In Search of Lost Time

by Marcel Proust

  Synopsis

  At Tansonville. Staying at the house of Gilberte de Saint-Loup at Tansonville; through the window of my bedroom I see the forest of Méséglise and the steeple of Combray (3). Under the influence of his vice, Robert de Saint-Loup, unlike M. de Charlus, has started to look like a cavalry officer (4). His lies (5). Françoise thinks highly of him because of his role as Morel’s protector (7). Robert’s feelings for Gilberte, and for Morel (10). Saint-Loup is coming to look more and more like all the other Guermantes (11). Homosexuality in the Guermantes and the Courvoisiers. My conversations with Saint-Loup never get beyond military strategy (11). And Gilberte is equally reluctant to talk about Albertine (13).

  The Goncourts’ ‘Journal’. Instead of reading Balzac’s La Fille aux yeux d’or, I read an extract from one of the Goncourts’ recently published journals (15). The extract transcribed includes the description of a dinner at the Verdurins’, their hôtel, Brichot, and their salon (18). The painter Elstir was discovered by them (20). Accounts of Swann and Cottard (22).

  The magic of literature (23)! The Goncourt journal shows me that I am not fitted for looking and listening to surface details (24), but this is because I am more interested in psychology (25). Memoirs contain a different order of truth from art itself (29).

  M. de Charlus during the war: his opinions and his pleasures. After years in a sanatorium I return to Paris in 1916 (30). Wartime Paris like Paris during the Directory, with Mme Verdurin and Mme de Bontemps as its queens (30). New fashions and new ways of behaving (32). The war, in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair, has created upheavals in society. The Verdurin salon, and its old and new adherents (‘the faithful’) (33): Morel, a deserter (37); Octave ‘the Also-ran’, now author of an admired book, has married Andrée (38). Mme de Verdurin’s approaches to Odette (39). The Verdurins’ new home (40).

  Aeroplanes in the sky over the city at nightfall (41). My night-time walks in Paris remind me of Combray (42).

  My earlier, brief, return to Paris in 1914 (44). I meet Saint-Loup just after war is declared (44). He conceals his attempts to get sent to the front (45). Bloch’s pretence of patriotism (46); Saint-Loup’s real patriotism, and that of his friends at Doncières (49). The ideal of masculinity among homosexuals, officers and diplomat-writers (53). The manager of the Grand Hotel at Balbec is in a concentration camp, the lift-boy wants to be an aviator (54). The butler torments Françoise with war news (56). Françoise has not lost any of her faults: indiscretion, bad faith, a fondness for turns of phrase which she then gets wrong (57). Back in my sanatorium I receive a letter from Gilberte, who has fled to Tansonville, now occupied by the Germans (59). In another letter, Saint-Loup talks about war and its laws, and the death of young Vaugoubert (60). His intellectual and artistic tastes (62).

  My second return to Paris: another letter from Gilberte, explaining that she is in Tansonville to look after the house (63). Fighting around Combray (64). Recent visit from Saint-Loup, on leave (65). His thoughts on the war: the Wagnerian beauty of nocturnal air-raids (66). His reflections on strategy and diplomacy show him to be brilliant, but less original than his uncle Charlus (67). On foot to the Verdurins’ (70). I admire the Oriental impression created by sunset over the city. I meet M. de Charlus (71). He now looks like all inverts; decline of his social position (72). Mme Verdurin’s malevolence towards him (73). Not fashionable (74). Cruel treatment by Morel, author of scurrilous articles about him (75). Parallel between nations at war and the relations between individuals (79). Mme Verdurin’s croissant and the sinking of the Lusitania (81). M. de Charlus’s pro-Germanism (83). His sarcasm about Brichot’s articles, which like the rest of the press have become militaristic (86). His on-off quarrel with Morel (88). Charlus enumerates the absurdities in articles by Norpois and Brichot, reveals his own childishness (90). Mme de Forcheville has updated her anglophile vocabulary (97). Annoyed by the success of his pedantic articles, Mme Verdurin makes Brichot the butt of her jokes (99). Charlus’s conversation about the war completely betrays him; aestheticism and respect for tradition make him a defeatist (102). His dangerous harangue in the street, where he is followed by unsavoury individuals (108). The night sky full of circling aeroplanes; moonlight (109). M. de Charlus wants to make it up with Morel (112). Two years later, Morel will tell me he was afraid of Charlus (113). M. de Charlus compares Paris to Pompeii (114). His admiration for the soldiers of all the Allied armies; their classically inspired masculinity (115). His handshake as we part (117).

  *

  Jupien’s hotel. Walking through a Paris which feels like something out of the Arabian Nights (118). I need a drink and a rest, so enter a hotel, in which I see an officer like Saint-Loup leaving (119). Conversation among patrons, soldiers and workers in the hotel; it takes a disturbing turn (120). I take a room (121); I see a man in chains, being whipped: M. de Charlus (123). Jupien appears; he runs the place, but Charlus is the owner (124). The young men recruited by Jupien, whom Charlus thinks are too soft, all look like Morel (126). Universality of the laws of love (127). A croix de guerre found on the ante-room floor (129). Two very elegant clients (130). How emotion affects what we say (130). Jupien hides me in a room off the hall where I can see and hear without being seen (132). Charlus and his harem of young men; disappointed by their normality (133). A rotten priest (137). After Charlus has left, Jupien makes a great effort to justify his position, ending up with my translation of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies (138).

  Back in the street, watching out for aeroplanes (141). The Pompeians in the subways of the Métro, all social classes mixed together (142). Our habits, independent of moral value, as with M. de Charlus, whose aberrations betray the universal poetic dream of love (146). After the all-clear, I go back home; Saint-Loup has been there, looking for his croix de guerre, which he has lost (149). Françoise and the war; tormented by the butler (150). The triumph of virtue: the Larivières, cousins of Françoise (153). Death of Saint-Loup, the day after his return to the front (155). Recollections of our friendship (156). The secret of his life, a parallel with Albertine’s secret (156). Françoise mourns him (157). The laws of death (158). I write to Gilberte (159). Unexpected grief of the Duchesse de Guermantes (160). Another consequence of Saint-Loup’s death: Morel, arrested as a deserter and unsettling M. de Charlus and M. d’Argencourt with his revelations, is sent to the front and wins the croix de guerre. If Saint-Loup had lived… (161).

  The Princesse de Guermantes ’s afternoon party. Perpetual adoration. My third return to Paris, after the war (162). My train stops in open countryside, where a line of trees fails to arouse any emotion in me: confirmation that I am incapable of writing (163). Invitation to an afternoon party at the Princesse de Guermantes’s (164); glad to embrace purely social pleasures again; recollections of the magic of the Guermantes’ name (165). My short journey to the avenue des Bois is also a journey in time, towards the silent heights of memory (166). On the Champs-Elysées I meet M. de Charlus, white-haired and decayed but majestic, accompanied by Jupien (167). His greeting to Mme de Saint-Euverte, whom he has forgotten he used to despise (168). Signs of aphasia, but his memory still intact (170). Roll-call of dead friends and171). Meets the Duchesse de Létourville, who loses patience with Charlus for his infirmity (171). According to Jupien, though, the Baron is still as randy as a young man; he is also still very pro-German (172). Frivolous pleasure of the Princesse de Guermantes’s party, my sense that I am untalented (174). Bergotte was wrong, I did not know the joys of the minds (174). In the courtyard, I stumble over some unevenly laid paving-stones: I rediscover the same happiness as at other moments of my life, particularly the taste of the madeleine (175). Resurrection of the memory of Venice (175). Inside the house, more exhilarating sensations (176). Waiting in the library-cum-sitting-room for a piece of music to end before I go in, I rediscover the source of identical pleasures, the sound of a spoon, the stiffness of a napkin, which recall a moment of my past life (177). The only true paradise is a paradise that we have lo
st (178). These impressions, through an identity between the present and the past, enable us to enjoy the essence of things, outside of time (179). Whereas the intellectual observation of reality is disappointing (180). Fugitive nature of this optical illusion (181). But another echo of a past sensation shows me that the pleasure it gives is the only real and fertile one (183). Memory is the means by which we can reach this reality, whereas travel can never recreate lost time (185). The happiness offered to Swann by the sonata’s little186). Inadequacy of intelligence. The work of art the only means of interpreting sensations, signs of so many laws and ideas (187). Difficulty of deciphering this internal book (188). Art enables us to discover our real life; uselessness of literary theories, and their demands (189). Finding François le Champi in the Duc de Guermantes’s library confirms my line of thought (191). The book summons up within me the child in Combray, because books remain linked to what we were when we read them (192). The kind of bibliophile I would have been, collecting the editions in which I first read a book (194). The idea of popular art, like that of patriotic art, seems laughable (196). Reality is a relationship between sensations and memories; the writer expresses them in a metaphor. The duty and task of a writer are those of a translator (197). The mistake of the celibates at the shrine of art, rough sketches for the artist (201). Constant aberrations of literary criticism; its verbiage (202). The best reader does no more than achieve complete consciousness of another person’s thoughts (203). The literature of mere observation is valueless (203). The only life lived to the full is literature (204). Original artists put different worlds at our disposal (204). Making signs meaningful again after they have become meaningless through habit (205). The truths which the intelligence derives directly from reality are not to be despised (207). All these raw materials for a literary work were actually my past life (208). A vocation (208). I have created a sketch209). Extracting generalizable features from our grief (210). A book is a great cemetery (212). Why the work is a sign of happiness (213). Happiness alone is good for the body; whereas sorrow develops the strength of the mind (215). Ideas are substitutes for sorrows (215). Creative suffering leads us to truth and death (218). Meaning of the insignificant events in my life (219). Material of the book neutral, as shown by the phenomenon of sexual inversion (220). Dreams are another way of finding Lost Time again (221). Only coarse and inaccurate perception places everything in the object, when everything is in the mind (221). The subjective nature of love and hatred (222). Everything is in the mind (222). The raw material of my experience, which was to be the raw material of my book, came to me from Swann, and therefore excludes all other possible lives (223). Importance of jealousy (225).

  The ‘Bal de têtes’ (‘masked ball’). Back to the party (226). The butler tells me I can now enter the drawing-rooms (226). Chateaubriand, de Nerval and Baudelaire on aesthetic impressions (228). A dramatic turn of events raises serious objections to my undertaking (229). Difficulty in recognizing my host and fellow-guests, as all of them have been made up to look like old men and women (229). M. d’Argencourt as an old beggar (230). He is the revelation of Time, which he renders visible (233). Deeper changes to characters (234). Time has passed for me too (235). The Duchesse de Guermantes and young Létourville make me realize this (236). Bloch comes in, an old man: we are the same age (237). Anguish at discovering the destructive aspect of Time just as I have decided to depict extra-temporal realities in a work of art (239). Some people, like Mme Sazerat, completely changed (239). Realize that the discovery of old age will be the main subject matter of my book (240). M. de Cambremer disfigured by the mask of Time (241). Old age has improved the Prince d’Agrigente (242). Legrandin, sculpted like an Egyptian god (243). Old age has turned some people into faded adolescents, others have acquired new personalities (245). Bloch (246). To recognize somebody is to think about a mystery almost as disturbing as death (248). Young Cambremer’s resemblance to his uncle prefigures the old man he will become (251). Unattractive features of old age (252). One friend so changed I only recognize his voice (252). In some cases, the tempo of time may be slowed down or accelerated (253). Both women and men altered by age; only Mme de Forcheville seems unchanged (256). How time rehabilitates disgraced politicians (256). Odette like a sterilized rose (258). Her company, so long sought, is now interminably dull (259). People think her a bit gaga; she has become an object of sympathy, no longer able to defend herself (260). Bloch now 261). I introduce him to the Prince de Guermantes (262). Bloch’s confusion about who the Princesse is: Mme Verdurin’s progress (263). Morel enters the room (264). Time works its chemistry upon society as well as upon individuals (265). Society has lost its standards and its homogeneity (265). Memory shorter than life (266). Misapprehensions of name and rank recall Saint-Simon’s account of the ignorance of Louis XIV (270). The usefulness of genealogists (271). With the passing of time, people mistake the social status of men like Bloch and Swann; these errors too are dependent on Time, but they are a phenomenon of memory, not a social phenomenon (273). Close up, Bloch looks like an old Shylock (276). Even the most aristocratic names change their resonance over time: my understanding of the Faubourg is just as historically conditioned as any newcomer’s (277). Bloch has lost his earlier indiscretion, in a process of social maturation (278). The different people at the party cause the varied aspects of my life to emerge in my mind’s eye (279). Early memories of Mlle Swann, Charlus, the Duchesse de Guermantes (280). Importance of impressions for memory (282). Relativity of one individual’s memories (example of Albertine) (284). The importance of death in the lives of older people; difficulty of remembering who has died (286). Death a cheering simplification of existence for those left alive (287). The Princesse de Nassau leaves (288). I mistake Gilberte for her mother (289). She talks to me about Robert and his ideas about the war (290).

  Gilberte now has an inseparable friend in Andrée (292). Rachel to recite poetry at the party (293). My intention to resume a life of solitude while I write my book (295). I ask Gilberte to introduce me to some very young girls (297). The Duchesse de Guermantes in conversation with a frightful old woman, who turns out to be Rachel (300).

  Meanwhile, across town, La Berma’s tea-party is a failure (304). One young man is the only guest (307). La Berma’s self-sacrifice for her ungrateful children (307).

  Rachel’s recitation, and the responses it evokes (308). Rachel disparages La Berma (312). I become aware that the passing of time does not necessarily bring about progress in the arts (312). The social decline of the Duchesse de Guermantes (313). Diminution of her powers (314). Her recollections of Bréauté very different from mine, illustrating ‘that poetry of the incomprehensible which is one of the effects of time’ (316). The Duchesse now claims to have discovered Rachel (321).

  *

  La Berma’s son-in-law and daughter succeed in getting themselves admitted to the party in the belief that it is Rachel’s (323). They thereby compound their destruction of La Berma’s health by ruining her social reputation (324).

  The Duc de Guermantes’s love for Mme de Forcheville (324). He is a superb ruin (326). Odette makes fun of him (328). How the pattern of things changes in this world (328). His demands on Odette remind me of my life with Albertine (329). Odette’s tales of love (330). Why a large proportion of the suffering in men’s lives is caused by women ‘who were not their type’ (331). Another Mme de Saint-Euverte: a new blossoming of the Saint-Euverte name which marks both the distance and the continuity of Time (333). Mme de Guermantes’s malicious remarks about Gilberte (335). Gilberte introduces me to her young daughter: the idea makes me think about the dense dimensionality of Time, as every thread of my life seems to meet in her (340). The idea of Time a spur to make me start my book (342). Importance of not leaving it unfinished (343). My methods, and Françoise’s help (343). Danger of accidents (345). Yet I have become indifferent to the idea of my death, except for the sake of my book (346). One evening I go out and become unwell (349). Loss of capacity (350). S
ocial self loses its memory; self that conceived the work still remembers (350). Nobody understands my first sketches (351). The idea of death establishes itself permanently within me, in the way that love does (352). I shall work at night, writing a book as long as the Arabian Nights or Saint-Simon’s Mémoires (353). Is it too late? Illness, by compelling me to ‘die to the world’, has done me a service (354). The work will be marked by the form of Time (354). The garden bell at Combray (356). Remembering it at such a distance gives me a sense of giddiness (357). I imagine men as perched on living stilts, representing the length of time they have lived (357). My chief concern will be to describe people as they exist in Time (358).