PROUST’S CONCEPTION OF NATURE
25
takes a walk with Gilberte, by now the wife of St. Loup, nephew of Oriane
de Guermantes, and comes to realize that the barriers between Swann’s way
and Guermantes' way have crumbled also. Gilberte herself unites within
her person the two walks; she is the only one in the novel who can take
him to the source of the Vivonne, to the Guermantes' property, and past
her father’s former house, all on one afternoon walk. She shows Marcel
the final breakdown of those values which he has known and clung to.
. . Gilberte me dit: ‘Si vous voulez, nous pourrons tout de même sortir
un après-midi et nous pourrons alors aller à Guermantes, en prenant par
Méséglise, c’est la plus jolie façon,’ phrase qui en bouleversant toutes les
idées de mon enfance m’apprit que les deux côtés n’étaient pas aussi incon-
ciliables que j’avais cru. Mais ce qui me frappa le plus, ce fut combien peu,
pendant ce séjour, je revécus mes années d’autrefois, désirai peu revoir
Combray, trouvai mince et laide la Vivonne.”3 All the mystery of his child-
hood is dissipated and only banal reality remains. Marcel has become at
last free of all illusion and ready to commence his long work.
The narrator’s final realization that these two walks are not irrecon-
cilable foretells the bouleversement of the pre-war social order as seen at
the matinée given by the Guermantes. The different strata of society have
merged to form a new kind of snobbism. The circle around Combray has
been completed geographically, socially and mentally. His odyssey has
ended, and his work will begin.
The geography serves Proust as an encircling band around his work.
It is linked to the disillusionment which the narrator has to undergo in
order to become worthy of art. To create, the artist must throw off the
shackles of the world and become free.
Within this circle around Combray occur two of the most interesting
nature scenes of the whole Recherche: the boy’s encounter with the haw-
thorn blossoms and later his contact with the lilacs.4 The important haw-
thorn scene is prepared in the church St. André des Champs.5 Marcel begins
to love the hawthorn blossoms in May, the month of Mary. The verb “love”
here has all the connotations of the love for a woman; the month of Mary
lends it a peculiarly virginal aspect. Marcel is in church and contemplates
the altar decorated with white hawthorn blossoms. The imagery of the
scene is first dominated by a sense of movement: there is life in these
flowers; they “prenaient part”; they “font courir,” they seem to escape from
Marcel by their very life, just as Albertine will be in continual flight. The
associations partake of a whole series of sensations : from religious mystery
plays, we pass to the scene of a young bride in the prime of life. By an
extraordinary effort Marcel tries to enter into the stamen of the flowers,
into their graceful movement, which reminds him of the coquetry of a young
girl. And suddenly the image of Mile VinteuiI imposes itself on the fore-