In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

I had arranged with Albertine (I had given her a box for Phèdre) that she was to pay me a visit shortly before midnight. Certainly I was not in the least in love with her; I was yielding, in making her come this evening, to a wholly sensual desire, albeit we were at that torrid period of the year when sensuality, evaporating, visits more readily the organ of taste, seeks above all things coolness. More than for the kiss of a girl, it thirsts for orangeade, for a cold bath, or even to gaze at that peeled and juicy moon which was quenching the thirst of heaven. I counted however upon ridding myself, in Albertine’s company — which, moreover, reminded me of the coolness of the sea — of the regret that I should not fail to feel for many charming faces (for it was a party quite as much for girls as for married women that the Princess was giving.