the third term in proust is i think the known object--the object as a whole. the first term is the most obvious conclusion one can draw; the second term is the other conclusion which logically can be drawn out from the first conclusion, and looks like its opposite usually. the third term is...what? usually the point at which proust, after having confused the object's face by presenting these two logical, but negating, but coexisting possibilities, pulls out the article of explanation or information that brings the whole thing together--somewhat. in short, proust, for all that indeterminacy, the mutable object, the mutable subject, the hardly-incontravertable (spelling!) physical world, is like one of those mathematicians who finds out the equations of things like ferns, a la thomasina: he believes that there is an equation which can get one to the center of every conjunction of happening or feeling or moment-of-physical-being, and he's willing to draw everything in the known universe into his equation provided that it will give him the answer.
seeing, however, as how i haven't yet begun the third book, and i think i started noticing the third term only in the second book, this probably isn't the end of proust's vast structural conspiracy... if said conspiracy exists. but the guy wrote so much so well that it's basically one's duty to give him credit for as great a quantity of stuff as possible. or it could be me. i came to peace with one small part of crazy charles olson's aesthetic (it was the one small part i at all understood) and ever since i've been on dichotomies like roosevelt on trusts. except not really. i just wanted to write that, pretty much.
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