready, for a love of her which had hitherto lacked only the
complement of a genuine sentiment, and this my heart being once
more free was now in a position to supply. But for me really to love
Andrée, she was too intellectual, too neurotic, too sickly, too much
like myself. If Albertine now seemed to me to be void of substance,
Andrée was filled with something which I knew only too well. I had
thought, that first day, that what I saw on the beach there was the
mistress of some racing cyclist, passionately athletic; and now
Andrée told me that if she had taken up athletic pastimes, it was
under orders from her doctor, to cure her neurasthenia, her digestive
troubles, but that her happiest hours were those which she spent in
translating one of George Eliot's novels. The misunderstanding, due
to an initial mistake as to what Andrée was, had not, as a matter of
fact, the slightest importance. But my mistake was one of the kind
which, if they allow love to be born, and are not recognised as
mistakes until it has ceased to be under control, become a cause of
suffering. Such mistakes—which may be quite different from mine
with regard to Andrée, and even its exact opposite,—are frequently
due (and this was especially the case here) to our paying too much
attention to the aspect, the manners of what a person is not but
would like to be, in forming our first impression of that person. To
the outward appearance affectation, imitation, the longing to be
admired, whether by the good or by the wicked, add misleading
similarities of speech and gesture. There are cynicisms and cruelties
which, when put to the test, prove no more genuine than certain
apparent virtues and generosities. Just as we often discover a vain
miser beneath the cloak of a man famed for his bountiful charity, so
her flaunting of vice leads us to suppose a Messalina a respectable
girl with middle class prejudices. I had thought to find in Andrée a
healthy, primitive creature, whereas she was merely a person in
search of health, as were doubtless many of those in whom she
herself had thought to find it, and who were in reality no more
healthy than a burly arthritic with a red face and in white flannels is
necessarily a Hercules. Now there are circumstances in which it is
not immaterial to our happiness that the person whom we have
loved because of what appeared to be so healthy about her is in
reality only one of those invalids who receive such health as they
possess from others, as the planets borrow their light, as certain
bodies are only conductors of electricity.
No matter, Andrée, like Rosemonde and Gisèle, indeed more than
they, was, when all was said, a friend of Albertine, sharing her life,
imitating her conduct, so closely that, the first day, I had not at once
distinguished them one from another. Over these girls, flowering
sprays of roses whose principal charm was that they outlined
themselves against the sea, the same undivided partnership
prevailed as at the time when I did not know them, when the
appearance of no matter which of them had caused me such violent
emotion by its announcement that the little band was not far off.
And even now the sight of one of them filled me with a pleasure into
which there entered, to an extent which I should not have found it
easy to define, the thought of seeing the others follow her in due
course, and even if they did not come that day, speaking about
them, and knowing that they would be told that I had been on the
beach.
It was no longer simply the attraction of those firsts days, it was a
regular love-longing which hesitated among them all, so far was
each the natural substitute for the others. My bitterest grief would
not have been to be thrown over by whichever of the girls I liked
best, but I should at once have liked best, because I should have
fastened on to her the whole of the melancholy dream which had
been floating vaguely among them all, her who had thrown me over.
It would, moreover, in that event, be the loss of all her friends, in
whose eyes I should speedily have forfeited whatever advantage I
might possess, that I should, in losing her, have unconsciously
regretted, having vowed to them that sort of collective love which
the politician and the actor feel for the public for whose desertion of
them after they have enjoyed all its favours they can never be
consoled. Even those favours which I had failed to win from
Albertine I would hope suddenly to receive from one or other who
had parted from me in the evening with a word or glance of
ambiguous meaning, thanks to which it was to her that, for the next
day or so, my desire would turn.
It strayed among them all the more voluptuously in that upon those
volatile faces a comparative fixation of features had now begun, and
had been carried far enough for the eye to distinguish—even if it
were to change yet further—each malleable and floating effigy. To
the differences that existed among them there was doubtless very
little that corresponded in the no less marked differences in the
length and breadth of those features, any of which might, perhaps,
dissimilar as the girls appeared, almost have been lifted bodily from
one face and imposed at random upon any other. But our knowledge
of faces is not mathematical. In the first place, it does not begin with
the measurement of the parts, it takes as its starting-point an
expression, a combination of the whole. In Andrée, for instance, the
fineness of her gentle eyes seemed to go with the thinness of her
nose, as slender as a mere curve which one could imagine as having
been traced in order to produce along a single line the idea of
delicacy divided higher up between the dual smile of her twin gaze.
A line equally fine was engraved in her hair, pliant and deep as the
line with which the wind furrows the sand. And in her it must have
been hereditary; for the snow white hair of Andrée's mother was
driven in the same way, forming here a swelling, there a depression
like a snowdrift that rises or sinks according to the irregularities of
the soil. Certainly, when compared with the fine delineation of
Andrée's, Rosemonde's nose seemed to present broad surfaces, like
a high tower raised upon massive foundations. Albeit expression
suffices to make us believe in enormous differences between things
that are separated by infinitely little—albeit that infinitely little may
by itself create an expression that is absolutely unique, an
individuality—it was not only the infinitely little of its lines and the
originality of its expression that made each of these faces appear
irreducible to terms of any other. Between my friends' faces their
colouring established a separation wider still, not so much by the
varied beauty of the tones with which it provided them, so
contrasted that I felt when I looked at Rosemonde—flooded with a
sulphurous rose colour, with the further contrast of the greenish light
in her eyes—and then at Andrée—whose white cheeks received such
an austere distinction from her black hair—the same kind of pleasure
as if I had been looking alternately at a geranium growing by a sunlit
sea and a camellia in the night; but principally because the infinitely
little differences of their lines were enlarged out of all proportion, the
relations between one and another surface entirely changed by this
new element of colour which, in addition to being a dispenser of
tints, is great at restoring, or rather at altering dimensions. So that
faces which were perhaps constructed on not dissimilar lines,
according as they were lighted by the flaming torch of an auburn
poll or high complexion, or by the white glimmer of a dull pallor,
grew sharper or broader, became something else, like those
properties used in the Russian ballet, consisting sometimes, when
they are seen in the light of day, of a mere disc of paper, out of
which the genius of a Bakst, according to the blood-red or moonlit
effect in which he plunges his stage, makes a hard incrustation, like
a turquoise on a palace wall, or a swooning softness, as of a Bengal
rose in an eastern garden. And so when acquiring a knowledge of
faces we take careful measurements, but as painters, not as
surveyors.
So it was with Albertine as with her friends. On certain days, slim,
with grey cheeks, a sullen air, a violet transparency falling obliquely
from her such as we notice sometimes on the sea, she seemed to be
feeling the sorrows of exile. On other days her face, more sleek,
caught and glued my desires to its varnished surface and prevented
them from going any farther; unless I caught a sudden glimpse of
her from the side, for her dull cheeks, like white wax on the surface,
were visibly pink beneath, which made me anxious to kiss them, to
reach that different tint which thus avoided my touch. At other times
happiness bathed her cheeks with a clarity so mobile that the skin,
grown fluid and vague, gave passage to a sort of stealthy and
subcutaneous gaze, which made it appear to be of another colour
but not of another substance than her eyes; sometimes, instinctively,
when one looked at her face punctuated with tiny brown marks
among which floated what were simply two larger, bluer stains, it
was like looking at the egg of a goldfinch—or often like an
opalescent agate cut and polished in two places only, where, from
the heart of the brown stone, shone like the transparent wings of a
sky-blue butterfly her eyes, those features in which the flesh
becomes a mirror and gives us the illusion that it allows us, more
than through the other parts of the body, to approach the soul. But
most often of all she shewed more colour, and was then more
animated; sometimes the only pink thing in her white face was the
tip of her nose, as finely pointed as that of a mischievous kitten with
which one would have liked to stop and play; sometimes her cheeks
were so glossy that one's glance slipped, as over the surface of a
miniature, over their pink enamel, which was made to appear still
more delicate, more private, by the enclosing though half-opened
case of her black hair; or it might happen that the tint of her cheeks
had deepened to the violet shade of the red cyclamen, and, at
times, even, when she was flushed or feverish, with a suggestion of
unhealthiness which lowered my desire to something more sensual
and made her glance expressive of something more perverse and
unwholesome, to the deep purple of certain roses, a red that was
almost black; and each of these Albertines was different, as in every
fresh appearance of the dancer whose colours, form, character, are
transmuted according to the innumerably varied play of a projected
limelight. It was perhaps because they were so different, the
persons whom I used to contemplate in her at this period, that later
on I became myself a different person, corresponding to the
particular Albertine to whom my thoughts had turned; a jealous, an
indifferent, a voluptuous, a melancholy, a frenzied person, created
anew not merely by the accident of what memory had risen to the
surface, but in proportion also to the strength of the belief that was
lent to the support of one and the same memory by the varying
manner in which I appreciated it. For this is the point to which we
must always return, to these beliefs with which most of the time we
are quite unconsciously filled, but which for all that are of more
importance to our happiness than is the average person whom we
see, for it is through them that we see him, it is they that impart his
momentary greatness to the person seen. To be quite accurate I
ought to give a different name to each of the 'me's' who were to
think about Albertine in time to come; I ought still more to give a
different name to each of the Albertines who appeared before me,
never the same, like—called by me simply and for the sake of
convenience "the sea"—those seas that succeeded one another on
the beach, in front of which, a nymph likewise, she stood apart. But
above all, in the same way as, in telling a story (though to far
greater purpose here), one mentions what the weather was like on
such and such a day, I ought always to give its name to the belief
that, on any given day on which I saw Albertine, was reigning in my
soul, creating its atmosphere, the appearance of people like that of
seas being dependent on those clouds, themselves barely visible,
which change the colour of everything by their concentration, their
mobility, their dissemination, their flight—like that cloud which Elstir
had rent one evening by not introducing me to these girls, with
whom he had stopped to talk, whereupon their forms, as they
moved away, had suddenly increased in beauty—a cloud that had
formed again a few days later when I did get to know the girls,
veiling their brightness, interposing itself frequently between my
eyes and them, opaque and soft, like Virgil's Leucothea.
No doubt, all their faces had assumed quite new meanings for me
since the manner in which they were to be read had been to some
extent indicated to me by their talk, talk to which I could ascribe a
value all the greater in that, by questioning them, I could prompt it
whenever I chose, could vary it like an experimenter who seeks by
corroborative proofs to establish the truth of his theory. And it is,
after all, as good a way as any of solving the problem of existence to
approach near enough to the things that have appeared to us from a
distance to be beautiful and mysterious, to be able to satisfy
ourselves that they have neither mystery nor beauty. It is one of the
systems of hygiene among which we are at liberty to choose our
own, a system which is perhaps not to be recommended too
strongly, but it gives us a certain tranquillity with which to spend
what remains of life, and also—since it enables us to regret nothing,
by assuring us that we have attained to the best, and that the best
was nothing out of the common—with which to resign ourselves to
death.
I had now substituted, in the brains of these girls, for their supposed
contempt for chastity, their memories of daily "incidents", honest
principles, liable, it might be, to relaxation, but principles which had
hitherto kept unscathed the children who had acquired them in their
own respectable homes. And yet, when one has been mistaken from
the start, even in trifling details, when an error of assumption or
recollection makes one seek for the author of a malicious slander, or
for the place where one has lost something, in the wrong direction,
it frequently happens that one discovers one's error only to
substitute for it not the truth but a fresh error. I drew, so far as their
manner of life and the proper way to behave with them went, all the
possible conclusions from the word "Innocence" which I had read, in
talking familiarly with them, upon their faces. But perhaps I had
been reading carelessly, with the inaccuracy born of a too rapid
deciphering, and it was no more written there than was the name of
Jules Ferry on the programme of the performance at which I had
heard Berma for the first time, an omission which had not prevented
me from maintaining to M. de Norpois that Jules Ferry, beyond any
possibility of doubt, was a person who wrote curtain-raisers.
No matter which it might be of my friends of the little band, was not
inevitably the face that I had last seen the only face that I could
recall, since, of our memories with respect to a person, the mind
eliminates everything that does not agree with our immediate
purpose of our daily relations (especially if those relations are
quickened with an element of love which, ever unsatisfied, lives
always in the moment that is about to come)? That purpose allows
the chain of spent days to slip away, holding on only to the very end
of it, often of a quite different metal from the links that, have
vanished in the night, and in the journey which we make through
life, counts as real only in the place in which we at any given
moment are. But all those earliest impressions, already so remote,
could not find, against the blunting process that assailed them day
after day, any remedy in my memory; during the long hours which I
spent in talking, eating, playing with these girls, I did not remember
even that they were the same ruthless, sensual virgins whom I had
seen, as in a fresco, file past between me and the sea.
Geographers, archaeologists may conduct us over Calypso's island,
may excavate the Palace of Minos. Only Calypso becomes then
nothing more than a woman, Minos than a king with no semblance
of divinity. Even the good and bad qualities which history teaches us
to have been the attributes of those quite real personages, often
differ widely from those which we had ascribed to the fabulous
beings who bore the same names as they. Thus had there faded and
vanished all the lovely mythology of Ocean which I had composed in
those first days. But it is not altogether immaterial that we do
succeed, at any rate now and then, in spending our time in familiar
intercourse with what we have thought to be unattainable and have
longed to possess. In our later dealings with people whom at first
we found disagreeable there persists always, even among the
artificial pleasure which we have come at length to enjoy in their
society, the lingering taint of the defects which they have succeeded
in hiding. But, in relations such as I was now having with Albertine
and her friends, the genuine pleasure which was there at the start
leaves that fragrance which no amount of skill can impart to hot-
house fruits, to grapes that have not ripened in the sun. The
supernatural creatures which for a little time they had been to me
still introduced, even without any intention on my part, a miraculous
element into the most common-place dealings that I might have
with them, or rather prevented such dealings from ever becoming
common-place at all. My desire had sought so ardently to learn the
significance of the eyes which now knew and smiled to see me, but
whose glances on the first day had crossed mine like rays from
another universe; it had distributed so generously, so carefully, so
minutely, colour and fragrance over the carnation surfaces of these
girls who now, outstretched on the cliff-top, were simply offering me
sandwiches or guessing riddles, that often, in the afternoon, while I
lay there among them, like those painters who seek to match the
grandeurs of antiquity in modern life, give to a woman cutting her
toe-nail the nobility of the Spinario, or, like Rubens, make goddesses
out of women whom they know, to people some mythological scene;
at those lovely forms, dark and fair, so dissimilar in type, scattered
around me in the grass, I would gaze without emptying them,
perhaps, of all the mediocre contents with which my every day
experience had filled them, and at the same time without expressly
recalling their heavenly origin, as if, like young Hercules or young
Telemachus, I had been set to play amid a band of nymphs.
Then the concerts ended, the bad weather began, my friends left
Balbec; not all at once, like the swallows, but all in the same week.
Albertine was the first to go, abruptly, without any of her friends
understanding, then or afterwards, why she had returned suddenly
to Paris whither neither her work nor any amusement summoned
her. "She said neither why nor wherefore, and with that she left!"
muttered Françoise, who, for that matter, would have liked us to
leave as well. We were, she thought, inconsiderate towards the staff,
now greatly reduced in number, but retained on account of the few
visitors who were still staying on, and towards the manager who was
"just eating up money." It was true that the hotel, which would very
soon be closed for the winter, had long since seen most of its
patrons depart, but never had it been so attractive. This view was
not shared by the manager; from end to end of the rooms in which
we sat shivering, and at the doors of which no page now stood on
guard, he paced the corridors, wearing a new frock coat, so well
tended by the hairdresser that his insipid face appeared to be made
of some composition in which, for one part of flesh, there were three
of cosmetics, incessantly changing his neckties. (These refinements
cost less than having the place heated and keeping on the staff, just
as a man who is no longer able to subscribe ten thousand francs to
a charity can still parade his generosity without inconvenience to
himself by tipping the boy who brings him a telegram with five.) He
appeared to be inspecting the empty air, to be seeking to give, by
the smartness of his personal appearance, a provisional splendour to
the desolation that could now be felt in this hotel where the season
had not been good, and walked like the ghost of a monarch who
returns to haunt the ruins of what was once his palace. He was
particularly annoyed when the little local railway company, finding
the supply of passengers inadequate, discontinued its trains until the
following spring. "What is lacking here," said the manager, "is the
means of commotion." In spite of the deficit which his books
shewed, he was making plans for the future on a lavish scale. And
as he was, after all, capable of retaining an exact memory of fine
language when it was directly applicable to the hotel-keeping
industry and had the effect of enhancing its importance: "I was not
adequately supported, although in the dining-room I had an efficient
squad," he explained; "but the pages left something to be desired.
You will see, next year, what a phalanx I shall collect." In the
meantime the suspension of the services of the B. C. B. obliged him
to send for letters and occasionally to dispatch visitors in a light cart.
I would often ask leave to sit by the driver, and in this way I
managed to be out in all weathers, as in the winter that I had spent
at Combray.
Sometimes, however, the driving rain kept my grandmother and me,
the Casino being closed, in rooms almost completely deserted, as in
the lowest hold of a ship when a storm is raging; and there, day by
day, as in the course of a sea-voyage, a new person from among
those in whose company we had spent three months without getting
to know them, the chief magistrate from Caen, the leader of the
Cherbourg bar, an American lady and her daughters, came up to us,
started conversation, discovered some way of making the time pass
less slowly, revealed some social accomplishment, taught us a new
game, invited us to drink tea or to listen to music, to meet them at a
certain hour, to plan together some of those diversions which
contain the true secret of pleasure-giving, which is to aim not at
giving pleasure but simply at helping us to pass the time of our
boredom, in a word, formed with us, at the end of our stay at
Balbec, ties of friendship which, in a day or two, their successive
departures from the place would sever. I even made the
acquaintance of the rich young man, of one of his pair of aristocratic
friends and of the actress, who had reappeared for a few days; but
their little society was composed now of three persons only, the
other friend having returned to Paris. They asked me to come out to
dinner with them at their restaurant. I think, they were just as well
pleased that I did not accept. But they had given the invitation in the
most friendly way imaginable, and albeit it came actually from the
rich young man, since the others were only his guests, as the friend
who was staying with him, the Marquis Maurice de Vaudémont,
came of a very good family indeed, instinctively the actress, in
asking me whether I would not come, said, to flatter my vanity:
"Maurice will be so pleased."
And when in the hall of the hotel I met them all three together, it
was M. de Vaudémont (the rich young man effacing himself) who
said to me: "Won't you give us the pleasure of dining with us?"
On the whole I had derived very little benefit from Balbec, but this
only strengthened my desire to return there. It seemed to me that I
had not stayed there long enough. This was not what my friends at
home were thinking, who wrote to ask whether I meant to stay
there for the rest of my life. And when I saw that it was the name
"Balbec" which they were obliged to put on the envelope—just as
my window looked out not over a landscape or a street but on to the
plains of the sea, as I heard through the night its murmur to which I
had before going to sleep entrusted my ship of dreams, I had the
illusion that this life of promiscuity with the waves must effectively,
without my knowledge, pervade me with the notion of their charm,
like those lessons which one learns by heart while one is asleep.
The manager offered to reserve better rooms for me next year, but I
had now become attached to mine, into which I went without ever
noticing the scent of flowering grasses, while my mind, which had
once found such difficulty in rising to fill its space had come now to
take its measurements so exactly that I was obliged to submit it to a
reverse process when I had to sleep in Paris, in my own room, the
ceiling of which was low.
It was high time, indeed, to leave Balbec, for the cold and damp had
become too penetrating for us to stay any longer in a hotel which
had neither fireplaces in the rooms nor a central furnace. Moreover, I
forgot almost immediately these last weeks of our stay. What my
mind's eye did almost invariably see when I thought of Balbec were
the hours which, every morning during the fine weather, as I was
going out in the afternoon with Albertine and her friends, my
grandmother, following the doctor's orders, insisted on my spending
lying down, with the room darkened. The manager gave instructions
that no noise was to be made on my landing, and came up himself
to see that they were obeyed. Because the light outside was so
strong, I kept drawn for as long as possible the big violet curtains
which had adopted so hostile an attitude towards me the first
evening. But as, in spite of the pins with which, so that the light
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