For a long time I used to go to bed early..........well, to be precise, for many years, having spent Friday night on my bicycle I'd go to bed early on a Saturday, and, in consequence, waken at an early hour on Sunday. By way of contrast, Marcel (accepting, for the purposes of this sentence, that Marcel was, indeed, both the writer and the person written about) would, (were he a person given to riding bicycles at night, rather than attending salons more fashionable even than the most fashionable velo club, and, diverting on his way home, to brothels populated by milk boys masterbating to order) have turned over at cock crow on Sunday morning, and, no doubt with the aid of a secretary, spun sentences more considered, more elegant, and, dammit, more complex than this blunt, nay instrumental arrangement of phrases, written, or, rather, typed, at this dark hour to be kept, not on pages of a notebook with folded additions and emendations, but within, to use the modern idiom, a 'server' standing by tide of Humber, that serves without complaint, holding pictures of kittens, and small ink drawings setting out journeys across landscapes made a thousand times more vivid for the lack of light.
The time, which might be to say, or not to say, this time, the time we're in, the time whose arrow, unlike Cupid's, points only forward, the time that this is written in, the time that this is read in, the time it takes to read time and time again, this time and that are, each and all, tearing one moment from another and, at the same time, connecting those moments in our memories and hopes, these times we're in, in which a small note might capture three months and the longest sentence not suffice to describe an instant, albeit an instant that endures for decades after, the time would have been for Marcel both sweeter than a smile observed from the corner of one's eye and more horrible than the gravest fears, this time, our lives and the death of us, folded and re-folded and unfolded in different ways, all these times are there in the modern world, the world of the internet, and my guess, for what it is worth, is that Proust would have become the tweeter nonpareil, the doyen of the networks, the Facebook Panjandrum of Panjandrums, despite (and it pains me to admit this) not being much of a cyclist.
At six o'clock yesterday morning I, and others, looked for the dawn on the roads south of Cuckfield. Marcel, waiting for the happy crew to re-assemble after an event called, mystifyingly, a 'visitation', might have reached for his HTC, surveyed the constellations, watched rainclouds over Cherbourg, and then, his mind reaching out for the merest sign and, in that reaching to some far-off place, recollected with perfect clarity, but, nonetheless, seeming in that recollection to be far, far beyond reach, a place that might be Venice (or, less properly, Naples), and, in that reaching, might see, by way of a reflection of his anxiety, a message, the intention of which is unclear, but, nonetheless, appears to be one of utter resignation, imperilling the constancy of joy whose certainty is every bit as certain as the rising of the sun or the joy that attends the company of friends out on a spree, a lark, an adventure on this and many other Friday nights.
These recollections, grist to the mill of a story told and read out of time, out of order, recollected in the manner of a notebook, amended, inserted, granted unwarranted significance, forgotten, found again, significant again, with mornings and daybreaks transposed, might, when assembled in a page, a page among many others, might appear transitory, ephemeral, inconstant, but to consider each recollection separately is to deny the constancy, the warp, weft and imbrications that are the truest of that which makes us constant beings, joyous beings, beings capable of the best truths, the best intentions, the best hopes, beings that, however unlikely we might be, are always, ever, likeable.
The time, which might be to say, or not to say, this time, the time we're in, the time whose arrow, unlike Cupid's, points only forward, the time that this is written in, the time that this is read in, the time it takes to read time and time again, this time and that are, each and all, tearing one moment from another and, at the same time, connecting those moments in our memories and hopes, these times we're in, in which a small note might capture three months and the longest sentence not suffice to describe an instant, albeit an instant that endures for decades after, the time would have been for Marcel both sweeter than a smile observed from the corner of one's eye and more horrible than the gravest fears, this time, our lives and the death of us, folded and re-folded and unfolded in different ways, all these times are there in the modern world, the world of the internet, and my guess, for what it is worth, is that Proust would have become the tweeter nonpareil, the doyen of the networks, the Facebook Panjandrum of Panjandrums, despite (and it pains me to admit this) not being much of a cyclist.
At six o'clock yesterday morning I, and others, looked for the dawn on the roads south of Cuckfield. Marcel, waiting for the happy crew to re-assemble after an event called, mystifyingly, a 'visitation', might have reached for his HTC, surveyed the constellations, watched rainclouds over Cherbourg, and then, his mind reaching out for the merest sign and, in that reaching to some far-off place, recollected with perfect clarity, but, nonetheless, seeming in that recollection to be far, far beyond reach, a place that might be Venice (or, less properly, Naples), and, in that reaching, might see, by way of a reflection of his anxiety, a message, the intention of which is unclear, but, nonetheless, appears to be one of utter resignation, imperilling the constancy of joy whose certainty is every bit as certain as the rising of the sun or the joy that attends the company of friends out on a spree, a lark, an adventure on this and many other Friday nights.
These recollections, grist to the mill of a story told and read out of time, out of order, recollected in the manner of a notebook, amended, inserted, granted unwarranted significance, forgotten, found again, significant again, with mornings and daybreaks transposed, might, when assembled in a page, a page among many others, might appear transitory, ephemeral, inconstant, but to consider each recollection separately is to deny the constancy, the warp, weft and imbrications that are the truest of that which makes us constant beings, joyous beings, beings capable of the best truths, the best intentions, the best hopes, beings that, however unlikely we might be, are always, ever, likeable.
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