self what it could have been, this
unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its
existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a
real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and
vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts
to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again
the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make
one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting
sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out
every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all
attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling
that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report,
I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just
denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before
the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty
space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still
recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within
me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise,
something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I
do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can
measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must
be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has
tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too
far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless
reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of
radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as
the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its
contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea;
cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of
what period in my past life.

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this
memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment
has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the
very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has
stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who
can say whether it will