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48 - Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust · Within a Budding Grove

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  Speaker 1: Section forty eight of Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust,
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  Speaker 1: translated by C. K. Scott Moncrief. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Kristin Hand Seascape with
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  Speaker 1: Frieze of Girls, Part fifteen. I had supposed that the
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  Speaker 1: love which I felt for Albertine was not based on
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  Speaker 1: the hope of carnal possession. And yet when the lesson
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  Speaker 1: to be drawn from my experience that evening was apparently
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  Speaker 1: that such possession was impossible. When after having had not
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  Speaker 1: the least doubt that first day on the beach of
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  Speaker 1: Albertine's being unchased, and having then passed through various intermediate assumptions,
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  Speaker 1: I seemed to have quite definitely reached the conclusion that
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  Speaker 1: she was absolutely virtuous. When on her return from her
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  Speaker 1: aunts a week later, she greeted me coldly with I
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  Speaker 1: forgive you. In fact, I'm sorry to have upset you,
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  Speaker 1: but you must never do it again. Then, in contrast
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  Speaker 1: to what I had felt, on learning from Bloch that
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  Speaker 1: one could always have all the women one liked, and
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  Speaker 1: as if in place of a real girl, I had
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  Speaker 1: known a wax doll, it came to pass that gradually
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  Speaker 1: there detached itself from her. My desire to penetrate into
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  Speaker 1: her life, to follow her through the places in which
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  Speaker 1: she had spent her childhood, to be initiated by her
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  Speaker 1: into the athletic life. My intellectual curiosity to know what
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  Speaker 1: were her thoughts on this subject or that did not
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  Speaker 1: survive my belief that I might take her in my arms.
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  Speaker 1: If I chose my dreams abandoned her. Once they had
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  Speaker 1: ceased to be nourished by the hope of a possession
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  Speaker 1: of which I had supposed them to be independent, thenceforward
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  Speaker 1: they found themselves once more at liberty to transmit themselves
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  Speaker 1: according to the attraction that I had found in her
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  Speaker 1: on any particular day, above all, according to the chances
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  Speaker 1: that I seemed to detect of my being possibly one
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  Speaker 1: day loved by her, to one or another of Albertine's friends,
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  Speaker 1: and to Andrea first of all. And yet if Albertine
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  Speaker 1: had not existed, perhaps I should not have had the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure which I began to feel more and more strongly
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  Speaker 1: during the days that followed, in the kindness that was
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  Speaker 1: shown me by Andrea. Albertine told no one of the
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  Speaker 1: check which I had received at her hands. She was
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  Speaker 1: one of those pretty girls who from their earliest youth
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  Speaker 1: by their beauty, but especially by an attraction, a charm
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  Speaker 1: which remains somewhat mysterious and has its source perhaps in
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  Speaker 1: reserves of vitality, to which others less favored by nature
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  Speaker 1: come to quench their thirst. Have always in their home circle,
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  Speaker 1: among their friends in society, proved more attractive than other,
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  Speaker 1: more beautiful, richer girls. She was one of those people
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  Speaker 1: from whom, before the age of love, and ever so
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  Speaker 1: much more after it is reached, one asks more than
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  Speaker 1: they ask in return, more even than they are able
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  Speaker 1: to give. From her childhood, Albertine had always round her
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  Speaker 1: in an adoring circle, four or five little girl friends,
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  Speaker 1: among them Andrea, who was so far her superior and
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  Speaker 1: knew it. And perhaps his attraction, which Albertine exerted quite involuntarily,
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  Speaker 1: had been the origin, had laid the foundations of the
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  Speaker 1: little band. This attraction was still potent even at a
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  Speaker 1: great social distance, in circles, quite brilliant in comparison, where
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  Speaker 1: if there was a pavane to be danced, they would
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  Speaker 1: send for Albertine rather than have it danced by another
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  Speaker 1: girl of a better family. The consequence was that, not
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  Speaker 1: having a penny to her name, living a hard enough life. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: on the hand of Monsieur Bontemp, who was said to
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  Speaker 1: be on the rocks and was anyhow anxious to be
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  Speaker 1: rid of her, she was nevertheless invited not only to
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  Speaker 1: dine but to stay by people who, in song Loop's sight,
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  Speaker 1: might not have had any distinction. But to Rosamond's mother
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  Speaker 1: or Andrea's women, who, though very rich themselves, did not
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  Speaker 1: know these other and richer people represented something quite incalculable.
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  Speaker 1: Thus Albertine spent a few weeks every year with the
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  Speaker 1: family of one of the governors of the Bank of France,
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  Speaker 1: who was also chairman of the board of directors of
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  Speaker 1: a great railway company. The wife of this financier entertained
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  Speaker 1: people of importance, and had never mentioned her day to
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  Speaker 1: Andrea's mother, who thought her wanting in politeness, but was
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  Speaker 1: nevertheless prodigiously interested in everything that went on in her house. Accordingly,
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  Speaker 1: she encouraged Andrea every year to invite Albertine down to
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  Speaker 1: their villa, because, as she said, it was a real
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  Speaker 1: charity to offer a holiday by the sea to a
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  Speaker 1: girl who has not herself the means to travel and
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  Speaker 1: whose aunt did so little for her. Andrea's mother was
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  Speaker 1: probably not prompted by the thought that the banker and
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  Speaker 1: his wife, learning that Albertine was made much of by
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  Speaker 1: her and her daughter, would form a high opinion of
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  Speaker 1: them both. Less did she hope that Albertine, good and
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  Speaker 1: clever as she was, would manage to get her invited,
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  Speaker 1: or at least to get Andrea invited to the financier's
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  Speaker 1: garden parties. But every evening at the dinner table, while
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  Speaker 1: she assumed an air of indifference slightly tinged with contempt,
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  Speaker 1: she was fascinated by Albertine's accounts of everything that had
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  Speaker 1: happened at the Big House while she was staying there,
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  Speaker 1: and the names of the other guests, almost all of
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  Speaker 1: them people whom she knew by sight or by name. True.
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  Speaker 1: The thought that she knew them only in this indirect fashion,
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  Speaker 1: that is to say, did not know them at all,
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  Speaker 1: she called this kind of acquaintance knowing people all my life,
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  Speaker 1: gave Andrea's mother a touch of melancholy. While she plied
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  Speaker 1: Albertine with questions about them in a lofty and distant tone,
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  Speaker 1: speaking with closed lips, and might have left her doubtful
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  Speaker 1: and uneasy as to the importance of her own social position,
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  Speaker 1: had she not been able to reassure herself to return
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  Speaker 1: safely to the realities of life by saying to the butler,
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  Speaker 1: please tell the chef that he has not made the
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  Speaker 1: peas soft enough. She then recovered her serenity, and she
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  Speaker 1: was quite determined that Andrea was to marry nobody but
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  Speaker 1: a man of the best family, of course, but rich
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  Speaker 1: enough for her too to be able to keep a
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  Speaker 1: chef and a couple of coachmen. This was the proof positive,
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  Speaker 1: the practical indication of position. But the fact that Albertine
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  Speaker 1: had died at the banker's house in the country with
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  Speaker 1: this or that great lady, and that the said great
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  Speaker 1: lady had invited the girl to stay with her next winter,
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  Speaker 1: did not invalidate a sort of special consideration which Albertine
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  Speaker 1: showed towards Andrea's mother, which went very well with the
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  Speaker 1: pity and even repulsion excited by the tale of her misfortunes,
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  Speaker 1: a repulsion increased by the fact that Monsieur Bontempt had
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  Speaker 1: proved a traitor to the cause. He was even people said,
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  Speaker 1: vaguely panamist, and had rallied to the government. Not that
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  Speaker 1: this deterred Andrea's mother, in her passion for abstract truth,
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  Speaker 1: from withering with her scorn the people who appeared to
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  Speaker 1: believe that Albertine was of humble origin. What's that you say?
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  Speaker 1: Why they're one of the best families in the country,
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  Speaker 1: siemnet with a single n You know, certainly, in view
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  Speaker 1: of the class of society in which all this went on,
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  Speaker 1: in which money plays so important a part, and mere
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  Speaker 1: charm makes people ask you out but not marry you,
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  Speaker 1: a comfortable marriage did not appear to be for Albertine
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  Speaker 1: a practical outcome of the so distinguished patronage which she enjoyed,
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  Speaker 1: but which would not have been held to compensate for
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  Speaker 1: her poverty. But even by themselves, and with no prospect
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  Speaker 1: of any matrimonial consequence, Albertine's successes in society excited the
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  Speaker 1: envy of certain spiteful mothers, furious at seeing her received
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  Speaker 1: like one of the family by the banker's wife, even
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  Speaker 1: by Andre's mother, neither of whom they themselves really knew.
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  Speaker 1: They therefore went about telling common friends of those ladies
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  Speaker 1: and their own that both ladies would be very angry
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  Speaker 1: if they knew the facts, which were that Albertine repeated
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  Speaker 1: to each of them everything that the intimacy to which
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  Speaker 1: she was rashly admitted enabled her to spy out in
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  Speaker 1: the household of the other a thousand little secrets which
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  Speaker 1: it must be infinitely unpleasant to the interested party to
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  Speaker 1: have made public. These envious women said this so that
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  Speaker 1: it might be repeated and might get Albertine into trouble
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  Speaker 1: with her patrons. But as often happens, their machinations met
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  Speaker 1: with no success. The spite that prompted them was too apparent,
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  Speaker 1: and their only result was to make the other women
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  Speaker 1: who had planned them appear rather more contemptible than before.
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  Speaker 1: Andrea's mother was too firm in her opinion of Albertine
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  Speaker 1: to change her mind about her. Now she looked upon
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  Speaker 1: her as a poor wretch, but the best natured girl living,
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  Speaker 1: and one who would do anything in the world to
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  Speaker 1: give pleasure. If this sort of select popularity to which
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  Speaker 1: Albertine had attained did not seem likely to lead to
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  Speaker 1: any practical result, it had stamped Andrea's friend with the
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  Speaker 1: distinctive marks of people who, being always sought after, have
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  Speaker 1: never any need to offer themselves marks to be found also,
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  Speaker 1: and for analogous reasons, at the other end of the
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  Speaker 1: social scale, among the leaders of fashion, which consists in
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  Speaker 1: their not making any display of the successes they have scored,
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  Speaker 1: but rather keeping them to themselves. She would never say
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  Speaker 1: to anyone so and so is anxious to meet me,
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  Speaker 1: would speak of everyone with the greatest good nature, and
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  Speaker 1: as if it had been she who ran after, who
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  Speaker 1: sought to know other people, and not they. If you
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  Speaker 1: spoke of a young man who a few minutes earlier
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  Speaker 1: had been in private conversation with her, he being the
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  Speaker 1: bitterest reproaches upon her because she had refused him an assignation.
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  Speaker 1: So far from proclaiming this in public or betraying any resentment,
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  Speaker 1: she would stand up for him. He is such a
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  Speaker 1: nice boy. Indeed, it quite annoyed her when she attracted people,
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  Speaker 1: because that compelled her to disappoint them. Whereas her natural
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  Speaker 1: instinct was always to give pleasure, so much did she
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  Speaker 1: enjoy giving pleasure that she had come to employ a
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  Speaker 1: part particular kind of falsehood found among utilitarians and men
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  Speaker 1: who have arrived existing besides in an embryonic state. In
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  Speaker 1: a vast number of people, this form of insincerity consists
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  Speaker 1: in not being able to confine the pleasure arising out
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  Speaker 1: of a single act of politeness to a single person.
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  Speaker 1: For instance, if Albertine's aunt wished her niece to accompany
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  Speaker 1: her to a party which was not very lively, Albertine
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  Speaker 1: might have found it sufficient to extract from the incident
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  Speaker 1: the moral profit of having given pleasure to her aunt.
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  Speaker 1: But being courteously welcomed by her host and hostess, she
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  Speaker 1: thought it better to say to them that she had
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  Speaker 1: been wanting to see them for so long that she
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  Speaker 1: had finally seized this opportunity and begged her aunt to
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  Speaker 1: take her to their party. Even this was not enough.
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  Speaker 1: At the same party, there happened to be one of
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  Speaker 1: Albertine's friends who was in great distress. I did not
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  Speaker 1: like the idea of your being here by yourself. I
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  Speaker 1: thought it might do you good to have me with you,
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  Speaker 1: if you would rather come away from here go somewhere else.
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  Speaker 1: I am ready to do anything you like. All I
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  Speaker 1: want is to see you look not so sad, which,
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  Speaker 1: as it happened, was true. Also sometimes it happened, however,
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  Speaker 1: that the fictitious object destroyed the real. Thus Salbertine, having
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  Speaker 1: a favor to ask on behalf of one of her friends,
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  Speaker 1: went on purpose to see a certain lady who could
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  Speaker 1: help her. But on arriving at the house of this lady,
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  Speaker 1: a kind and sympathetic soul, the girl, unconsciously following the
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  Speaker 1: principle of utilizing a single action in a number of ways,
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  Speaker 1: felt it to be more ingratiating to appear to have
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  Speaker 1: come there solely on account of the pleasure she knew
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  Speaker 1: she would derive from seeing the lady again. The lady
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  Speaker 1: was deeply touched that Albertine should have taken a long
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  Speaker 1: journey purely out of friendship for herself. Seeing her almost
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  Speaker 1: overcome by emotion, Albertine began to like the lady still better.
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  Speaker 1: Only there was this awkward consequence. She now felt so
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  Speaker 1: keenly the pleasure of friendship, which she pretended to have
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  Speaker 1: been her motive in coming, that she was afraid of
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  Speaker 1: making the lady suspect the genuineness of sentiments which were
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  Speaker 1: actually quite sincere. If she now asked her to do
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  Speaker 1: the favor, whatever it may have been, for her friend,
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  Speaker 1: the lady would think that Albertine had come for that purpose,
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  Speaker 1: which was true. But would conclude also that Albertine had
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  Speaker 1: no disinterested pleasure in seeing her, which was not with
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  Speaker 1: the result that she came away without having asked the favor,
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  Speaker 1: like a man sometimes who has been so good to
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  Speaker 1: a woman in the hope of winning her that he
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  Speaker 1: refrains from declaring his passion in order to preserve for
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  Speaker 1: his goodness an air of nobility. In other instances, it
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  Speaker 1: would be wrong to say that the true object was
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  Speaker 1: sacrificed to the subordinate and subsequently conceived idea. But the
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  Speaker 1: two were so far incompatible that if the person to
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  Speaker 1: whom Albertin endeared herself by stating the second had known
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  Speaker 1: the existence of the first, his pleasure would at once
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  Speaker 1: have been turned into the deepest annoyance, which later point
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  Speaker 1: in this story we shall have occasion to see this
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  Speaker 1: kind of incompatibility expressed in clearer terms. Let us say,
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  Speaker 1: for the present, borrowing an example of a completely different order,
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  Speaker 1: that they occur very frequently in the most divergent situations
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  Speaker 1: that life has to offer. A husband has established his
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  Speaker 1: mistress in the town where he's quartered with his regiment.
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  Speaker 1: His wife left by herself in Paris, and with an
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  Speaker 1: inkling of the truth grows more and more miserable, and
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  Speaker 1: writes her husband letters. Embittered by jealousy. Very well, the
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  Speaker 1: mistress is obliged to go up to Paris for the day.
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  Speaker 1: The husband cannot resist her entreaties that he will go
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  Speaker 1: with her, and applies for short leave, which is granted.
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  Speaker 1: But as he is a good natured fellow and hates
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  Speaker 1: to make his wife unhappy, he goes to her and
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  Speaker 1: tells her, shedding a few quite genuine tears, that, driven
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  Speaker 1: to desperation by her letters, he has found the means
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  Speaker 1: of getting away from his duties to come to her
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  Speaker 1: to console her in his arms. He is the contrived
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  Speaker 1: by a single journey to furnish the wife and mistress
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  Speaker 1: alike with proofs of his affection. But if the wife
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  Speaker 1: were to learn the reason for which he has come
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  Speaker 1: to Paris, her joy would doubtless be turned into grief,
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  Speaker 1: unless her pleasure in seeing the faithless wretch outweighed in
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  Speaker 1: spite of everything the pain that his infidelities had caused her.
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  Speaker 1: Among the men who have struck me as practicing with
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: most perseverance, this system of what might be called killing
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: any number of birds with one stone must be included
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  Speaker 1: monsieur des n'orpois. He would now and then agree to
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  Speaker 1: act as intermediary between two of his friends who had quarreled,
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  Speaker 1: which led to his being called the most obliging of men.
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  Speaker 1: But it was not sufficient for him to appear to
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  Speaker 1: be doing a service to the friend who had come
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  Speaker 1: to him to demand it. He would represent to the
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  Speaker 1: other the steps which he was taking to effect a
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  Speaker 1: reconciliation as undertaken not at the request of the first friend,
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  Speaker 1: but in the interest of the second, an attitude of
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  Speaker 1: the since of which he had never any difficulty in
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  Speaker 1: convincing a listener already influenced by the idea that he
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  Speaker 1: saw before him the most serviceable of men. In this fashion,
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  Speaker 1: playing in two scenes turn about in what stage parlance
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  Speaker 1: is called doubling two parts, he never allowed his influence
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  Speaker 1: to be in the slightest degree imperiled, and the services
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  Speaker 1: which he rendered constituted not an expenditure of capital, but
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  Speaker 1: a dividend upon some part of his credit. At the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: same time, every service seemingly rendered twice over correspondingly enhanced
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  Speaker 1: his reputation as an obliging friend, and better still, a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: friend whose interventions were efficacious. One who did not draw
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: bows at a venture whose efforts were always justified by success,
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  Speaker 1: as was shown by the gratitude of both parties. This
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  Speaker 1: duplicity in rendering services was allowing for disappointments such as
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  Speaker 1: are the lot of every human being an important element
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  Speaker 1: of Monsieur de norpois character, And often at the ministry
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  Speaker 1: he would make use of my father, who was a
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  Speaker 1: simple soul, while making him believe that it was he,
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur de n'orpois, who was being useful to my father,
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  Speaker 1: attracting people more easily than she wished, and having no
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: need to proclaim her conquests abroad. Albertine kept silence with
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: regard to the scene with myself by her bedside, which
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  Speaker 1: a plain girl would have wished the whole world to know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And yet of her attitude during that scene I could
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  Speaker 1: not arrive at any satisfactory explanation, taking first of all
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  Speaker 1: the supposition that she was absolutely chaste, a supposition with
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: which I had originally accounted for the violence with which
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  Speaker 1: Albertine had refused to let herself be taken in my
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  Speaker 1: arms and kissed, though it was by no means essential
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  Speaker 1: to my conception of the goodness the fundamentally honorable character
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  Speaker 1: of my friend. I could not accept it without a
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  Speaker 1: copious revision of its terms. It ran so entirely counter
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  Speaker 1: to the hypothesis which I had constructed that day when
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I saw Albertine for the first time, than ever, so
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: many different acts, all acts of kindness towards myself, a
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  Speaker 1: kindness that was caressing at times uneasy, alarmed, jealous of
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  Speaker 1: my predilection for Andrea, came up on all sides to
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: challenge the brutal gesture with which to escape from me.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: She had pulled the bell. Why had she invited me
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  Speaker 1: to come and spend the evening by her bedside? Why
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  Speaker 1: had she spoken all the time in the language of affection?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: What object is there in your desire to see a friend,
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  Speaker 1: in your fear that he is fonder of another of
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  Speaker 1: your friends than of you? Why seek to give him pleasure?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Why tell him so romantically that the others will never
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: know that he has spent the evening in your room?
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  Speaker 1: If you refuse him, so simple a pleasure, and if
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  Speaker 1: to you it is no pleasure at all. I could
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  Speaker 1: not believe all the same that Albertine's chastity was carried
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  Speaker 1: to such a pitch as that, and I had begun
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  Speaker 1: to ask myself whether her violence might not have been
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: due to some reason of coquetry, a disagreeable odor, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: which she suspected of lingering about her person, and by
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  Speaker 1: which she was afraid that I might be disgusted, or
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  Speaker 1: else of cowardice, if, for instance, she imagined, in her
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  Speaker 1: ignorance of the facts of love, that my state of
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: nervous exhaustion was due to something contagious communicable to her
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  Speaker 1: in a kiss. She was generally distressed by her failure
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  Speaker 1: to afford me pleasure, and gave me a little gold
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  Speaker 1: pencil case with that virtuous perversity which people show, who
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  Speaker 1: moved by your supplications, and yet not consenting to grant
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  Speaker 1: you what those supplications demand, are anxious all the stame
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  Speaker 1: to bestow on you some mark of their affection. The
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: critic an article from whose pen would so gratify the novelists,
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  Speaker 1: ask him instead to dinner. The duchess who does not
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: take the snob with her to the theater, but lends
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: him her box on an evening when she will not
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: be using it herself. So far are those who do
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: least for us, and might easily do nothing, driven by
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: conscience to do something. I told Albertine that in giving
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: me this pencil case, she was affording me great pleasure,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and yet not so great as I should have felt.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: If on the night she had spent at the hotel,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: she had permitted me to embrace her, it would have
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: made me so happy. What possible harm could it have
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: done you? I was simply astounded at your refusing to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: let me do it. What astounds me, she retorted, is
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that you should have thought it astounding funny sort of girls.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: You must know if my behavior surprises you, I am
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: extremely sorry if I annoyed you. But even now I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: cannot say that I think I was in the wrong.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: What I feel is that all that sort of thing
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: is of no importance really, and I can't understand a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: girl who would so easily give pleasure not consenting to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: do so. Let us be quite clear about it. I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: went on, throwing a sop of sorts to her moral
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: scruples as I recalled how she and her friends had
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: scarified the girl who went about with the actress Leah.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to say for a moment that a
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: girl can behave exactly as she likes, or that there's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: no such thing as immorality. Take let me see now, Yes,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: what you were saying the other day about a girl
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: who is staying at ball Back and her relations with
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: an actress, I call that degrading, so degrading that I
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: feel must all have been made up by the girl's enemies,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and that there can't be any truth in the story.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: It strikes me as improbable, impossible. But to let a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: friend kiss you and go farther than that, even since
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you say that I am your friend, so you are.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But I have had friends before now, I have known
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: lots of young men who were every bit as friendly.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I can assure you there wasn't one of them would
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: ever have dared to do a thing like that. They
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: knew they'd get their ears box if they tried it on. Besides,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they never dreamed of trying. We would shake hands in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: an open, friendly sort of way, like good pals, but
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: there was never a word said about kissing. And yet
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: we weren't any the less friends for that. Why if
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it's my friendship you are after, you've nothing to complain of.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I must be jolly fond of you to forgive you.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: But I'm sure that you don't care two straws about me.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Really own up. Now it's Andre you're in love with.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: After all, You're quite right. She is ever so much
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: prettier than I am, and perfectly charming. Oh you men,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: despite my recent disappointment, these words so frankly uttered by
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: giving me a great respect for Albertine, made a very
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: pleasant impression on me. And perhaps this impression was to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: have serious and vexatious consequences for me later on, For
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it was round it that there began to form that
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: feeling almost of brotherly intimacy, that moral core which was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: always to remain at the heart of my love for Albertine.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: A feeling of this sort may be the cause of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the keenest pain, for in order really to suffer at
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the hands of a woman, one must have believed in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: her completely. For the moment that embryo of moral estas
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: of friendship was left embedded in me like a stepping
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: stone in a stream, it could have availed nothing by
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: itself against my happiness if it had remained there without
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: growing in an inertia, which it was to retain the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: following year, and still more during the final weeks of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: this first visit to Ballbeck. It dwelt in me like
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: one of those foreign bodies, which it would be wiser
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: when all is said to expel, but which we leave
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: where they are without disturbing them. So harmless for the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: present does their weakness, their isolation amid a strange environment,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: render them. End of Section forty eight.