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Sweet Cheat Gone

Marcel Proust

The first half of this volume of The Remembrance of Things Past describes the narrator's grief at the flight of his mistress Albertine; he learns of her death in a riding accident; his feelings for Albertine alternately intensify and diminish, and at length his memories of her fade. The narrator's article is at last published by Le Figaro, and at the same time he meets his old flame Gilberte, whose mother Odette had been married to the late Charles Swann and is now the wife of M. de Forcheville. Thanks to a bequest from an uncle, Gilberte is now a rich heiress. The narrator then renews relations with Albertine's friend Andrée, from whom he learns more about Albertine. The narrator makes his long-postponed trip to Venice with his mother. The volume ends with news of the marriage of Robert de Saint-Loup to Gilberte. - Summary by Michael O'Kelly