Beckett on Proust: Albertine

Beckett follows Albertine from Marcel’s first visit to Balbec.

Thus her relationship with Mme. Bontemps, her early amiabilities, the effect of a declamatory beauty-spot on her chin, her use of the adverb ‘perfectly ‘ for ‘quite,’ the provisional inflammation of her temple constituting an optical centre of gravity about which the composition of her features is organised, are sufficient taken together to establish an Albertine as remote from the first Albertine, the beach flower, as yet a third aspect, characterised by a pronounced nasal enunciation, a terrifying command of slang, the disappearance of the inflamed temple, and the miraculous transference of the beauty-spot from her chin to her upper lip, is remote from the second. Thus is established the pictorial multiplicity of Albertine that will duly evolve into a plastic and moral multiplicity, no longer a mere shifting superficies and an effect of the observer’s angle of approach rather than the expression of an inward and active variety, but a multiplicity in depth, a turmoil of objective and immanent contradictions over which the subject has no control. (32)

 But Albertine is a fugitive, and no expression of her value can be complete unless preceded by some such symbol as that which physics denotes speed. A static Albertine would soon be conquered, would soon be compared to all the other possible conquests that her possession excludes, and the infinite of what is not and may be preferred to the nullity of what is. Love, he insists, can only coexist with a state of dissatisfaction, whether born of jealousy or its predecessor–desire. It represents our demand for a whole. (39)

There is no limit to her deceit and none to his faculty of suffering. And in the midst of this Tolomea [a region in Dante's Inferno. JE] he knows that this woman has no reality, that ‘our most exclusive love for a person is always our love for something else,’ that intrinsically she is less than nothing, but that in her nothingness there is active, mysterious and invisible, a current that forces him to bow down and worship an obscure and implacable Goddess, and to make sacrifices of himself before her. And the Goddess who requires this sacrifice and this humiliation, whose sole condition of patronage is corruptibililty, and into whose faith and worship all mankind is born, is the Goddess of Time. No object prolonged in this temporal dimension tolerates possession, meaning by possession total possession, only to be achieved by the complete identification of object and subject. The impenetrability of the most vulgar and insignificant human creature is not merely an illusion of the subject’s jealousy (although this impenetrability stands out more clearly under the Röntgen rays of a jealousy so fiercely hypertrophied as was that of the narrator, a jealousy that is doubtless a form of his domination complex and his infantilism, two tendencies highly developed in Proust). (41-41)

The Decisive Battle

Perhaps inspired by the perfectly executed Verdurin plan to separate Charlus from Charlie, Marcel launches a campaign against Albertine to insure that she remains his captive. It starts when Albertine is outraged that Marcel would go out for the evening by himself. He intuits this as a reprimand to him for not allowing her the freedom go where and when she pleases.

And so, just as she was telling me that she had never felt so affronted and when she had heard that I had gone out alone, that she would sooner have died than be told this by Françoise, and just as, irritated by her absurd susceptibility, I was on the point of telling her that what I had done was trivial, that there was nothing wounding to her in my having gone out, my unconscious parallel search for what she had meant to say had come to fruition, and the despair into which my discovery plunged me could not be completely hidden, so that instead of defending, I accused myself. “…My little Albertine” (I went on in a tone of profound gentleness and sorrow), “don’t you see that the life you’re leading here is boring for you. It is better that we should part and as the best partings are those that are effected most swiftly, I ask you, to cut short the great sorrow that I am bound to feel, to say good-bye to me tonight and to leave in the morning without my seeing you again, while I’m asleep.”  She appeared stunned, incredulous and desolate: “Tomorrow? You really mean it?” (V,459)

Marcel becomes assured that she really is content with her life with him.

The fear that Albertine was perhaps going to say to me: “I want to be allowed to go out by myself at certain hours. I want to be able to stay away for twenty-four hours,” or some such request for freedom which I did not attempt to define, but which alarmed me, this fear had crossed my mind for a moment during the Verdurin reception. But it had been dispelled, contradicted moreover by the memory of Albertine’s constant assurances of how happy she was with me. (V,465)

He is fully aware that he has put on a show to reign in Albertine.

My words, therefore, did not in the least reflect my feelings. If the reader has no more than a faint impression of these, that is because, as narrator, I expose my feelings to him at the same time as I repeat my words. But if I concealed the former and he were acquainted only with the latter, my actions, so little in keeping with them, would so often give him the impressions of strange reversals that he would think me more or less mad. (V,467)

Albertine being in more or less the same position as the reader, it is a wonder that she does not think him mad. The tide of battle shifts. Albertine reveals some of her secrets.  She reveals that she is well acquainted with Bloch’s sister Esther, that she not only knows the actress Lea but spent three weeks with her, that she lied about going to Balbec and instead spent time with a friend, which at one point involved going out dressed as a man, etc. This fires Marcel’s jealous resentment and locks him into an even more consuming desire to dominate.

I had suddenly wanted to keep Albertine because I felt that she was scattered about among other people with whom I could not prevent her from mixing. But even if she had renounced them all for ever for my sake, I might perhaps have been still more firmly resolved never to leave her, for separation is made painful by jealousy but impossible by gratitude. I felt that in any case I was fighting the decisive battle in which I must conquer or succumb. I would have offered Albertine in an hour all that I possessed, because I said to myself: Everything depends upon this battle.” (V,475)

Social Jealousy

The novel might be considered a long treatise on the nature of jealousy. The form that afflicted Swann and now afflicts Marcel springs from the fear that the loved one may be enjoying herself with someone else and quite possibly in a way that he can never compete with. Marcel’s jealousy is especially strangling because it’s origin is Oedipal, his childish anguish over his mother enjoying herself with dinner guests rather than with him. Mme Verdurin introduces a non-erotic form of jealousy. She cannot bear the thought that one of her clan may be happy outside of her salon.

She has tolerated Charlus, who manifestly has another life, because he brings Morel and he confers some status. But at a musical soirée he crosses the line. He has invited various of his relatives and the elite to attend Morel’s playing of the Vinteuil septet. After the concert they take their leave from Charlus, ignoring their hostess.

The most noble ladies were those who showed most fervour in congratulating M. de Charlus upon the success of a party of the secret motive for which some of them were not unaware, without however being embarrassed by the knowledge, this class of society–remembering perhaps certain epochs in history when their own families had already arrived in full consciousness at a similar effrontery–carrying their contempt for scruples almost as far as their respect for etiquette. Several  of them engaged Charlie on the spot for different evenings on which he was to come and play them Vinteuil’s septet, but it never occurred to any of them to invite Mme Verdurin….The latter was already blind with fury. (V, 363-364)

The Baron is oblivious to her fury at being marginalized in her own house, in front of her clan.

Intoxicated by the sound of his own voice, M. de Charlus failed to realise that by acknowledging Mme Verdurin’s role and confining it within narrow limits, he was unleashing that feeling of hatred which was in her only a special, social form of jealousy. Mme Verdurin was genuinely fond of her regular visitors, the faithful of the little clan, but wished them to be entirely devoted to their Mistress. Cutting her losses, like those jealous lovers who will tolerate unfaithfulness, but only under their own roof and even in front of their eyes, that is to say when it scarcely counts as unfaithfulness, she would allow the men to have mistresses or male lovers, on condition that the affair had no social consequence outside her own house, that the tie was formed and perpetuated in the shelter of her Wednesdays.In the old days, every furtive giggle that came from Odette when she was with Swann had gnawed at Mme Verdurin, and so of late had every aside exchanged by Morel and the Baron; she found one consolation alone for vexations, which was to destroy the happiness of others. (V,370)

Goodnight Kisses

The more I read of Marcel and Albertine, and before that of Swann and Odette, the more I realize the importance of the opening to the novel, the goodnight kiss. It is the source of his lifelong agony

…the anguish that comes from knowing that the creature one adores is in some place of enjoyment where oneself is not and cannot follow…Those inaccessible and excruciating hours during which she was about to taste of unknown pleasures…(I,40-41)

And the agony cannot be dissolved by knowledge.

It struck me that if had just won a victory it was over her, that I had succeeded, as sickness or sorrow or age might have succeeded, in relaxing her will, in undermining her judgement; and that this evening opened a new era, would remain a black date in the calendar. (I,51)

But of late I have been increasingly able to catch, if I listen attentively, the sound of the sobs which I had the strength to control in my father’s presence, and which broke out only when I found myself alone with Mamma. In reality their echo has never ceased…(I,49)

Their echo is heard again when the despairing Albertine leaves his room without giving him a good night kiss.

As in the old days at Combray when my mother had left me without soothing me with her kiss, I wanted to rush after Albertine, I felt that there would be no peace for me until I had seen her again, that this renewed encounter would turn into something tremendous which it had not been before and that–if I did not succeed by my own efforts in ridding myself of this misery–I might perhaps acquire the shameful habit of going to beg from Albertine….I returned to my station outside her door, but the crack beneath it no longer showed any light. Albertine had put out the light, she was in bed; I remained there motionless, hoping for some lucky accident which did not occur; and long afterwards, frozen, I returned to bestow myself between my own sheets and cried for the rest of the night. (V,141-142)

 

Andrée in Love

We have seen Marcel trace the roots of his jealousy to the fear that the lover is enjoying pleasures that he is not aware of and, indeed, that he may not be able to comprehend. He has entrusted the vigilant care of Albertine to Andrée, but now, as always, he begins to notice things. He encounters Andrée leaving his apartment and Albertine acting a bit flustered when he enters.

 Once again, at the actual moment I saw nothing in all this that was not perfectly natural, at the most a little confused., but in any case unimportant. She had nearly been caught with Andrée, and had snatched a brief respite for herself by turning out all the lights, going to my room so that I should not see the disorder of her bed, and pretending to be writing a letter. But we shall see all this–the truth of which I never ascertained–later on. (V,65)

He is well-qualified to notice a change in Andrée’s personality.

Andrée’s defects had become more marked; she was no longer as pleasant a companion as when I first knew her. One noticed now, on the surface, a sort of sour uneasiness, ready to gather like a swell on the sea,  merely if I happened to mention something that gave pleasure to Albertine and myself. This did not prevent Andrée from being nicer to me and like me better–and I had frequent proof of this–than more amiable people. But the slightest look of happiness on a person’s face, if it was not caused by herself, gave a shock to her nerves, as unpleasant as that given by a banging door. (V,70)

Marcel Adopts a Cat

Now that Albertine is under direct supervision by Marcel, his jealousy subsides and with it his passion for Albertine.

But this calm which my mistress procured for me was an assuagement of suffering rather than a joy. Not that it did not enable me to taste many joys from which the intensity of my anguish had debarred me, but, far from my owing  them to Albertine, who in any case I no longer found very pretty and with whom I was bored, with whom I was indeed clearly conscious that I was not in love, I tasted these joys on the contrary when Albertine was not with me. (V,4-5)

Why is he bored with her?

We shall see in due course that, in spite of stupid habits of speech which she had not outgrown, Albertine had developed to an astonishing degree. This was a matter of complete indifference to me, a woman’s intellectual qualities having always interested me so little that if I pointed them out to some woman or other it was solely out of politeness. (V,12)

But Marcel does find an unexpected comfort in Albertine, that of an affectionate and calming pet (like a cat; I cannot imagine he was a dog person).

She would never think of shutting a door and, by the same token, would no more hesitate to enter a room if the door stood open than would a dog or a cat. Her somewhat inconvenient charm was, in fact, that of behaving in the household not so much like a girl as like a domestic animal which comes into a room and goes out again and is to found wherever one least expects to find it, and she would often–something that I found profoundly restful–come and lie down beside me on my bed, making a place for herself from which she never stirred, without disturbing me as a person would have done. (V,9)

Anatomy of Jealousy

The seeds of Marcel’s raging jealousy over Albertine are laid right at the beginning of his re-acquaintance with her at Balbec. The first time she sees him she tells him she wants to leave Balbec.

But on the day on which Albertine came, the weather had turned dull and cold again, and moreover I had no opportunity of hearing her laugh; she was in a very bad mood. ”Balbec is deadly dull this year,” she said to me. “I don’t mean to stay any longer than I can help.” (IV,243)

Shortly after, she announces that she has changed her mind.

She informed me (contrary to what she had said the other day) that she would be staying for the whole season and asked me whether we could not arrange, as in the former year, to meet daily. I told her that at the moment I was too sad and that I would rather send for her from time to time at the last moment, as I did in Paris. “If ever you’re feeling gloomy or if you’re in the mood, don’t hesitate,” she told me, “just send for me and I shall come at once, and if you’re not afraid of its creating a scandal in the hotel, I shall stay as long as you like.” (IV,253)

Marcel notices that she has changed her mind about wanting to leave, but is left to wonder why. And, as if taking advantage of her impecunious circumstances, he treats her as a servant, to be called when he is in need of her. This belies his own professed awareness.

It would be untrue, I think, to say that there were already symptoms of that painful and perpetual mistrust which Albertine was to inspire in me, not to mention the special character, emphatically Gomorrhan, which that mistrust was to assume. (IV,252).

The “Gomorrhan” fixation is implanted by a remark by Dr. Cottard. They have just entered a casino and find there Andrée and Albertine. He abandons his plan to go on the Verdurins after being aroused by the sound of Albertine’s laughter, a sound that would arouse him by its sensuality and then pain him because it excluded him.

The fact was that I had just heard her laugh. And this laugh at once evoked the flesh-pink, fragrant surfaces with which it seemed to have just been in contact and of which it seemed to carry with it, pungent, sensual and revealing as the scent of geraniums, a few almost tangible and secretly provoking  particles….”There now, look,” [Cottard] went on, pointing to Albertine and Andrée who were waltzing slowly, tightly clasped together, “I’ve left my glasses behind and I can’t see very well, but they are certainly keenly aroused. It’s not sufficiently known that women derive most excitement through their breasts. And theirs, as you see, are touching completely.”…At that moment Andrée said something to Albertine, who laughed with the same deep and penetrating laugh that I had heard before. But the unease it roused in me this time was nothing but painful; Albertine appeared to be conveying, to be making Andrée share, some secret and voluptuous thrill. (IV,265-266)

Next day, when Albertine wrote to me that she had only just got back to Epreville, and so had not received my note in time, and would come, if she might, to see me that evening, behind the words of her letter, as behind those that she had said to me once over the telephone, I thought I could detect the presence of pleasures, of people, whom she preferred to me. (IV,267)

Proust also was tormented with jealousy for a servant, his driver Agostonelli. Note that this fear of losing a possession is completely bourgeois, afflicting Swann and Marcel, but which is not so evident in the aristocracy (think of the Duchesse’s behavior over the Duke’s infidelities), where it would be considered vulgar.