THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN '39his story from the heroine's point of view; but this well-worn
device, used by so many heterosexual authors, need not neces-
sarily be interpreted here as 'transposition'-the use, that is, of
homosexual material in a heterosexual context. If the heroines
were really Proust himself, they would be more alive; if their
lovers were based on young men loved by Proust, they too would
be less dull and conventional. Three pieces, however, share a
similar and thoroughly Proustian theme, the crystallisation of
love for an absent person. Presence reelle is set in the landscapes
of the Engadine which Proust visited with Louis de la Salle, and
is told in the first person; but not even the sex of the vague, far-
away loved one is revealed. In Reve the narrator dreams he is
making love at Trouville with a Mme Dorothy B--, to whom
he is indifferent in waking life, and on waking finds he is in love
with her. In Melancoli9ue VilIegiature de Madame de Breyves,
which is dedicated to Mme Howland but was written before the
visit to Saint-Moritz, the heroine is consumed with a passion for
an insignificant nobleman whom she has met only once and then
disliked. Perhaps this repetition of subject conceals some real
experience; but perhaps Proust was merely experimenting in
variations on a theme that interested him intellectually and
instinctively.
Another sketch, the brief Avant la nuit, which Proust discreetly
refrained from reprinting in Les Plauirs et les Jours, concerns a
situation that reappears in the Fran~oise episode of Jean Santeuil,
in Swann's jealousy of Odette's past, and in the Narrator's life
with Albertine. The heroine confesses to her secretly horrified
lover, who tells the story, that she has had homosexual affairs with
other women. Here, at least, is a possible instance of trans-
position; though whether the underlying circumstance is real Or
imagined, and whether Proust is confessing to a young man or a
young man confessing to Proust, it would be hard to say. But
Avant la nuit is also, with one exception, the first reference to the
theme of Lesbianism which is of such importance in both Jean
Santeuil and A la Recherche. It is often supposed that in A la
Recherche the loves of Gomorrah are nothing but transpositions
of the loves of Sodom. But if, as can be shown, the character of
Albertine is based not only on transposition but also, and
primarily, on Proust's affairs over a period of twenty years
with a number of young women, it may well be that his pain-