Chapter I: Front Matter

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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_.

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__

_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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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._

Part II

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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