"She fastened on me her penetrating gaze, but doors were being closed and the train had begun to move. I saw her leave the station and go down the hill to her home; it was broad daylight now; I was speeding away from the dawn. Whether my exaltation had been produced by this girl or had on the other hand been responsible for most of the pleasure that I had found in her presence, in either event she was so closely associated with it that my desire to see her again was above all a mental desire not to allow this state of excitement to perish utterly, not to be separated for ever from the person who, however unwittingly, had participated in it. It was not only that this state was a pleasant one. It was above all that (just as increased tension upon a string or the accelerated vibration of a nerve produces a different sound or colour) it gave another tonality to all that I saw, introduce me as an actor upon the stage of an unknown and infinitely more interesting universe; that handsome whom I still could see, as the train gathered speed, was like part of a life other than the life I knew, separated from it by a clear boundary, in which the sensations aroused in me by things were no longer the same, from which to emerge now would be, as it were, to die to myself. To have the consolation of feeling that I had at least an attachment to this new life, it would suffice that I should live near enough to the little station to be able to come to it every morning for a cup of coffee from the girl. But, alas, she must be for ever absent from the other life towards which I was being borne with ever increasing speed, a life which I could resign myself to accept only by weaving plans that would enable me to take the same train again some day and to stop at the same station, a project which had the further advantage of providing food for the selfish, active, practical, mechanical, indolent, centrifugal tendency which is that of the human mind, for it turns all too readily aside from the effort which is required to analyze and probe, in a general and disinterested manner, an agreeable impression which we have received. And since, at the same time, we wish to continue to think of that impression, the mind prefers to imagine it in the future tense, to continue to bring about the circumstances which may make it recur - which, while giving us not clue as to the real nature of the thing, saves us the trouble of recreating it within ourselves and allows us to hope that we may receive it afresh from without."
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 707-708
There are so many responses that are floating, if not actively swimming, to the surface after I completed this section. Again, this is the long section (well, not by Proustian standards) where Proust is travelling by train and, while stopping at a little village in the mountains and the appearance of a young woman selling coffee and milk, reflects on life. As I slide into the last decade of my career I like to assign myself challenges in the classroom to keep me interested and focused, and because, and I know this is a shock to everyone I know, I might be a tad competitive (to be the man, you gotta beat the man). Beyond my own interest, obviously, this is why I include material from Swan Lake or the Ramayana or Winesburg, Ohio or Journey to the West or the Shahnameh or Dickens or Rumi in class; we're told repeatedly that students today can't understand or appreciate the classics, and not only do I disagree, I take it as a personal challenge that I'm the one who can help them understand and appreciate them. With that in mind, I've been tinkering with the idea of including some of Remembrance of Things Past in my classes next year. Proust's effort at profound self-reflection seems like a great fit in Concepts of the Self, with the added bonus of forcing the students to dig awfully deep. I'm thinking of having my students in Heroines & Heroes tackle Proust's description of passing through that train station several times, essentially revisiting it and analyzing it through different lenses. I wonder what my students, using Lesbian/Gay literary criticism, would make of his description of the country girl as "tall" and "handsome"; not that it necessarily means anything in this context, but it is rich material for analysis. Hmmm.
Proust writes, " . . . my desire to see her again was above all a mental desire not to allow this state of excitement to perish utterly, not to be separated for ever from the person who, however unwittingly, had participated in it. It was not only that this state was a pleasant one. it was above all that (just as increased tension upon a string or the accelerated vibration of a nerve produces a different sound or colour) it gave another tonality to all that I saw . . ." So much of this section, and for that matter the novel itself, deals with how Habit leave us living at a "minimum" and that most of our "faculties lie dormant." So, when you do have one of those moments you have to be living your life in such a way, essentially actually living your life, that you understand the significance of that moment, but also that you need to make an effort to capture, prolong and preserve that moment.
This is so important because Habit always leads us away from truly living life. Upon leaving Proust begins to plan a trip back, " . . . a project which had the further advantage of providing food for the selfish, active, practical, mechanical, indolent, centrifugal tendency which is that of the human mind, for it turns all too readily aside from the effort which is required to analyze and prove, in a general and disinterested manner, an agreeable impression which we have received." Essentially, he found himself slipping back into the surface level tedium of life, and thus the beauty of the moment was already potentially fading away, and would have if he had not made the conscious effort to capture it. I will only disagree with Proust's comment about analyzing events in a "general and disinterested manner." It makes sense philosophically (sounds very much like Hegel and/or Kant talking about art), but I don't think Proust ever examined anything in a "disinterested" fashion. There's too much beauty in his work for that to be completely true.
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