Opening
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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as italic.
THE MODERN LIBRARY
__OF THE WORLD’S BEST BOOKS__
THE GUERMANTES WAY
The publishers will be pleased to send, upon request, an illustrated folder setting forth the purpose and scope of THE MODERN LIBRARY, and listing each volume in the series. Every reader of books will find titles he has been looking for, handsomely printed, in unabridged editions, and at an unusually low price.
THE GUERMANTES WAY
BY MARCEL PROUST
Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
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THE MODERN LIBRARY · NEW YORK
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COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY THOMAS SELTZER
Random House IS THE PUBLISHER OF
THE MODERN LIBRARY
BENNETT A. CERF · DONALD S. KLOPFER · ROBERT K. HAAS
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed by Parkway Printing Company Bound by H. Wolff
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MARCEL PROUST
(1871-1922)
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF “À LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU”
“I don’t think there ever has been in the whole of literature such an example of the power of analysis, and I feel safe in saying that there will never be another.”—Joseph Conrad.
The world of fashion in which Marcel Proust spent his youth and early manhood saw nothing of him during the last thirteen years of his life. A victim of chronic illness, he barricaded himself in his apartment, swathed himself like an Egyptian mummy, drew his shutters and curtains to exclude the light, and there recorded his chronicle of things past. Son of a distinguished physician and an heiress of a rich Jewish family, Proust had his first training under the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church. An association in the 1890’s with some of the aesthetes of that period resulted in the publication of a review, to which Proust contributed some juvenile prose and verse. Thereafter the fashionable Faubourg St. Germain became his sphere, and it was there, among the illustrious and well-born, that he assimilated those fragments of gossip and family history which were later transmuted into a world in itself—the world of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LES PLAISIRS ET LES JOURS (with a preface by Anatole France (1896))
DU CÔTÉ DE CHEZ SWANN (1918) (SWANN’S WAY (1923))
À L’OMBRE DES JEUNES FILLES EN FLEURS (1918) (WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE (1924))
LE CÔTÉ DE GUERMANTES I (1920) LE CÔTÉ DE GUERMANTES II (1921) (THE GUERMANTES WAY (1925))
SODOME ET GOMORRHE I (1921) SODOME ET GOMORRHE II (1922) (CITIES OF THE PLAIN (1928))
LA PRISONNIÈRE (1923) (THE CAPTIVE (1929))
ALBERTINE DISPARUE (1926) (THE SWEET CHEAT GONE (1930))
LE TEMPS RETROUVÉ (1928) (THE PAST RECAPTURED (1932))
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AUTHOR’S DEDICATION
A
LEON DAUDET
A l’auteur
du VOYAGE DE SHAKESPEARE, du PARTAGE DE L’ENFANT, de L’ASTRE NOIR, de FANTOMES ET VIVANTS, du MONDE DES IMAGES, de tant de chefs-d’oeuvre,
A l’incomparable ami
en temoignage de reconnaissance et d’admiration
M. P.
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TRANSLATOR’S DEDICATION
To MRS. H———, on her Birthday
OBERON, in the ATHENIAN glade, R_educed by deft_ TITANIA’S power, I_nvented arts for_ NATURE’S aid A_nd from a snowflake shaped a flower_: NATURE, to outdo him, wrought of human clay A fairy blossom, which we acclaim to-day.
HEBE, to high OLYMPUS borne, U_ndoomed to death, by age uncurst_, XERES and PORTO, night and morn, L_et flow, to appease celestial thirst_: E_v’n so, untouched by years that envious pass_ YOUTH greets the guests to-night and fills the glass.
HESIONE, for monstrous feast, A_gainst a rock was chained, to die_; Y_oung_ HERCLES came, he slew the beast, N_or won the award of chivalry_: E. S. P. H., whom monsters hold in awe, S_hield thee from injury, and enforce the law_!
C. K. S. M.
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Chapter One (continued) page 1
My grandmother’s illness (continued)—Bergotte’s illness—The Duke and the Doctor—Decline and death of my grandmother.
Chapter Two page 49
A visit from Albertine—Prospect of rich brides for certain friends of Saint-Loup—The visit of the Guermantes, as displayed before the Princess de Parme—A strange visit to M. de Charlus—His character puzzles me more and more—The red shoes of the Duchess.
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The French text of Le Côté de Guermantes being extremely inaccurate, every care has been taken to correct it in the process of translation. In three places in this volume the sequence of paragraphs has been altered, as the reader may discover by comparing the French and English texts.
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