ART AND REVOLT
281
the teeth of death, that the past could be found again at the end
of time; in an imperishable present, truer and richer than it had
ever been. The psychological analysis of the
Temps Perdu
is thus
only a powerful means to an end. Proust's real greatness is to have
written the
Temps Retrouve,
which reorganizes a scattered world
and gives it meaning at the very level of anguish itself. His difficult
victory, on the eve of death, is to have been able to draw from the
incessant flight of time, uniquely by means of memory and in–
telligence, the rapturous symbols of man's unity. The surest chal–
lenge that a work of this kind can fling at creation is to present
itself as a whole, a closed and unified world. This defines those
works created without flinching.
It
has been said that the world of Proust is without God.
If
this is true, it is not because he never speaks of God but because
this world has ambitions to be closed and perfect by itself, and
to give to eternity the visage of man. The
Temps Retrouve,
at least
by intention, ii an eternity without God. The work of Proust, from
this point of view, appears as one of the boldest and most significant
attempts of man to overcome his mortal condition.
It
showed that
the art of the novel re-made creation itself, the creation which is
both imposed by man and refused by him. In one of its aspects at
least, this art consists in choosing the created against the creator.
But, more profoundly still, it allies itself to the beauty of the world
and its being against the forces of death and oblivion. It is thus that
revolt
is
creative.
(Translated from the French by Joseph Frank)
