1811: Proust's Madeleine and Krishna's Footprints | The Power of the Senses to Transport You

In his master work, In Search of Lost Time, he describes a moment that has become one of the most famous passages in all of Western literature.

Huh.

Could you frame it for us, Pranapriya?

Yeah.

I'd love to.

So one cold winter's day, his mother offers him a small French cake, a little madeleine-

Mm.

Madeleine

... dipped in tea.

Ooh.

The moment the taste touches his tongue, he's completely overwhelmed.

The taste carries him back to his beloved aunt, to Sunday mornings in his childhood home, to an entire lost world of love and safety that his conscious mind could no longer reach.

Okay.

Okay.

So here's the passage.

Yes.

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.

An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.

And at once, the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me."

The vicissitudes of life, Pranapriya.

"Its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory.

I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal.

Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?"

Hm.

Hm.