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\nThis Sunday is Mother’s Day in the UK. In France, Mothers Day is usually on the last Sunday in May, except if it coincides with Pentecost. In this case, Mother’s Day is shifted to the first Sunday of June.<\/p>\n
\nThis Sunday is Mother’s Day in the UK. In France, Mothers Day is usually on the last Sunday in May, except if it coincides with Pentecost. In this case, Mother’s Day is shifted to the first Sunday of June.<\/p>\n
On this occasion I would like to invite you to read a few lines by Marcel Proust (1871-1922) where the narrator mentions his mother. They are extracted from\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Un amour de Swann\u00a0\u00bb which is the second part of the book\u00a0Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann<\/em>. Proust’s big novel,\u00a0\u00c0 la recherche du temps perdu<\/em>, contains 7 volumes\u00a0;\u00a0Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann\u00a0<\/em>is the first one:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0Ma seule consolation, quand je montais me coucher, \u00e9tait que maman viendrait m’embrasser quand je serais dans mon lit. Mais ce bonsoir durait si peu de temps, elle redescendait si vite, que le moment o\u00f9 je l’entendais monter puis o\u00f9 passait dans le couloir \u00e0 double porte le bruit l\u00e9ger de sa robe de jardin en mousseline bleue, \u00e0 laquelle pendaient de petits cordons de paille tress\u00e9e, \u00e9tait pour moi, un moment douloureux. Il annon\u00e7ait celui qui allait le suivre, o\u00f9 elle m’aurait quitt\u00e9, o\u00f9 elle serait redescendue, de sorte que ce bonsoir que j’aimais tant, j’en arrivais \u00e0 souhaiter qu’il vient le plus tard possible, \u00e0 ce que se prolonge\u00e2t le temps de r\u00e9pit o\u00f9 maman n’\u00e9tait pas encore venue.\u00a0\u00bb (Marcel Proust, Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann<\/em>, Gallimard)<\/p>\n English translation:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma would come in\u00a0<\/span>and kiss me after I was in bed. But this good night lasted for so short a time: she went<\/span>down again so soon that the moment in which I heard her climb the stairs, and then<\/span>caught the sound of her garden dress of blue muslin, from which hung little tassels of\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0plaited straw, rustling along the double-doored corridor, was for me a moment of the<\/span>keenest sorrow. So much did I love that good night that I reached the stage of hoping that\u00a0<\/span>it would come as late as possible, so as to prolong the time of respite during which\u00a0<\/span>Mamma would not yet have appeared.\u00a0\u00bb\u00a0<\/span>(https:\/\/fr.scribd.com\/doc\/4623584\/Marcel-Proust-Swann-s-Way-Volume-1-of-Remembrance-of-Thin)<\/p>\n But the real tribute to the mother comes in the famous episode of the madeleine. <\/em>The narrator in Un amour de Swann <\/em>reveals how this little cake dipped in a cup of tea brings back all his memories from his childhood; the cakes that will be the material for the seven books. By giving a madeleine<\/em> to the narrator, his mother will\u00a0actually be at the\u00a0origin of his writing process. That is to say that she gave him birth a second time, as a writer.<\/p>\n \u00ab Il y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien des ann\u00e9es que, de Combray, tout ce qui n’\u00e9tait pas le th\u00e9\u00e2tre et le drame de mon coucher, n’existait plus pour moi, quand un jour d’hiver, comme je rentrais \u00e0 la maison, ma m\u00e8re, voyant que j’avais froid, me proposa de me faire prendre, contre mon habitude, un peu de th\u00e9. Je refusai d’abord et, je ne sais pourquoi, me ravisai. Elle envoya chercher un de ces g\u00e2teaux courts et dodus appel\u00e9s Petites Madeleines qui semblent avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 moul\u00e9s dans la valve rainur\u00e9e d’une coquille de Saint- Jacques. Et bient\u00f4t, machinalement, accabl\u00e9 par la morne journ\u00e9e et la perspective d’un triste lendemain, je portai \u00e0 mes l\u00e8vres une cuiller\u00e9e du th\u00e9 o\u00f9 j’avais laiss\u00e9 s’amollir un morceau de madeleine. Mais \u00e0 l’instant m\u00eame o\u00f9 la gorg\u00e9e m\u00eal\u00e9e des miettes du g\u00e2teau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif \u00e0 ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi. Un plaisir d\u00e9licieux m’avait envahi, isol\u00e9, sans la notion de sa cause. Il m’avait aussit\u00f4t rendu les vicissitudes de la vie indiff\u00e9rentes, ses d\u00e9sastres inoffensifs, sa bri\u00e8vet\u00e9 illusoire, de la m\u00eame fa\u00e7on qu’op\u00e8re l’amour, en me remplissant d’une essence pr\u00e9cieuse: ou plut\u00f4t cette essence n’\u00e9tait pas en moi, elle \u00e9tait moi. (…) Tout Combray et ses environs, tout cela qui prend forme et solidit\u00e9, est sorti, ville et jardins, de ma tasse de th\u00e9.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n English translation:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0Many 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. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason,changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called \u2018petites madeleines,\u2019 which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim\u2019s shell. 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. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory\u2014this 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. (…) T<\/span>he whole of Combray and of\u00a0<\/span>its \u00a0surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town\u00a0<\/span>and gardens\u00a0alike, from my cup of tea.\u00a0\u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n