Giving the Lie to Liars: A Note on Anacoluthon in A la Recherche du temps perdu

Author(s): Gustavo Pellón

Source: MLN, Vol. 95, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1980), pp. 1347-1352
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2906496
Accessed: 27-11-2017 00:47 UTC

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 Giving the Lie to Liars:
A Note on Anacoluthon in
A la Recherche du temps perdu

Gustavo Pellon

When we consider that the issue of "lying" in A la Recherche du temps perdu

has attracted so much attention, it seems somewhat puzzling that no one
has appropriately looked into the very nature of that lying. This omission
appears all the more glaring since Proust's narrator himself brings the
manner in which Albertine lies to the attention of the reader. The narrator
relates the process in detail and even makes an attempt, however half-
hearted, to describe it in linguistic terms. The passage from La Prisonniere
analyses Albertine's attempts to hide her past from the narrator:

A vrai dire, je ne savais rien qu'euit fait Albertine depuis que je la connaissais, ni
meme avant. Mais dans sa conversation (Albertine aurait pu, si je lui en eusse
parle, dire que j'avais mal entendu), il y avait certaines contradictions, certaines
retouches qui me semblaient aussi decisives qu'un flagrant delit, mais moins
utilisables contre Albertine qui souvent, prise en fraude comme un enfant, grace
a ce brusque redressement strategique, avait chaque fois rendu vaines mes cruel-
les attaques et retabli la situation. Cruelles pour moi. Elle usait, non par raffine-
ment de style, mais pour reparer ses imprudences, de ces brusques sautes de
syntaxe ressemblant un peu a ce que les grammairiens appellent anacoluthe ouje
ne sais comment. S'etant laiss&e aller, en parlant femmes, a dire: "Je me rappelle
que dernierement je", brusquement, apres un "quart de soupir", "je" devenait
"elle", c'etait une chose qu'elle avait apercue en promeneuse innocente, et nulle-
ment accomplie. Ce n'&tait pas elle qui etait le sujet de l'action. J'aurais voulu me
rappeler exactement le commencement de la phrase pour conclure moi-meme,
puisqu'elle lachait pied, a ce qu'en euit et la fin.1

Albertine, therefore, lies in a very particular way. Indeed, her hasty shift-
ing of pronouns provides an excellent example of the syntactical inconsis-
tency that linguists do call anacoluthon. The narrator correctly attributes

MLN Vol. 95 Pp. 1347-1352

0026-7910/80/0955-1347 $01.00 ? 1980 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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1348 GUSTAVO PELLON

this to her clumsy attempts to cover a slip that might reveal more than she
had intended. This technique, as simple as it may seem at first glance,
nevertheless depends on a crucial fact of language-the disparity between
the third person of the verb on one hand, and the first and second persons
on the other. A look at kmile Benveniste's discussion of the persons of the
verb should convince us that if Albertine's lies prove unsuccessful they
nevertheless represent the most powerful attempt to place distance be-
tween herself and her compromising statements.
Benveniste points to a basic opposition between the persons of the verb.
Any linguistic theory purporting to deal with these issues must rebel
against the accepted terminology that would have us believe in the homo-
geneity of the persons of the verb. As Benveniste demonstrates, a great
gap divides the first and second persons from the third person. For rea-
sons of symmetry the third person has been brought into a superficial
parity with the first and second persons by traditional grammars. As Ben-
veniste shows, this parity does not reflect the fundamental differences in
nature and function which truly set the third person apart. In fact, only to
the positions designated by "I" and "you" can we accurately attribute the
concept of "person." The third person represents the non-personal form
of the verb.2
The distinction Benveniste draws between the category of person (I/you)
and that of the non-person (he) has widespread application. It reveals the
opposition between the two levels of Mnonciation: discours and histoire. This
opposition between discours and histoire is not merely analogous to the
person/non-person relation. This distinction between two different planes
in the gnonciation is in fact an extension of the more basic person/non-
person opposition. Benveniste explains that the presence of certain indi-
cators (pronouns, adverbs, verb tenses) characterizes any gnoncg as an in-
stance of either discours or histoire. Those indicators that belong to the
realm of discours are recognizable because they refer to the very instance of
discourse. Other indicators lack this discourse-referential nature and can
be said to belong to the realm of histoire.3
Gerard Genette relates Benveniste's discoursihistoire distinction to narra-
tive theory. He observes that pure discours and histoire appear seldom in
literary texts, although they are clearly definable on a theoretical level.
Most commonly they coexist in the same text. As in the case of the first
person and the third, the discours enjoys a transcendence denied to histoire.
A discours can easily include elements of histoire without undermining its
nature as a discours. The reverse is not true, since the inclusion of discours
will tend to work against the "objectivity" of the histoire. In fact, it is com-
mon practice to avoid any self-referential commentary in historical writing.
The most notable exception to this rule is when the historian directly
quotes someone's words, and even this limited use of discours leaves a
subjective trace on the histoire. This disparity between the two modes of
narration results from the lack of concern for purity in any discours, be-

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 M L N 1349

cause discours is after all the natural mode of language. Histoire as a par-
ticular mode, however, does concern itself with exclusion and purity.
Genette therefore remarks: "le discours peut raconter sans cesser d'etre
discours, le recit (his term for histoire) ne peut discourir sans sortir de lui-
meme."4
Any histoire contained by a discours will become an element of the latter.
No doubt this intermingling of narrative modes may perform a variety of
functions. When it manifests itself in the peculiarly blatant manner of the
anacoluthic passage in La Prisonniere, we must wonder about its specific
effect. The anacoluthon in this passage takes the form of a pronominal
shift from the first person to the third person singular of the type: "I didn't
do it; he did!," which as we have seen provides a most effective manner of
lying, where the liar places himself out of the reach of his victim. This
Albertine does, exposing herself to the suspicion of her interlocutor, and
only because of her particularly abrupt use of anacoluthon. Nevertheless,
the narrator himself bears witness to the fact that the device places her out
of his reach. If he would try to question Albertine, his clumsiness would
outdo hers. He would have to confront her with the anacoluthon before
accusing her of lying.
It is significant that in order to keep her past (and perhaps part of her
present) from her lover Albertine resorts automatically to anacoluthon.
Her use of this device shatters the I/you bond, simultaneously extricating
her from a compromising situation and dissolving the dialogue between
the lovers. When Albertine shifts from "I" to "she," she very effectively
exploits the gap between person and non-person; she attributes her rep-
rehensible actions to someone who is absent. Her discours is transformed
into histoire and the deeds she relates are no longer linked to her dialogue
with her lover. The frustration encountered by the lover/narrator and his
inability to maintain an I/you relation with Albertine derive from her
imposition of the non-person. Her strategy is in fact facilitated by her lover,
since he is more interested in her past than in her present, and the past is
the tense most peculiar to the realm of histoire.5
Whenever Marcel stops interrogating Albertine, the two can resume an
I/you relation, but his obsessive probing-his desire to possess her past-
creates a distance between them. It is the absent Albertine whom he de-
sires, and she unwittingly obliges him by lying in the manner that will place
her out of his grasp most effectively. Ironically, by making herself "absent"
through her use of anacoluthon, Albertine truly caters to his desire
through the very act of frustrating it. In this manner she not only avoids
Marcel's displeasure but manages to further incite his desire.
Surprisingly, throughout A la Recherche du temps perdu, the narrator
himself makes widespread use of Albertine's mode of evading the truth.
The narrator repeatedly attempts to make us accept as histoire what we can
with little trouble perceive as discours. Again, as in the passage from La
Prisonniere, we need only respond to an invitation from the narrator. The

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 1350 GUSTAVO PELLON

passage in question occurs in Sodome et Gomorrhe, at the beginning of the

third chapter. In order to fully understand the effect of the narrator's use
of anacoluthon, it is necessary to reread the pages devoted to the descrip-
tion of sleep. Here I quote only those passages that are indispensable to the
discussion, but present them in the order in which they occur because it is
very important to note the ebb and flow of the narrator's rhetoric.
The instances of anacoluthon abound, again in the form of pronominal
inconsistencies:

Je tombais de sommeil. Je fus monte en ascenseur jusqu'a mon etage non par le
liftier, mais par le chasseur louche....
Peut-etre chaque soir acceptons-nous le risque de vivre, en dormant, des souf-
frances que nous considerons comme nulles et non avenues parce qu'elles seront
ressenties au cours d'un sommeil que nous croyons sans conscience.
En effet, ces soirs ouje rentrais tard de la Raspeliere, j'avais tres sommeil. Mais,
des que les froids vinrent, je ne pouvais m'endormir tout de suite car le feu
eclairait comme si on eut allume une lampe. Seulement ce n'etait qu'une flambee,
et-comme une lampe aussi, comme le jour quand le soir tombe-sa trop vive
lumiere ne tardait pas a baisser; et j'entrais dans le sommeil, lequel est comme un
second appartement que nous aurions et oui delaissant le n6tre, nous serions alle
dormir. ...

Le temps qui s'ecoule pour le dormeur, durant ces sommeils-la, est absolument
different du temps dans lequel s'accomplit la vie de l'homme reveill&.... Alors,
sur le char du sommeil, on descend dans des profondeurs ou le souvenir ne peut
plus le rejoindre et en deyA desquelles l'esprit a et oblige de rebrousser
chemin....

Et peut-etre est-ce plus beau encore quand l'atterrissage du reveil se fait brutale-
ment et que nos pensees du sommeil, derobees par une chape d'oubli, n'ont pas le
temps de revenir progressivement avant que le sommeil ne cesse. Alors du noir
orage qu'il nous semble avoir traverse (mais nous ne disons meme pas nous) nous
sortons gisants, sans pens&es: un "nous" qui serait sans contenu....
Du moins, dans ces reveils tels que je viens de les d&crire, et' qui etaient la
plupart du temps les miens quand j'avais dine la veille a la Raspeliere, tout se
passait comme s'il en etait ainsi, etje peux en temoigner, moi l'etrange humain qui,
en attendant que la mort le delivre, vit les volets clos, ne sait rien du monde, reste
immobile comme un hibou et comme celui-ci, ne voit un peut clair que dans les
tene6bres. .. .

. . . le dormeur entend une voix interieure qui lui dit: "Viendrez-vous a ce diner ce
soir, cher ami? comme ce serait agreable!" et pense: "Oui, comme ce sera agre-
able, j'irai"; puis, le reveil s'accentuant, il se rappelle soudain: "Ma grand'mere n'a
plus que quelques semaines a vivre, assure le docteur." I1 sonne, il pleure a l'id&e
que ce ne sera pas, comme autrefois, sa grand'mere, sa grand'mere mourante,
mais un indifferent valet de chambre qui va venir lui repondre.
(My italics except nous in fourth passage)6

The passage begins with the first person singular "Je tombais de som-
meil" and oscillates between this and the first person plural with a few
shifts to the third person: "le dormeur," "l'etrange humain" and "on."
Before going further, we must note with Benveniste that only the third

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 M L N 1351

person can truly have a plural because of its non-person status. In the case
of the first and second persons the distinction between singular and plural
must be redefined as one of a "personne stricte" versus a "personne
amplifiee." We is not a pluralized I because at any given moment there can
only be one I speaking. What we call the "plural" of I really describes an
extension of the first person to include others for whom the I acts as
spokesman. This is the case when any type of delegate employs we, and as
we know authors and orators make frequent and effective use of this
device as a method of predisposing their audience toward a particular
point of view.
The beginning of Chapter Three in Sodome et Gomorrhe deals with the
narrator's insomnia, his fears of certain dreams and his guilt-troubled
sleep. As we have noted, the narrator slowly amplifies the first person
singular into a plural that will include his reader. At times he shifts into an
"objective" third person, "le dormeur," thereby extending his statements
to human nature in general. "On" and "nous" act as mediators in the
transition from his subjective experience to a deceptive objectivity. The
sequence culminates in the narrator's questioning of his own use of the
amplified first person: 'un 'nous' qui serait sans contenu." The narrator
tries to include his fictive interlocutor (the reader) in his personal experi-
ence by positing its universality, that is, its objectivity, but the objectivity he
implies has no true content.
Despite continued use of anacoluthon in an attempt to lend an aura of
universality to his experiences, the narrator sinks deeper and deeper into
anecdote. The description of "the sleeper" who accepts the invitation to
dinner in his dream only to be awakened abruptly by his guilt over his
grandmother's death, is too subjective to permit the reader's identification.
Here, the incidence of anacoluthon has become almost abusive, and the
persuasive power of this rhetorical device has been stretched to the break-
ing point. The false amplified person crumbles leaving only the true first
person standing. Thus the passage on sleep ends with a return to the first
person: "Je me le figurais quand, aux lendemains des diners a la Ras-
peliere, je m'endormais si completement."I
"Moi, l'e6trange humain," the epithet that the narrator uses to describe
himself in this episode, condenses the subjective/objective dialectic that is
played out in the narrator's rhetoric. The equation "Moi = humain" is
qualified by interposing "l'etrange." Just as the word "l'etrange" keeps
"moi" from joining "humain" on the page, so too do the narrator's in-
tensely subjective experiences keep his reader from fully accepting the
anacoluthic sleight of hand that would transform the personal into the
universal.
The narrator of A la Recherche du temps perdu suspects Albertine of con-
cealing certain aspects of her life from him (her alleged lesbianism). He
says that whenever Albertine gets carried away "en parlant femmes" and is
on the point of compromising herself, she manages to escape by employing
anacoluthon. The powerful effect of Albertine's pronominal shifts oper-

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1352 GUSTAVO PELLbN

ates in function of Benveniste's distinction between discours and histoire, the

two levels of gnonciation. Albertine's recourse to anacoluthon effectively
extricates her from her embarrassing predicaments and places her beyond
Marcel's reach by undermining the dialogue between them.
The narrator remarks that Albertine resorts to anacoluthon "non par
raffinement de style, mais pour reparer ses imprudences." Perhaps he is
being unfair to Albertine's innate feel for language, but there can be no
question about his own repeated use of anacoluthon. Marcel's pronominal
shifts create a powerful rhetoric of deflection. This "raffinement de style"
serves to mitigate the disparaging character traits that the narrator impru-
dently reveals in his autobiography. Marcel's oscillation between discours
and histoire is the mechanism that helps to maintain the fundamental con-
tradiction of this autobiography, a contradiction that is perhaps inherent
to the nature of autobiography itself. Through discours Marcel asserts his
uniqueness and becomes "moi, l'etrange humain," while through histoire he
appeals to the human nature he shares with his reader. Although persua-
sion properly belongs to the realm of discours, in Marcel's narration histoire
wields the greatest rhetorical force. It does not seek to persuade but rather
"objectively" imposes a reality that does not readily permit questioning. In
this manner the narrator attempts to make his reader accept a personal
experience as objective. This rhetorical use of histoire reveals the true na-
ture of this mode of expression. Histoire is in fact a type of discours that
claims not to be a discours at all, and as such it is more convincing. It is the
ultimate form of rhetoric, that which conceals that it is a rhetoric at all. It is
the rhetoric of art, for as Castiglione says: "true art is what does not seem
to be art; and the most important thing is to conceal it, because if it is
revealed this discredits a man completely and ruins his reputation."8

University of Maine at Orono

NOTES

1 Marcel Proust, La Prisonniere (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), pp. 161-62.

2 I refer the reader to Benveniste's well known essay "Structure des relations de
personne dans le verbe" in his Prob1emes de linguistique ginirale: I (Paris: Gal-
limard, 1966), pp. 225-36.
3 See Benveniste's article, "La Nature des pronoms," pp. 251-57.
4 Gerard Genette, Figures II (Paris: Seuil, 1969), p. 66.
5 1mile Benveniste extends his distinction between discours and histoire to verb
tenses in "Les Relations de temps dans le verbs francais," p. 237.
6 Marcel Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), pp. 429-32.
7 Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe, p. 433.
8 Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967),
p. 67.

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