Filial Feelings of a Parricide

"Sentiments filiaux d’un parricide" first appeared in Le Figaro on February 1, 1907, and was reprinted in the seventh edition of Pastiches et Mélanges in 1921. Published while readers were still debating Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Freud was releasing his case study on the Russian novelist, the essay allows Proust to contribute to the discussion by examining the real-life murder-suicide of Henri van Blarenberghe and his mother.

Proust starts with the two letters that the young man sent him before the murder. Then, he examines newspaper reports, demonstrating how memory reshapes every detail to align with the emotions of the moment. Proust contrasts the letters' polite, almost affectionate tone with the brutal reality of the crime. In this tension, he recognizes the same blend of love, anger, and desire for forgiveness that Dostoevsky examined in The Brothers Karamazov.

However, unlike Dostoevsky, who warned that a world without moral anchors would descend into chaos, Proust concludes his work without passing judgment, allowing the question of guilt to remain unanswered. This refusal to draw a clear moral line is not merely open-mindedness, but rather, a glimpse into the soft nihilism of modern France, where art and personal feelings have replaced religious and civic standards. The essay quietly illustrates the consequences of allowing individual emotion to be the sole arbiter of right and wrong, becoming a subtle example of the moral relativism that Dostoevsky feared would emerge when belief in truth yielded to the fluctuating currents of personal perception.

This critical reader’s edition presents a modern translation of the original manuscript, crafted for the contemporary reader with lucid language and streamlined sentences that illuminate Proust’s intricate French syntax and period‑specific allusions. Supplementary material enriches the text with autobiographical, historical, and linguistic context, including an afterword by the translator on Proust’s personal history, cultural impact, and intellectual legacy, an index of the philosophical concepts he weaves—highlighting his explorations of memory, time, and the influence of Henri Bergson—a comprehensive chronological list of his published writings, and a detailed timeline of his life, emphasizing the friendships and social circles that shaped his artistic vision.