MARCEL PROUSTugliest excrescence I ever saw on a gothic building!'l But the
success of the day was the stone man regained, a new emblem of
the indestructibility of unconscious memory, since the tiny
monster had reappeared not from the past of a living man, but
from the graves of two dead. 'I was moved to find him still
there,' wrote Proust, 'because I realised then that nothing dies that
once has lived, neither the sculptor's thought, nor Ruskin's.'
Thanks to his meeting with Ruskin, Proust was not unduly
grieved by his parting in March 1900 from the Mazarine Library.
It was now four and a half years since, in October 189> at Beg-
Meil, he had requested and received leave till the end of the year
for his visit to Reveillon in the 'bad season'. Before 189> was out
he had felt emboldened to ask for additional leave of a whole
year, which was granted, like a Christmas present, on 24
December. In 1896 his only visit to the Mazarine was to present
Les Plaisirs et Ies Jours to his colleagues. In December he
applied again, punctually and punctiliously, for a year's leave. It
was, he explained, through the Ministry's fault and from no
remissness of his own, that permission did not arrive until
January 1897; and he was wounded that M. Franklin, through
Paul Marais, had seen fit to send him a sharp letter of rebuke.
From a sense of delicacy he even abstained from using the
Mazarine for his own studies; and the only library in Paris which
he could never enter was the one to whose staff he belonged.
Every December he went through the same preposterous formal-
ity, the only purpose of which was to preserve in Dr Proust's
mind the conviction that his eldest son had, in a manner of speak-
ing, a job. In 1899 a general inspection was held at the Mazarine:
it seemed odd that one of the three honorary unpaid attaches
should not have set foot in the library for so many years, and on
14 February 1900 Proust was peremptorily ordered to return to
work immediately. He refrained; on I March he was deemed to
have resigned; and so ended his imperceptible career as a librarian.
In Du Cote de che!. Swann a journey to Venice is one of the
dreams of the Narrator's childhood. It is prevented by the sudden
illness which causes the family doctor to forbid not only Venice
but even a visit to the theatre to see Berma, and to prescribe
instead the daily outings in the Champs-Elysees, which alter the
1 T~e Seven Lamps appeJ.red in 1849_ Julbn Edouard's honour is saved
if we grant that Huskin might have ch~mged his mind by 1880.