Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. While waiting in the courtyard of the Duchesse de Guermantes to observe the pollination of her orchid, the narrator secretly observes a sexual encounter between two men, the Baron de Charlus and Jupien, that is played out as though in obedience to the laws of an occult art. This begins a meditation on sexuality and desire, and is fueled, in turn, by the narrator's own erotic attachment to the beautiful Albertine. Samuel Beckett wrote of Proust's representation of sexuality: Flower and plant have no conscious will. They are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust's men and women... shameless. There is no question of right and wrong. The final volume of a new, definitive text of A la recherche du temps perdu was published by the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade in 1989. For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation to take into account the new French editions. A la recherche du temps perdu is available from the Modern Library in six volumes. Proust] has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent in the full scale for the new theory of modern physics. EDMUND WILSON The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain... And he will I suppose both influence me and make me out of temper with every sentence of my own. VIRGINIA WOOLF For those who began to write at the end of the twenties or the beginning of the thirties, there were two greatinescapable influences: Proust and Freud, who are mutually complementary. GRAHAM GREENE There has never been anyone else with Proust's ability to show us