Marcel Proust - Sodom and Gomorrah (Part 1 & Part 2)

In CITIES OF THE PLAIN (also known as SODOM AND GOMORRAH), Marcel continues his forays into the aristocratic society into which he has finally been admitted, finding satisfaction but a growing disillusionment as well, and is both fascinated and repelled by the world of the flamboyant homosexual Baron de Charlus, and reports on the intricate, hypocritical, and sometimes noble attitudes on the part of his characters toward the Dreyfus case. He also begins the doomed cycle of attraction, jealousy, and suspicion with Albertine that will characterize the next two parts of the novel. And, in CITIES OF THE PLAIN, Swann, one of Proust's pivotal characters, meets his end.