In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [318]
Morel, the chauffeur, and Mme Verdurin’s coachman. Morel’s change of attitude towards me; his composite character. Charm of setting out for La Raspelière on late summer evenings. M. de Charlus in the little train. He becomes temporarily the faithfullest of the faithful. Princess Sherbatoff gives me the cold shoulder after a meeting on the train with Mme de Villeparisis. M. de Charlus’s blindness. Discussion between Brichot and Charlus about Chateaubriand and Balzac. M. de Charlus’s discretion about his favourite subject in Morel’s presence. Albertine’s clothes, inspired by Elstir’s taste, admired by M. de Charlus. Morel’s admiration for my great-uncle and his house. M. de Charlus’s “Balzacian” melancholy. Morel reminds me of Rachel.
M. de Charlus’s fictitious duel. Morel dissuades him. Cottard, an alarmed but disappointed second. Morel’s demands for money.
The stations on the “Transatlantic.” The de luxe brothel at Maineville. Morel’s assignation there with the Prince de Guermantes, of which M. de Charlus gets wind. Discomfiture of the Prince de Guermantes. Grattevast: the Comte de Crécy. The turkeys carved by the hotel manager. Origins of the Crécy family: Odette’s first husband. Hermenonville: M. de Chevregny: a provincial with a passion for Paris. Mme de Cambremer’s three adjectives again. Unsatisfactory relations between the Verdurins and the Cambremers. Brichot’s secret passion for Mme de Cambremer junior. M. and Mme Féré. The long drive between the station and La Raspelière. More Brichot etymologies. Brief visits from friends at various stations. A misunderstanding with Bloch. M. de Charlus’s interest in Bloch. Familiarity and social relations rob these places of their poetry and mystery. I feel it would be madness to marry Albertine.
Chapter Four
Albertine’s revelation about Mlle Vinteuil and her friend. Recollection of Montjouvain. I take her back to the Grand Hotel. Solitary misery until dawn. Albertine consoles me. I ask her to accompany me to Paris. Her objections, then her sudden decision to come with me that very day. Reflections on love. I tell my mother that I must marry Albertine.
THE MODERN LIBRARY EDITORIAL BOARD
Daniel J. Boorstin
·
Christopher Cerf
·
Shelby Foote
·
Vartan Gregorian
·
Larry McMurtry
·
Edmund Morris
·
John Richardson
·
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
·
Susan Sontag
·
William Styron
·
Gore Vidal
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
The principal text of this Modern Library edition was composed in a digitized version of Horley Old Style, a typeface issued by the English type foundry Monotype in 1925. It has such distinctive features as lightly cupped serifs and an oblique horizontal bar on the lowercase “e.”
Notes
1 Altesse, like majesté, being feminine, takes the feminine pronoun.
2 Les deux sexes mourront chacun de son côté: from Alfred de Vigny’s La Colère de Samson.
3 The reference is to Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador in St Petersburg during the Great War.
4 Emile Loubet, President of the Republic from 1899 to 1906.
5 Vert = spicy, risqué.
6 Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denis: a distinguished French sinologist.
7 Of the two French versions of the Arabian Nights, Galland’s Les Mille et Une Nuits (1704-17) is elegant, scholarly but heavily bowdlerised, and Mardrus’s Les Mille Nuits et Une Nuit (1899-1904) coarser and unexpurgated.
8 A popular tune from Offenbach’s Les Brigands. A courrier de cabinet is the equivalent of a King’s or Queen’s Messenger.
9 Better known under his pen-name Saint-John Perse.
10 Mme Récamier’s property on the outskirts of Paris, where she held her salon.
11 Jachères = fallow land; gâtines = sterile marshland.
12 Francisque Sarcey: middlebrow