The Project Gutenberg EBook of Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Swann's Way
Remembrance of Things Past, Volume One

Author: Marcel Proust

Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7178]
Posting Date: March 21, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SWANN'S WAY ***

Produced by Eric Eldred

SWANN'S WAY

Remembrance Of Things Past, Volume One

By Marcel Proust

Translated From The French By C. K. Scott Moncrieff

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1922

CONTENTS

OVERTURE
COMBRAY
SWANN IN LOVE
PLACE-NAMES: THE NAME

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 Francois 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