A labour in vain

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.


Okay then. He's just set up the famous madeleine, and not a moment to soon, as this well-known episode happens in the very next paragraph. Note how he has more or less told us very near the beginning that the entire book--him searching back in time to tell us about his life--is in some way a "labour in vain." Didn't stop him, though.