The texts on this page are truly drafts, where French words have been replaced by English words, style has been examined briefly, but many questions remain. Some of these will be indicated by ???, meaning that I have doubts about a word or passage. It will be heavily edited at a later time. For the rationale of my translation, go here.
Swann's Way
CombrayFor a long time, I would go to bed early. Sometimes, no sooner would my candle be out than I would close my eyes so quickly that I didn't even have time to say to myself, "I'm falling asleep." And, a half-hour later, the idea that it was time to try and sleep would awaken me; I wanted to put down the book I thought I was still holding, and blow out my light; even asleep, I had gone on thinking about what I had been reading, but these thoughts had taken a strange turn; it seemed that it was I myself who was the subject of the book: a church, a string quartet, the conflict between François I and Charles Quint. This belief went on for a few seconds after I awakened; it didn't surprise me, but weighed down my eyes like scales ??? and kept them from realizing that the candle was not lit. Then these thoughts started becoming unintelligible, like the thoughts of a previous existence after metempsychosis; the book's subject slipped away from me, I was free to focus on it or not ???; I could then see again, and I was truly surprised to find all around me gentle darkness, relaxing to my eyes, but, perhaps even more so, to my mind, to which it seemed like something without cause ???, incomprehensible, like some truly obscure thing. I would wonder what time it was; I would hear trains whistling, nearby or far away, sounding like birds calling in a forest, noting distances ???, telling me about the expanse of deserted land where a traveller was being rushed to the next station; and the path he followed would be etched in his memory by the excitement of new places, new things, the recent conversations and farewells under unknown lamps that followed him through the nocturnal silence, by the pleasant feeling of soon returning home.
I gently laid my cheeks against the pillow's beautiful cheeks, that, full and cool, are like the cheeks of our childhood. I lit a match to look at my watch. Almost midnight. This is the time when a sick person, forced to travel and sleeping in an unknown hotel, would be delighted to see a ray of daylight under his door. What a pleasure, morning is here! The servants will soon be awake, he can ring for them, they will come to help him. The hope of finding relief gives him the courage to suffer. In fact, he thinks he heard footsteps; footsteps getting closer, then going away. And the ray of light that was under his door has disappeared. It is midnight; the gas has just been turned off, the last servant has left, and he will now have to suffer the entire night without any remedy. ???
I would go back to sleep, and, sometimes, would only reawaken for a brief moment, just enough to hear the organic ??? cracking of the woodwork, to open my eyes and stare into the kaleidoscope of darkness, to have a brief glimpse of awareness of the deep sleep that engulfed the furniture, the room, all this that I was but a small part of, and to whose insensitivity I quickly rejoined. ??? Or perhaps I had returned effortlessly to an age forever relegated to the past, a part of my primitive life, rediscovered one of my childish fears, such as when my great uncle pulled my curls, that had been dissipated by the day - the time when I entered a new era - that they had been cut. I had forgotten this event while asleep; I remembered it as soon as I had managed to awaken, pulling myself from my great uncle's hands, but, as a safety measure, I completely surrounded my head with my pillow before returning to the world of dreams.
Sometimes, just as Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs, a women was born during my sleep from my thigh being in a false position. Created ??? from the pleasure I was about to experience, I imagined that it was she who was giving it to me. My body, that felt my own heat in hers, wanted to merge ??? with her, and I awoke. The other human beings seemed so far away compared to this woman who I had left just a few seconds before; my cheek was still warm from her kiss, my body ached from her weight ???. If, as was sometimes the case, she resembled a woman I knew in real life, I would devote myself entirely to one goal - find her again, like those people who leave on a journey to see a city they longed for with their own eyes, and imagining that they could truly experience the charm of their dream. Little by little the memory of her faded away, I had forgotten the girl in my dream.Comments
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