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 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 breadlike 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 usual—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 theater 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 6, lines 440-44 of Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas, 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 watercolor artist and draftsman (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 terra-cotta statuettes and figurines dating from about 300 B.C. 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’ sanctuary gave oracles by interpreting the sound of the wind in the sacred oaks.
Synopsis
PART I: Combray 1
Awakenings (4, cf. 190). Bedrooms of the past, at Combray (6), at Tansonville (7), at Balbec (8). Habit (8).
Bedtime at Combray (cf. 44). The magic lantern; Geneviève de Brabant ( 9). Family evenings (11). The little room smelling of orris root (12, cf. 161). The goodnight kiss (13, cf. 23, 27-43). Visits from Swann (14); his father (15); his unsuspected social life (16). “Our social personality is a creation of the minds of others” (19). Mme. de Villeparisis’s house in Paris; the waistcoat maker and his daughter (20). Aunts Céline and Flora (21). Françoise’s code (29). Swann and I (30, cf. 306). My upbringing: “principles” of my grandmother (cf. 11, 12) and my mother; arbitrary behavior of my father (36). My grandmother’s presents; her ideas about books (39). A reading of George Sand (41).
Resurrection of Combray through involuntary memory. The madeleine dipped in a cup of tea (45).
PART I: Combray 2
Combray. Aunt Léonie’s two rooms (50); her lime-blossom tea (52). Françoise (53). The church (60). M. Legrandin (68). Eulalie (70). Sunday lunches (72). Uncle Adolphe’s sitting room (73). Love of the theater: titles on posters (75). Meeting with “the lady in pink” (77). 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 (95). Swann’s friendship with Bergotte (99). La Berma (99). Swann’s speech mannerisms and mental attitudes (100). Prestige of Mlle. Swann as a friend of Bergotte’s (101, cf. 419). The curé’s visits to Aunt Léonie (104). Eulalie and Françoise (109). The kitchen maid gives birth (111). Aunt Léonie’s nightmare (111). Saturday lunches (112). The hawthorns on the altar in Combray church (114). M. Vinteuil (115). His “boyish” daughter (116). Walks around Combray by moonlight (116). Aunt Léonie’s intrigues (119). Aunt Léonie and Louis XIV (121). Strange behavior of M. Legrandin (122-35). Plan for a holiday at Balbec (132). The way by Swann’s (or the Méséglise way) and the Guermantes way (137).
The way by Swann’s. View over the plain (137). The lilacs of Tansonville (138). The hawthorn lane (140). Apparition of Gilberte (143). The lady in white and the man with her (Mme. Swann and M. de Charlus) (144). Dawn of love for Gilberte: glamour of the name Swann (145, cf. 429). Farewell to the hawthorns (148). Mlle. Vinteuil’s friend comes to Montjouvain (150). M. Vinteuil’s sorrow (151). The rain (153). The porch of Saint-André-des-Champs, Françoise and Théodore (154). Death of Aunt Léonie; Françoise’s wild grief (156). Exultation in the solitude of autumn (158). Discord between our feelings and their habitual expression (158). “The same emotions do not arise simultaneously in all men” (159). Stirrings of desire (159). The little room smelling of orris root (161, cf. 12). Scene of sadism at Montjouvain (161).
The Guermantes way. River landscape: the Vivonne (170); the water lilies (172). The Guermantes; Geneviève de Brabant, “the ancestress of the Guermantes family” (175). Daydreams and d
iscouragement of a future writer (176). The Duchesse de Guermantes in the chapel of Gilbert the Bad (178). The secrets hidden behind shapes, scents, and colors (182). The steeples of Martinville ; first joyful experience of literary creation (183). Transition from joy to sadness (186). Does reality take shape only in memory? (188).
Awakenings (190, cf. 14).
PART II: Swann in Love
The Verdurins and their “little clan.” The “faithful” (195). Odette mentions Swann to the Verdurins (198). Swann and women (198). Swann’s first meeting with Odette: she is “not his type” (203). How he comes to fall in love with her (204). Dr. Cottard (207). The sonata in F-sharp (213). The Beauvais couch (215). The little phrase (216). The Vinteuil of the sonata and the Vinteuil of Combray (222). Mme. Verdurin finds Swann charming at first (223). But his “powerful friendships” make a bad impression on her (225). The little working girl; Swann agrees to meet Odette only after dinner (226). Vinteuil’s little phrase, “the national anthem of their love” (226). Tea with Odette; her chrysanthemums (228). Faces of today and portraits of the past: Odette and Botticelli’s Zipporah (231). Odette, a Florentine painting (232). Love letter from Odette written from the Maison Dorée (234). Swann’s arrival at the Verdurins’ one evening after Odette’s departure (235); anguished search in the night (237). The cattleyas (240); she becomes his mistress (242). Odette’s vulgarity (249); her idea of “smart” (251). Swann begins to adopt her tastes (255) and considers the Vendurins “magnanimous people” (258). Why, nevertheless, he is not a true member of the “faithful,” unlike Forcheville (259). A dinner at the Verdurins’: Brichot (260), Cottard (260), the painter (263), Saniette (270). The little phrase (273). Swann’s jealousy: one night, dismissed by Odette at midnight, he returns to her house and knocks at the wrong window (282). Forcheville’s cowardly attack on Saniette, and Odette’s smile of complicity (286). Odette’s door remains closed to Swann one afternoon; her lying explanation (287). Signs of distress that accompany Odette’s lying (290). Swann deciphers a letter from her to Forcheville through the envelope (292). The Verdurins organize an excursion to Chatou without Swann (294). His indignation with them (296). Swann’s exclusion (300). Should he go to Dreux or Pierrefonds to find Odette? (303). Waiting through the night (306). Peaceful evenings at Odette’s with Forcheville (309). His pain returns (311). The Bayreuth plan (312). Love and death and the mystery of personality (320). Charles Swann and “young Swann” (321). Swann, Odette, Charlus, and Uncle Adolphe (323). Longing for death (329).
An evening at the Marquise de Saint-Euverte’s. Detached from social life by his love and his jealousy, Swann can observe it as it is in itself (335): the footmen (336); the monocles (338); the Marquise de Cambremer and the Vicomtesse de Franquetot listening to Liszt’s “Saint Francis” (340); Mme. de Gallardon, a despised cousin of the Guermantes (341). Arrival of the Princess des Laumes (342); her conversation with Swann (353). Swann introduces the young Mme. de Cambremer (Mlle. Legrandin) to Général de Froberville (357). Vinteuil’s little phrase poignantly reminds Swann of the days when Odette loved him (358). The language of music (364). Swann realizes that Odette’s love for him will never return (366).
The whole past toppled stone by stone (385). Bellini’s Mohammed II (368). An anonymous letter (369). Les Filles de Marbre (373). Beuzeville-Bréauté (374). Odette and women (374). Impossibility of possessing another person (377). On the island in the Bois, by moonlight (379). A new circle of hell (381). The terrible re-creative power of memory (381). Odette and the procuresses (383). Had she been lunching with Forcheville at the Maison Dorée on the day of the Paris-Murcia fete? (384, cf. 234). She was with Forcheville, and not at the Maison Dorée, on the night when Swann had searched for her in Prévost’s (384, cf. 237). Odette’s suspect effusions (386). “Lovely conversation” in a brothel (386). Odette goes on a cruise with the “faithful” (387). Mme. Cottard assures Swann that Odette adores him (389). Swann’s love fades; he no longer suffers on learning that Forcheville has been Odette’s lover (392). Return of his jealousy in a nightmare (392). Departure for Combray, where he will see the young Mme. de Cambremer, whose charm had struck him at Mme. de Saint-Euverte’s (394). The first image of Odette seen again in his dream: he had wanted to die for a woman “who was not his type” (396).
PART III: Place-Names: The Name
Dreams of Place-names. Rooms at Combray (399). Room in the Grand-Hôtel at Balbec (399, cf. 8). Dreams of spring in Florence (402, cf. 405). Words and names (403). Names of Norman towns (405). Abortive plan to visit Florence and Venice (405). The doctor forbids me to travel or to go to the theater to see La Berma (409); he advises walks in the Champs-Élysées under Françoise’s surveillance (410).
In the Champs-Élysées. A little girl with red hair; the name Gilberte (410). Games of prisoners’ base (411). What will the weather be like? (412). Snow in the Champs-Élysées (413). The reader of Les Débats (Mme. Blatin) (413, cf. 430). Signs of friendship: the agate marble, the Bergotte book, “You may call me Gilberte” (418); why they fail to bring me the expected happiness (420). A spring day in winter: joy and disappointment (421). The Swann of Combray has become a different person: Gilberte’s father (423). Gilberte tells me with cruel delight that she will not be returning to the Champs-Élysées before the New Year (424). “In my friendship with Gilberte, I was the only one who loved” (429). The name Swann (429, cf. 145). Swann meets my mother in Trois Quartiers (431). Pilgrimage with Françoise to the Swanns’ house near the Bois (433).
The Bois, Garden of Woman. Mme. Swann in the Bois (433). A walk through the Bois one late autumn morning “this year” (438). Memory and reality (441).
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