he was still deeply concerned with securing affection (“My only consolation when I am really sad is to love and to be loved”). Under a heading of “thoughts that spoil friendship,” Proust confessed to a range of anxieties familiar to any quotidian emotional paranoiac: “What did they think of us?” “Were we not tactless?” “Did they like us?” as well as “the fear of being forgotten in favour of someone else.” It meant that Proust’s overwhelming priority in any encounter was to ensure that he would be liked, remembered, and thought well of. “Not only did he dizzy his hosts and hostesses with verbal
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