Too much Proust.

Under the influence of too much Proust I became sluggish of mind and bowel. I was just nineteen. I spent most mornings in bed, unable to bring myself to face the day till my bladder was about to burst. Once it had been emptied I returned to bed unless the smell of warm buttered toast persuaded me otherwise. Or a freshly baked Madeleine.

My sense of self-worth became so low that when I thought of my name I couldn’t see it written with a capital letter. My sister was convinced that it was a case of unrequited love. She pestered me for information, a name, and concluded that it was an older woman who had been disappointed by romance during some war and still thought that she too was nineteen.

My brother coaxed me on the occasional warm, summer afternoon down to the river where we used to swim as children, hoping that the fresh air and exercise would claim me from the clutches of despair. Once or twice I ventured reluctantly into the cold, slack water under the bright sun, but the feel of wet clothes against my skin was unbearable and the new road that ran alongside the river bank prevented swimming without clothes. Till the previous summer there was no road, no drivers and therefore no need for modesty.

At the beginning of that autumn my father lost patience with my torpor. He declared that I had become so apathetic that even growing a moustache would be too much of an effort for me. So he arranged with Doctor Carduso (with whom my sister was having an affair) for me to be admitted to a sanitorium to be treated with frequent doses of vigour, vapours and purges. Possessions were forbidden at the “Hôpital Purgatoire “ and after just a few days sans Proust I began to revive. I even fell in love with a young nurse but Doctor Carduso’s jealous nephew found out and she was fired. I thought I would descend again into the depths of stupor once Nurse Collette had gone, but her replacement was just as acceptable, and I concluded that the problem all along had just been my reading of too much Proust.