326: As Proust probably ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 11 concludes
As Proust probably says somewhere:
How surprising we find it that, numbered among the many attendants of Love, we do not always find Understanding, the pervasive understanding which we suppose ought to be a prominent member of the procession of Venus. We suppose, and certainly it seems to us perfectly reasonable so to suppose, that love begets, among the many offspring that we suppose it to beget, Understanding, and, so well do we convince ourselves that in so supposing we are correct, we persist in believing that we must be correct, even when we are confronted with contradicting evidence, as a blind man, who, feeling on his face a comforting warmth he takes to be the familiar effect of the sun, walks in the direction he supposes to be sunward and persists in his mistaken belief that he feels on his cheeks not the calescence of a terrestrial fire toward which he advances but the radiance of the sun, and still persists even when, at the last instant, benevolent hands prevent him from walking into a heap of flaming fagots.
And if he does say that somewhere, then, as is sometimes the case, Proust is right. Love sometimes leads to misunderstandings. Neither Herb nor Lorna ever said a word about that night. Neither dared ask, “Did you — ?” Neither dared say, “I was just curious, you see — ” Lorna supposed that she understood what Herb had done and why, and Herb supposed that he understood what Lorna had done and why. Each loved the other too much to ask for an explanation, so they provided their own. Each was too timid to ask for a description, so they provided their own. They were faithful to each other for the rest of their lives, and each forgave the other for that lone transgression, which they blamed on the heat of the moment, supposing that heat to be not the heat of knowledge’s flickering lamp, but of lust’s consuming flame.
[to be continued on Monday, August 29, 2022]
In Topical Guide 326, Mark Dorset considers Proust, Marcel from this episode.
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