The Captive

Published in 1923, "The Captive", fifth volume of Proust´s masterpiece "In Search of Lost Time", is the most disturbing of them all.

"The Captive" picks up where "Sodome et Gomorrhe" left off, with our narrator Marcel and his partner Albertine now back in Paris, having left Balbec behind. It describes a morbidly possessive love affair. Consumed by jealousy, the narrator entices his mistress, Albertine, to live with him, then keeps her almost as a prisoner, spying on her and relentlessly cross-examining her. He catches her in lie after lie, but he cannot give her up.

The cause of the narrator's jealousy is his fear that his mistress is attracted to women - that she is ready at any moment to slip away to a fleeting, anonymous sexual encounter.

"In Search of Lost Time" is composed by seven magnificent volumes:

- Volume One: "Swann's Way"

- Volume Two: "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower"

- Volume Three: "The Guermantes Way"

- Volume Four: "Sodom and Gomorrah"

- Volume Five: "The Prisoner"

- Volume Six: "The Fugitive"

- Volume Seven: "Time Regained"