Recalling his childhood, Proust holds a tenuous relationship to his past, simultaneously romanticizing it and longing to remember it better. He always struggled to fall asleep at night as a child, often relying upon his mother's tender affection to soothe him to sleep. Although the family tried even giving Proust a magical lamp, nothing could help him sleep better. He spent many summers in Combray with his grandparents and his great-aunt Leonie who also visited his family often. One summer, Proust's boyhood friend Bergotte introduced him to the author Bloch, who sparked Proust's dream of himself becoming an author.
At Combray, Proust grew to become interested in the socialite scene. A neighbor, Charles Swann often dropped in, having been friends with Proust's grandfather. He told many intriguing stories, but ultimately he was compensating for his own sense of being an outsider among the socially elite. After meeting Swann's wife and daughter, he falls in love with the daughter, Gilberte. He sees her rarely, but always carries a flame for her. Meanwhile Proust awakens his sexuality after witnessing another neighbor's grown-up daughter, Mademoiselle Vinteuil, engage in a boisterous affair with her lesbian lover after he father's death. Later Proust learns that Swann had married his wife, Odette, for her social status, before learning of her reputation as a loose woman and had always regretted her refusal to remain faithful to him alone. Comparing these two neighbor families with one another, Proust concludes that people everywhere have the potential for sheer selfishness and cannot be trusted well, especially social climbers.
When he is of age, Proust begins to make his presence felt at social functions, under the introduction of the elderly Madame Guermantes. From the outside, Proust had expected a more sincere, pure version of what high society was supposed to represent -- intellect, honor, taste, etc., but he was sorely disillusioned to find within Madame's social circle yet more attention seekers. After his grandmother dies, Proust agrees to take advantage of his youth and to take a risk on his romantic interest, Albertine, despite her previous disinterest. Although he likes her, Proust quickly locks Albertine into a proverbial prison of suspicion because he's afraid she's conducting secret lesbian affairs. His mom becomes ill.
Swann dies, freeing his wife and daughter of association with a Dreyfus supporter, the Dreyfus Affair having achieved the pinnacle of interest among the elite class. After Albertine runs away from Proust in Paris and dies in a horseback riding incident, he reunites with Gilberte, Swann's daughter. Immediately after their courtship, the two lovers are separated, Proust traveling to Venice with his newly recovered mom. While abroad, Proust is informed that Gilberte has married a man named Robert. Unfortunately for her, Robert continues to be gay after their marriage and merely used her to establish his respectability as a front for his affairs.
World War I breaks out, marking the decline of Paris' social supremacy. Robert dies in the war. And Madame Verduring becomes the Princesse de Guermantes, placing an end to the liberty of salon conversations. She now rules the social scene with supremacy. Meanwhile Proust becomes bored of the social life and determines to lock himself away in order to write about his beautiful past.
