Despite the announcement made at the start of the lecture, we were unable to tackle the theme of the body introduced by the description of the awakening and the physical, organic side in Du côté de chez Swann, particularly the pages devoted to reading(RTP, I, 82-99). Absent in 1909, this long piece was interposed in 1910 in Du côté de chez Swann. This is the physical side of reading, involving the body and sensations.
We also regret not having studied the end of the first volume. After the first plates in spring 1913, the text remains relatively stable. There are fewer corrections until the fifth proofs in October 1913, except for the end: "Le nom de pays : le nom". For a long time, the question of the number of pages kept the text in limbo. Proust tried different endings. On the first few plates, the volume ends with the sunbeam on the balcony. This ending was replaced in late summer 1913, at the stage of the third proofs, by the walk in the Bois de Boulogne, which had been written during the winter of 1911-1912 in a draft notebook(RTP, I, 414-419; Corr., XII, 257, 271, 287-288). However, we do not know where to situate this end of the volume in time. This shows Proust's lack of concern for narratology.
The renewal of the work that we usually link to Agostinelli's tragedy between 1913 and 1914 could also be related to the publication of the first volume. This touches on an old enigma: when did Proust, who in 1908 asked himself "Am I a novelist?", realize that he had written a great novel? Our hypothesis is that it was during 1913, and perhaps at the reading of the proofs in the spring, for example at the premiere of Vinteuil in May. After hearing Enesco play Frank's sonata on April 19, Proust created this character through a fusion of the naturalist Vington and the composer Berget, to verify his thesis on the incoherence between the worldly self and the creative self. The writer in early 1913 went through the same phases of doubt about his talent as his hero in "Combray", while Louis de Robert and Lucien Daudet encouraged him in much the same way as Bloch in the novel(Corr., XII, 219, 256-257).
The essential pages on Bergotte en abîme(RTP, I, 94-95) are profoundly transformed in the April-May 1913 galleys. The motif of the hero's encounter with his revered author's own phrases has no trace before the spring of 1913. We might therefore see the very late additions of typing and placards as signs of the great writer's recognition by himself, especially as another fundamental addition, ending the passage on Bergotte, follows a little later on the placards(RTP, I, 97-98). This passage on the great writer, absent from the manuscripts and typescript, testifies to Proust's reflection on himself and his work, and his growing awareness of his own talent.
