The Captive: Chapter III (27th post)

 The third and final chapter of The Captive marks a dramatic change in Marcel and Albertine's relationship.

After returning from the Verdurins' soirée (see my 26^th post), which he had dissuaded Albertine from attending and to which he had then secretly gone himself, Marcel finds her waiting up for him in her room. She is annoyed by his revelation that he has been to the Verdurins'. She asks whether Mlle Vinteuil had attended, which for him confirms his suspicion that she had intended to meet the composer's daughter there (see my 25^th and 26^th posts) (pp.175-176 X Scott Moncrieff, p.338 III Kilmartin). Albertine confesses to Marcel that when she had told him that she had been a friend of Mlle Vinteuil's friend (see my 24^th post), she had been lying to make herself more interesting to him by pretending she was connected with the great composer. Marcel feels sorry that Albertine thinks the Verdurin circle look down on her and he offers to pay several hundred francs for her to give the Verdurins a grand dinner. She replies that she has no desire to spend money on them and says she would rather he left her alone so that she can be … (original French: “pour que j’aille me faire casser ...”), whereupon she stops short, blushes, looks afraid and covers her mouth with her hand. Despite his persistent questioning, she refuses to tell Marcel what she had been going to say on the ground that the phrase is “dreadfully vulgar”. Eventually, Marcel realises that the missing words were “the pot”. All of this makes no sense to the English reader (and possibly not a lot more to modern French readers) because the phrase which Albertine never completes has no equivalent in English and is outdated in French. She was on the verge of saying that she would rather “me faire casser le pot”, which means “have herself buggered”. He now proposes that they split up (pp.183-190 X SM, pp.342-347 III TK).

Picture by James
Montgomery Flagg

As usual, Marcel is not being sincere. When he tells Albertine that he would not see her again, it is “a pure falsehood […] in the hope of bringing about a reconciliation” (p.193 X SM, p.349 III TK). He admits to himself that he had “never expressed a desire to part from her except when I was unable to do without her” and reflects it was with the same disingenuousness that he had falsely confessed to her his love for Andrée (see my 17^th and 23^rd posts) and a mysterious stranger (see my 24^th post) (p.197 X SM, p.354 III TK). With the intention of calming the situation and effecting a reconciliation, he asks her whether she has ever lied to him. She confesses that she had kept from him a three-week trip she had taken with Léa, but insists that the actress had “behaved perfectly properly with me all the time”. Admiring the “docility of my captive”, Marcel ceases to feel any resentment (pp. 201-204 X SM, pp.357-359 III TK). We have mentioned already the language of captivity which Marcel uses to describe Albertine's living with him at his parents' – she is a “prisoner”, “a charming captive” whom he has “carried off”, “effectively caged” and “possesses” (see my 25^th post). Now he refers to his “despotic possession” (original French: “possession dominatrice” ) of her (p.223 X SM, p.374 III TK). The overly self-condemnatory descriptions of their unbalanced relationship and the nuances of French and English are interesting here. Albertine is not literally a prisoner or caged – she is free to leave. And in English, more or less synonymous words (and even the same words performing different grammatical functions) cause varying degrees of discomfort to modern readers. For example, to speak of one person “belonging” to another would be unobjectionable to most readers if understood in the sense where we speak of someone belonging to a family etc, or even in the sense intended by the lyric “Take good care of yourself, you belong to me” (from the song Button Up Your Overcoat); whereas it would always be offensive if someone was thought of as “a belonging”. However, it is impossible to imagine a situation in which the near-synonyms “possessing” and “owning” would ever be acceptable when referring to another person. And yet for all his talk of possession, Marcel realises he cannot possess her: “I might, if I chose, take Albertine upon my knee, take her head in my hands; I might caress her, pass my hands slowly over her, but, just as if I had been handling a stone which encloses the salt of immemorial oceans or the light of a star, I felt that I was touching no more than the sealed envelope of a person who inwardly reached to infinity” (p.248 X SM, p.393 III TK).

Matters come to a head when Marcel reproaches Albertine over her ingratitude to him for all the things he had given her and done for her. He loses his temper and shouts at the top of his voice. Then he feels ashamed of his behaviour and asks for her forgiveness, but goes on to accuse her of deceitfulness over another trifling matter. She becomes angry in her turn, and he responds by making up a story about anonymous letters he has received which support his accusation that she had amorous relations with Andrée. He apologises again and she calms down, but when it is time for bed, she does not return his kiss (pp.261-265 X SM, pp.402-406 III TK). Thereafter, they go on drives together and life appears to have returned to normal, except Albertine still refrains from giving Marcel his goodnight kiss (no doubt a very upsetting echo for him) (pp.270-271 X SM, p.411 III TK). Nevertheless, in due course, he concludes that she is no longer cross with him, and immediately begins to make plans to leave her and go to Venice on his own (pp.283-284 X SM, pp.420-421 III TK).

Before he can do so, however, one morning Albertine rises early and leaves him (p.285 X SM, p.422 III TK).