There is that scene at the end of Proust when our narrator, after many years out of society, arrives at a party furious no one told him it’s a costume party; everyone is wearing white wigs! And then he realizes. It isn’t a costume party. They have simply grown old. And here, looking at his first love, the first wife—surely they’re kidding! But the joke goes on too long. Robert keeps breathing heavily. Marian does not smile. No one is kidding.
