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1. Introduction

“... those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines [...] I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body [...] an exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses [...] and suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray [...] when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea [...] when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us [...] the vast structure of …