Marcel first met Albertine in a seaside village during the summer of 1898 ("Balbec-by-the-Sea"). He was only seventeen years old and immediately bewitched by her. Albertine is unlike anyone Marcel has ever encountered. With a black polo-cap pulled down over her forehead, she pushes along a bicycle and swinging her hips confidently. That night, unable to sleep, Marcel begs his Grandmother, with whom he is especially close, to sing him to sleep as she did when he was a child ("Lullaby"). A friend later tells him more about Albertine. She is an orphaned, middle-class girl who lives with her aunt. Intrigued, Marcel follows her down a path to the woods. At first spying on her, he eventually comes out and joins Albertine and her girlfriends in a game ("Ferret Song"). At the end of the summer, Albertine invites him to her hotel room, where he finds her alone and in her nightclothes. She shares with him a passionate poem she has been reading ("My Soul Weeps"), but when he tries to kiss her, she has him thrown out.