PROUST AND THE DOUBLE "'"
1019
act of imagination on the part of the author. The one who actually
remembers is Marcel Proust, or it is he rather who has preserved and
will ingenuously supply the sensations whose recollection, by an
unforeseen resonant harmony, will little by little reveal to Proust
that
his
insignificant character, his visible and palpable shadow, has
without knowing it, handed over to
him
the keys which open up the
world and restore time.
But when "I" pretends to remember, it is not a lie on his part, it
is a calculation. He builds the whole book to lead to the final revela–
tion, which explains and illuminates everything. This is another way
of saying that everything is ordered in preparation for that surprise–
ending, so as to make it appear at once striking and obvious. Neither
the reader nor the hero knows it, but throughout the book there appear
signs which are invisible to the uninitiated, but which in retrospect
will seem to have been premonitions. Unknown to Marcel, the hero,
who is hopelessly wasting
his
time, the instruments of the "revelation"
are at hand. And long before the full orchestra is .unloosed by the
uneven pavement in the courtyard of the Hotel de Guermantes, the
starched napkin, the little spoon tinkling against the cup, the taste of
the madeleine, the sight of the steeples of Martinville, the enigma of
the three trees of Carqueville as well
,as
his disappointment in listen–
ing to Berma, or the cessation of pleasure in front of the church at
Balbec, or the birth of Albertine out of the ashes of Gilberte, the pre–
ludes we fail to hear are distributed throughout with a skill that leaves
them unnoticed until they are rediscovered later on, like the warnings
of fate which we ponder over only after the occurrence of the perils
they should have made us foresee.
Now, these sensations, so important since Proust's aesthetic and
--one might even say- his metaphysic are founded upon them, are
attributed to Marcel but supplied by Marcel Proust-supplied, we
must remember, in their raw state; they have been transformed by
the "revelation" prior to their being attributed to Marcel.
Now, it is not Marcel who has experienced the revelation, but
it is Proust who at the same time has entrusted it to Marcel, the nar–
rator, to prepare the reader for its surprise; in other words, the writing
of a work of fiction, the theme of which has been imposed upon
him.
And that
his
theme is that of a personal experience, analogous to the
glory of grace, to a kind of Pentecost. What is actually a direct
