Marcel Proust: Time Regained (Unabridged)
Time Regained: Chapter One
Robert came several times to Tansonville while I was there.
Francoise, who had already seen…
One day when Robert was due to come to Tansonville…
As for that love he kept talking to me about…
Once Robert had gone off again…
It occurred to me that it was because Robert had…
'The day before yesterday…'
'You Westerners find that impossible to understand…'
When I spoke to Verdurin of the subtle pleasure…
'Yes, I give you my word…'
Hearing this, Doctor Cottard…
I stopped there…
The result of this was…
Thus it was that the Goncourts' journal had revealed to me…
I had realised earlier that it is not the most witty…
Chapter Two
'The sadness of the present moment, it is true…'
Saint-Euverte's salon had a faded image…
M. Bontemps would not hear of peace…
Now Morel ought not to have been there…
These words, which would have injured…
Before the time when the afternoon teas came to an end…
The silhouettes of the trees were reflected sharply…
'Have you heard,' he asked me as he left…
Bloch left us at the door of his house…
Robert (who at the time seemed to me much more a Saint-Loup…)
No doubt the boy was fed up with going up…
One might have thought that I was the only person…
Whether the German staff officers had indeed behaved well…
It was no good the general telling the man…
'In a word, Gilberte now believed…'
When Saint-Loup had come into my room…
In certain respects the comparison was not a false one.
Later he was to say to me…
While recalling Saint-Loup's visit…
One might say that in his case…
And thinking probably…
Thus it was that when seeking to hurt the baron…
However, even if M. de Charlus and Mme. Verdurin…
However, just as there are animals' bodies and human bodies…
M. de Charlus went further…
For M. de Charlus, therefore…
The war was going on for ever…
'It's a strange thing too,' M. de Charlus added…
The Duc de Guermantes' opinions had quickly changed.
It's quite obvious that those peoples…
And since M. de Charlus began to be extraordinarily childish…
M. de Charlus was right about that.
So it was that journalism…
Her fury with Brichot increased all the more…
'I don't know, old chap,' M. de Charlus went on…
'The symbol of it,' I replied.
I would be very surprised…
'You must admit that would be very funny,' he said.
What is more, M. de Charlus literally did not know which way to turn…
The night was just as lovely as it had been in 1914…
At this point the violinist…
I then understood Morel's fear.
'I admire all the heroes in this war,' he said.
It was a transparent night…
Something did strike me, though…
'It's amazing the boss isn't back…'
The oldest member of the group…
All at once the door opened and someone entered…
The baron even felt slightly resentful towards Jupien…
A relationship with a woman one loves…
I made my way downstairs…
However, it was no good his suggesting…
He anyway had no other room to offer me.
'I don't doubt for a single moment…'
It was no good the young man…
'Apparently he's got a million francs a day to burn through.'
'The main reason I did that,' added Jupien…
Jupien appeared to be very troubled by what I had said…
The moment the alarm had sounded…
Nonetheless the darkness went on…
As for M. de Charlus…
Now, aberrations are like love affairs…
I advised Francoise and the butler to go and get some sleep.
Francoise was all the more troubled by these remarks…
Every morning at six o'clock…
I recalled his arrival that first time at Balbec…
Francoise received the news…
He must have been really magnificent in those final hours.
If not through his death…
Chapter Three
My long absence from Paris…
For me there was one good thing at least…
The most moving thing, though…
Mme. de Saint-Euverte's snobbery…
At that moment the Duchesse de Letourville…
I need not add…
Turning the sad thoughts I was mentioning a moment ago…
While asking myself this question…
The piece of music being played…
I glossed swiftly over all that…
However, this optical illusion…
This meant that the person within me…
Impressions such as those I was trying to pin down…
And even as I thought this…
A slanting ray from the setting sun…
'No more style,' people had said at the time,…
Thus it was that for me that book…
If I see a thing from another period…
The library I would build up for myself in this way…
An hour is not just an hour…
Even when it comes to artistic joys…
That group imagined that this was the criterion…
How could descriptive literature possibly have any value…
And it was certainly very tempting…
As for the truths that the intellect…
In this matter, the very comparisons which are false…
It is not certain that imagination…
Moreover, I felt infinite sympathy…
From this first point of view…
If we had no rivals, pleasure would not turn into love.
Just as the painter needs to have seen many churches…
I was perhaps wrong…
A writer says 'my reader' …
What made it possible that this perverse way of thinking…
I had seen nobles become vulgar…
Jealousy is a good recruiting sergeant…
I was going to try to find the objective reason…
Initially I could not understand…
Even supposing that d'Argencourt had the same desire to smile…
This was a puppet-show featuring dolls…
As for the woman whose lover M. d'Argencourt had been…
The letter from this friend I had dreamed of having…
When somebody, hearing that I was unwell…
In certain people the replacement of each cell by a series of others…
There was no doubt that the cruel discovery I had just made…
I asked M. de Cambremer how his mother was.
In several people I ended up recognising not only their actual selves…
Certain faces, beneath their hood of white hair…
It was difficult to reconcile the two aspects…
The women tried to stay in touch…
The old men whose features had changed…
Nonetheless it is necessary to make one reservation…
Just as a candidate at the baccalaureat…
Someone who had been a minister before the Boulangist period…
Mme. de Forcheville's appearance was so miraculous…
Mme. de Forcheville's eyes, which were still very lovely…
'You may be painting too rosy a picture of it all,' he said to me.
On the other hand, it was possibly true…
Certain foreigners who, when I had begun to move in society…
During the war, Bloch had stopped 'going out'…
In the end, after an elderly man…
The woman who was a friend of Bloch…
For the rest, one does have to say…
It is true to say that having been impertinent…
I must have so shocked men…
There is no doubt that Bloch had formerly been…
Not only do certain people have a good memory…
It was not only the appearance of these individuals…
Our parallel lives were like the edges…
'What's the news of the Marquise d'Arpajon?'
The spinster spotted that her mother…
I had sat down beside Gilberte de Saint-Loup.
'There is one aspect of war he was beginning to notice,' I said to her…
'But how is it that you come to receptions…'
And anyway, was it not in order to concern myself…
As I looked at Gilberte I did not think…
Now, the law that had governed the dreams of each year…
The duchess was still hesitating…
Now meanwhile, at the other end of Paris…
Unfortunately these notes merely allowed her son-in-law…
Berma uttered not a word of reproach…
All the guests looked at one another…
While this woman reciting La Fontaine's loveliest lines…
I realised that the passage of time…
However, since the talent of the best writers often dries up…
'I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you,' the duchess continued.
To her, though…
The past had become so transformed…
The judgements the duchess then pronounced on Rachel…
In the antechamber, where the couple's wait had gone…
The life of the duchess went on being very unhappy too…
I would certainly not have recognised him…
Thus it was that the apparently impregnable positions…
In fact every time I subsequently tried to see her I failed to do so…
There is not necessarily any contradiction, though…
To greet the duchess, she slightly bowed her fine head…
'But how can I talk to you about stupid things like that?
However, she did not pursue her thoughts…
Later on this daughter…
One might say that if I tried not to use it unconsciously…
How happy anyone who could write such a book would be…
The papers that Francoise called my paperies…
It was not like that now.
Now it did not trouble me…
One of my selves…
All at once, though, after a month…
I myself had to write something different…
I could, although the mistake would be more serious…
At that very moment, in the Prince de Guermantes' mansion…
