I forgot to add the French quote corresponding to the scene where Marcel
feels sorry that he let go some of his Aunt Léonie's furniture, and then, to
complicate matters even more, I confused it with another quote, from
"Albertine disparue.". I added the missing quote from Proust and established the
parallel mood that, for me, links his paragraph, about the submission of
intelligence to higher and unknown powers, to John Shade's lines about plexed
artistry. The other connections to "Lolita" and "Pale Fire" need not to be
repeated here.
In Proust's Recherche, after
the narrator donated several pieces of the furniture, he
inherited from his aunt Léonie, to the owner of a brothel, he begins to
feel that he's violated the vertues that surrounded his aunt's room in
Combray. Her furniture seemed, then, to live on, like the apparently inanimate
objects of a Persian story, begging for their liberation. When he
first mentioned the re-encarnation of the soul , the
idea of "being imprisoned in objects" was already entertained,
but the illusion of a rebirth was kept. In contrast, later,
as pointed out by Mariolina Bongiovanni Bertini (quoted by L. Foschini) "the
same belief will arise with an inverted signal, subdued by the context that
eliminates any hope in a ressurrection, bringing out the terror
and the anxiety that is associated to a definite shape of
survival that will be excluded from redemption."
So, as Marcel describes in the Recherche : "Je cessai du reste d’aller
dans cette maison parce que désireux de témoigner mes bons sentiments à la femme
qui la tenait et avait besoin de meubles, je lui en donnai quelques-uns,
notamment un grand canapé — que j’avais hérités de ma tante Léonie. Je ne les
voyais jamais car le manque de place avait empêché mes parents de les laisser
entrer chez nous et ils étaient entassés dans un hangar. Mais dès que je les
retrouvai dans la maison où ces femmes se servaient d’eux, toutes les vertus
qu’on respirait dans la chambre de ma tante à Combray, m’apparurent, suppliciées
par le contact cruel auquel je les avais livrés sans défense! J’aurais fait
violer une morte que je n’aurais pas souffert davantage. Je ne retournai plus
chez l’entremetteuse, car ils me semblaient vivre et me supplier, comme ces
objets en apparence inanimés d’un conte persan, dans lesquels sont enfermées des
âmes qui subissent un martyre et implorent leur
délivrance."
In Albertine disparue the narrator develops
the idea that it is Life, the experience of living, that which teaches
us about the superiority of "other powers," when intelligence
can accept her role as a servant or helper. We
now read about how reasoning and intelligence, in the
end, bow to the unknown powers that spur
humans towards mysterious objectives. He belies that the motives for
their passionate pursuit should not be searched among unconscious
intuitions or superstitious forebodings: "Mais — et la suite le montrera davantage, comme bien
des épisodes ont pu déjà l’indiquer — de ce que l’intelligence n’est pas
l’instrument le plus subtil, le plus puissant, le plus approprié pour saisir le
vrai, ce n’est qu’une raison de plus pour commencer par l’intelligence et non
par un intuitivisme de l’inconscient, par une foi aux pressentiments toute
faite. C’est la vie qui peu à peu, cas par cas, nous permet de remarquer que ce
qui est le plus important pour notre cœur, ou pour notre esprit, ne nous est pas
appris par le raisonnement mais par des puissances autres. Et alors, c’est
l’intelligence elle-même qui, se rendant compte de leur supériorité, abdique par
raisonnement devant elles et accepte de devenir leur collaboratrice et leur
servante."
In these lines I see the same kind of wisdom visited
on John Shade, after his misadventures related to the "mountain/fountain"
episode, when he not only bows to the scheming gods that play chess with
humanity, but goes one step further, by attempting to emulate them and
thereby share in their joys.
Cf lines 810-820 "...some kind/Of correlated pattern in the
game,/ Plexed artistry, and something of the
same/Pleasure in it as
they who played it found.// It did not matter who
they were.../.../they
were, aloof and mute,/ Playing a game of worlds."