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RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
thorn is an early indication of those liberating powers that art will have
for him. Here the joy is still linked to the childish pleasures of eating cream
cheese with strawberries, but a certain note of irony on the part of the
author is present in the realization that pink is, in truth, a very banal color
and that this image of cream cheese is rather juvenile. To be sure, it is only
in the provincial aesthetics of Combray that pink was considered superior
to white since it was “colored.” Nevertheless, the naiveté of the tender
provincial pink is touching and accentuates the simple sincerity of those
who adhere to its beauty. The excitement of the boy is such, however, that
he quickly moves on to metamorphose the hawthorn buds into a young girl
dressed to go to a feast. And as the odor of the white hawthorn brought us
to Mlle Vinteuil, so the pink young-girl-flowers lead us to Gilberte Swann.
The love of the hawthorn blossoms comes to a pinnacle in his love for
Gilberte. Henceforth, all the love and desire of the boy will be concentrated
on the girl whose name partakes of as much mystery as the movement of
the stamen, for this is the “age of names.” Marcel has now mentally entered
upon the way of Méséglise.
The whole theme of the hawthorn reaches its grand finale in the splendid
scene of good-byes. “.. . après m’avoir cherché partout, ma mère me trouva
en larmes dans le petit raidillon contigu à Tansonville, en train de dire adieu
aux aubépines, entourant de mes bras les branches piquantes, et, comme
une princesse de tragédie à qui pèseraient ces vains ornements, ingrat envers
Fimportune main qui en formant tous ces noeuds avait pris soin sur mon
front d’assembler mes cheveux foulant aux pieds mes papillotes arrachées et
mon chapeau neuf.”12 AU the themes of Marcel’s affective nature are re-
sumed once more in these pages. He embraces the flowers as he had wanted
to embrace the Ulacs before; the theme of adolescent love ends here in
that act of possession and introduces the love of the young man. His clothes
are torn, and the denouement of his passion is lifted to the height of a
classic tragedy. Marcel feels the same outbreak of emotions as the tragic
heroine, “comme une princesse de tragédie à qui pèseraient ces vains orne-
ments . . This princess is of course Phèdre,13 and her mention brings
into focus the suffering and anguish of mature love.
The Hlacs and the hawthorns have thus become the symbol of Marcel’s
first love, a succinct means to express the complex emotional state; their
mention, like a Wagnerian theme, will forever call to mind the youthful
love motive.
The numerous walks which Marcel undertakes with his family do not
reveal to him a countryside static and inert, but rather one which invites
him to come and merge with it. . . tout d’un coup un toit, un reflet de
soleil sur une pierre, l’odeur d’un chemin me faisaient arrêter par un
plaisir particulier qu’ils me donnaient, et aussi parce qu’ils avaient l’air de