Reading Proust - A Running Commentary

 Following his failure, due to feigned indifference, to be introduced by Elstir to the girls of the “little band”, Marcel finds pleasure afterwards in the realisation that he will nevertheless soon meet them. As he observes, many hours might pass between the event that gave us pleasure and the moment at which we are free to enjoy it ( p.229 IV Scott Moncrieff, p.925 Kilmartin ). When, having persuaded Elstir to give a small tea-party so that he can meet Albertine Simonet, his favourite of the girls, Marcel again experiences this deferred pleasure after he is introduced to her: “This is not to say that the introduction ... did not give me any pleasure, nor assume a definite importance in my eyes. But so far as the pleasure was concerned, I was not conscious* of it, naturally, until some time later, when, once more in the hotel, and in my room alone, I had become myself again. Pleasure in this respect is like photography. What we take, in the presence of the beloved object, is merely...

 Seascape, with Frieze of Girls is the title that Scott Moncrieff gave to the third and final part of Within a Budding Grove. For Proust, and later translators, there were only two parts: Madame Swann at Home and Place-Names: The Place. The latter is itself in two parts, and it is this second part of Place-Names: The Place that Scott Moncrieff has chosen to entitle. His sectioning off is understandable because while the whole of Place-Names: The Place is set in Balbec during Marcel's stay at the Grand Hotel, its first half concerns his meeting Mme de Villeparisis, Robert de Saint-Loup and Baron de Charlus, while its second half concerns his meeting the painter Elstir and, through him, Albertine Simonet and her “little band” of girl friends. Artist: Frank Weston Benson Robert, who is a sergeant in a cavalry regiment, has had to depart Balbec for his barracks at Doncières. Left by himself, Marcel is hanging about outside the hotel when he sees in the distance, walking towards him “fi...

 It is now two years after the Gilberte episode and Marcel, aged about 16 or 17, finally gets finally to go to Balbec, accompanied by his grandmother. In Place-Names: The Name, at the end of Swann's Way, Marcel has only the names of desired destinations with which to conjure. But now in the much longer Place-Names: The Place, he experiences one of the destinations of which he has long dreamed. In particular, he has been looking forward to seeing the Persian-influenced church at Balbec and, as ever, he is disappointed by the reality. He has alighted from the train at Balbec-le-Vieux rather than Balbec-Plage and discovers that the church is not next to the sea, which he had romantically imagined lapping at the foot of its walls, but twelve miles away in the inland town's mundane surroundings of a café, an omnibus office, a bank and a pâtisserie. Furthermore, the church's statue of the Virgin appears as a little, wrinkled, old lady (which is discussed in a 357-word sentence – ...

 Having examined Marcel's relationship with Gilberte, I would now like to explore the Swanns' home and social life, which is the other main theme in this section. Before doing that, however, it is necessary to consider the beginning of the section, which opens with Marcel's parents having to dinner an old ambassador, the Marquis de Norpois, who is working with Marcel's father. Prior to the visit, his parents had been pondering the question of whom else to invite and had decided against Swann, who Marcel's father thought had, since his marriage to Odette, become a vulgarian who was forever name-dropping. Meanwhile, on M de Norpois' previous recommendation, Marcel had been earlier that day to see the great actress Berma but when faced with the reality, as we should expect by now, had been disappointed. He remains, however, a devotee of the great author Bergotte. It is an iconoclastic evening for Marcel, for M de Norpois speaks highly of Mme Swann, disparages Bergo...

This section serves essentially two purposes: to chronicle the development of Marcel's relationship with Gilberte and to depict the Swanns' home and social life. Artist: Renoir Marcel and Gilberte's growing intimacy echoes in some respects that of her parents in Swann in Love: Swann and Marcel fall for their would-be lovers by indirect means (via Botticelli and Bergotte, as we have already seen); their predominant emotion in pursuit of love is pain; each suffers as a result of not only his beloved's behaviour but also his own back-firing actions; and each uses the strategy of feigned indifference in the belief that the deception will make his inamorata less indifferent to him. One major difference, however, is that Swann is, initially at least, loved by Odette, whereas Marcel's love for Gilberte is unrequited. The story of his love for her is, therefore, one of deception, self-deception and eventual realisation, still mingled with self-deception, that their relation...