“Un bruit de cailloux roulés au fond de ses paroles”: quelques notes à propos de M. de Charlus dans Le temps retrouvé de Marcel Proust.

Abstract

The essay proposes the analysis of a passage from Proust’s Le Temps retrouvé concerning the last meeting of the hero with M. de Charlus, who is completely transformed by the illness and by the passing of time. The analysis is organized around the different meanings that Proust gives to the word ‘metamorphosis’: the transformations operated by Time on the body; Charlus taking the features of other characters; the continuous alterations in Proust’s tormented writing, from the drafts to the ‘final’ version. The hero needs these manifold metamorphoses to meditate on the ambiguous and baroque ‘show’ of Time’s victims; above all, the author needs them to see his work from the right distance.