"Miss Albertine is gone"! It is incredible how sorrow penetrates more keenly into the matters of the soul than psychology itself! It had not been long since, analyzing my feelings, I had formed the belief that this definitive separation was exactly what I desired and, comparing the poverty of the pleasures offered to me by Albertine with the abundance of pleasures she deprived me of, I had come to the conclusion, believing of course that my thought possessed the necessary penetration, that I no longer wanted to see her, that I was no longer in love with her. However, the words: "Miss Albertine is gone" had so deeply wounded my heart that I felt I could not bear it for long. Thus, what I considered insignificant was ultimately the core of my life. [...]