All language subtitles for MARCEL PROUST Portrait Souvenir 1962 eng

of course, for most writers
there're two sorts of glory:

some know fame during their lifetime,
perhaps even great fame

but unfortunately, after their death,
those writers lose very fast their readership

and they even fall into oblivion sometimes

on the other hand, there are writers
who were misunderstood during their whole existence

and who later, posthumously, are sometimes discovered
or acquire fame increasing with time

for Marcel Proust,
the case is different

he was famous at the end of his life

because he received the Goncourt prize in 1920
for "Within a Budding Grove"

the second volume of his great work
"In Search of Lost Time"

since his death, his fame has constantly grown

today he is read and commented on
in the whole world

in London, a few years ago,
they had an exhibition about him

a lot of people are reading him

he is read as abundantly
in New York in the United States

as in Germany and in Japan

and paradoxically, it's in France that, despite his name,
despite the abundance of books written on him

essays explaining his philosophy and his art

it is perhaps in France that he is read the least

true, one cannot say that he's an author
who doesn't sell at all

but he's an author who doesn't have all the pull
he ought to have,

considering his great name
that had never been challenged

his work is in effect something very particular

some have tried to find a philosophy in it

others an error committed during his lifetime

a sort of biography

since it's written in the first person

and since it deals with very special people,
very well evoked

however, as he said himself,
we are dealing with a novel

and for each of his character he got inspiration
from several persons he had known
at the beginning of our century

and during the program you're about to watch

you'll see how one could identify
some of his more endearing characters

and who have later become symbols
like in the works of Balzac

Rastignac has become a symbol
for ambition at all costs

today, when talking about diplomats
who are a bit of a snob

and pretentious,
I'm thinking of M. de Norpois

or on the other hand, of the petty bourgeois
who wants to play the intellectual, give concerts,
be very much in view

today we'd say, very "nouvelle vague"

well, those are the Verdurins,
other characters who have preserved
in his entire work a great importance

and who are still abundantly talked about today

so we're dealing, when talking about him,
and we'll concentrate on characters,

you're about to hear the witnesses,
the recollections of those who knew him

this program will be about penetrating his work

and also to find, if one may say so,
some of the keys

and since we have at the same time
the personal aspect

the aspect of a "Search"

of life's philosophy,
life's problems

how sensibility is born,

how a writer is born,
since the "Recherche" is after all

about how to become a writer,
why does he become a writer

you'll see in a few moments all this revealed
by the recollections of those who knew him

and I would very much like to thank those people

M. Jean Cocteau

M. Paul Morand

M. Daniel Hal�vy

M. Jacques de Lacretelle

le marquis de Lauris

le duc de Gramont

M. Philippe Soupault

Mme Albarret

who was at the same time
a devoted servant

and a secretary to Marcel Proust

Mme Paul Morand

Mme Andr� Maurois

M. �mmanuel Berl

and right now, M. Fran�ois Mauriac

Portrait Souvenir

a program by
Roger St�phane

Marcel Proust

until Proust,
one simply copied Balzac

or one copied
Benjamin Constant

either one told a Balzac story

or one studied "a soul"
in the manner of Benjamin Constant

well, Proust ...

showed us

that one could do
something different than Balzac

and something different
than the traditional psychological novel

what could one do?

well, one could rediscover a world

I don't say, "create" a world

that was Balzac's task

but rediscover it,
meaning ...

the entire world
the young Proust had been mixed in

in the midst of which
he had suffered

because he was a tender one

and because he was a snob

and this world
in the midst of which he had suffered

well, he found it again inside himself

and by means he has explained to us

I won't have to remind you ...

of the episode of the cup of tea,
of the Madeleine

how did he manage to rediscover this world,

buried inside himself?

well, this is what the people
who don't know Proust, will find out ...

if they decide to step inside this work,

this work which for me,
in all French literature

is without doubt as important

as that of Balzac,

and personally,

I must confess that it touches me
much more.

but after all, between the two
there is a connection: Balzac too died of his work.

both have been killed by those two works

who both, although under different aspects,
have a monstrous character

yes, the work of Proust has something monstrous

1913...

then end of what is today called
"la belle �poque"

in the streets there were
more carriages than cars

the m�tro still had the attraction
of a new toy

the women wore long skirts,
men top hats

idling wasn't considered yet
the mother of all vices

but the sign of good breeding

the leisured classes met in salons

in those salons
a man had been erring for a long time

who distinguished himself
neither by his birth nor by his fortune

but perhaps by his charm,
his seducing intellect

Marcel Proust

he whom society still called,
even though he was already past 40

"little Proust" had just discreetly published
as author

in 1913, a book which,
as M. Mauriac just reminded us

did not only mark for France,
but for the entire world

the rebirth of the art of the novel.

Philippe Soupault

When I received "Swann's Way"

which Marcel Proust had sent to me,

I was at first shocked
by the thickness of the volume

and by the smallness of the typeface

then I started to read this book

which at the time seemed totally crazy

and I realized that this was
an overwhelming shock

because I was entering a world
I had never entered before

and Proust's style, in 1913,
seemed extremely disturbing, off-putting, difficult

and yet, I was captivated, completely seduced

almost absorbed by Proust's novel

M. Paul Morand

in October '14
I was in London

I had dinner at the Savoy with Antoine Bibesco,
a friend of Proust

and Salignac-F�n�lon
who was another of Proust's friends

and of course they started talking about him

about "Swann" which I hadn't read yet

in such a fashion,
"a mysterious personage",
"a work comparable to nothing else"

that I was at once seduced,
I pounced on the book,

I read it and it was my turn to be overwhelmed,
love at first sight, as we just said

for me, it was as if I'd encountered Flaubert,
as if I had before me a new "Sentimental Education"

certainly, "Swann's Way" brought along
the new formula of the novel

which, in an obscure way,
I had been waiting for.

I found everything in "Swann's Way"

I found in it, if you like,
the resurrection of a world

which after all I had known

which wasn't the world of Balzac

but "my" world
and the world I had heard about

but at the same time,
I found in it a poetry of a novel

because what strikes me in Proust,

he's an extraordinary poet

this poetry of a novel is the poetry
to which I am perhaps the most susceptible

and besides, I found a man
who had invented his own style

he was the only one who could say

what he had to say,
but in order to be able to say it

he had to invent his instrument,
and afterwards, he was broken to pieces

M. Jean Cocteau

Proust has talked of an epoch, of a society,
but his work won't be outmoded because of that

that would be as if you mistook van Gogh's Zouave
with a real Zouave

that would be absurd

on the contrary, I'm surprised how much Proust's mechanisms
are similar to the mechanisms of a Robbe-Grillet, or a Butor

to what today's youth is searching for

if one trusts his biography

this innovator had quite an ordinary history

he was born in Paris in 1871

his father, Doctor Adrien Proust

was what is called a "self-made man"

originating from a modest family from Illiers

he had become a physician of great reputation

his mother's, Jeanne Weil's family was
of the Jewish bourgeoisie of Alsace

she is without doubt the person
Marcel Proust loved most

answering a questionnaire
at the age of 12

he answered the question
"what is your idea of unhappiness"?

"being separated from maman"

the narrator's grandmother in "Search for Lost Time"
borrows all her traits from Mme Proust

In Illiers, with Dr. Proust's family,
Marcel Proust spent his childhood holidays

Illiers is the Combray of "Swann's Way"

Combray, at a distance,
when we arrived there the week before Easter

was no more than a church epitomizing the town,

representing it, speaking of it and for it
to the horizon,

and as one drew near, gathering close
about its long, dark cloak, sheltering from the wind,
on the open plain,

as a shepherdess gathers her sheep,
the woolly grey backs of its huddled houses.

Even when our errands lay in places behind the church,

from which it could not be seen, the view seemed always
to have been composed with reference to the steeple,
which would loom up here and there among the houses,

and was perhaps even more affecting
when it appeared thus without the church.

Illiers is also the house of Aunt L�onie,
miraculously preserved

On those evenings when, as we sat in front of the house
round the iron table beneath the big chestnut-tree,

we heard, from the far end of the garden,
not the shrill and assertive alarm bell

which assailed and deafened
with its ferruginous, interminable, frozen sound

any member of the household
who set it off on entering �without ringing,�

but the double tinkle, timid, oval, golden,
of the visitors� bell,

everyone would at once exclaim
�A visitor! Who in the world can it be?�

And so I must climb each step of the staircase
�against my heart,� as the saying is,

climbing in opposition to my heart�s desire,
which was to return to my mother...

That hateful staircase, up which I always went so sadly,
gave out a smell of varnish

which had, as it were, absorbed
and crystallized the special quality of sorrow
that I felt each evening,

and made it perhaps even crueler to my sensibility

because, when it assumed this olfactory guise,
my intellect was powerless to resist it.

My room wasn't beautiful at all,

because it was full of things
which were of no use

and which concealed chastely
so that their usage was made extremely difficult

those which were of some use.

But it was exactly from the things
which weren't there to accommodate me, but

which seemed to have come there for pleasure

that my room drew its beauty for me.

Those high white curtains

which hid the bed from view,
placed like in the recess of a sanctuary,

the trinity of the glass with the blue design,
of the sugar bowl and the jug

always empty when I arrived by orders of my Aunt
who was afraid I'd "spread" it.

a sort of cultish instrument.

The little embroidered shawls
which threw a cape of white roses
over the backs of the chairs

which weren't without thorns,
since each time I finished reading and wanted to get up

I realized that I got stuck to them.

that glass bell, under which,
isolated from vulgar contacts,
the clock chatted intimately with faraway shells

and with an old sentimental flower.

That piece of white lace,

thrown like an altar cloth on the chest of drawers
ornamented with two vases,

a portrait of the Saviour and a blessed piece of boxwood

made it look like the Saint Table

The Prince Eug�ne

terrible and handsome in his dolman

and whom I was surprised to encounter one night,
in a turbulence filled with locomotives and hailstorms,

still terrible and handsome,

near the door of a railway station buffet
where he served as advertisement for a special kind of biscuit.

The room of Aunt L�onie

At one side of her bed stood
a big yellow chest of drawers of lemon-wood,

and a table which served at once
as dispensary and high altar,

on which, beneath a statue of the Virgin
and a bottle of Vichy-C�lestins,

might be found her prayer-books
and her medical prescriptions,

everything that she needed in bed for the performance
of her duties to the sacred offices and her diet,

to keep the proper times for pepsin and for vespers.

On the other side her bed was bounded by the window.

I didn't have much time to read in my room,
as I had to go out to the park

at 1 km distance from the village.

I advanced running into the labyrinth
up to a certain bower where I sat down,

untraceable, leaning next to the clipped hazelnut trees,

looking at the asparagus and strawberry beds,

where on some days the horses pulled up the water,

the white gate which was the end of the park

above it, the cornflower and poppy fields.

In this bower the silence was deep,

the risk of being discovered almost non-existent,

only from time to time, the golden sound of the bells
who seemed to chime from the faraway plains, behind the blue skies

could have warned me of the time passed,

but surprised by its sweetness,
troubled by its profound silence,

emptied of the last sounds which followed it,

I was never sure about the number of its chimes.

The greatest charm of the Guermantes' way

was that we had beside us, almost all the time,
the running stream of the Vivonne.

We crossed it first, ten minutes after leaving the house,
by a foot-bridge called the Pont-Vieux.

The Pont-Vieux led to a tow-path which, at this point,
would be overhung in summer by the bluish foliage of a hazel.

Over these were strewn the remains,
half-buried in the long grass,

of the castle of the ancient Counts of Combray.

One of my other surprises was that of seeing
"the source of the Vivonne",

which I had imagined as something
as extra-terrestrial as the Gates of Hell,

and which was merely a sort of rectangular basin
in which bubbles rose to the surface.

in Paris, Proust went to the Lyc�e Condorcet

M. Daniel Hal�vy was his classmate.

yes.

how was Proust as a child?

he was so exceptional
that I hesitate to answer

he was there in the lyc�e all right,
but it seemed as if he didn't quite belong to us

I remember a day,
chatting with some comrades

I felt somebody touching my shoulder

I turned round,
it was Proust

I made a slightly brusque movement

and I remember that this produced
an alteration on Proust's face

I had hurt him

sometimes when I felt annoyed at him,
I thought he was a bit of a poseur

well, I was wrong

he became sad all of a sudden

because he felt that all those boys,
that's what we were, boys

he was something different

we had in our class a Sardou, a Bizet

a Robert de Flers

a Fernand Gregh

and we knew very well
that the first in that little category of human beings

there was Proust, we knew it

we had organized a revue,
published by the Lyc�e Condorcet

which we called "The Banquet"

and naturally we asked Proust to participate

and Proust in his kindness didn't refuse

he gave us a copy

we read it with a horrified amazement

we had to refuse to publish it

what had happened?
what misfortune?

the misfortune, we knew about it,
that Proust had become a man of the world

it cannot be denied that in his youth
Proust went out a lot in society

there's no great social function
that does not resemble those parties
to which doctors invite their patients,

who utter the most intelligent remarks,
have perfect manners,
and would never show that they were mad,

if they didn't whisper in your ear,
pointing to some old gentleman going past:

�That�s Joan of Arc.�

one could meet him at the Comtesse Greffulhe

mother-in-law of his friend Gramont

from whom he borrowed a lot of traits
for his Princesse de Guermantes

at the Princesse Mathilde,
survivor of the Second Empire

at Mme Arman de Caillavet

at Madeleine Lemaire

with Louisa de Mornand

he was friends with Reynaldo Hahn

he went out with Boni de Castellane

with Robert de Flers

with Emmanuel and Antoine Bibesco

he was friends with Robert de Montesquiou

and he described his traits with almost no transposition
as the Baron de Charlus

and Charles Haas

dear Charles Haas

if in the painting by Tissot,
representing the balcony of the circle of the Rue Royale

one talks so much about you,

that's because you have
some traits of the character of Swann

at the end of the last century, the Marquis de Lauris
heard about Marcel Proust for the first time

I had heard a lot about him,
because people were talking a lot about him

not because of what he had done or created,
but there was ... his lifestyle

he was a star, as one would say today, certainly

at least in certain circles

I met Marcel Proust at first in several salons

among others at a dinner at Mme L�on Fould

and obviously, he struck you first of all
by his physiognomy, by his looks

I haven't forgotten the extraordinary pallor of his face

under very black hair

and I haven't forgotten the look of his eyes

his conversation was prodigiously
adapted to his interlocutor

because he absolutely didn't want to seem ...
didn't want to astound

he wanted to talk to people about
what he believed interested them

although he wasn't very familiar with sports

he would have undertaken a conversation about sports
if he had been talking to a sportsman

if the occasion arose, obviously

then there were people who interested him
to a certain degree,
one couldn't really predict that

there are people he enjoyed
when one didn't really understand
why he enjoyed being with them,

on the other hand, he himself couldn't understanding
why they enjoyed being with him

he was a kind of oracle, he stayed away from people,
he was different from everybody else in this respect

what he observed was a sort of secret,
it concerned only himself

Marcel Proust also frequented the Duc de Gramont,
at Valli�re, where we too paid a visit

it's in this room that Marcel Proust, in July 1904,
came to dinner at Valli�re

and as I told you, he arrived wearing white ties

he mingled with the guest
who were out on a boating on the lake
or were playing tennis

he was a bit intimidated

and my father didn't know who he was

he handed him the visitors' book
for his signature

and he said to him this phrase
which annoyed Proust a bit:

"no thoughts, M. Proust, just the name"

when I saw the Duc de Gramont arrive with the book
which all the evening's visitors had already signed

and when I was about to write my signature
below a miniscule Gutmann, followed by a minuscule Chevereaux
and manuel of La Rochefoucault of equal size,

when the Duc de Gramont
whom my humble and confused attitude,
joined to the fact that he knew that I was a writer, filled with anxiety,

addressed me in a tone at the same time
imploring and full of energy, with those lapidary words:

"your name, M. Proust, but no thoughts"

the desire to get the name,
and the fear of getting the reflections

would have been justified if it had been me
who had invited him to dinner
and who would have asked him to sign:

"your name, M. de Duc, but no thoughts!"

you already told me, M. le Duc,
that often at night, after the theatre shows,
you used to visit Proust.

could you tell us under what circumstances,
and how and why?

since Proust stayed in his dining room the whole night
we could arrive at any time, coming from the theatre shows

with comrades, they took out a bottle
of cider from the cupboard

and we did the summing up of the evening,
the critique of the play we had just seen

and it didn't last very long
since we had to work the next morning

but we often stayed there until 1 a.m.

and since there were cabs circulating everywhere

we returned home by cab

we went there with Louis d'Albufera
and Louisa de Mornand sometimes

with Jacques de Bonneval

with Bertrand de F�n�lon
who was a great friend of all of us

and we talked without restraint during an hour
at his place, very simply

what were you talking about?

most of all, on the evenings
when we went to see a play

in fact, generally we talked
about the play we had just seen

the subject was fresh in our minds,
and that's what we talked about

obviously, now Proust too started asking us questions

about the society which interested him,
since he had already started to write

we didn't know at the time,
but he had been writing "Swann's Way"

at the time, you know,
Proust wasn't a famous author

considering that he had only published
"Les plaisirs et les jours"

and then the book on Ruskin

"Swann" came later

and when one talked about Proust,
saying that he was a remarkably intelligent man

I remember, I got the answer:
"Ah yes, Proust, of the Ritz Hotel"

M. de Lacretelle

anyway, if he had been a snob

in his youth, when I didn't know him

we certainly profited by it a lot

because he was the chronicler,
the St. Simon of his times

this is what partly excuses him,
and what gives him a great place in literature

now one could say a lot about his snobbism

you see, I think it's sense of history

and his visionary power that gave him a strong desire
to approach such illustrious personage, descending from a great lady,

from a man who had played a role in history

that's what he found amusing

I was just telling you about his desire to establish
affiliations between the people of today and those of the past

well, that's what his snobbism was about

when he visited Mme de Noailles or the great families

don't you think that he found it amusing
to discover a passage from St. Simon
relating to a trait of his host's ancestors

but undoubtedly he did

when he visited the Duc de Guiche at La Valli�re,
it was the same thing

no, I think one has exaggerated far too much
Proust's snobbism

and I repeat, we owe it his greatest successes

so as reader of Proust, that's good enough for me,
I absolve him

the socialite Proust, the Proust of the Ritz Hotel
felt obliged to go to the fashionable seaside resorts

the fashionable seaside resorts at the beginning of the century
were the beaches on the Normandy coasts

and especially Cabourg,
the Balbec of "Within a Budding Grove"

we went there with Philippe Soupault

who knew Proust in that same hotel,
where the future author of "In Search of Lost Time" used to stay

each evening at 6 p.m. one heard in the hall
a sort of noisy hustle

and one heard small groups of people shouting:
"There's M. Marcel Proust"

at once, the groups started to rush,
because they wanted to bring forward M. Proust's armchair
which brought them a good tip

as you know, Proust was always very aware
of the importance to tip generously

so they brought him his armchair,
and that's the one I saw

when Proust came in, armed with an umbrella
because he was terribly afraid of the sun

and he was always afraid,
when the sun was hidden by a cloud,
that the sun might suddenly reappear

he was already wrapped up in scarves
because he was very sensitive to the cold

but mostly, he sat down there,
he watched people going by

he was interested in all the people of Cabourg

he asked me if I knew
this gentleman or that lady

and he told me "you know, don't be surprised,
I'm a bit of a conci�rge"

but mostly I think he was trying to seize memories
on that esplanade, on that pier

well, he tried to remember the time
when he first met "the young girls in flower"

we didn't know that he was a writer

he didn't brag about having published a booklet
a long time ago, called "Les plaisirs et les jours"

he never talked about it

and we didn't know that he wrote

I looked at the round tables whose innumerable assemblage
filled the restaurant like so many planets,

as the latter are represented in old allegorical pictures.

Moreover, there seemed to be some irresistible force
of attraction at work among these various stars,

and at each table the diners had eyes only
for the tables at which they were not sitting,

You've dined here with Proust?

in this same dining room,
at this same table

and even, if you like,
sitting at this place

because 3 or 4 times per week
Proust invited his friends and acquaintances
and his friends' friends

we were sometimes a large gathering,
12, 14, even 20

and Proust was extremely happy
to be host to other people

he was hospitable,
and he liked to seduce

but after a certain time he got tired

or, as I learned later,
he wanted to leave in order to write

and at such a moment
he invented something marvelous

he offered his friends cigars
and asked the maitre d' to bring cigars

so they brought cigars, everybody served himself
and started to light the cigars

then he said, "you must excuse me,
I cannot bear cigar smoke, I'll retire"

thus he finished his banquet
earlier than he should have

in fact, what interested him was
the little daily routine around him

he was interested a lot in the conci�rges

in the bellboys

even in the chambermaid which he judged severely

Beside the row of carriages, in front of the porch
in which I stood waiting, was planted,
like some shrub of a rare species, a young page

who attracted the eye no less
by the unusual and harmonious colouring of his hair
than by his plant-like epidermis.

Inside, in the hall, corresponding to the narthex,
or Church of the Catechumens in a primitive basilica,

through which the persons who were not staying
in the hotel were entitled to pass,

the comrades of the �outside� page
did not indeed work much harder than he,

but did at least execute certain movements.

It is probable that in the early morning
they helped with the cleaning.

But in the afternoon they stood there only like a chorus who,
even when there is nothing for them to do,
remain upon the stage in order to strengthen the representation.

But the outside page, with his delicate tints,
his slender, fragile frame,

preserved an immobility mixed with a certain melancholy,

for his elder brothers had left the hotel
for more brilliant careers elsewhere,
and he felt isolated upon this alien soil.

M. Jean Cocteau too met Marcel Proust
before the war

Proust lived 102, Blvd. Haussmann

I remember this address very well,
despite having a bad memory for numbers

because we exchanged letters
on whose envelopes were written poems

"Address-poems"

for example, "address-poems" by Mallarm�

and I remember one of those addresses
which went:

"102 Blvd Haussmann, ouste!
run postman, to Marcel Proust"

and Marcel wrote considerable
poems on his envelopes

and if the postman couldn't decipher them,
since he had a terrible handwriting

which one had to take apart
like one removes the shells from a nut

and after some effort,
the postman found the name and the address

and I had started to visit
Marcel Proust in the evenings,
Blvd. Haussmann

I don't think that Marcel Proust's threshold
was easy to cross?

at first, there was a whole ceremony involved
before one could enter at Marcel's,

because one was stopped in the vestibule by C�leste

C�leste asked you ...
much later, when she knew me,

"M. Jean, I hope you haven't been with a lady tonight,
you haven't shaken hands with a lady who had touched a flower

since Marcel was living inside a cloud of
anti-asthmatic powder,
he was afraid of an asthmatic crisis

and he was even afraid of the contact of a person
who had in his turn contacted earlier a person
who had smelled at a flower

how did he receive you at his place?

one entered a veritable
cloud of anti-asthmatic powder

he was lying down on his bed,
fully clothed

a bed made of copper which was encased in a sort of
gu�rite en li�ge kork which protected him from outside noises

he wore white gloves
to keep himself from his habit of biting his nails

and he resembled, when he wore a beard,
the dead Carnot, or Haroun al Rachid

or Captain Nemo

his room resembled a lot the Nautilus

and when he didn't wear a beard,
he resembled the famous portrait by Jacques-�mile Blanche
where he looks like an Easter egg

in the evening, we sometimes asked him
to read to us passages from his work

it was very difficult to listen to him,
because he read and laughed at the same time

hiding his laugh behind his beard and gloved hand

he interrupted his reading with
"this is idiotic, this is idiotic"

and he explained to us that a certain gesture
would only acquire its significance in the 15th volume

which was too far down under the stacks of papers
for him to get it out for us

those readings had more the aspect
of a hilarious fooling around among friends

his asthma didn't prevent him from going out?

he went out into society, very rarely,
he cut his hair himself with nail scissors

and he sometimes paid a visit to Mme de Cheving�
in the middle of the night to who told him

"Marcel arrives at impossible times
with apparatuses in his pockets"

she was wrong, those were bottles

he always used to carry Vichy water bottles in his pockets

"he arrives like an obstetrician", she said

and he went once to the "Ballets Russes"

it was the time of the Ballets Russes

he went to see the Ballets Russes
one evening in Mme Sert's box

that box was in a curious state, there were

Renoir, Auguste Rodin and Proust

and they were very polite
about who would sit down first

so they only sat down
when the curtain came down again

and they weren't able to watch
"l'apr�s-midi d'un faune"

everything with Marcel was ceremonious

he was extremely susceptible

he always imagined one had committed
an injury against him

and perhaps one had committed one without realizing it,
because he had such a hyper-sensitivity

very often he was at Larue, he wrote me 15 pages,
"you pretended, my dear Jean, not to notice me"

and I hadn't seen Marcel at all

otherwise I would have rushed to his table

then he made a whole drama out of it

magnifying what people had been telling
and transcending Proust's work

he lived in a perpetual labyrinth
of polite or impolite behaviours

one day he wrote me 20 pages

of reproaches to be submitted,
he wanted me to read the letter to �tienne de Beaumont

he wanted me to read the 20 pages
of reproaches against de Beaumont

and then he wrote as P.S.
"in fact, don't tell him anything"

M. Paul Morand didn't set out to meet Proust,
it was Proust who spontaneously went to see him

Yes. I had hardly told his friends
with whom I was having dinner
that Proust was somebody like Flaubert,

that this intrigued enormously Proust
and that during one of my leaves in Paris

he rang my doorbell at midnight

and I found in front of the door
of small ground floor apartment
I was living in, rue Gallil�e

that was in August 1915

a man in a pelisse with a very pale face

a beard growing like mildew on a cheese,
very blue around the chin

great swarthy looking eyes,
very black hair, magnificent teeth

and a very soft and insinuating voice,
but at the same time with a lot of authority

he was dressed ...
I saw standing before me a character of the year 1905

he wore a grey bowler hat, I can still see him,
his pelisse with a collar of worn otter fur

a tie which didn't fit his shirt collar,
the collar didn't fit the neck,

he wore his shirt "empes�",
like one used to wear at the time

he continually struggled against that shirt
billowing under his tie which had climbed up his collar

the cuffs put on the wrong way round

he had a walking stick like one used at the time,
a stage cane made of snake wood

shoes with the tongues made of grey turkey skin,
in short, exactly the fashion of 1905

the period when he decided to lie down,
only to get up from time to time

the phrase he uttered when entering,
I've tried to reconstruct it

I'm saying this,
don't read any reverence into it,

but I'm one of the last persons
who knew Proust well,

and I want to give you an idea
of what his conversation was like

even though his books give a perfect idea,
because it was amazing
how much his written phrase resembled his speech

this is what I wrote:

"You've come from Paris?

"you'll find with justification -
please lie down again, Monsieur, you'll catch cold -

I was wearing my pyjamas
and still standing in the hall

"you'll consider it without doubt unsuitable
to be woken up at this hour

"but I hardly go out, I get up late
and besides I'm wrong to get up at all

"because the next day I'm being punished
by atrocious sufferings and by an excess
of ridiculous and never ending cares

"which are however necessary
because one must live with one's illness,
one never will get well again

"and the chronical illness is like an old lady
who adores being attended to,
you too will have cause to complain

"even though you're still a young man
and not an old lady

"still I am considerate towards you
by ringing at your doorbell at midnight

"if I have taken the liberty
it's because I feel the strong desire to know someone,
it's you I'm talking about,

"who has been emitting about me,
people told me so,

"I don't know you well enough
for people to tell me about you other things
than agreeable and even delicious things to hear,

"you emitted about myself or more exactly about my book
judgments which are, I won't be so audacious as to say,
the most pertinent, in the style of our friend du Bos

"but the most delicate.

but Proust had this outpouring,
at the same time monochord and precipitated?

not precipitated.
it was a very melodious phrase, extremely long
which never ended, full of incidents

objections one wouldn't have thought to formulate,
but which he formulated himself

it resembles a mountain road
one tackled without ever arriving at the summit

lots of incidents which sustained the phrase
like oxygen balloons, preventing him from crashing down

full of quibbling,
of arborescence

all this very fluid, very soft

very soft and at the same time

very virile

when people draw Proust's portrait

like Malaparte, for instance,
for the stage

they turn him into a character
who is weak and effeminate

that absolutely wasn't Proust

Proust had a lot of authority

what the English call "poise"

ponderosity, moral authority

at the same time lots of courage

he looked you right in the eyes

a bit of an air of defiance,
of a d'Artagnan, the head thrown upwards

he was very courageous

I remember one evening, in the war,
during bombings

we left the Ritz Hotel

and there was only one cab

Proust called the cab

and an American called it from the other side,
both of them try to get it

there's a struggle

and Proust, who was an invalid
who could hardly walk

to my great surprise
tried to knock down the American

I saw him, for instance, one day
at Larue, the restaurant

when someone whom he suspected to discredit him behind his back,
came up to him and stretched out his hand in a greeting

I think he was right about him, by the way

well, he received him in an extraordinary manner,
I think there were present only him, Bibesco and myself

and he looked at him in silence
and I can still see him,

Marcel's hand resting on the table, not even twitching,

while he told him off,
with a superbly calculated insolence

I can hardly believe that Proust was "a ruffian"
as we would say today

no, he wasn't a ruffian, but I wanted
to illustrate that he was very courageous

and that he was afraid of absolutely nothing
despite his frailty

he was a man who could hardly drag himself
from his bed to the cab

from the cab to the person
he was going to visit

and there he collapsed into an armchair
and he didn't move anymore

he clutched at the arm-rests

when he turned round,
he generally moved his whole body

very handicapped by all that starched harness of
I was just telling you about

the billowing shirt
under which could be seen three woolen vests

his hair a mess, meshes rising like spikes

he tried to flatten them with his hand

the gesture moved his tie to the left,
he pulled it back to the right

he looked as if he had dressed in an elevator,
one had the impression of a character
out the the Gr�vin Museum

it was at the same time comical
but also extremely touching,
and the touching aspect prevailed greatly over the comical

at his place, it was very different

at his place, he had gotten so used to live lying down
that he had a bed in each room,

a bed not only in the bedroom,
but also in the salon

in his bedroom he lay down,
in the bed of the salon it was more of a reclining,
dressed in a pelisse

in the meantime, C�leste made the bed in the bedroom

there were days when he started working quite early

on other days, he only started to work
at 10 or 11 p.m.

sometimes he worked in the afternoon,
but rarely

but what set him going, in order to be able to start working,
the main question was his health

he was very ill,
he had terrible attacks of asthma

and when he suffocated,
he couldn't work

and he didn't eat anything

he deprived himself almost totally of nourishment,
he only took coffee with milk

I almost never saw him eat,
sometimes, as an exception, some dish he fancied
which we ordered from Larue

I phoned Larue,
and they delivered what he wanted to have

and he started working
after having had his second cup of coffee with milk

and then he worked sometimes

until midnight

and at midnight, C�leste installed him in the next room

she cleaned and knocked the carpets at midnight,
and in order to be able do this, of course,
you must tip your neighbours generously

the building Bldv. Haussman was that much used to it

that when the neighbours above hired a servant

they told him, "we'll only pay you a monthly wage of 50 francs

"but below there lives a gentleman,
M. Marcel Proust

"who will give you regularly 100 francs a month

"if you will walk in your socks
because the noise annoys him

I only knew him at Blvd. Haussmann
where he was so much afraid of noise

that he paid a lot to the builders
so that they wouldn't do any work in the apartment above

and when the neighbours returned,
they were stupefied: nothing had been done
they had commissioned the builders to do

because Marcel paid them a lot of money
so that they wouldn't work above his head

Proust was always very generous?

Proust was very generous,
he gave enormous tips

he left restaurants or hotels
flanked by two rows of waiters and ma�tres d'
bowing to the ground

which exasperated our friend Antoine Bibesco

who was a kind of comical Mephistopheles
agitating in Proust's shadow

as soon as Proust had tipped somebody

Proust claimed that he went and questioned the servants
behind his back in order to know how much they had received

and then, "to ruin my effect," said Proust,
"he then told them that Proust had made a mistake,
that he had given them far more that he intended"

there's an excellent story

at the end of his life, Proust went a lot to the Ritz
to visit the Princesse Soutzo who later became Mme Paul Morand

and when he left, he gave tips

and one night he had no more money in his pockets,
he told the conci�rge

"could you lend me 50 francs?"
"Of course, M. Proust, here you are."

and Proust said "keep them, they were for you."

in the salon where he received visitors

later rue Hamelin,
but first Blvd. Haussmann

like his clothes,
it was a salon of 1900, 1895-1900

with vegetal designs on the walls

furniture covered with green reps,
with caterpillars

the portrait of his father, Dr. Proust,
in a frame of red plush in the middle of the salon on a scaffold

and on the wall the portrait of the child
admired by the whole family,
the young Marcel Proust by Jacques-Emile Blanche

Marcel's room resembled a family's home
when everybody has left for the holidays

everything covered with sheets,
the chandeliers, the furniture

and as I just told you

dust everywhere because
no dusting or sweeping was even done

Cocteau compared it to a glaucous aquarium

and I remember that Proust was very annoyed at that

and he said to me: "Do you thing
my room resembles a glaucous aquarium?"

and sometimes Marcel left his bed

he went into his dressing room

and sometimes he ate cold noodles while standing,
I remember seeing him doing that

he was dressed in a sort of jumping suit
made of violet velvet

which seemed to contain the machinery
of his mysterious mechanism

thus a sketch of Proust might look like:
frivolous, a bit eccentric

still, he's the author of one of the most
painful works of our times

without doubt, he used his appearance as an act

he used his frivolity as an act

that this frivolity allowed him
to gather the anecdotes

that contributed to his work,
this aspect of being a chronicle of an epoch

where black humour is mixed endlessly
with the most heartbreaking description of human passions.

one mustn't forget

that he has studied on himself

the wounds of his characters

one of those wounds

I'm not going to mention it

but you know what I'm alluding to

and one couldn't have gone any further
than he went, in that field

another wound, more modest,
if I dare say so

and a bit ridiculous

and a bit shameful, was the snobbism

well, the picture Proust drew of it

it's only in his book

it achieves, if you like,
a degree of profoundness

which illuminates a lot the man,
and it's on himself that he has studied it

yes, he talked a lot about it

foreign politics, I was a member of M. Briand's staff,
it amused him a lot to learn what was going on there

he talked a lot about strategy,
that interested him enormously

and he followed the war very closely

he said, all military chroniclers,
whom he generally thought to be idiots,
except Henri Bidou who wasn't a professional

but there was another one,
I think the General Cherfils of the "Echo de Paris"

who always made his day,
he was that silly

but he fairly ridiculed them
in "Time Regained"

yes, I think this is where intervenes
the formation of his characters

especially his secondary characters
which were cast from one mould

and one could even name them

but sometimes, like in one's dreams,
they were a lyrical creation

where two or three persons
lent their traits

let's take the diplomat Norpois

well, the diplomat Norpois
was created from three persons:

from a friend of his father,
the French Ambassador in Rome, Barr�re

whom by the way Proust loathed

when I got attached to Barr�re two years later

Proust told me "you'll be very unhappy with that man,
I'll explain, why" - he was right about him

then for Norpois there was a charming old thing,
the Minister to Greece, called Guillemain

and a third person,
the Marquis de Montebello

well, for all the characters
there are traits borrowed from right or left

but sometimes,
and I mean, especially for the secondary characters

he used a single name

and what's graver still,
in order not to have to invent a name

he wrote the real name,
and sometimes he forgot about it in the proofs

this anecdote amused him a lot

one day he described a ball
at the Duchesse de Rohan
who at that time was called Princesse de L�on

so he described this ball at the Duchesse de Rohan,
without denigrating it, by the way

but he left in her name in the book,
out of carelessness

and to his great astonishment
he received a letter from the poor good duchess

who wrote: "dear M. Proust, I am so touched
that you remember the ball I gave in 1912", etc.

I remember one day, I told him,
"but Mme Verdurin, I know who's the original

"she's certainly my aunt,
Mme M�nard-Dorian

because if there was a literary salon,
a musical salon, lots of fervour

a bit of politics, very personal ...

in short, I had recognized Mme Verdurin
in several scenes I had witnessed in her salon

and I knew Proust had been there too

at first, Proust denied it

he said: "Don't think that, I hardly know her,
I've used lots of different persons"

it's true, he had made an amalgamation,
as he did with lots of his characters

but imagine, one day,
or rather, one evening

I was at home and I received a letter from Proust

a note he sent me through his chauffeur

I read this note

and he told me, "dear friend, I implore you,
give me a piece of information I need at once"

"I would like to know if the flowers decorating the table
are standing upright at your aunt M�nard-Dorian?"

"do you remember by what device
she arranges the flowers on her table?"

he was just describing a dinner
at the Verdurin's

and he needed this detail at once

Mme de Chevign� whom he had turned
into the Duchesse de Guermantes,
didn't like Marcel's books

she said: "I get stuck in his sentences"

Marcel was aghast, he told me very bitterly
"you must tell her not to say this about my book!"

I said: "Marcel, that would be as if M. Fabre
demanded of the insects to be interested
in what he wrote about them"

Mme Andr� Maurois, even you appear,
I believe, in Marcel Proust's work

yes, I think I'm Mlle de Saint-Loup

a minor character who appears very briefly
at the end of "Time Regained"

How do you know that you're Mlle de Saint-Loup?

Did Proust tell you, or ...

well, Proust, at the moment
when he drafted the plan of his "meandering novel"

wanted to introduce
a character of the third generation

who could give to the reader
the impression of the passing of time

and Mlle de Saint-Loup is the granddaughter
of Swann and Odette

she's the only child
of Gilberte Swann and Robert de Saint-Loup

and consequently, she's the third generation of the family
he studied, analyzed and observed during 13 volumes

her cheeks resembled peonies

he decided, at a certain moment,
that he had to make my acquaintance

and at once, he wanted to meet me

at the time, I was 13 years old

he had never seen me,
because at the time the children didn't mix with adults' lives

so one evening, at 11 p.m.,
he arrived at my parents

insisting that I should be shown to him at once

I was fast asleep

they asked my English tutoress
to wake me up and send me down to the salon

she was very shocked

and I was furious,
a little girl being torn out of her first sleep

telling me to get dressed and go down to the salon
to meet a gentleman

I was furious

I went down in a really bad humour

really determined to be sulky

but Marcel Proust was a man
of bewitching charm

and very fast, he melted down my resistance

in the "M�morables" by Maurice Martin du Gard,
in the first volume, I think the volume opens up on this

on a ball given by my wife

and where Marcel Proust is sitting next to the fireplace,

of course, right by the source of heat
and keeping on his pelisse

by the way, if those souvenirs are exact

let me ask my wife if she remembers
how this happened

- do you remember the soir�e where ...
- yes, very well

Proust was very happy because he had learned
that he was going to hear about the murder of Rasputin

there was a Russian present
with whom he was talking for a long time

others wanted to be presented to Proust
but he warded them off with a wave of his hands,
like this

and he went on concentrating on Rasputin

the night at the Ritz, that was his daytime,
he lived at night

from that time on,
he often went to the Ritz, 2 or 3 times per week

he dined below, in the restaurant

then he came up to my rooms,

he didn't eat, he didn't drink,
he just talked, he told me all the events of the day

he adored gossip

he used to phone sometimes to obtain a detail about a lady,
what dress she had been wearing at a certain evening

yes, he always wanted to know that from me

he called you because of this?

but we didn't have to phone,
and besides, he didn't use the phone

he had C�leste make the call

C�leste called and said: "M. Marcel Proust
who is afraid he'll die next week

asks permission to visit Mme la Princesse
for a last time tonight"

I said, yes, of course,
I was delighted

so Marcel arrived and said:
"I know you've been at that soir�e

what dress were you wearing?

after all, Madame,
everybody says that he went out very rarely

in fact, the number of his friends
could be counted on the fingers of one hand

and you're saying that the collected gossip,
that he knew all the gossip

but he received visitors

some young people of society, if you like

like H�lie de Talleyrand for instance,
whom he liked a lot

and he kept himself up to date

this is the telepathy of the sick,
they know everything without leaving their ...

that's true

it's very difficult to differentiate
between what was pure information

he received from his interlocutors

and the relaxation
their presence brought about

a man who has been writing the whole day
was happy to see somebody from the outside world

often, especially with people from society

he was after very precise informations

with H�lie de Talleyrand,
with the Comte de Beaumont

with a generation younger than his old friends
who were Flers, Guillaume de Lauris, Albufera etc.

one had the impression that it was all about
getting his documentation,
not in order to be amused

one had the impression that everything
was channeled into this enormous work
he carried inside himself

did he talk about it,
or was he discreet?

no, he talked about it

he talked about it
without entering into details

he talked about it in a general manner,
for instance:

"I must correct the proofs,
this will be difficult because I take drops
which dilate my pupillas

"and with all that caffeine that contracts them,
I've come to a point where I can't decipher anything at all

and in fact, I remember a soir�e
where below, in the Ritz,
on a tiny pedestal of about 10 cm�

they brought him an enormous stack of proofs

and he started to correct them,
and you know, when he corrects his proofs,
he adds as much text on the border as the text itself

Marcel Proust was already like cloistered
to finish his work when Emmanuel Berl met him

I knew him very well under a certain angle,
during a certain time,
in a relationship which was very limited

I made his acquaintance by letter

because I had written a letter to a common lady friend
about his preface to "S�same et les lys"

and since it was at the beginning of the war,
and since there were small pieces of shrapnel inside the letter

when this was reported to him,
it deeply moved him

so he felt obliged to write to me

and that's what he did,
he sent me quite a number of letters

that lost unfortunately,
in the trenches where I got them

and when I climbed out of the trenches
and went to Paris

naturally, this dialogue continued

I visited him a certain number of times,
twice per week

at midnight, like everybody else

I entered his bedroom

and he went on to explain to me
what he had been explaining to me by letter

what he explained to me was,
that each person is irrefutably alone

and that no communication is possible between two persons

a theory which I didn't believe in

so I found a letter from him

miraculously preserved

this letter on friendship

on the same theme

"but I am all alone

"and I only profit by others
to the degree in which they cause me to discover
something within myself

"either by making me suffer,
thus more through love than friendship

"or by their ridiculous side,
which I don't want to see in a friend I care about

"but which makes me understand their character

what he taught me,
it was the loneliness of man

and the necessity to accept it

he thought that everybody is alone

that one has feelings and passions
which are independent of their supposed object

and that nobody ever communicates with anybody else

that we all are like desert islands

didn't he think that passion
could be a means of communication?

I think the passion the narrator has for Albertine,

the passion of Swann for Odette

not in the least degree!

passion never reveals to you its object,
it cannot reveal it to you

passion reveals you to yourself

it brings you into contact with yourself,
by suffering

you can have a very strong passion
for a person you don't understand at all

and even, in his book,
the less you understand the people,

the stronger your passion gets,
because jealousy is precisely the measure of this incomprehension

he knows very well that he doesn't know Albertine

he loves her, but he doesn't know her

and even after her death he tries to get to know her,
and he doesn't succeed

but he knows Saint-Loup

no, absolutely not!

only, he's much more indifferent

he doesn't exercise the same passion
to find out about all the sexual acts of Saint-Loup

as he does in trying to find out about the sexual acts of Albertine,
he doesn't start an investigation

by the way, the investigation is running all by itself,
since he discovers quite a bit after all

but still, there are bursts of friendship
for Saint-Loup, bursts of...

of tenderness, tenderness.

but obviously this doesn't reveal
anything about Saint-Loup

those are things
which inform you about Proust

it's a means Proust has to grasp himself,
to know himself,

regarding Saint-Loup, he never knew him,
and neither Albertine, nor his grandmother, nor anybody

since he didn't accept it
when I said that I knew somebody

Proust was somebody
who must have suffered terribly

since you know that he had arrived
at a skepticism

a nihilism that was terrible

as well as,
regarding love,

and regarding friendship

because that man
who was so kind-natured, so charming

who surrounded you with so many
professions of friendship

he didn't believe in friendship

he didn't believe that friendship existed

as to love,

as to his thoughts on love,

well, what makes me admire Proust,

more than anything else,

is that, the man being the kind of man what he was,

he managed, with "Swann in Love"

to paint for us the picture of love

of love in its most normal state

in my opinion, the most exact

the most perfect

we have been given since Benjamin Constant.

when I contradicted him,
he carried the contradiction to its utmost

with an analysis
which was always very meticulous

he talked mostly like he wrote

with this turning round the subject

until he got tired,
and chased me away

then I left

I was quite tired as well,
at 3 or 4 a.m.

our relations become envenomed

because at a certain moment

I didn't agree with him any more
that all feelings are illusory towards an object

he explained to me
that the young girl I was engaged to

the best thing that could happen to me
was to discover that she had died

I thought this disagreeable

and he got angry at me

he told me I was a fool

he told me,
"you're as much of a fool as L�on Blum"

which meant in his language

"you may well have read some books

"but you fail to see the difference
between what's real in life, and what isn't"

and he threw his slippers at my ...
he was in his dressing room, I in the bedroom

he threw his slippers at my face

and I left, feeling very angry

evidently, I think he was all the more sensitive about it

that if a communication had been possible
between two persons,

he supposed that it was the communication
which existed between himself and his mother,

consequently, he felt himself cut to the quick

and precisely, I think he thought me a fool,
anyway, he had lots of good reasons to think me a fool

but what he did in order to find me the greatest fool of all

that was the fact that I didn't understand
where I had annoyed him

I had understood it by the way,
and quite accurately

only, he annoyed me a lot too

so we retreated to general philosophizing

and the court he had been paying me,
ended

and my relation to him as well

because otherwise I didn't hold him,
he wasn't interested in me at all

he was really only interested
in the development of his didactic thought

and when I think about
what other persons told me about him

I'm even surprised
that he had so much faith

that he was absolutely convinced

that what he thought was the truth

and that one had to adapt one's behaviour to it

that if one didn't take his side in loneliness

one would be incapable to create a work of art

and those who couldn't create a work of art

were just some kind of asses

my first impulse was to believe
that he had given his life to an idol

but then I would be wrong

because even from a Christian point of view

I think that a work of such importance as Proust's,

of the significance of Proust's work,

cannot be involuntary,

cannot be anything but a vocation

and besides, even though I met Proust very rarely

but perhaps also in the few letters

I exchanged with him

well, I realized

to what amount
Proust had this feeling of vocation

he knew he was giving his life

and he knew he was giving it
not to a work of vanity

but to something of importance

for mankind

but now I think one must look beyond it

now Proust must hand in his coat at the cloak-room

his pelisse and his patent leather shoes

and we'll see him in his bed
as the end draws near

dressed like the man he is,
like an artist, an artisan

like a forced labourer

with his three vests

his smoke fumigations

and his haste to finish his work

since 1913 Mme C�leste Albarret was in Proust's service

did he talk to you about his death a lot,
before?

he told me that certainly,
death has been pursuing him

and that he wanted to finish his work

and that he would feel very sorry
if he had been working that hard

and if he would have to leave all that unfinished.

and one morning, when I came in

he was like a child which had just been through the happiest day,
the most perfect happiness, he told me:

"dear C�leste, I have some big news for you

and I asked "what is it?"

"what might have happened
of such importance in this room?

"something immense"

"something which is so good

"and what happened?"

and he raised himself,
he smiled at me and said:

"I've written the word "the end"

"now I can die"

then I said "at last, all for the better,
Monsieur, your desire is fulfilled"

"but think of all the little slips of paper
I will still have to glue on"

"and all the corrections you'll still have to write"

"ah that, my dear, that's something else"

it was my habit to stick together with glue,
these �paperies,� as Fran�oise called them,

and sometimes in this process they became torn.

And she would say to me, pointing to my shredded note-books
as if to a piece of cloth eaten by an insect:

�Look, it�s all eaten away, isn�t that dreadful!

"There�s nothing left of this bit of page,
it�s been torn to ribbons,�

and examining it with a tailor�s eye she would go on:

�I don�t think I shall be able to mend this one,
it�s finished and done for.

"A pity, perhaps those were your most beautiful ideas."

Marcel Proust was always ill

but one day, in November 1922

one day he felt most tired

and he had caught a bronchitis

he wanted to get up,
he swayed

and he said "oh my dear C�leste,
what'll happen to me

"if I can't suffice myself

then I told him,
"it doesn't matter, it's all your fault

"since you won't obey doctors' orders

"you don't want to drink hot milk,
you don't want to have heat

then I told him
"you always want to complicate ...

and then he told me: "well C�leste, tonight

"I'll eat a sole,
just to do you a favour

we prepared a nice sole, it was ready,
the professor rang at the door

then I told him "Professor, it seems he's better

and he asked for a sole,
we prepared one for him

then he told me "listen to me,
don't serve it yet, I'll visit him first

and he came back and he told me
"you mustn't give him anything to eat

"because I think he's quite exhausted

"but I'm happy because

"he told me, he promised me,
that he would keep you the whole night at his bedside,
that he won't be alone

then I said "very well"

the two of us worked the whole night through

he dictated to me

and he told me at midnight

"if I live through this night

"tomorrow, C�leste, I'll prove to the doctors

"that I am stronger than they are

"but I must live through this night

I stayed in the freezing room the whole night,
we worked through the night

and then, at 3 o'clock

he said to me:

"I'll write a bit

"dictating tires me out

I said "very well"

then he said "I can't"

"I can't go on any more"

"I'm tired"

"C�leste, don't forget

"don't forget to place carefully at such a page
what I dictated and what I wrote

then I told him

- "very well, Monsieur, try to rest,
can I do something for you?
- "no"

then he had a choking fit

he suffocated

then, the next morning

he said to me

it was about 7 o'clock

he told me, "if there was any coffee with milk

"all hot and ready

"I'd take it at once

"in order to do you
and my brother a favour

I fetched the coffee with milk,
I brought it to him at once

because we constantly had fresh coffee ready

I asked "do you want me to help you drink it?"

he took his bowl

he put it to his lips

he drank it

he looked at me and he said:

"thus I will be doing you and my brother a favour"

from that moment on

he started to arrange his odds and bits

and then I realized that he was in a bad state

the envelope on which Proust scribbled a few words
the day before he died

and this, written by C�leste,

the last lines the dictated to her
the same night

and then one day, everything's changed

what had been detestable for us

what had always been forbidden to us,

now it is permitted,

for instance, I wasn't allowed to drink champagne

"but perfectly, if this is agreeable to you"

one can hardly believe one's ears

one has brands delivered to the house,
the brands one always used to shun before

and this gives an aspect which is a bit vile

to this incredible frivolity
of the dying

I left the bedroom and I return
to the small hall next to it

in order to find out what he was doing,
he said to me:

he rang for me at once

he said: "why are you standing in the hall?"

- I said "but I'm not standing in the hall"
- "but I heard you perfectly, come on"

then I said "I was worried,
I wanted to find out if you needed me

"and I wanted to be near you

then he said

"there's this fat woman in the bedroom

I said "I'll chase her away for you"

"no, C�leste, don't touch her,
she's horrible"

"she's horrible, she's appalling"

then I said "does she frighten you?"

"a bit"

then I saw that he was really in a bad way

I asked my husband to call at once for Dr. Bize

and I called his brother,
told him that his brother was feeling very bad,
that he should come at once

then Mme Proust answered

"he's at Thonon,
but I'll phone at once to arrange what's necessary

and she called me back and said

"he's just giving his lecture,
but he'll come straight away

Odilon came with Dr. Bize and ...

when he arrived

so I said, "Doctor, you must give him an injection,
he's so weak and poorly

then the Doctor told me

"give him an injection? how so?

then I said "but he doesn't resist

"then you must raise the sheets,
I'll give him an injection in his thigh

and when I went up to M. Proust
and lifted up his cover

he took me by the wrist

pinched it hard

and he cried "ah, C�leste

and crying like this, I can still see him

he meant that I had betrayed him,
that I didn't obey what he had told me

most of all, never to let the doctors
give him injections

because the doctors had the habit

to make a dying man suffer more
by giving him injections

prolonging his life with serums

that they torment him to make him live longer

for half an hour,
a quarter of an hour

for an hour,
and that it was horrible

he didn't tell me not to let them do it to him

nor not to let them do it,
but he told me "most of all, C�leste"

since I did it without asking his permission

he put me down by this cry "ah, C�leste"

and he pinched my wrist

then I said to Prof. Proust

because Prof. Proust came
after Dr. Bize's visit

I said, "well, M. le Professeur

I did something I shouldn't have done

"No you haven't, my dear C�leste,
you did everything for him"

"unfortunately we did everything too late"

"but what can one do,
my brother would certainly have lived longer

but he led a life
which was only devoted to his work

and if we had wanted to make him live differently

he wouldn't have written his work,
he only lived for his work

then ...

Dr. Bize left,
but Dr. Proust stayed and never left him

and he called a famous physician
who had treated his mother

the Dr. Landowski

and who told him

"well, what do you think,
shall we give him another injection?"

then he answered "come on, Robert

"let him be

"let's not make him suffer anymore

and I accompanied Dr. Landowski to the door
and I said to him

"you're going to save him, Doctor?"

he took both my hands

and he told me

"have courage

"but it's over

I went back to Prof. Proust

it was only one second

and we were both near him

he said to him,
lifting him up a bit

because he had trouble breathing

"do I make you suffer,
my dear little Marcel?"

and he answered

"oh yes, my little Robert"

and two or three minutes later
he closed his brother's eyelids with his hand

I hadn't noticed that he had died,
he died with his eyes open, admirable eyes, tranquil

and it was like a light
where there was nothing left

Proust wrote the word "the end"

at the bottom of his work

and he died

I went to see him on his death bed

rue Hamelin

a man who really gave the impression
of being stripped bare of everything

one could say that those were the remains

of somebody who has allowed
his work to devour him

day after day

his funeral was a Parisian event

and it was at the same time
a discovery for Proust's superiors

I can still see Barr�s

who looked at that crowd of young people

who pressed themselves
around the church

and he didn't conceal from me
his astonishment

but Marcel Proust,
he was our young man

a program by Roger St�phane

with the participation of
Roland Darbois

texts read by Jean Negroni

cinematography: Roger Dormoy

script Yolande Maurette

editor: Pierre Alaux

directed by G�rard Herzog

Engl. subtitles: serdar202@KG