Can the narrator of Search for Lost Time lead a happy life?

Even though Proust can sometimes drive you crazy - his narrator (M.) finally, at last - 400 pages in - meets Albertine and her friends in the "gang of girls" whom he'd admired on the beach at Balbec (to be fair, he doesn't get to Balbec till about page 200) - and after much fretting about how the image of the girl is often more satisfying than actually knowing the girl and about how once you know the girl you can no longer recall the perfect image you had of her before you knew her - and so on, and life goes on, and you miss all opportunity - how Proustian, and how true! - so finally, after all that he meets Albertine, and - you know what? - I find, on this reading, his jaunting about with the gang of girls to be one of the most pleasant interludes in the Search for Lost Time. Because: M. at last is having some fun. He's with some kids (albeit, not with some guys) about his age and he's enjoying being on the beach, bicycling, just screwing around. This is what the guy needs - he's 15 years old or so, and the real shadow he has to get away from is not the Young Girls in Flower but his overbearing family, all the nonsense of salons and artists and adults - and just be a kid for a while - he has to get out of the shadow of himself. It won't last, but it's a moment in the Search for Lost Time when you think that perhaps M. can lead a happy life.