------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE MODERN LIBRARY
__OF THE WORLD’S BEST BOOKS__
[Illustration]
_THE GUERMANTES WAY_
[Illustration]
_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_
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MODERN LIBRARY · NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================
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))
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
Part I
Chapter One page 1
_Names of People: The Duchess de Guermantes—Saint-Loup
at Doncières—Mme. de Villeparisis at home—My
grandmother’s illness._