Marcel Proust, Before Nightfall / Avant la nuit: Preliminary note and translation

Abstract

Written in the second semester of 1893, in the context of a prolific collaboration with La Revue blanche, “Avant la nuit” [Before Nightfall] takes the form of a story that, under the rubric of the “study”, brings together narrative and essay argumentation to expose, develop and examine the theme of homosexuality or, in the terms of the time, the “inverted”. In the dialogue between Françoise and Leslie, between a beautiful woman besieged by death and a man who loved her “devoid of any hope of carnal pleasure”, Proust offers a tripartite examination of homosexuality that consists of a first Socratic approach, then a medical perspective and finally an aesthetic argument. We offer below a Spanish version of the story, preceded by some words about its genesis and character.