Chapter 54.
From The Museum of Innocence:
The illusion that is time-- ...No one looked at the clock to know the time, but they did spend a lot of time talking about whether it had been wound or not, and about how a frozen pendulum might be set in motion again just by touching it once....
"Let it be. Let it tick. It's not hurting anyone. It reminds us that this house is a house." I think I would agree.
So the wall clock was not there to remind us of the time or to warn us that things were changing. It was there to persuade us that nothing whatsoever had changed.
...Even without our being aware of it, the clock always ticked in the same way. And when we sat at the table, eating our supper, it brought us the peace of knowing we hadn't changed. That all would stay the same with us. That the clock served to make us forget the time, even as it continually brought us back to the present, reminding us of our relations with others.
