In search of lost laughs
I have just
finished reading Proust’s “In search of lost time”, in the translation by CK
Scott Moncrieff (vol 1-6) and Sydney Schiff (vol 7), Centaur Editions, available
on Kindle.
Literary
types argue over the merits of this translation, and it has been contended that
it is better than the original French – a mischievous wit suggested that, if so,
it should be translated back into French.
Proust could have fun:
...
he began once more to cough and expectorate over me. “Don’t tire yourself by
trying to speak,” I said to him with an air of kindly interest, which was
feigned.
...
he said of one of M. Verdurin’s footmen: “Isn’t he the Baron’s mistress?”
“...
You must know far more than I do, M. de Charlus, about getting hold of sailors.”
...
his stock of Latin quotations was extremely limited, albeit sufficient to
astound his pupils.
...
he had that detailed knowledge of Paris only to be found in people who seldom
go there.
She
looked like an exhausted swimmer far from shore who painfully manages to keep
her head above the waves of time which were submerging her.
...
the Duchesse de Guermantes’ cheeks which had remained remarkably unchanged
though they now seemed compounded of nougat ...
His
formerly brick-red skin had become gravely pale; silver hair, slight stoutness,
Doge-like dignity and a chronic fatigue which gave him a constant longing for
sleep, combined to produce a new and impressive majesty.
Somebody
mentioned a name and I was stupefied to know it applied at one and the same
time to my former blonde dance-partner and to the stout elderly lady who moved
ponderously past me.
...
the Princesse de Guermantes’ locks, when they were grey, had the brilliance of
silvery silk round her protuberant brow but now having determined to become
white seemed to be made of wool and stuffing and resembled soiled snow.
He
declared that I had not changed by which I grasped that he did not think he
had.
...
for three years she had been taking cocaine and other drugs. Her eyes deeply
and darkly rimmed were haggard, her mouth had a strange twitch.
“You
took me for my mother,” Gilberte had said and it was true. For that matter it
was a compliment to the daughter.
For
this American woman, dinner-parties and social functions were a sort of Berlitz
school. She repeated names she heard without any knowledge of their significance.
So
people said: “You’ve forgotten. So and so is dead,” as they might have said:
“He’s decorated, he’s a member of the Academy,” or — which came to the same
thing as it prevented his coming to parties — “he has gone to spend the winter
in the south ” ...
Hearing
that Mme d’Arpajon was really dead, the old maid cast an alarmed glance at her
mother fearing that the news of the death of one of her contemporaries might be
a shock to her; she imagined in anticipation people alluding to her own
mother’s death by explaining that “she died as the result of a shock through
the death of Mme d’Arpajon.” But on the contrary, her mother’s expression was
that of having won a competition against formidable rivals whenever anyone of
her own age passed away.
