But what use was it to ply Rachel with questions when he already knew that her answer would be merely silence, or a lie, or something extremely painful for him to hear, which would yet explain nothing. The porters were shutting the doors; we jumped into a first-class carriage; Rachel’s magnificent pearls reminded Robert that she was a woman of great price, he caressed her, restored her to her place in his heart where he could contemplate her, internalised, as he had always done hitherto⁠—save during this brief instant in which he had seen her in the Place Pigalle of an impressionist painter⁠—and the train began to move.

It was, by the way, quite true that she was “literary.” She never stopped talking to me about books, new art and Tolstoyism except to rebuke Saint-Loup for drinking so much wine:

“Ah! If you could live with me for a year, we’d see a fine change. I should keep you on water and you’d be ever so much better.”

“Right you are. Let’s begin now.”