p 3 | "Les douleur sont des folles/Et qui les écoute est encore plus fou." Albertine hums this refrain from Biniou, by Hippolyte Guérin, music by Emile Durand (1830-1903).
p 4 | "Une chanson d'adieu sort des sources troublées..." From Pensée d'automne by Armand Silvestre, music by Jules Massenet, French opera composer, 1842-1912.
p 13 | Assuerus = Ahasuerus, King of Persia, in the play Esther, by Racine., here Act I, Scene 3
p 15 | Parc des Buttes Chaumont: 5th largest park in Paris, opened in 1867. The park took its name from the bleak hill on the site, which, because of the soil's chemical composition, was almost bare of vegetation; it was called Chauve-mont, or bare hill.
p 16 | coalheaver = one who feeds coal into a furnace
p 20 | Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah were cities named in the Bible, the Torah and other religious texts, destroyed by God in fire and brimstone because of their lack of hospitality & wickedness. Proust here seems to be using it to refer to the rampant lesbianism he imagined at Balbec.
p 27 | Arquebus : an early muzzle-loaded firearm, sensitive to humidity. 
