.
The Gare d'Argenteuil: Claude Monet, 1872 (Musée Tavet-Delacour / Musée de Luzarches, Conseil général de Val d'Oise)
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 François 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 in a forest, shewed me in perspective
the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying
towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for
ever in his memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange
place, to doing unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to
farewells exchanged beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his
ears amid the silence of the night; and to the delightful prospect of
being once again at home.
I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my
pillow, as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood. Or I would
strike a match to look at my watch. Nearly midnight. The hour when an
invalid, who has been obliged to start on a journey and to sleep in a
strange hotel, awakens in a moment of illness and sees with glad relief
a streak of daylight showing under his bedroom door. Oh, joy of joys!
it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring,
and some one will come to look after him. The thought of being made
comfortable gives him strength to endure his pain. He is certain he
heard footsteps: they come nearer, and then die away. The ray of light
beneath his door is extinguished. It is midnight; some one has turned
out the gas; the last servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night
in agony with no one to bring him any help.
A la recherche du temps perdu: Du coté de chez Swann, first galley proof, handwritten revisions by Marcel Proust
Marcel
Proust, from Du coté de chez Swann (Swann's Way), 1913: Volume
One of A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past),
translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, 1922
3 comments:
As with most of the events and the always amusing kinships in "Remembrance", morning brings only more fresh agonies of the day.
I've always thought without the sobreness of style Proust would have been another de Sade.
Every time I read these words I am propelled once again into a revere from which I have no desire to awake. The words seem always, fresh, always new, so one could read them each morning upon awakening, and the day would flower anew.
Don
PS. Here in Pittsburgh, we still hear the trains and it is amazing how the thoughts one has upon hearing them in the night still run remarkable parallel to those of Monsieur Proust all these years later.
Conrad and Don,
Great to have you aboard.
My childhood was haunted by distant night train whistles, and the myriad imaginal vistas they brought with them.
As soon as I was old enough to ride the Elevated downtown by myself, I began to do my own haunting -- of the (then) seven major railway terminals in Chicago.
The very sight of a locomotive encrusted with ice and snow after a long run was enough to spark endless visions of sweeps of country I had not yet seen.
Later I would ride certain routes, like the New York Central line up through Michigan, so many times at night that I could identify the stops, almost, from how long it took the brakes to wheeze their way to a stop.
That fascination continued on through many years of night train travel in many countries on several continents. And would include many memorable experiences, some good, some not so good.
The worst was probably riding through Yugoslavia in the time of Tito, leaving Greece the train was stopped in the middle of the night and uniformed police came through the compartments, checking papers. In what developed into a Kafka-comes-true episode, I was removed from the train, and, as it pulled out again on its way, interrogated at length by trackside.
I think I was guilty of being on "the wrong side".
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