The Military Philosophers

‰ЫПAs I uttered the last letter, scales fell from my eyes. Everything was transformed. It all came back ‰ЫУ like the tea-soaked madeleine itself ‰ЫУ in a torrent of memory ‰Ы_ Cabourg ‰Ы_ We had just driven out of Cabourg ‰Ы_ out of Proust‰ЫЄs Balbec. [‰Ы_‰Ы_]

‰ЫПProustian musings still hung in the air when we came down to the edge of the water. It had been a notable adventure. True, an actual night passed in one of the bedrooms of the Grand Hotel itself ‰ЫУ especially, like Finn‰ЫЄs, an appropriately sleepless one ‰ЫУ might have crowned the magic of the happening. At the same time, a faint sense of disappointment superimposed on an otherwise absorbing inner experience was in its way suitably Proustian too: a reminder of the eternal failure of human life to respond a hundred per cent; to rise to the greatest heights without allowing at the same time some suggestion, however slight, to take shape in indication that things could have been even better.‰Ыќ