In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

that it seemed to me to signify, it was something else, to wit that Albertine, perhaps even without any definite object, to irritate this woman’s senses, or wantonly to remind her of former proposals, accepted perhaps in the past, had swiftly brushed against her, thought that I had perhaps heard of this as it had been done in public, and had wished to forestall an unfavourable interpretation.