Aunt Léonie and Louis XIV (165). The long, complex, fantabulous sentence. Parsing to come.
M. Legrandin’s strange behavior (166-186). Snobby in so many ways, we noticed all of them!Also... on the subject of hawthorns, thanks to Virginia for these links...
This one has great photos at the bottom of the page of the flower & fruit.. http://www.controverscial.
This one is from a homeopathic point of view.... something Proust might have known since his father was a doctor, even though heart problems weren't part of his pattern. http://www.christopherhobbs. com/website/library/articles/ article_files/hawthorn_01.html
Now then, in the French, he names the tree/hedge "aubépine", so I'm wondering if it's a slightly different species. And "épine" by itself is "thorn."
So from these two items, there seems to be less of a connection with "crown of thorns" in a religious sense (although never far away) and more of a connection to heart, love, May, spring, sensuality. But also shelter... .for animals, insects, and voyeurs!