Swann's Way: Combray Chapter 1 (3rd post)
We have already referred to Marcel's dread of bedtime at Combray as usually having started towards the end of the afternoon and lasted several hours before he actually went up to bed ( p.9 Scott Moncrieff, p.9 Terence Kilmartin ). His sole consolation was that his mother would come to kiss him goodnight. However, in the same way as his anxiety starts before his bedtime, the sound of his mother coming up the stairs to bestow that kiss would usually be "a moment of the keenest sorrow" ( p.14 SM, p.13 KM ). His anticipation extends the duration of his misery. And when the brief ceremony was over, he would long, but never dare, to call her back for another kiss. Artist: Paul Helleu But even those short visits were better than when she did not come at all because they had guests (mainly Swann) to dinner. As a teenager, Proust had answered a questionnaire in which he revealed that his greatest misery would be to be separated from his mother. There is some confusion as to his ag...