Proust Sighting

A Proust Sighting found in Eastern Europe by my beloved friend Carrie Galbraith:

'Give Marcel a madeleine to
calm him down,' says Madame Proust
and her son
writes books in the mirror, reversed,
you will read them facing the past,
you advance backwards
until you fit the mirror, turn around
and see yourself
considerably aged and the one that you see
cannot suffer, the image follows you closely but
suffering is a ditch beyond which
this mirror's life unfolds,
from now on you have a paper past,
a madeleine that moulds suddenly
in an expectation, whose end Marcel
continues to pull, 'rap his knuckles,'
'he's dipping the madeleine in ink,'
Madame Proust says, and her son
writes this very poem in the mirror
and while you're reading it
you're inevitably aged:
the marquise went out at five o'clock.

-Ion Morar

The Marquise went out at five o'clock

(Romanian)

P Segal