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If you read Proust in French, English, German, Russian, Spanish or Italian, we can compare different translations and the original and salvage some bits of the world the translation of which the novel itself is.

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To me it was in reality all dead.

Permanently dead? Very possibly.

There is a large element of chance in these matters, and a second chance occurrence that of our own death, often prevents us from awaiting for any length of time the favours of the first.

(Il y a beaucoup de hasard en tout ceci, et un second hasard, celui de notre mort, souvent ne nous permet pas d’attendre longtemps les faveurs du premier.)

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being in an animal in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognized them the spell is broken. Delivered by us they have overcome death and return to share our life.

And so it is with our own past.

And when he drinks a cup of tea with Madeleine cake his past in Combray will come back to life, as Genie is delivered from his bottle.

‘To me it was in reality all dead’ says Proust, but some translations say: ‘died’ which is weaker and doesn’t sufficiently focus on the state of being ‘dead’.

Then Proust says that second chance occurrence, that of our death, often does not let us wait very long for the favours of the first (the chance of meeting someone or something decisive, which will allow us to ‘start to live’).

Some translations see it as if an abstract death prevents us from meeting that being. No. Proust talks about ‘our death’. As Rilke would say: ‘Oh, Lord, give everyone his own death.’ "O Herr, gib jedem seinen eignen Tod".  Elsewhere Proust says: J'entends par là la mort particulière, la mort envoyée par le destin. That is for Proust Death is sent by destiny to each person and there are almost as many deaths as are persons: il y en a presque autant que de personnes.

In Spanish: En este entra el azar por mucho, y un segundo azar, el de nuestra muerte, ... 

Also he says: ‘the souls of those whom we have lost’

The title is In Search of Lost Time. ‘perdu’

Some translations translated it as ‘departed’ (not in English)

On the third page Proust writes:

When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly bodies.

or

A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the sequence of the hours the order of the years and worlds.

Un homme qui dort tient en cercle autour de lui le fil des heures, l’ordre des années et des mondes.

As you can see even though he is sleeping, he has, holds the world. Do you remember Heraclitus that even the sleeping man works? Do you remember being the center of the world? (See my review of Romeo and Juliet), well, Proust in his earlier story says: „Je suis le centre des choses" - His biographer Tadie: - c'est l'homme qui dort, du début de "Combray", qui tient enchaînés les mondes.

‘But it was enough if, in my own bed, my sleep was deep and allowed my mind to relax entirely; then it would let go of the map of the place where I had fallen asleep and, when I woke in the middle of the night, since I did not know where I was, I did not even understand in the first moment who I was; all I had, in its original simplicity, was the sense of existence as it may quiver in the depths of an animal’

As you can see, the narrator doesn’t know who he is because he doesn’t know where he is. But in at least one translation simply says that he doesn’t know neither this nor that. 

In Georges Poulet’s book I read:

Who is he? He no longer knows because he has no means to reconnect the place and the moment.

Qui est-il? Il ne le sait plus, et il ne le sai plus, parce qu’il a perdu le moyen de relier le lieu et le moment ...

As I said, when he drinks the tea the past, Combray, ‘emerges’, ‘springs into being’ from the cup. And clearly Proust has Genie in mind (same wording in the tale and in Proust). But in some translations it is lost. But Germans do it very well:

aufgestiegen aus -  aufsteigen!

... aus meiner Tasse Tee auf. 

In fact, Goethe, in his Faust, uses the same words ‘steigen auf’ in its Zueignung when he talks about The images of the past, loved ones who are now ghosts and shadows, and also, what is Combray but shadows? 

Ihr bringt mit euch die Bilder froher Tage,

Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf;  

Or do you remember how vapour comes out of the coffee cups in ads? Or how Genie comes up in the animation? It doesn’t step out, it comes up.