![]() I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory-this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. ![]() Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. ![]()
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