The Fugitive - post V

Well that’s the end of Volume VI and my certainty that Albertine had not died has been knocked after it turns out the telegram that it looked like had come from her in fact came from Gilberte.

Bullet points from pages 662 – 706

* Despite believing that Albertine is alive Marcel neither reacts to the news or does anything about it and continues to tour in and around Venice

* On a train journey back with his mother she opens a couple of letters that reveal that Gilberte is marrying his friend Saint-Loup and that Jupien the tailor’s daughter is marrying Legrandin’s nephew

* Marcel himself has a letter which is from Gilberte who asks why he never reacted to her telegram and it become obvious as he checks the handwriting that the original telegram he thought came from Albertine was in fact from her

* Again he doesn’t seem to react to the disappointment of discovering she isn’t a live and returns to a social whirl of weddings and changes to the social structure as people who were once on the fringes get invited in

* The volume ends with Marcel discovering that Saint-Loup, his friend through nearly all the previous books, has in fact turned into a homosexual and is having an affair with Morel the violinist who plagued Baron de Charlus

I will post a review tomorrow and start the final book Time Regained on Monday