Du côté de chez Swann
Esquisse I
I.1 (First draft, Cahier 3, 1r-3r)
I had been in bed for about an hour. In the room in the position where
we imagined the chest of drawers to be daylight had not yet traced the
white line beneath which runs the window, that in the darkness we had
placed next to the chimney as if it was a Christmas stocking; the sloping
wall whose inclination we think we can follow with our hand the length of
our bed straightens itself out, suppressing in front of us any possibility
of a corridor and all the rest of the house, leaving behind only an open
space and the bed turned towards it. Sometimes it is a light, a reflection
on the brassware of a piece of furniture, a forgotten ember in the
extinguished fire, that has deceived us and makes us think that it is
daylight already beneath the window curtains, but less melancholy than the
ray of light which, in the bedroom of an unfamiliar hotel, deceives the
invalid; laid out on his bed by a cruel convulsion that has woken him up,
he sees the light under the door and tells himself it is morning, I
haven't heard any sounds yet, but soon everybody will be getting up, they
will come and help me, I haven't much longer to wait, and he starts to
count the minutes. Soon the light under his door is extinguished and
everything returns to darkness. Now he understands, his convulsion has
woken him up almost at the moment when he had just fallen asleep. It is
midnight. In the unfamiliar hotel the night porter whose assistance he
would have been able to call upon only five minutes ago has just turned
off the gas, he will have to remain alone all night, and suffer without
any assistance.
Sometimes too as it appeared below the curtains the daylight did not
only inform the person who had just woken up the whereabouts of the window
and the chimney; but also informed him in which of all the houses where he
had lived, in which of all the parts of the country he had visited, in
which year of his life he now found himself. Because while he had slept he
had lost the map of the place in which he found himself, and now awoken in
the darkness he is incapable of reconstructing it, of situating his life
that is wandering uncertainly in search of a lodging and a time, and all
the walls inside of which he has slept are engaged in the darkness in a
furious struggle to give shape to the unknown place in which he has woken
up. For more than one of these places, which would have remained
inviolable had not our thoughts and our heart so little strength, he had
never thought about them since. But this is what is remembered of it by
his side, and his neck, and his stretched out legs, that to their left is
the little lumber room from the long demolished house and the heaped up
playthings, and the old servant, that it will soon be time to get up and
start work by lamplight before the time for college, and in front of him
the bedroom in which his parents were sleeping side by side. But in the
darkness the room changes shape again and summons around itself a
different dwelling in a different part of the country. And by turns the
daylight comes and lights up the courtyard of the barracks, so that he
must rush off to drink his boiling coffee in the canteen, before going out
on a march, the sun only just risen, with music at their head through the
sleeping town; then in the dark our hand thinks it can reach out to a
great trunk in a room in a château; so it must be the holidays; but no, it
is not a bed we are lying on, it must be the chaise longue on which people
slumber after dinner in the town at the seaside, but it is night,
everybody has gone to bed and forgotten I am here; no, I agreed to dine;
and we float uncertainly between places and years that revolve around our
confused eyes that are unable to open.
I began to think about an article that I had sent to the Figaro
a long time ago already, I had even corrected the proofs, and ever since
then I had hoped to find it in the paper every morning, before finally
giving up hope. And I asked myself if it was worth the effort of writing
any more. When I opened my eyes again day had dawned. I would soon hear
people getting up in the rest of the house. Eight o'clock was the time
Mama would come in and say good morning to me (I had already made a habit
of only sleeping in the day, I went to sleep after the first post).
I.2 (Cahier 3, 3r-6r)
His eyes that he can hardly keep open cannot yet make out anything in
the darkness, apart from his body that has been given form by his fatigue,
uncertain whether he has just woken up in bed or in the armchair where as
a child he would fall asleep before undressing, he imagines next to him
the little lumber room where all his playthings lie pell mell and where
all the clothes are so difficult to unhook from under the curtain, and
opposite him the bedroom where his parents are sleeping side by side.
But the surroundings in which his body is trying to place itself have
already changed their form and by turns in front of him is the courtyard
of the barracks where the morning light will soon appear and he will have
to go down quickly to the canteen and drink his boiling coffee before
going out on a march, the ranks already being formed, with music at their
head which will begin to sound as soon as they have passed through the
sleeping town; but no, that is the great trunk in the bedroom at the
château of Réveillon beside me, I had fallen asleep before going down to
dinner, everybody must be at the table, but the walls contract, my room
forms a quadrant, there are other rooms next to mine in the Ostend hotel,
but you can't hear the sound of the sea. Bah, it is my room down on the
ground floor, without any carpets, looking out over the apple trees in
Brittany, I am unwell and Mama is sleeping at the far end of the same
room, and to reassure myself I want to feel that there really is no carpet
and call Mama, but no voice comes out of my mouth and I cannot move my arm
and for a moment more shapes and period of my life come and revolve around
my confused and exhausted body, giving me a feeling about the immediate
future that then changes, that I must hurry and finish the homework that I
need to have ready to bring with me as I leave for college, being careful
to arrive before they beat the drum, then the fear of having fallen asleep
in the games room at a get together in Trouville and having been forgotten
when they locked up and switched off the lights.
I closed my eyes and waited for daylight; I thought about the article I
had sent to the Figaro a long time ago already. I had even
corrected the proofs. Every morning I hoped to find it when I opened the
paper. For the last few days I had given up hope and I wondered if they
refused them all like this and if it was worth the effort of writing any
more. Soon I heard everybody getting up. Mama would not delay coming into
my room because I only slept in the day and they came to wish me good
morning after the first post. I opened my eyes again, day had dawned.
People came into my room. Soon Mama came in, and with an air of total
distraction put the Figaro down next to me, but so close that I
could not avoid seeing it and she walked out so quickly, and to the
surprise of our old servant who wanted to come in pushed her out of the
way, that I immediately understood that they had printed the article and
that Mama had wanted to keep it a surprise for me and made sure that
nobody came and disturbed my pleasure or obliged me to dissemble out of
human decency. I took off the string, really there was no need to ask for
the lamp, I opened the curtains so that I could see clearly.
I.3 (Cahier 3, 6r-7r)
(Printed in Contre sainte-Beuve, Bernard de Fallois, 1954: L'article dans "Le Figaro". English translation: By Way of Sainte-Beuve, Sylvia Townsend-Warner, The Article in Le Figaro.)
I.4 (Sixth fragment, Cahier 3, 10r)
My room was pitch black. There, in the darkness, where awoken in discomfort from a deep slumber the sleeper imagined the chest of drawers to be, daylight had not yet traced its white line beneath which there emerges the window at the far end of the room. Then he realizes that what up until then he had taken for daylight under the curtains was the reflection on the brassware of an armchair of a forgotten ember in the extinguished fire; and the wall whose straight line his hand had thought it could trace in the darkness, at an angle, turning the bed a quarter circle along with it to make space for the chimney and the door and denying the possibility of a corridor leading to the dining-room, there now reigned nothing more than a courtyard. Even sadder still is the mistake made by the invalid. Woken up with a start by painful convulsions, in a hotel where he has come to spend the night,, he sees a little light under the crack of the door, thinks that it is morning, that soon people will be getting up, coming in, that he will be able to ask for assistance. He does not yet hear any sounds, but it will not be long before they get up. He counts the minutes [incomplete]
I.5 (Ninth fragment, Cahier 3, 11r-12r)
For a long time I no longer slept other than during the day and that particular night I had only had a few moments sleep but it must have come upon me quite suddenly and without my eyes having time to secure behind my eyelids the layout of my room. Because when I awoke my numbed body was trying to understand its position in order to infer where everything was.
I.6 (Twelfth fragment, Cahier 3, 13r-14r)
It was pitch black in my bedroom. It was the hour when the one who
awakes from a deep sleep into which he will soon fall back, has not
retained behind his eyes a picture of the things around him. His benumbed
limbs sought to understand their position, the room, the circumstances.
It was the hour when the poor invalid who has come to spend a few says
in an unfamiliar hotel is suffering and desolate at being alone. Awoken
with a start by a convulsion he has seen a little light under the door. He
still does not hear a sound but no doubt people will not be long getting
up now that it is morning, he will be able to ring and ask for assistance,
and he anxiously counts the minutes. Suddenly the light is extinguished
and everything falls back into darkness. He had only been asleep for a few
moments. He had woken up before midnight. The night porter had just turned
off the gas on the stairs that had been the light he saw under his door,
and the entire solitary night was going to begin for him, he would have to
suffer through the long hours till morning.
I.7 (Fourteenth fragment, Cahier 3, 14r-16r)
It is the hour when the benumbed limbs of the person who has just awoken from a deep sleep during which he has lost the image of his surroundings, search through their memory to understand the position in which they find themselves, if they are sitting in an armchair, stretched out in a boat, lying in a bed. However their sensibility, on the threshold of space and time, hesitates between places, conditions and years. And around their body, according to the successive positions that he imagines, things order themselves and change their place in the darkness, and by turns all the walls inside of which they have slept change their shape to the space in which they find themselves. Inviolable memories that their weak heart has not been able to retain are invoked by their body's side seeking to evoke the inclination of the wall. He feels himself stretched out along the length of it, in front of the door that opens out before the room where their grand parents, dead now for many years, sleep side by side. Behind them is the little lumber room where it is so difficult to take out the clothes in the darkness from under the dimity curtain that would not pull open. In a moment he is going to have to get up and light his lamp to do his homework. But no, things are turning round again, his legs are actually stretched out in front of the window, the other beds must be over on the left and right, and in a moment before it is fully light in the courtyard of the barracks he will have to go to the canteen to drink his steaming coffee, because they are going off into the fields, music at their head, which will sound as soon as they have gone through the sleeping town. But no, the room is quite empty, we are under the alcove [incomplete]
I.8 (Fifteenth fragment, Cahier 3, 17r-18r)
Mama came into my room to bring me my letters. The tenderness of her
expression was not hidden, as it had been in the past when she was hoping
to make a courageous man out of me and in whom she wanted to temper and
keep in check as much as possible the over excitement of my tenderness for
her. Now I was an invalid who she no longer expected to get well and she
did everything she could to console me. But then sorrows had broken her
will, and her voice and face remained always in a secret harmony with
those she wept for as if something coarse had managed to do them ill. She
had retained something in her gestures of the boundless respect, boundless
reserve, boundless sweetness with which in the cemetery she had let fall,
as if terrified, in light and crumbling dust, the shovelful of earth onto
her mother's coffin. Even her gaiety with us remained sweet,
undemonstrative, and without going so far as to show us the sorrow that
lay behind it. At that particular time though she would kiss me quickly
and retire, never staying to chat, accepting that as I was ill I would
sleep in the day, but not wanting to debar from me in my better days the
regimen of a healthy and practical life, and to show me that "there is
time for everything", that there was no time for chattering in her
dressing gown, that the cook was waiting for her orders, and it was about
time she went and got dressed if she wanted to speak to the butcher when
he came and tell him that people would no longer give him their custom
unless he started supplying more tender and less expensive steaks.
But as she brought me my post she deposited it so quickly on the table
that I who could read [incomplete]
I.9 (Sixteenth fragment, Cahier 3, 18r)
In the past just like everybody else I had known the peacefulness of
waking up in the middle of the night, of savouring for a moment the
darkness, the silence, some muffled creaking as might be made by an apple
at the bottom of a wardrobe, called for a moment to a dim consciousness of
its position, then to think of something else, to suddenly feel that
rather mediocre thought become tinged with a mysterious but intangible
beauty, and to begin to [incomplete]
Created 25.09.19