Within a Budding Grove (vol II) Pages for January 2011

1/6:  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).

1/13:  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).

1/20:  Revelations about love (205; cf. I 129); Bloch takes me to a second-rate house of assignation (205). “Rachel when from the Lord” (207). Aunt Léonie’s furniture in the brothel (208). Ama­tory initiation at Combray on Aunt Léonie’s sofa (208). Work projects constantly postponed (210). Impossibility of happiness in love (214). My last visit to Gilberte (214-17).

1/27:  I decide not to see her again (217). Unjust fury with the Swanns’ butler (222). Waiting for a letter (222). I renounce Gilberte forever (224); but the hope of a reconciliation is superimposed on my resolve (226). Intermittence, law of the human soul (227).

Perfect description of Proustian sentences...

and the impatience they cause, by Clive Bell, over here at a Proust Reader.

Pages for November

11/4:  Consistent charm of Mme Swann’s heterogeneous drawing-room (153). Princess Mathilde (157). Gilberte’s unexpected behavior (161).  Lunch at the Swanns’ with Bergotte (164).

11/12:  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).

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 158 ff) November Notes 2010

"I felt the surprise that one feels on opening the correspondence of that Duchess d'Orléans who was by birth a Princess Palatine... [Elizabeth-Charlotte, p157]

p 158 | "... her Württemberger mother..."
"... so typically Second Empire..." [1852-1870]

p 158 | "... had she known Musset..." [Alfred de Musset, French writer, 1810-1857]

p 159 | The Czar and Czarina went to Les Invalides in October 1896, covered by the New York Times

p 160 | ~~ Compèigne...

~~ Alpilles....  emeralds of the Grand Canal...

[...leave cards upon these Royalties...p1xx;]  More information about calling cards. This describes what men do, but using women's cards was probably similar.

... anniversary of her grandfather's death...

[Jewish custom] .... The final period of formal mourning is avelut, which is observed only for a parent. This period lasts for twelve months after the burial. During that time, mourners avoid parties, celebrations, theater and concerts. For eleven months of that period, starting at the time of burial, the son of the deceased recites the mourner's Kaddish every day. After the avelut period is complete, the family is not permitted to continue formal mourning; however, there are some continuing acknowledgments of the decedent. Every year, on the anniversary of the death, family members observe the deceased's Yahrzeit (Yiddish, lit. "anniversary"), when sons recite Kaddish, and all mourners light a candle that burns for 24 hours.

“What difference can it make to me what people think? I think it’s perfectly absurd to worry about other people in matters of sentiment. We feel things for ourselves, not for the public. Mademoiselle has very few pleasures; she’s been looking forward to going to this concert. I am not going to deprive her of it just to satisfy public opinion.”   (Gilberte begins to sound like her mother here; )

Proustiennes at play

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 156 ff) October Notes 2010

 p 157 | Swann drew me aside for a moment while his wife talked of the weather and of the animals recently added to the Jardin d’Acclimatation, with the Princess. "That is the Princesse Mathilde," he told me; "you know who I mean, the friend of Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Dumas. Just fancy, she’s the niece of Napoleon I. She had offers of marriage from Napoleon III and the Emperor of Russia. 

 Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, Princesse Française (May 27, 1820 - January 2, 1904), was a French princess and Salon holder. She was a daughter of Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte and his second wife, Catharina of Württemberg.

~~ Hippolyte Taine (historian & critic)

P.P.C. (pour prendre congé): For leave-taking; sometimes written on the address cards of persons about to leave a locality when they pay their farewell visits. In English, paid parting call.  [E. Cobham Brewer,1810–97. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898]

>> Cin`ga`lese´ ::  n. sing.; 1. A native or natives of Ceylon descended from its primitive inhabitants

Jardin d'Acclimatation (The Paris Zoo) in the Bois

 ...marvellous garment of crêpe-de-Chine or silk, old rose, cherry-coloured, Tiepolo pink, white, mauve, green, red or yellow, plain or patterned, in which Mme. Swann had sat down to luncheon and which she was now going to take off. 

Tiepolo Pink::

dressing gown/housecoat

... without crossing the path of that inextinguishable ray cast backwards to infinity, even into my own most distant past, by the lobster à l’Américaine which I had just been eating?

p | 156 | .."Charles ! Don't you see Mme de Montmorency?"

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 122-27) Notes October 2010

p 127 | Louis-Philippe, Count of Paris (1838-94)

p 124-25 | Faubourg Saint-Germain: fashionable Parisian district, where most of Swann's old friends were. 

p 122-23 | Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906): more to come 

p 124 | THE ALMANACH de GOTHA: Europe's Nobility Reference Book 
Madame de Marsantes (Countess) was the sister of Charlus and Basin (Duc de Guermantes); mother of Robert de Saint-Loup, niece of Mme de Villeparisis. She was the one person who disobeyed Lady Israels by being "at home" to Odette, until the day they arrived together. 

p 125 | Swann's friend, Robert Philippe d’Orléans (1840–1910), was the Duc de Chartres and claimant to the throne. He was the Prince, but this confused Odette, who thought he was only a duke. 

p 125 | Aisne: Department in northern France.  Odette thought the Guermantes family were from here. They were not. Another gaffe. 

Pages for October

10/7:  The evolution of society (117). Swann’s “amusing sociological experiments” (128). Swann’s old jealousy (131) and new love (133).

10/14:  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). 

10/21:  What the little phrase now means to Swann (145). “Me negger; you old cow!” (149-53).

10/30:   Consistent charm of Mme Swann’s heterogeneous drawing-room (153). Princess Mathilde (157). 

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 107 ff) Notes September 2010

p 107 | Joseph- Ernest Renan (born Feb. 28, 1823, Tréguier, France — died Oct. 2, 1892, Paris) French philosopher, historian, and scholar of religion. He trained for the priesthood but left the Catholic church in 1845, feeling that its teachings were incompatible with the findings of historical criticism, though he retained a quasi-Christian faith in God. His five-volume History of the Origins of Christianity (1863 – 80) includes his Life of Jesus  (1863); an attempt to reconstruct the mind of Jesus as a wholly human person, it was virulently denounced by the church but widely read by the general public. His later works include the series History of the People of Israel (1888 – 96).

Emmanuel Kant

Thus, for Kant, space and time are "transcendentally ideal" and "empirically real" as subjective conditions and objective, constitutive principles of intuition. In brief, this is Kant's resolution of the scientific debate between the adherents of Newton's concept of absolute space and time and Leibniz's relational view. Kant is saying that space and time are absolute conditions for human experience even though there may be nonspatial and nontemporal entities that are unknown.

This argument provides an answer to how synthetic a priori judgments in mathematics are possible. These judgments are universal and necessary, and yet they apply to and yield new knowledge about experience. The principle of Kant's explanation may be expressed as follows: whatever is true of a condition is a priori true of the conditioned. Space and time are the conditions for all possible perceptions. And Euclidean geometry and arithmetic are true of space and time. Therefore, arithmetic and geometry are a priori valid for all possible appearances.

The Palace of Darius at Perspolis (Persia)

is thought to have looked like this => 

Destroyed by Alexander the Great, only ruins remain.

Mme. Bontemps (Albertine’s aunt): at Odette's "at home" :: Wife of the Chief Secretary to the Minister of Public Works

Paul Helleu studied in Gerome's studio and later became Proust's friend.

• We will make you ‘toast’ every bit as good as you get at Colombin’s.
• "You're speaking of the Swann of Colombin's?" [Swann had an affair with a woman who served tea there.]
• Un autre décor du roman, mais qui n’existe plus aujourd’hui : le salon de thé Colombin, à l’angle de la rue Cambon et de la rue du Mont-Thabor.{http://www.terresdecrivains.com/Balades-avec-Proust-a-Paris-3}

p 110 | BLATIN, Mme. (friend of Odette). Reads Journal des Débats: I 565-56. Her affectation: 576-77. Marcel’s mother’s poor opinion: 587-88. Mme Swann dreads her visits: II 110. Resembles a portrait of Savonarola: 147.

Pages for September

9/3:  A letter from Gilberte (98). Love’s miracles, happy and unhappy (99). Change of attitude towards me of Gilberte’s par­ents, unwittingly 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).

9/10:  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).