The Questionnaire
There are two surviving sets of answers to the confession album questions by Proust: the first, from 1885 or 1886, is to an English confessions album, although his answers are in French. The second, from 1891 or 1892, is from a French album, Les confidences de salon ("Drawing room confessions"), which contains translations of the original questions, lacking some that were in the English version and adding others.
| Confessions questions | Confidences questions | Proust's answers 1890 |
|---|---|---|
| Your favorite virtue | The principal aspect of my personality | The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired |
| Your favorite qualities in a man. | The quality that I desire in a man. | Feminine charms. |
| Your favorite qualities in a woman. | The quality that I desire in a woman. | Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship. |
| Your chief characteristic | ---- | ---- |
| What you appreciate the most in your friends | What I appreciate most about my friends. | To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness |
| Your main fault | My main fault | Not knowing, not being able to "want". |
| Your favourite occupation. | My favorite occupation. | Loving. |
| Your idea of happiness | My dream of happiness. | I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it. |
| Your idea of misery. | What would be my greatest misfortune? | Not to have known my mother or my grandmother. |
| If not yourself, who would you be? | What I should like to be. | Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be. |
| Where would you like to live? | The country where I should like to live. | A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated |
| Your favourite colour and flower. | My favourite colour. | The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony. |
| ---- | The flower that I like. | Hers/His - and after, all of them. |
| ---- | My favorite bird. | The swallow. |
| Your favorite prose authors. | My favorite prose authors. | Currently, Anatole France and Pierre Loti. |
| Your favorite poets. | My favorite poets. | Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny. |
| Your favorite heroes in fiction. | My heroes in fiction. | Hamlet. |
| Your favorite heroines in fiction. | My favorite heroines in fiction. | Bérénice. |
| Your favorite painters and composers. | My favorite composers. | Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann. |
| ---- | My favorite painters. | Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt. |
| Your heroes in real life. | My heroes in real life. | Mr. Darlu, Mr. Boutroux. |
| Your favorite heroines in real life. | ---- | ---- |
| What characters in history do you most dislike. | ---- | ---- |
| Your heroines in World history | My heroines in history. | Cleopatra. |
| Your favorite food and drink. | ---- | ---- |
| Your favorite names. | My favorite names. | I only have one at a time. |
| What I hate the most. | What I hate most of all. | What is bad about me. |
| World history characters I hate the most | Historical figures that I despise the most. | I am not educated enough. |
| The military event I admire the most | The military event that I admire most. | My military service! |
| The reform I admire the most | The reform which I admire the most. | ---- |
| The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with | The gift of nature that I would like to have. | Will-power, and seductiveness. |
| How I wish to die | How I want to die. | Improved—and loved. |
| What is your present state of mind. | My present state of mind. | Boredom from having thought about myself to answer all these questions. |
| For what fault have you most toleration? | Faults for which I have the most indulgence. | Those that I understand. |
| Your favorite motto. | My motto. | I should be too afraid that it bring me misfortune. |
Read more about this topic: Proust Questionnaire