A small wooden tray with two glass vials, one pale gold and one dark indigo, with tweezers standing between them.

Original artwork, not a still

Remembrance of Things Past

Marcel Proust

We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Memory is imagined as a place stocked with substances that can soothe or harm. Chance, rather than deliberate choice, guides the hand towards them. The comparison gives recollection an unpredictable emotional effect: revisiting the past may offer comfort or bring something painful to the surface.

Context reviewed

Share this quote