Proust's Beginnings

Where Proust Grew Up - Combray, Italy 


Proust's mother was very steeped in the Jewish religion, so as a result, he writes much about the church he attended in Combray--with an emphasis on its steeple and how it towered over the rooftops:

".....with the effort the steeple was making to hurl its spire into the heart of the sky; it was always to the steeple that we had to return, always the steeple that dominated everything, summing up the houses with an unexpected pinnacle, raised before me like the finger of God, whose body might be hidden in the crowd of humans, though I would not confuse it with them because of that.......(pg 68)
Then I did not ask myself as at Chartres or Rheims how powerfully it expressed religious feeling, but involuntarily exclaimed: The church! The church!" (pg 63)

Again, with long sentences, Proust easily leads his reader to absorb both the beauty and power that the church beholds.