FOLLOWING THE LOST TIME (5) THE CONFINEMENT

Love only what is not fully digested. 'The Imprisonment' is a story of love and jealousy which together with 'Albertine is gone' constitutes an independent division in the 'Lost Time' saga. This is the fifth volume out of the original seven volumes of the cycle. It began to be written during Frost's days of mourning for the death of Alfred Agostinelli, his lover, driver and secretary, who was killed in May 1914, in a flying accident. Many details of their life together, which did not last more than a few months, are strikingly similar to the narrator's life with Albertine, which lasted from autumn to spring. The final work on 'The Imprisonment' was completed on the eve of the author's death in 1922. The book is read as a triptych: on both sides Marcel's relationship with Albertine, and in the center is the playing of the "Seventh": an unknown work by Vantay, a piano teacher of the strength of Al Macombre, which will be deciphered after his death, and will be performed for the first tim