And yet, I did not return home calmed, as I used to be at Balbec by less frequent excursions which I rejoiced to see extend over a whole afternoon, used afterwards to contemplate standing out like clustering flowers from the rest of Albertine’s life, as against an empty sky, before which we muse pleasantly, without thinking. Albertine’s time did not belong to me then in such ample quantities as today. And yet, it had seemed to me then to be much more my own, because I took into account only⁠—my love rejoicing in them as in the bestowal of a favour⁠—the hours that she spent with me; now⁠—my jealousy searching anxiously among them for the possibility of a betrayal⁠—only those hours that she spent apart from me.