In Search of Lost Time (71 page)

6
.
La Chartreuse
: ‘The Charterhouse', referring to
La Chartreuse de Parme
(‘The Charterhouse of Parma') (1839), a novel by Stendhal (Henri Beyle) (1783–1842).

7
.
fabliau
: a short, usually comic, frankly coarse, and often cynical tale in verse popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

8
.
Vitré
:
vitré
is also an adjective meaning ‘glazed', ‘having window-panes'.

9
.
the coach followed by the fly
: a play on the expression
faire la mouche du coche
, literally be the fly in the coach, i.e. buzz around, be a busybody.

10
.
the school of Giorgione… medieval domestic architecture
: here and elsewhere in this passage Proust is quoting or adapting John Ruskin's
Modern Painters
and
Stones of Venice
. Giorgio de Castelfranco, known as Giorgione (
c.
1478– 1510), was an Italian painter who spent his life in the vicinity of Venice. He and Titian frescoed the outside walls of certain buildings during the period when they worked as house-painters.

11
. ‘
bossed with jasper and paved with emeralds
': variation of quotation from Ruskin's
Stones of Venice
.

12
.
reddened by reflections from Giorgione's frescoes
: modified quotation from Ruskin. In his
Modern Painters
, he says, ‘I saw the last traces of the greatest works of Giorgione yet glowing like a scarlet cloud on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi.'

13
. ‘
majestic… blood-red cloaks
': modified quotation from Ruskin's
Stones of Venice
.

14
. ‘
rocks of amethyst like a reef in the Indian Ocean
': modified quotation from Ruskin's
Stones of Venice
.

15
.
Poussin
: Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), French classic painter. The reference is probably to
L'Empire de Flore
, which shows the chariot of the Sun driven over the clouds behind four horses. The scene below is a garden.

16
.
Les Débats
:
Le Journal des débats politiques et littéraires
(‘Journal of Political and Literary Debates'), founded in 1789 and published until August 1944. It styled itself ‘republican conservative' in 1890, then ‘republican and liberal' in 1895. There were two editions each day, the evening edition being called the ‘
édition rose
' or ‘pink edition'.

17
.
who rented the chairs
: in French public gardens, folding chairs of wood and iron were set up and available for use by the public for a price; old women would come around from time to time collecting the ‘rent', the equivalent of about one penny. The chairs are still there, but rent is no longer charged.

18
.
Field of the Cloth of Gold
: an the allusion to the ostentatious camp (including a tent of gold cloth) that François I set up in 1520, between Guines and Ardres (in the département of Pas-de-Calais), to receive Henry VIII of England, whom he hoped to turn into an ally against Charles V. Proust, here, is making
a pun that is lost in translation: in the French, the same word,
camp
, means both ‘side' or ‘team' in a game, and also a military ‘camp' or, in this case, ‘field' in the phrase
camp du drap d'or
, Field of the Cloth of Gold. In addition, the name Champs-Élysées means, literally, Elysian Fields.

19
.
spice cake
: the French
pain d'épices
is defined in dictionaries as ‘gingerbread'. But unlike our gingerbread and our spice cake, it is a rather heavy and not very sweet bread-like cake made of rye flour, honey, sugar and spices including anise, and is mildly laxative.

20
.
pneumatique
: express letter sent by pneumatic tube. This delivery system existed in Paris as late as the 1970s or 1980s; as the telephone system was very slow to develop, casual appointments were made and messages transmitted by
pneumatique
, also know as a
petit bleu
, literally ‘little blue'.

21
.
vous
: the formal ‘you'; the informal is
tu
.

22
.
En revenant de la revue
: a popular song with political significance sung for the first time by Paulus at the Alcazar in 1886.

23
.
At school, during the one o'clock class
: during the period in which the novel takes place, it was common – and not only in France – for children and working parents to come home for lunch and then return to school and work.

24
. ‘
Ambassadeurs
': a restaurant with a fine terrace which in Proust's day was on the Champs-Élysées near the place de la Concorde.

25
.
Philippe VII
: title assumed by the Comte de Paris, who became head of the royal house and claimant to the throne in 1883.

26
.
King Theodosius
: probably an allusion to the visit of Czar Nicholas II in 1896.

27
.
Michel Strogoff
: the very successful theatre adaptation by Jules Verne and A. Dennery of Verne's novel (1876), performed for the first time at the Châtelet in 1880.

28
.
Midi
: the South of France (from
midi
, ‘noon').

29
.
Trois Quartiers
: one of the great stores of Paris at the time, located in the first arrondissement at the corner of the boulevard de la Madeleine and the rue Duphot.

30
.
allée des Acacias
…
allée de la Reine-Marguerite
: the allée des Acacias, also called the allée de Longchamp, was one of the most important streets in the Bois de Boulogne, and the scene of elegant promenades until the 1920s. The allée de la Reine-Marguerite was another large avenue in the Bois and was probably named for Marguerite de Valois, sister of François I.

31
.
the Alley of the Myrtles in The Aeneid
: In Book VI, lines 440–44 of Virgil's
Aeneid
, Aeneus, having descended into the Underworld, encounters in a forest of myrtles the mythological heroines who have died of love: ‘Those consumed by the wasting torments of merciless love/ Haunt the sequestered alleys and
myrtle groves that give them/ Cover; death itself cannot cure them of love's disease.' (
Aeneid of Virgil
, trans. C. Day Lewis, Oxford University Press, 1952.)

32
.
Constantin Guys
: French black-and-white and watercolour artist and draughtsman (1805–82), famous for his sketches of the Parisian life of pleasure under the Second Empire.

33
.
the ‘tiger' of ‘the late Baudenord'
: Baudenord and his groom, or ‘tiger', are characters in two volumes of Balzac's
La Comédie humaine
.

34
.
Coquelin
: actor (1841–1909) who for twenty-six years was highly successful as
premier comique
at the Comédie-Française.

35
.
Tir aux Pigeons
: literally ‘pigeon shoot', a shooting club in the Bois whose buildings were visible from the allée des Acacias.

36
.
Trianon
: name of two châteaux in the park of Versailles.

37
.
the cruel steeds of Diomedes
: the allusion is a mythological one to Diomedes, the King of Thrace, who fed his horses on human flesh.

38
.
Tanagra
: simple terracotta statuettes and figurines dating from about 300 BC found in the Greek village of Tanagra, mostly of young women and children in costumes with graceful draperies. They were much in vogue at the turn of the century and the fashion inspired by them reached its height in about 1908.

39
.
Dodonean
: in Dodona, in Epirus, the priests of Zeus's sanctuary gave oracles by interpreting the sound of the wind in the sacred oaks.

Awakenings
(8 cf. 187). Bedrooms of the past, at Combray (10), at Tansonville (10), at Balbec (12). Habit (12).

Bedtime at Combray
(cf. 46). The magic lantern; Geneviève de Brabant (13). Family evenings (14). The little room smelling of orris-root (16 cf. 156). The goodnight kiss (16 cf. 26, 30–46). Visits from Swann (17); his father (18); his unsuspected social life (19). ‘Our social personality is a creation of the minds of others' (22). Mme de Villeparisis's house in Paris; ‘the waistcoat-maker and his daughter' (23). Aunts Céline and Flora (25). Françoise's code (31). Swann and I (33 cf. 297). My upbringing: ‘principles' of my grandmother (cf. 14, 15) and my mother; arbitrary behaviour of my father (39). My grandmother's presents; her ideas about books (42). A reading of George Sand (44).

Resurrection of Combray through involuntary memory
. The madeleine dipped in a cup of tea (47).

Combray
. Aunt Léonie's two rooms (52); her lime-blossom tea (54). Françoise (55). The church (61). M. Legrandin (69). Eulalie (71). Sunday lunches (73). Uncle Adolphe's sitting-room (74). Love of the theatre: titles on posters (75). Meeting with ‘the lady in pink' (78). My family's quarrel with Uncle Adolphe (81). The kitchen-maid: Giotto's ‘Charity' (82). Reading in the garden (85). The gardener's daughter and the passing cavalry (90). Bloch and Bergotte (92). Bloch and my family (92). Reading Bergotte (93). Swann's friendship with Bergotte (99). La Berma (99). Swann's speech mannerisms and mental attitudes (99). Prestige of Mlle Swann as a friend of Bergotte's (101 cf. 406).
The curé's visits to Aunt Léonie (104). Eulalie and Françoise (108). The kitchen-maid gives birth (110). Aunt Léonie's nightmare (111). Saturday lunches (111). The hawthorns on the altar in Combray church (113). M. Vinteuil (114). His ‘boyish' daughter (114). Walks around Combray by moonlight (115). Aunt Léonie's intrigues (118). Aunt Léonie and Louis XIV (119). Strange behaviour of M. Legrandin (120–134). Plan for a holiday at Balbec (131). The way by Swann's (or the Méséglise way) and the Guermantes way (135).

The way by Swann's
. View over the plain (135). The lilacs of Tansonville (136). The hawthorn lane (137). Apparition of Gilberte (141). The lady in white and the man with her (Mme Swann and M. de Charlus) (142). Dawn of love for Gilberte: glamour of the name ‘Swann' (143 cf. 416). Farewell to the hawthorns (145). Mlle Vinteuil's friend comes to Montjouvain (147). M. Vinteuil's sorrow (148). The rain (151). The porch of Saint-André-des-Champs, Françoise and Théodore (151). Death of Aunt Léonie; Françoise's wild grief (153). Exultation in the solitude of autumn (155). Discord between our feelings and their habitual expression (156). ‘The same emotions do not arise simultaneously in all men' (156). Stirrings of desire (156). The little room smelling of orris-root (158 cf. 16). Scene of sadism at Montjouvain (161).

The Guermantes way
. River landscape: the Vivonne (167); the water-lilies (169). The Guermantes; Geneviève de Brabant, ‘the ancestress of the Guermantes family' (172). Day-dreams and discouragement of a future writer (173). The Duchesse de Guermantes in the chapel of Gilbert the Bad (175). The secrets hidden behind shapes, scents and colours (179). The steeples of Martinville; first joyful experience of literary creation (180). Transition from joy to sadness (183). Does reality take shape only in memory? (185).

Awakenings
(187 cf. 8).

The Verdurins and their ‘little clan'
. The ‘faithful' (191). Odette mentions Swann to the Verdurins (193). Swann and women (194). Swann's first meeting with Odette: she is ‘not his type' (198). How he comes to fall in love with her (199). Dr Cottard (203). The sonata in F sharp (209). The Beauvais couch (210). The little phrase (211). The Vinteuil of the sonata and the Vinteuil of Combray (216). Mme Verdurin finds Swann charming at first (218). But his ‘powerful friendships' make a bad impression on her (220). The little working girl; Swann agrees to meet Odette only after dinner (221). Vinteuil's little
phrase, ‘the national anthem of their love' (221). Tea with Odette; her chrysanthemums (222). Faces of today and portraits of the past: Odette and Botticelli's Zipporah (225). Odette, a Florentine painting (227). Love letter from Odette written from the Maison Dorée (228). Swann's arrival at the Verdurins' one evening after Odette's departure (229); anguished search in the night (231). The cattleyas (235); she becomes his mistress (236). Odette's vulgarity (243); her idea of ‘smart' (245). Swann begins to adopt her tastes (249) and considers the Verdurins ‘magnanimous people' (251). Why, nevertheless, he is not a true member of the ‘faithful', unlike Forcheville (252). A dinner at the Verdurins': Brichot (253), Cottard (254), the painter (257), Saniette (263). The little phrase (266). Swann's jealousy: one night, dismissed by Odette at midnight, he returns to her house and knocks at the wrong window (275). Forcheville's cowardly attack on Saniette, and Odette's smile of complicity (279). Odette's door remains closed to Swann one afternoon; her lying explanation (280). Signs of distress that accompany Odette's lying (283). Swann deciphers a letter from her to Forcheville through the envelope (284). The Verdurins organize an excursion to Chatou without Swann (286). His indignation with them (288). Swann's exclusion (292). Should he go to Dreux or Pierrefonds to find Odette?(295). Waiting through the night (297). Peaceful evenings at Odette's with Forcheville (300). His grief returns (303). The Bayreuth plan (303). Love and death and the mystery of personality (311). Charles Swann and ‘young Swann' (312). Swann, Odette, Charlus and Uncle Adolphe (314). Longing for death (320).