26
RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
ground as the hawthorn blossoms fade away. What seems at first a digres-
sion on Mile Vinteuil follows, but in reality she is linked with the flowers
in a very intricate way. For on leaving the church, Marcel is stopped by a
strong almond scent which he places in the little blond parts of the flowers.
This slightly bitter fragrance awakens in him not only the taste of a
frangipani, but also that which the skin of Mlle Vinteuil would have under-
neath her freckles. On reading the passage closely one realizes that the
taste of Mlle VinteuiFs skin is not only awakened in the boy by the odor,
but also by the physical place which he assigns to that odor and which
resembles a freckle in color and size. It seems that one can become part of
things, can possess and know them by consuming them (cf. Sartre).0 But
Mlle VinteuiFs relation to the flowers goes still one step further and pre-
pares the association of Sodom and Gomorrah with botany, implying a
certain unity in the reign of nature. Indeed, the musician’s perverted daugh-
ter will be MarceFs first contact with the world of the maudits.
The first passage about the hawthorn blossoms introduces a number of
themes on the subject of love: it conveys the awakening of passion with its
excitement and restlessness preparing the reader for MarceFs eventual love
for Gilberte and Albertine; it shows love as a desire to possess and to know
the object loved; it portrays the sense of loss which the lover feels, wanting
to penetrate and to know the être de fuite which he loves; and finally it
introduces the theme of perversion which lurks under the apparent purity
of the white hawthorn.
Before examining the grandiose scene of the hawthorn, we should look
at the lilacs of Tansonville. “Le temps des lilas approchait de sa fin;
quelques-uns effusaient encore en hauts lustres mauves les bulles délicates
de leurs fleurs, mais dans bien des parties du feuillage où déferlait, il y avait
seulement une semaine, leur mousse embaumée, se flétrissait, diminuée et
noircie, une écume creuse, sèche et sans parfum.”7 There is a double move-
ment in this scene; Proust the author has accomplished what Marcel the boy
was unable to do; on the one hand he penetrates, through his style, the essence
of the flowers, and on the other he succeeds in drawing the flowers into his
own being. In other words author and flowers penetrate each other, become
intertwined. The actual growth of the trees is rendered by the word
effusaient, which suggests a rocket; the flowers themselves are thrust forth
once the rocket has exploded and turn out to be purple chandeliers; now
that the flowers have come forth we are allowed to descend into their
interior; under close scrutiny each petal transforms itself into a bubble.
This last word finishes the image of the fireworks suggested by the verb
effuser and introduces a new metaphor, namely that of a liquid on whose
surface little bubbles are formed; the liquid in its turn brings to mind the
sea and waves—écume, déferler, mousse.8 This imagery is not only