Combray

Swann in Love

Place-Names

I

Awakenings

Bedtime at Combray

Resurrection of Combray through involuntary memory

II

Combray

Swann’s Way

The Guermantes Way

Awakenings

Summary

An amazing eight pages. This describes the simple chance event of having a small cake (a petite madeleine) with some tea, which then gives rise to some special feelings which eventually are recognized as an earlier memory of having the same food in Combray, and from that all of the earlier memories of Combray become available.

Quotations

“... so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.” [59-60]

“... one day in winter ... my mother ... offered me some tea ... and a petite madeleine. I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. ... An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. ... Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake. ... It is plain the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself. The drink has called it into being, but does not know it. ... I put down the cup and examine my own mind. It alone can discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself ... I ask my mind to make one further effort, to bring back once more the fleeting sensation. ... and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting place and attempts to rise, something that has been anchored at a great depth; I do not yet know what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly ... Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. ... Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray ... when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea. ... as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of medeleine ... immediately the old grey house upon the street, ... and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. [60 - 64]

Comments

This is a very detailed reconstruction of how the author came to recall much of his earlier memories about growing up in Combray.