The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 22 Sept. of The Captive, to page 277 (to the paragraph beginning: “I guessed at once that M. de Charlus...”)

Music, very different in this respect from Albertine's society, helped me to descend into myself, to make there a fresh discovery: that of the difference that I had sought in vain in life, in travel, a longing for which was given me, however, by this sonorous tide which sent its sunlit waves rolling to expire at my feet. Moncrieff

Could life console me for the loss of art, was there in art a more profound reality, in which our true personality finds an expression that is not afforded it by the activities of life? Moncrieff

I began to perceive how much reality there is in the work of Wagner, when I saw in my mind's eye those insistent, fleeting themes which visit an act, withdraw only to return, and, sometimes distant, drowsy, almost detached, are at other moments, while remaining vague, so pressing and so near, so internal, so organic, so visceral, that one would call them the resumption not so much of a musical motive as of an attack of neuralgia. Moncrieff

Having finished my first read of the section, I have been enraptured with this week's reading.

But we are now treading on quicksand or movable texts. There are several sections which were not included in the typed script and were added by hand. Some sections were not part of the first edition 8the one that Proust's brother edited), but have been put back in the later editions. while some parts have been taken out by later editors because of repetitions. Some sections have changed their position slightly, some words are illegible and are therefore a guess from the editors.

Listening to the audio and the G-F edition under the direction of Jean Milly, the two editions don't exactly correspond with each other, so I had to move around the text looking for the matching texts.

The audio edition comes with a booklet with the presentation by Jean-Yves Tadié. I have not read it yet, since I had not encountered y

I also have an older Folio Gallimard edition, with no additional material, which I have to bring down from the attic, to compare.

I will be posting more details on this on my second reading.

Obviously, the death of Bergotte is narrated mostly in 3rd person omniscient, but it is eerily fleshed out with many details taken from Proust's own declining health.

Proust does not render doctors, or medicine, in the best light, to wit Cottard, those attending the demise of grandmother, those consulting Bergotte; yet his father and brother were physicians.

Because this volume was published posthumously, without the author attending the final revisions, with editors assembling the published versions I must read it as a sequence of discursive aphorisms where the writing is Proust's but the sequence of passages, their final wording, may not have been of his choosing.

I've quoted Proust/Moncrieff to show disheartened readers that there is a possible way out of the Narrator's seemingly endless jealous throes through Wagner, music, in other words, through art.

In Proust connu et inconnu, G-V describes how there was a grand piano in Proust's room, in between the two windows, and which was covered with books.

In this section we see for the first time the Narrator sitting down at the piano to play the Vinteuil sonata (three staves!) and how he comes to a bar in which he recognizes Tristan. May be the composition had the famous Tristan chord....

And then continues with an apology of Wagner by making an indirect reference to Nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner... ..comme Nietszche, le devoir dicte de fuir dans l'art comme dans la vie la beauté qui les tente, qui s'arrachent à Tristan comme ils renient Parsifal...., à s'élever jusqu'à la pure connaissance et à l'adoration parfaite du "Postillon du Longumeau".

A footnote identifies Postillon du Longjumeau as an opéra-comique by Adolphe Adam, an easy and mediocre piece.

Earlier on, the Narrator himself tells us who is the prisoner, or the slave...!!

J'étais plus maître que je n'avais cru. Plus maître, c'est-à-dire, plus esclave.

Eugene wrote: "I began to perceive how much reality there is in the work of Wagner, when I saw in my mind's eye those insistent, fleeting themes which visit an act, withdraw only to return, and, sometimes distant..."

It is always wonderful to re-read favorite sentences, as you suddenly see other connections outside the original passages (especially those with the "Marcel wink" at the end).

I'd like to bring over this comment from Eugene on last week's thread and explore it further in the conext of this week's section:

Eugene:
What bothers the Narrator is the mendaciousness used to maintain a possible amorous duplicity and in his case jealousy and the actions it causes are the result.

All people are delusional from time to time; it seems that lying to oneself OK's the telling of that same lie to another if believed to be true by the teller--that's an aspect of different personhood & usually is understood or forgiven--but without the the former--the belief--the teller becomes a liar. We know the Narrator is a liar, and we suspect, along with the questioning Narrator, that Albertine is too but like him we have no proof.

Conscious lying, to know one thing and to say another, is a theft. It distances the teller from the person to whom the lie is told to. It says that my being, what I want, is more important than what you want; it furthers people from one another, it is an opposite of love's proximity.

I don't know that mendacity does "bother" the narrator or, rather, perhaps I wouldn't have expressed it in this way. Lying is one of the main themes of this volume, both deliberate lying and also lying without thinking and then coming to believe the lie oneself. I feel the narrator deliberately lies to Albertine in order to trap her into lying in return, which he is doing not in order to establish the truth but to prove she's lying, to provoke his own jealousy. Because she is untruthful she needs to be caged.

As soon as she was a captive in my house, the bird that I had seen one afternoon advancing with measured tread along the front, surrounded by a congregation of other girls like seagulls alighted from who knew where, Albertine lost all her colours, together with all the opportunities that other people had of securing her for themselves. Gradually she had lost her beauty. It required excursions like this, in which I imagined her accosted by some woman or by some young man, to make me see her again amid the splendour of the beach ... desired by other people she became beautiful in my eyes ... the glittering actress of the beach became the grey captive ... Penguin ed

More avian imagery. The narrator is very aware how the lying excites his jealousy although he feels Albertine has not this object in mind, she lies to create verisimilitude in what she's telling him.

Kalliope wrote: "Having finished my first read of the section, I have been enraptured with this week's reading.

But we are now treading on quicksand or movable texts. ..."

And...at one point Proust told Celeste he wanted to cut 250 pages, but instead sent everything to the printer.
Maybe, he just wanted to see all the passages in a galleys, before beginning his re-writing process.

This is one of the Bill Carter/Yale (revising and annotating) volumes that I'm looking forward to reading...in four years. Five?

This is my favorite volume, because it reminds me of....opps, almost a spoiler.
There is an eerie echo.

@Unregistered

A suspicion of duplicity spawns jealous obsessions maintained by mendacity. I like your idea of mutuality in lying.

The possibility of duplicity inspires love in the Narrator, when duplicity flags, in his mind, he becomes less loving. He runs hot & cold depending on his assessment of the situation. How will he handle his life, his love, his jealousy, his art if and when he finds out the 'truth' about Albertine? He's an odd character and so was Proust toward the end of his life.

And yet, my dear Charles——-, whom I used to know when I was still so young and you were nearing your grave, it is because he whom you must have regarded as a little fool has made you the hero of one of his volumes that people are beginning to speak of you again and that your name will perhaps live. If in Tissot's picture representing the balcony of the Rue Royale club, where you figure with Galliffet, Edmond Polignac and Saint-Maurice, people are always drawing attention to yourself, it is because they know that there are some traces of you in the character of Swann. Moncrieff

This is an interesting little passage as it begins by addressing the character Charles Swann and finishes by speaking to Charles Haas (1833-1902), a real life model for Charles Swann. Because of the fame garnered by the fictional Swann, the name of the real Haas will live.

Prescient of Proust; when I saw Tissot's painting at the Met, I knew who Haas was because of Swann.

Proust begins by addressing a fictional character who his died in his novel and finishes by speaking to a real dead man.

Death as a nurse, not as a destroyer...fascinating!

Then, a few minutes before the breath leaves our body, death, like a sister of charity who has come to nurse, rather than to destroy us, enters to preside over our last moments, crowns with a supreme halo the cold and stiffening creature whose heart has ceased to beat Moncrieff

Regarding the quote about the Charles', Swann & Haas; perhaps a French reader could quote what Proust wrote. Moncrieff writes "Charles -------" and the ML edition with Killmartin/Enright writes "Charles Swann", what did Proust write?

Also did Proust know/meet Charles Haas as a young child?

Rereading the translations & I'm beginning to think that Proust addresses Haas as Swann in the ML edition...not exactly a metonymy, but close.

This week's section begins in my edition in page 242 and finishes in page 313. It is the Garnier-Flammarion edited by Jean Milly.

I am giving this reference as a help to find in other editions the parts I shall be indicating that have been troublesome for the editors.

The first one is from page 248 to 252.
Starting:

D'abord il fallait être certain que Léa allât vraiment au Trocadéro. Après avoir congédié la laitière, je téléphonai à Bloch..

and finishes

.... demandez à cette dame si cette demoiselle n'était pas cachée. -- Cette dame me dit de vous dire que non pas.

This passage, both in typed and manuscript form are both illegible and contain many repetitions. These have been trimmed.

And then the continuation of the text was not revised by him. The first editors had to do a lot of guessing. The later editions have changed some parts, including the one on the doctors. But I will be posting on this as I reach -- my second reading --the subsequent parts that were edited.

This is a wonderful section, in spite of everything, because we are getting back to aesthetics and leaving obsessions aside for a while.

And in his mediation on the conception of macro works --Balzac, Victor Hugo, Michelet--, we realize that we are not only missing his final editing work but also what could have been his own preface had he been able to re-present his own work, complete, finalized, polished and examined, some time after its completion.

..les plus grandes beautés de Michelet, il ne faut pas tant les chercher dans son oeuvre même que dans son "Histoire de France" ou dans son "Histoire de la Révolution", mais dans ses préfaces à ses livres.

And before he has a fascinating meditation on how these creators (to the above writers or historians he then adds Wagner), realized, after the fact, that the summation of their achievements had constituted a new whole.

This raises the question of the structure of La recherche (with the often repeated comparisons to a cathedral, a painting, Wagners's) and how much of building it up was achieved in the process and how much had been conceived from the outset.... and it seems that it was a mix, given the comments in this section and what we know of the large additions and complex editing and publishing history of the work.

The section on the "incomplete" works (actually comes just before to the one above)..

..je songeais combien tout de même ces oeuvres participent à ce caractère d'être ... toujours incomplètes, qui est le caractère de toutes ces oeuvres du XIXe siècle:..... ont tiré de cette auto-contemplation une beauté nouvelle, extérieure et supérieure à l'oeuvre, lui imposant rétroactivement une unité, une grandeur qu'elle n'a pas.

We only have part of this "auto-contemplation nouvelle".

We regret, again, Marcel Proust, your early death -- for you and for us.

And may be this section provides a bit of the préface by the author, that we do not have.

Speaking of Wagner, he proceeds:

... en projetant sur eux une illumination rétrospective qu'ils seraient plus beaux réunis en un cycle où les mêmes personnages reviendraient et ajouta à son oeuvre, en ce raccord, un coup de pinceau, le dernier et plus sublime. Unité ultérieure et non factice. Sinon elle fût tombée en poussière comme tant de systématisations d'écrivains médiocres qui à grand renfort de titres et de sous-titres, se donnent l'apparence d'avoir poursuivi un seul et transcendant dessein. Non factice, peut-être même plus réelle d'être ultérieure, d'être née d'un moment d'enthousiasme où elle est découverte entre des morceaux qui n'ont plus à se rejoindre, unité qui s'ignorait, donc vitale et non logique, qui n'a pas proscrit la variété, refroidi l'exécution. Elle est (mais s'appliquant maintenant à l'ensemble) comme tel morceaux composé à part, né d'une inspiration, non exigé par le développement artificiel d'une thèse et qui vient s'intégrer au reste. GF pp. 258-259.

So, Marcel Proust has given us here the kern of his creation, after all.

I wonder whether I should learn this by heart.

The universe is true for us all and dissimilar to each of us. If we were not obliged, to preserve the continuity of our story, to confine ourselves to frivolous reasons, how many more serious reasons would permit us to demonstrate the falsehood and flimsiness of the opening pages of this volume in which, from my bed, I hear the world awake, now to one sort of weather, now to another. Yes, I have been forced to whittle down the facts, and to be a liar, but it is not one universe, there are millions, almost as many as the number of human eyes and brains in existence, that awake every morning. Moncrieff

The changes in narrative voice are spectacular; even those blind to them before are seeing this by their own admission into the 5th volume of reading. Re. 1st person voices, I spoke of a present and a reflective Narrator, Rogers call them Narrators 'from within & without', etc. The usage of the reflective or the 'from without' Narrator permits Proust to render the abysses of the present or the 'from within' Narrator unabashedly & that he does, obsessive blemishes and all. But this reflective, stainless & older voice--in his being, by his speaking--promises us a happy ending for his younger tarnished self.

Here we have two confessions but from different selves of the same person. What separates them is time.

Kalliope wrote: "And may be this section provides a bit of the préface by the author, that we do not have.

Speaking of Wagner, he proceeds:

... en projetant sur eux une illumination rétrospective qu'ils seraient ..."

I am not the only one in this group who is also reading The Magic Mountain in parallel now. It is fascinating how for both Mann and Proust Wagner is providing an inner structure with the use of his leitmotivs that appear and reappear ..

entendre la tempête wagnérienne faire gémir tous les cordages de l'orchestre, attirer à elle comme une écume légère l'air de chalumeau que j'avais joué tout à l'heure, le faire voles, le pétrir, le déformer, le divisor, l'entraîner dans un tourbillon grandissant. GF pp.266-267.

I now encounter a section that is not in the Audio but is in my GF edition...

from:

Parfois, dans les heures où elle m'était le plus indifférente.... p. 254

until:

Albertine, remise sur la plage, ou rentrée dans ma chambre, en une sorte d'amour amphibie. p. 255.

So Albertine (Agostinelli?) is the one driving the car...

Car je ne pouvais demander à Albertine de m'arrêter .."

and then later on we get a "cocher" instead of the "chauffeur" that had been mentioned before. p. 273.

I've only begun this week's section but was struck by the Narrator's very physical description of pulling on the joints of his fingers while figuring what to do about Mademoiselle Lea's performance at the Trocadero. I realised that he is a shadowy character for me, ever present of course, but not really in a physical way. He rarely describes himself doing anything. We don't get to see how he sits in a chair, whether he leans back or sits forward, crosses his legs or props his chin in his hand. We don't know how he stands or walks. When we heard he'd ridden a horse in Balbec and run along the beach to catch up with the Cambremers, we were amazed.
I find it interesting that he can be the centre of the narrative and yet be so insubstantial.

Fionnuala wrote: "I've only begun this weeks section but was struck by the Narrator's very physical description of pulling on the joints of his fingers while figuring what to do about Mademoiselle Lea's performanc..."

Very true... that is why it was also so shocking when we learnt he had been involved in duels... someone who barely had a body...

In this volume we get more indications thanks to his room in which he has locked himself up and the fumigations that mess up his books....

We also hear of how he keeps day-dreaming of getting to Venice.. but his is a body bound in his captivity.

On the Barbedienne bronzes that Albertine likes, Bloch does not and which the Narrator tolerates because of Albertine.. Here are a couple...

What do you suppose Proust meant by the words brown study?-- would gaze thus in a sort of brown study...

" But I was not troubled either by the intensity of this contemplation, or by its brevity which was compensated by that intensity. indeed, as to the latter, it often happened that Albertine, whether from exhaustion, or because it was an attentive person's way of looking at other people, would gaze thus in a sort of brown study either at my father or at Francoise; and as for the rapidity at which she turned to look at me, it might be due to the fact that Albertine, knowing my suspicions, might wish, even if they were unjustified, to avoid laying herself open to them." (MKE 221)

Et pourtant, cher Charles Swann, que j'ai connu quand j'étais encore si jeune et vous près du tombeau, c'est parce que celui que vous deviez considérer comme un petit imbécile a fait de vous le héros d'un de ses romans, qu'on recommence à parler de vous et que peut-être vous vivrez. Si dans le tableau de Tissot représentant le balcon du Cercle de la rue Royale, où vous êtes entre Galliffet, Edmond Polignac et Saint-Maurice, on parle tant de vous, c'est parce qu'on sait qu'il y a quelques traits de vous dans le personnage de Swann.

I found what I was looking for. Proust uses the full name, "Charles Swann" as does Kilmartin/Enright in their ML translation but the earlier work by Moncrieff uses only the first name, "Charles".

That Moncrieff eliminated the surname, perhaps not trusting his reader to figure it out, confirms to me that, according to my 2nd supposition, he is addressing Charles Haas by calling him the character which was modeled after him Charles Swann.

From what I could find on the web Proust did not know Haas except by reputation yet continues his Swann metonym after the address.

Meanwhile I had gained two things in the course of the day. On the one hand, thanks to the calm that was produced in me by Albertine's docility, I found it possible, and therefore made up my mind, to break with her. There was on the other hand, the fruit of my reflexions during the interval that I had spent waiting for her, at the piano, the idea that Art, to which I would try to devote my reconquered liberty, was not a thing that justified one in making a sacrifice, a thing above and beyond life, that did not share in its fatuity and futility; the appearance of real individuality obtained in works of art being due merely to the illusion created by the artist's technical skill. If my afternoon had left behind it other deposits, possibly more profound, they were not to come to my knowledge until much later. As for the two which I was able thus to weigh, they were not to be permanent; for, from this very evening my ideas about art were to rise above the depression to which they had been subjected in the afternoon, while on the other hand my calm, and consequently the freedom that would enable me to devote myself to it, was once again to be withdrawn from me. Moncrieff

Ahh, his "Ideas about art"; my aesthetic appetite is whetted but I must reread the piano interlude before I go on to next week's reading for what I hope are artful revelations of "this very evening".

There is the wonderful section on "mensonges" and one can see Marcel Proust's frustration with the editors of the newspapers (Le Figaro?) and the Reviews (NRF?) in this passage:

Le directeur du journal ou de la revue ment avec une attitude de sincérité d'autant plus solennelle, qu'il a besoin de dissimuler en mainte occasion qu'il faut exactement la même chose et se livre aux mêmes pratiques mercantiles que celles qu'il a flétries chez les autres directeurs de journaux ou de théâtre, chez les autres éditeurs quand il a pris pour bannière, levé contre eux l'étendard de la Sincérité.

And this continues to include, apart from the "directeur", also the "associé" and the "secrétaire de la rédaction" and the "rédacteur en chef"...

To continue on the inconsistencies in my editions.

I have a section in my Audio not present in my GF (will check later whether it is in my electronic and in my Gallimard)

And another part that in my Audio comes a bit later on than it does in the GF text.

From:

Ce soupçon que j'eus [du projet d'Albertine de secouer ma chaîne*... GF p. 278.

until:

...par l'auteur dans le visage de qui cette beauté intérieure s'est imparfaitement reflétée. p. 279.

I'm reading this volume on a kindle app because I couldn't get the paper version in time, Kall, and I don't know which version it is but I came across a phrase in the early pages that mirrors a little the disjointed nature of the various versions which you've been underlining: the Narrator refers to the word anacoluthe which I didn't know; it is a break in grammatical sequence in a sentence. He uses it when referring to his inability to recall the exact beginning of one of Albertine's anacoluthon sentences. He says he couldn't remember it because he hadn't given his memory the order to 'save' in time:
ma mémoire n'avait pas été prévenue à temps; elle avait cru inutile de garder copie.

Is this Proust anticipating the computer age? Is he perhaps thinking, Oh, if I only had a word processing program, I wouldn't be confused about the various changes I've made in all these drafts. If only I was writing this 100 years from now, it would all be so easy....

Fionnuala wrote: "I'm reading this volume on a kindle app because I couldn't get the paper version in time, Kall, and I don't know which version it is but I came across a phrase in the early pages that mirrors a lit..."

Yes, I remember the "anacoluthe"...

I have the word in only one passage.

p.249 (for when you get your copy)

Elle usait non par raffinement de style, mais pour réparer ses imprudences, de ces brusques sautes de syntaxe ressemblant un peu à ce que les grammairiens appellent anacoluthe ou je ne sais comment. S'étant laissée aller, en parlant femmes, à dire: "Je me rappelle que dernièrement je", et brusquement après un "quart de soupir", "je" devenait "elle", c'était une chose qu'elle avait aperçue en promeneuse innocente, et nullement accomplie.

the "garder copie" appears in page 250..

Plus tard, devant le mensonge patent, ou pris d'un doute anxieux, j'aurais voulu me rappeler; c'était en vain; ma mémoire n'avait pas été prévenue à temps; elle avait cru inutile de garder copie.

In this second section the word anacoluthe does not appear.

But yes, I was also struck by the concept of "copie" when talking about memory. Such a common concept for us now, but which must have seemed so strange then.

Perhaps this has been mentioned already - I havent read all the posts yet - but when the Narrator sits down at the piano to play the Vinteuil sonata, and what a powerfully evocative plot device the sonata is, especially combined with the name Vinteuil, he speaks of how the combination of the voluptuous and the anxious, du motif voluptueux et du motif anxieux, in the music corresponds to the present state of his love for Albertine. Doesn't it also correspond to the feeling the entire Recherche gives us, that constant lurching between the sensual in nature, art, music, literature and the anxiety states experienced by the Narrator from childhood and by Swann.
It's as if the Recherche is a written version of the Vinteuil Sonata....

Fionnuala wrote: "Perhaps this has been mentioned already - I havent read all the posts yet - but when the Narrator sits down at the piano to play the Vinteuil sonata, and what a powerfully evocative plot device the..."

I like your interpretation, Fionnuala.

I mentioned in #8 above that this passage made me think that this may have been a veiled allusion to the Tristan chord (the only harmonic chord that I know that is named after a specific musical piece) and to its dissolution.. Tension and relaxation.

Debussy used it later on, so I thought the Narrator may have recognized it in the Vinteuil.

But your extending the voluptueux-anxieux poles to the whole work is a very inviting suggestion.

The G-F edition has a long note on the abrupt beginning of the section with Bergotte's death. There are several versions, in manuscript form and two additional ones typed.

Great reading this week and wonderful discussion, as usual.

I still struggle over the little "Marcel, Marcel" line in this section, since I am not convinced that Proust (had he lived a little longer) would have kept that intact. After reading it again, checking out some blogs, and working through this discussion, I don't see him committing to that complete breakdown of the fourth wall. His earlier reference to himself felt more like a nod to the author, but this time it just doesn't fell right.

Martin wrote: "Great reading this week and wonderful discussion, as usual.
I still struggle over the little "Marcel, Marcel" line in this section, since I am not convinced that Proust (had he lived a little long..."

I agree, Martin, the first mention of the name sounded like a deliberately confusing, almost playful, reference to the author himself but this one is different. It reads like a mistake but we think we see the truth in it.

Kalliope, 'tension and relaxation' describes the mood of this section very well. Now that 'Marcel' knows that his Albertine is coming home with Françoise, he relaxes and enjoys the peace and quiet. The shift in mood reminds me of the quiet passages in the Pastoral Symphony.

Reem: A "brown study" means deep, introspective thought. Lord knows what she's thinking, though. The Narrator certainly doesn't!

Reem: A "brown study" means deep, introspective thought. Lord knows what she's thinking, though. The Narrator certainly doesn't!

Elizabeth wrote: "Reem: A "brown study" means deep, introspective thought. Lord knows what she's thinking, though. The Narrator certainly doesn't!"

Thanks Elizabeth! I've never come across this term before.

Having reread the passage at the piano where he calmly waits for Albertine to be delivered safe from Lea at the Trocadero, I find his decided qualms, his depression, about making art are that it will never hold the riches that life holds for him & that originality in art or the individuality of the artist are but the illusion of "industrious toil". Individuality in art is like the silence of space that can not be heard over the roar of an airplane's engine no matter how high it climbs.

But we are told that his depression about him as an artist will be lifted at the Verdurin's this evening yet we are warned that thoughts of Albertine there will rekindle his obsessions.

A little video on Proust and Vermeer, in French.

I understand it is a trailer for a documentary of about 30 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC4ETj...

On Proust and the "mur jaune"..

I think this link was posted at the very beginning in this years read, but it becomes relevant again..

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/prous...

The end of this Youtube video on the Tristan Prelude quotes Wagner thusly with regard to his technique of cycling through the circle of fifths:

...(there is) henceforth no end to the yearning, longing, rapture, and misery of love: world, power, fame, honor, chivalry, loyalty and friendship, scattered like an insubstantial dream, one thing alone left living: longing, longing unquenchable, desire forever renewing itself, craving and languishing; one sole redemption: death, surcease of being, the sleep that knows no waking.

It seems fitting in this section concerning the Narrator's frustrated desire for control over Albertine.

In the early part of the account of Bergotte's death, we have a very Proustian criticism of doctors..

I remember feeling very anxious when reading in Carter's biography the way Proust medicated himself and paid no attention to doctors, not even to his brother...

Il consulta des médecins qui flattés d'être appelés par lui virent dans ses vertus de grand travailleur.. la cause de ses malaises...

and.. is Proust writing about Bergotte or about himself?

Bergotte ne fit plus venir de médecins et essaya avec succès mais avec excès de différentes narcotiques, lisant avec confiance le prospectus accompagnant chacun d'eux, prospectus qui proclamait la nécessité du sommeil mais insinuait que tous les produits....étaient toxiques et par là rendaient le remède pire que le mal. Bergotte les essaya tous.

It is generally considered that Bergotte is based, mostly, on Anatole France. The latter died in 1924, that is, after Marcel Proust.

Richard wrote: "The end of this Youtube video on the Tristan Prelude quotes Wagner thusly with regard to his technique of cycling through the circle of fifths:
...(there is) henceforth no end to the yearning, long..."

This is wonderful, Richard.... it has an analysis of the Tristan Chord, which I keep thinking is the harmony that the Narrator has recognized in the Vinteuil sonata.

There is a huge amount of literature on this chord, but it is wonderful to trace it while listening to the music.