In Search of Lost Time, Volume II_ Within a Budding Grove - Marcel Proust [318]
Synopsis
MADAME SWANN AT HOME
A new Swann: Odette’s husband (1; cf. 112 sqq.). A new Cottard: Professor Cottard (3).
Norpois (5); the “governmental mind” (6); an ambassador’s conversation (8). “ ‘Although’ is always an unrecognised ‘because” ’ (10). Norpois advises my father to let me follow a literary career (13).
My first experience of Berma (15). My high expectations of her—as of Balbee and Venice (17). A great disappointment (20). Françoise and Michelangelo (21). The auditorium and the stage (24; cf. I 100).
Norpois dines at our house (29). His notions about literature (31); financial investments (33); Berma (37); Françoise’s spiced beef (39); King Theodosius’ visit to Paris (41); Balbec church (48); Mme Swann (49); Odette and the Comte de Paris (58); Bergotte (60); my prose poem (62; cf. 35); Gilberte (65). Gestures which we believe have gone unnoticed (67). Why M. de Norpois would not speak to Mme Swann about me (70).
How I came to say of Berma: “What a great artist!” (72). The laws of Time (74). Effect produced by Norpois on my parents (75), on Françoise (76); the latter’s views on Parisian restaurants (78).
New Year’s Day visits (79). I propose to Gilberte that we should rebuild our friendship on a new basis (80); but that same evening I realise that New Year’s Day is not the first day of a new world (81). Berma and love (83). Gabriel’s palaces (84). I can no longer recall Gilberte’s face (84). She returns to the Champs-Elysées (85). “They can’t stand you!” (86) I write to Swann (86). Reawakening, thanks to involuntary memory, in the little pavilion in the Champs-Elysées, of the impressions experienced in Uncle Adolphe’s sanctum at Combray (89, 91; cf. I 99). Amorous wrestle with Gilberte (89). I fall ill (91). Cottard’s diagnoses (96).
A letter from Gilberte (98). Love’s miracles, happy and unhappy (99). Change of attitude towards me of Gilberte’s parents, unwillingly brought about by Bloch and Cottard (102). The Swann apartment; the concierge; the windows (103; cf. I 500). Gilberte’s writing-paper (104). The Henri II staircase (106). The chocolate cake (107). Mme Swann’s praise of Françoise: “your old nurse” (110). The heart of the Sanctuary: Swann’s library (111); his wife’s bedroom (113). Odette’s “at home” (114). The “famous Albertine,” niece of Mme Bontemps (116). The evolution of society (117). Swann’s “amusing sociological experiments” (128). Swann’s old jealousy (131) and new love (133).
Outings with the Swanns (134). Lunch with them (135). Odette plays Vinteuil’s sonata to me (140). A work of genius creates its own posterity (143). What the little phrase now means to Swann (145). “Me nigger; you old cow!” (149). Consistent charm of Mme Swann’s heterogeneous drawing-room (153). Princess Mathilde (157). Gilberte’s unexpected behaviour (161).
Lunch at the Swanns’ with Bergotte (164). The gentle white-haired bard and the man with the snail-shell nose and black goatee (165). A writer’s voice and his style (168). Bergotte and his imitators (169). Unforeseeable beauty of the sentences of a great writer (170). Reflecting power of genius (174). Vices of the man and morality of the writer (181). Bergotte and Berma (183). “A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it” (186). A remark of Swann’s, prelude to the theme of The Captive (188). Gilberte’s characteristics inherited from both parents (190). Swann’s confidence in his daughter (193). Are my pleasures those of the intelligence? (195). Why Swann, according to Bergotte, needs a good doctor (199). Combray society and the social world (199). My parents’ change of mind about Bergotte and Gilberte; a problem of etiquette (203).
Revelations about love (205; cf. I 129); Bloch takes me to a second-rate house of assignation (205). “Rachel when