DESCENT INTO THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN '9'
talents', 'harmonious tonality', and 'pure, transparent language'-
'the new generation will have to acquire the habit of regarding
this young writer as one of its leaders'.l But Maurras at this time
was using Mme Arman's salon for the benefit of his career, and
could do no less for her protege and France's preface. Les Plaisirs
et les Jours dropped stone-dead. Proust would not be famous till
a quarter of a century had passed.
To us, with our unfair advantage of after-knowledge, it is
possible to recognise an aspect of Les Plaisirs et les Jours which
was invisible to the Banqueters. We can observe, as his con-
temporaries did, that the author is immature, sentimental,
mannered, acquainted with malice and snobism from the inside,
and aged twenty-five. But we can also see, as they could not, that
these stories are reservoirs of Time Lost, a vat from which, after
their long steeping, Mme Fremer, Baldassare Silvande, Hippolyta,
Honore will emerge utterly transfigured as Mme Verdurin, Uncle
Adolphe, Oriane de Guermantes, the Narrator. IlIiers, Trouville
and Orleans tremble on the verge of becoming Combray, Balbec,
Doncieres; and the young Proust is already speaking with
authority of Time, Jealousy, Habit, Oblivion, 'the ephemeral
efficacy of sorrow'. Yet his frivolous though melancholy title,
with its ironic allusion to Hesiod's Works and Days, expresses
only one of the double meanings of Temps Perdu: he is not yet
consciously aware of Time Lost, but he is remorsefully conscious
of Time Wasted.
1 As Professor Kolb has pointed out, Maurras also accidentally hit upon
one of Proust's future titles: 1M. Marcel Proust,' he wrote, 'will be a new
witness to truth regained' CIa verite retrouvee').