"Ceci n'est pas un récit imaginaire. Tout ce que j'ai écrit s'est réellement passé, les personnages de cette histoire ont réellement existé." / "This story is not an invention. Everything I have written down did really happen; the protagonists of this story did really exist." This assertion, the author's plea to be believed (curiously absent from the English edition) is contained in the opening lines of a short Preamble (in the English edition, less poetically, Author's Note). Photographs interspersed throughout the story (for it is une histoire), starting with the glossy photographic band folded around the cover of the book like a vest, showing Monsieur Proust wearing the coat, are a tangible evidence of the reality of the narrative. Or are they?
