Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]: (Book Center) (The Greatest Writers of All Time)

by Marcel Proust

Often one has to come down to ‘kept’ persons, male or female, before one finds the hidden spring of actions or words apparently of the most innocent nature in self-interest, in the bare necessity to keep alive. What man does not know that when a woman whom he is going to pay says to him: “Don’t let’s talk about money,” the speech must be regarded as what is called in music ‘a silent beat’ and that if, later on, she declares: “You are far too much trouble; you are always keeping things from me; I’ve done with you,” he must interpret this as: “Some one else has been offering me more.”