Proust: The Captive (unabridged)

It was certainly not, as I was well aware…

It did not occur to me that the apathy that was indicated…

Francoise came in to light the fire…

The decline of day plunging me back by an act of memory…

Of all the outdoor and indoor gowns that Mme. de Guermantes…

If there was no affectation, no desire to fabricate…

Mme. de Guermantes assured me that…

'Good grate-ious, my dear Oriane,' replied Breaute…

As I endeavoured as far as possible to leave the Duchess…

We may be certain that Morel, relying on the influence…

The reader may remember that Morel had once told the Baron…

I shall set apart from the other days on which I lingered…

As I listened to Albertine's footsteps…

At once my suspicion revived…

Albertine took a far keener interest…

Distressing as the change may have been to us…

Between the two Balbec scenes…

It is I suppose comprehensible that the letters…

Sometimes I put out the light before she came in.

Before Albertine obeyed and allowed me to take off her shoes…

Life has in fact suddenly acquired, in his eyes…

How many persons, cities, roads does not jealousy make us…

Often, in the case of these furtive or sidelong glances…

Generally speaking, love has not as its object a human body…

When, of her own accord, she swears to us…

Albertine went to take off her things…

What is remarkable is that, a few days before this dispute…

I was now at liberty to go out with Albertine…

I really believe that I came near that day…

But there were certain evenings also…

On the morrow of that evening when Albertine had told me…

Francoise brought in the Figaro.

And often an extra hour of sleep is a paralytic stroke…

In these various forms of sleep, as likewise in music…

Perhaps the future was not destined to be the same…

In any event, I was very glad that Andree was to accompany…

As I do not believe that jealousy can revive a dead love…

Of a laundry girl, on a Sunday…

Between the shopgirl, the laundress busy with her iron…

Of course, I was still at the first stage of enlightenment…

Certainly at such moments she was not at all the same…

I urged Francoise, when she had got Albertine out of the hall…

The frocks that I had bought for her…

But notwithstanding the richness of these works…

For some reason or other the course of my musings…

Gradually my agitation subsided.

As one does on the eve of a premature death…

The disappointment that I had felt with the women…

At our feet, our parallel shadows, where they approached…

I did not question Gisele.

Every person whom we love, indeed to a certain extent…

He consulted doctors who, flattered at being called…

He repeated to himself…

The evidence of the senses is also an operation…

Chapter 2

Notwithstanding the change in Morel's point of view…

From this point of view, if one is not 'somebody'…

But if the drawing-room seemed to him superior…

Making a pretence of not seeing the seedy individual…

'Have you seen him lately?' I asked M. de Charlus…

M. de Charlus had never in his life been anything but…

As for young men in general, M. de Charlus found…

M. de Charlus, who had long been acquainted with Bergotte…

Just as we were about to ring the bell…

Meanwhile Mme. Verdurin was busily engaged with Cottard…

These exclusions were not always founded upon…

Nobody will accuse the Dreyfus case…

If Mme. Verdurin had not been genuinely unaffected…

M. de Charlus took Morel aside…

What ruined M. de Charlus that evening was the ill-breeding…

Mme. Verdurin sat in a place apart…

But very soon, the triumphant motive of the bells…

Vinteuil had been dead for many years…

The lost country composers do not actually remember…

This question seemed to me all the more important…

Anyhow, the apparent contrast, that profound union…

Nor indeed was M. de Charlus content with leaving…

She intended, on the morning after the party…

The remainder of M. de Charlus's guests…

In calling her 'the Mole' (as for that matter…)

'I intended to send you a note to-morrow by a messenger…'

This said, he did not hesitate to commit it…

'Come with us all the same,' said the Baron…

I expressed to M. de Charlus my regret…

'Forgive me if I return to the subject,' I said quickly…

'You wish to meet Mlle Vinteuil,' said Brichot…

So it is that we see men of the world…

All of a sudden Brichot, who was still suffering…

I could see that M. de Charlus was about to tell us…

As cowardly still as I had been long ago…

But we have looked too far ahead…

Mme. Verdurin was overwhelmed with the joy of an old mistress…

While M. de Charlus, rendered speechless by Morel's words…

Extremes, however, meet, since the noble man…

To turn back to the Verdurin's party…

Chapter 3

We had now reached my door.

But I was preoccupied with the thought of Mlle Vinteuil…

I did not know what to say, not wishing to appear astonished…

Once again I had to be careful not to keep…

'My little Albertine,' I said to her in a gentle voice…

But the situation was entirely different for several reasons…

If I analyse my feelings by this hypothesis…

My serfdom, of which I had already been conscious…

Tonight I thought that, among the other reasons…

I had tears in my eyes…

I should have been wrong in being delighted…

It was so late that, in the morning, I warned Francoise…

Albertine no more said to me after this midnight scene…

If Albertine's object was to restore my peace of mind…

'We shall have to begin to think soon…'

I was so far convinced that it was absurd…

Vinteuil's phrases made me think of the 'little phrase'…

But I can at least assume that Baudelaire is not sincere.

It was not, however, his music alone that Albertine played me…

She spoke to me also of the excursions that she had made…

Meanwhile winter was at an end…

The first, the consoling feature was that habit…

In the course of the day, Francoise had let fall in my hearing…

This presentiment which she seemed to be expressing…

That day and the next we went out together…

We stopped at a big pastrycook's…

We returned home very late one evening…

But all of a sudden the scene changed…