Madeleine

Marcel Proust

French novelist, best known for À LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU (Remembrance of Things Past), his autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style. The work collected pieces from Proust's childhood, observations of aristocratic life-style, gossip, recollections of the closed world, where the author never found his place. The key scene is when a madeleine cake (a small, rich cookie-like pastry) enables the narrator to experience the past completely as a simultaneous part of his present existence: "And suddenly the memory revealed itself: The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane."