WITHIN A
BUDDING GROVE
by
MARCEL PROUST
TRANSLATED BY
C. K. SCOTT MONCRIEFF
THE MODERN LIBRARY
PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK
Copyright, 1924, By THOMAS SELTZER
TRANSLATOR'S DEDICATION
To
K. S. S.
That men in armour may be born
With serpents' teeth the field is sown;
Rains mould, winds bend, suns gild the corn
Too quickly ripe, too early mown.
I scan the quivering beads, behold
The features, catch the whispered breath
Of friends long garnered in the cold
Unopening granaries of death,
Whose names in solemn cadence ring
Across my slow oblivious page.
Their friendship was a finer thing
Than fame, or wealth, or honoured age.
And—while you live and I—shall last
Its tale of seasons with us yet
Who cherish, in the undying
The men we never can forget.
Bad Kissingen,C. K. S. M.
July 31, 1923.
CONTENTS
A break in the narrative: old friends in new aspects—The
Marquis de Norpois—Bergotte—How I cease for the time being
to see Gilberte: a general outline of the sorrow caused by a parting
and of the irregular process of oblivion.
My first visit to Balbec
Place-Names: The Place (continued)
First impressions of M. de Charlus and
of Robert de Saint-Loup—Dinner with Bloch and his family.
Seascape, with Frieze of Girls
Dinners at Rivebelle—Enter Albertine.
WITHIN A
BUDDING GROVE
PART I
MADAME SWANN AT HOME
My mother, when it was a question of our having M. de Norpois to dinnerfor the first time, having expressed her regret that Professor Cottardwas away from home, and that she herself had quite ceased to seeanything of Swann, since either of these might have helped to entertainthe old Ambassador, my father replied that so eminent a guest, sodistinguished a man of science as Cottard could never be out of place ata dinner-table, but that Swann, with his