In Search of Lost Time

By Marcel Proust.

Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff.

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Volume I

Swann’s Way

Author’s Dedication

A Monsieur
Gaston Calmette

Comme un témoignage de
profonde et affecteuse
reconnaissance

Translator’s Dedication

To E. J. C.

Here, Summer lingering, loiter I
When I, with Summer, should be gone⁠ ⁠…
Where only London lights the sky
I go, and with me journeys “Swann”

Whose pages’ dull, laborious woof
Covers a warp of working-times,
Of firelit nights beneath your roof
And sunlit days beneath your limes,

While, both at once or each in turn,
Sharp-tongued but smooth, like buttered knives,
We pared, with studied unconcern,
The problems of our private lives;

Those tiny problems, dense yet clear
Like ivory balls by Chinese craft
Pierced (where each hole absorbed a tear)
And rounded (where the assembly laughed).

Did all our laughter muffle pain,
Our candour simulate pretence?
Fear not. I shall not come again
To tease you with indifference.

Yet I may gaze for Oakham spire
Where London suns set, watery-pale,
And dream, while tides of crimson fire
Sweep, smoking, over Catmos vale.

Overture

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say “I’m going to sleep.” And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

I would ask myself what o’clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, showed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed forever in his memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to doing unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to farewells exchanged beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home.

I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my pillow, as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood. Or I would strike a match to look at my watch. Nearly midnight. The hour when an invalid, who has been obliged to start on a journey and to sleep in a strange hotel, awakens in a moment of illness and sees with glad relief a streak of daylight showing under his bedroom door. Oh, joy of joys! it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring, and someone will come to look after him. The thought of being made comfortable gives him strength to endure