The year 1896 marked a turning point for Marcel, bringing with it a series of personal and health setbacks that would profoundly impact his life.
The passionate relationship with his first great love, Reynaldo Hahn, was stifled by Marcel’s possessiveness after an idyllic holiday in the Breton village of Beg-Meil. Hahn remained a lifelong friend but not a romantic partner.
The deaths of his grandfather Weil and his beloved uncle Louis, the loss of the cherished family vacation home in Auteuil, his aging father’s declining health and overwork in various committees and teaching assignments, his mother’s deteriorating health and frequent need for spa treatments, the disappointing reception of his book Les Plaisirs et les Jours – all these factors weighed heavily on Marcel.
On top of his almost constant hay fever, his asthma returned with full force, never to leave him again. He sank into a quagmire of frustration, despair, self-doubt, and hopelessness.
Marcel began smoking anti-asthmatic Espic cigarettes and started fumigations with Poudres Legras, which gradually evolved into a stramonium addiction12. He would spend hours each day hanging over the fumes of burnt belladonna.
Despite the misery, he becomes increasingly convinced that his life’s mission lies in literature, and he perseveres in writing. Only many years later will it become apparent that all that work, all those unfinished and abandoned projects, all those articles are proto-texts that show him the direction of the long and slow odyssey towards his magnum opus13.
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