[One Thousand Characters a Day] Proust's 'Versailles Palace'

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1,000-character transcription content for readers of the 'One Day Ten Thousand Steps, One Day Thousand Characters' newsletter. The transcription content is carefully selected according to daily and monthly themes from Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, famous columns, and notable speeches. Today, we bring a passage praising the Palace of Versailles from Marcel Proust's early prose poetry collection The Color of Time's Reverie. The text contains 1,027 characters.

Autumn, having run its course, is occasionally warmed again by the sun, but even the last remaining hues are quickly fading. Throughout the afternoon, and even during the morning hours, the leaves that once displayed the splendid illusion of sunset have burned with their final passion and now have gone out. Only dahlias, red and yellow grasses, and chrysanthemums in yellow, purple, white, and pink still shine upon the dark and desolate surface of autumn.

Around six in the evening, when crossing the Tuileries Garden, stripped bare and gray under the dark sky, one can feel the despair intensely permeating every dim tree branch. Suddenly, this autumnal flower bush catches the eye, emitting a rich light in the darkness and offering a fierce sensual pleasure to our eyes, now accustomed to the burnt, ashen seasonal landscape.

The autumn mornings are much sweeter. When leaving the waterside terrace while the sun is still up, one can sometimes see their shadow descending the large stone steps one by one. Here, unlike many other writers, I do not wish to call out your name. Versailles, now a sweet name that has rusted away, the great king’s tomb made of forests, vast lakes, and marble, a truly aristocratic place that corrupts customs. Even the melancholy regret that arises today, knowing that countless workers’ lives and sweat were exploited under the pretense of spreading joy, cannot disturb our hearts.

Unlike many others, I do not want to mention your name. Yet I have, on several occasions, used your pink marble basin as a drinking cup, even drinking the dregs, boasting of the bittersweet intoxication of autumn days. The ground, mixed with withered and rotten leaves, looked from afar like a faded mosaic of yellow and purple. Passing near a village, when I raised the collar of my jacket against the wind, I heard the cooing of pigeons. The scent of boxwood everywhere intoxicated me as if it were Palm Sunday just before Easter. How could I possibly pick even a trivial bouquet of flowers on such a desolate autumn day in this garden? The wind was tossing the trembling rose petals onto the water’s surface.

- Marcel Proust, The Color of Time's Reverie, translated by Lee Geonsu, Minumsa, 13,000 KRW