apartment was on the fourth (that is, on the third floor above the mezzanine).

He is referring to the military doctor (see letter 19).

According to the Baedeker of 1914, ‘First-class hotel in the Champs-Elysées, 55 Avenue de l’Alma and 101 Avenue des Champs-Elysées.’ The Avenue de l’Alma is now the Avenue George V.

The Countess Wladimir Rehbinder, née Jacqueline Contéré de Monbrison (1871–1925), wrote fashion articles. She was earlier divorced from Count Jacques de Pourtalès (1858–1919).

Madame de La Béraudière was the mistress of [Henri,] Count Greffulhe. Proust found her ‘charming, in every respect, and with great vivacity and frankness of spirit’ (Correspondance, vol. 14, p. 165, 1915). According to Céleste Albaret, Mme de La Béraudière ‘was at the feet of M. Proust and didn’t know what to do to make him interested’ (Céleste Albaret, Monsieur Proust, p. 194).

Proust must finally have seen Clary again before October 15, 1915, according to his Correspondance.

Proust writes, in a letter of August 7, 1915: ‘I cannot move these days, awaiting a visit from the Major of which I do not know the day or the hour.’ The visit took place on August 8 or 9.

The reference is to pages on roses, written by Mme Williams (but which have not come down to us). See letter 14.

Mme Terre [Earth] was evidently the person in charge of the construction or renovation work that was making him suffer so (see letters 21 and 23). [Napoleon’s mother was known as ‘Madame Mère’.]

Verlaine’s ‘a shiver of water on moss’ comes from ‘Listen to the Very Gentle Song’, 1881, the sixteenth poem of collection 1 of Sagesse: ‘Listen to the very gentle song / That weeps only to please you, / It is discreet, it is light: / A shiver of water over moss!’

Jean de Reszke (1850–1925), opera singer (tenor), Polish by birth, as was his brother Édouard (bass).

See note 25. Pelléas says, at the end of act 2, scene 1, ‘The truth, the truth.’ [The Wolff Agency (misspelled by Proust) was a German press agency, one of the major news agencies of the 19th and early 20th centuries.]

Concerning Mme Terre, see also letters 20 and 23.

This is a pastiche of the sonnet that appeared in 1833 in the collection Mes heures perdues [My lost hours] by Félix Arvers.

According to his Correspondance (vol. 14), in mid-October 1915, Proust saw Clary again twice.

Hahn arrived from Vauquois on November 11 or 12, 1915. He made use of that leave to give the first performance of Le ruban dénoué. [In the original, for ‘in disarray’ Proust puns, using the expression en ‘bataille’ (literally ‘in battle’ – with quotes around ‘battle’) to signal the pun.]

Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, 42, line 6.

Reynaldo was a fervent admirer of Thérésa [Emma Valladon, 1837–1913], queen of the café-concert. She sang La terre [The earth] (L’Eldorado, 1888), poem and music both by Jules Jouy, arranged by Léopold Gandolff. The poem begins: ‘Our nurse and our mama— / She is the earth: / Her flower and grain sprouting / Under the earth.’ Proust evokes this song to make fun of Mme Terre – see letters 20 and 21. (Information kindly supplied by Benoît Duteurtre.) Proust had heard this singer at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1888, in Cendrillon.

This confirms that Proust consulted musical scores. Les Béatitudes is by César Franck.

Anatole France wrote the preface to Proust’s Pleasures and Days (Calmann-Lévy, 1896).

Robert de Montesquiou’s Les offrandes blessées: Elégies guerrières [Wounded offerings: War elegies] was published by E. Sansot in June 1915. Ida Rubinstein (1885–1960) was a celebrated Russian-born dancer and actress. This reading must have taken place on Wednesday, December 20, 1916, at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. This letter can therefore be dated Tuesday the 19th.

Pierre Frondaie, novelist, playwright, and poet, used Anatole France’s first novel, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, as the basis for a four-act play which premiered at the Théâtre Antoine either December 2 or 20, 1916, according to different sources. [In his phrase ‘the “acta Sanctorum” of the Learned Bollandistes’, Proust is quoting from memory (with his own choices of capitalization) from France’s novel: ‘at the hour when the mice will dance by moonlight before the Acta Sanctorum of the learned Bollandistes.’ A Bollandiste was a member of a learned society founded by the Jesuit and hagiographer Jean Bolland. The Acta Sanctorum were the Lives of the Saints, of which Bolland was the first author and compiler.]

This play, adapted from Anatole France’s novella Crainquebille, was first performed in 1903 starring Lucien Guitry at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. [Crainquebille is the story of a street peddler unjustly jailed and an orphan boy who befriends him on his release. It was also adapted for silent film by Jacques Feyder in 1921.]

A. Demar-Latour: Ce qu’ils ont détruit: La cathédrale de Reims bombardée et incendiée en septembre 1914 [What they destroyed: The cathedral of Reims bombed and burned in September 1914], Paris, Éditions practiques et documentaires ([1915?], 64 pp.). [It is possible, though not certain, that this is the book Mme Williams lent to Proust. As for the year of its appearance, the book itself contains no publication date, and sources, such as library catalogues, variously give 1914 and 1915.]

In The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, the princess (not countess) Trépof presents Sylvestre Bonnard with the manuscript of The Golden Legend, which he has been coveting, secreted within a hollowed-out log. Proust cites the same passage in a letter of May 1913 to Mme Schéikevitch (Correspondance, vol. 12, p. 173).

The compatriot is perhaps Walter Berry, President of the Franco-American Chamber of Commerce and a friend of Proust.

The source of the phrase is in fact the 11th-century monk Raoul Glaber.

[Because Proust refers to the death of Clary’s mother, which occurred March 11, 1917, and because Clary himself, who died May 8, 1918, is evidently still alive, this letter must have been written sometime between those two dates. Proust had been out of touch with Blanche, whom he mentions here, before April 10, 1918. He is presumably back in touch with him if he contemplated sending him the carnations. A possible date for this letter, therefore, would be sometime in the month extending from mid-April to mid-May.]

Index

The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.

Acta Sanctorum (Jean Bolland) 39, 77n50
Aeneid, The 73n19
Agostinelli, Alfred 71n12
Aix-la-Chapelle 9
Albaret, Céleste viii, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 69n1, 75n33
Amiens 40
Annecy 32, 34, 60
Antoine (concierge) 49
Argonne 23, 74n27
‘Artémis’ (Nerval) 73n24
Arthème Fayard 71n14
Arvers, Félix x, 37, 63, 76n42
Au Jardin des Roses (florist) 65
Avenue de l’Alma 74n31
Avenue George V 74n31
Bagnoles-de-l’Orne x, 5, 70n7
Balbec xiii, 64, 73n26
Bamberg 40
Baudelaire, Charles 76n45
Beethoven, Ludwig von ix, 37
Bernard, Saint 41
Bernhardt, Sarah xii
Berry, Walter 79n54
Bibliothèque nationale de France 73n20
Bizet, Georges 69n4
Blanche, Jacques-Emile 17, 42, 72n18, 79n56
Bolland, Jean 77n50
Bollandistes 39, 77n50
Brach, Paul xiv
Brailowsky, Alexander xiv
Bray, Barbara 69n1
Cabourg x, 6, 14, 64, 65
Calmann-Lévy 70n8, 77n48
Cendrillon (Massenet) 76n46
Ce qu’ils ont détruit (A. Demar-Latour) xi, 78n52
Champs-Elysées, Avenue des 74n31
Chartres 40
Clary, Angèle (mother of Joachim) 42–3, 79n56
Clary, Joachim ix, xiii, xvii, 13–14,15, 23, 25, 26–27, 34, 37, 38, 42–3, 71n14, 75n34, 76n43, 79n56
Combourg 5
conseil de contre-réforme 70n11
Côte Fleurie 64
Crainquebille (A. France) 39, 78n51
Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, The (A. France, Pierre Frondaie) 39, 40, 77n50, 78n53
d’Aubigné, Agrippa 21, 73n24
Daudet, Lucien 17, 23, 38, 71n14, 72n18
da Vinci, Leonardo xi, 40
Deauville xiii, 14
Debussy, Claude 73n25
Demar-Latour, A. xi, 78n52
de Pourtalès, Count Jacques 74n32
Dreyfus, Robert 58
Duteurtre, Benoît 76n46
Éditions practiques et documentaires 78n52
Éditions Robert Laffont 69n1
‘El Desdichado’ (Nerval) 73n24
Emler, Paul vii
E. Sansot 77n49
Eugénie, Empress 71n14
Faisans, Léon 13, 72n16
Fénelon, Bertrand de xi, 23, 74n27
Feyder, Jacques 78n51
Figaro, Le 8, 70n9
Flowers of Evil, The (Baudelaire) 36–7, 76n45
France, Anatole 38, 77n48 & n50, 78n51 & n53
Franck, César ix, 37, 55, 77n47
Franco-American Chamber of Commerce 79n54
Frondaie, Pierre 77n50
Gagey, Dr Emile and Mme 47, 49, 51, 55, 56, 57
Gandolff, Léopold 76n46
Gide, André 16, 20, 57
Giotto di Bondone ix, 31
Glaber, Raoul 79n55
Golden Legend, The 40, 78n53
Gospel according to John 71n13
Grand Hôtel de Cabourg 64, 65
Grasset 73n20
Greffulhe, Henri, Count 75n33
Guitry, Lucien 78n51
Hahn, Reynaldo 9, 23, 36, 54–5, 56–7, 58, 70n10, 74n27, 76n44
Halévy, Geneviève. See Straus, Geneviève
Haussmann, Boulevard vii, xiv, 8, 32–3, 34, 45, 48, 49, 60, 67
Hayman, Laure vii
Helleu, Paul 42
Heugel 70n8
Hôpital Beaujon 72n16
Hôtel d’Albe 25, 74n31
Houlgate 64–5
Hugo, Victor 69n2
Illiers-Combray 46, 53
Impressions That Remained – Memoirs of Ethel Smyth 71n14
Jouy, Jules 76n46
Kafka, Franz 48
Katz, Mme 47
Kolb, Philip xiv
La Béraudière, Mme de 26, 75n33
La Bible d’Amiens (Ruskin) 40, 56
Lamartine, Alphonse de x
La Nouvelle Revue Francaise xii, 16, 18, 20, 72n17, 73n26
La terre (Jules Jouy) 76n46
Legras powders 47
L’Eldorado 76n46
Le Nouvel Observateur 64
Lerossignol, M. 64–5
Le ruban dénoué (Reynaldo Hahn) 54, 76n44
Les Béatitudes (Franck) ix, 37, 77n47
Les Chimères (Nerval) 73n24
Les contemplations (Hugo) 69n2
Les offrandes blessés: Elégies guerrières (Robert de Montesquiou) 77n49
Les tragiques (Agrippa d’Aubigné) 73n24
Le Vésinet 70n7
L’île du soleil couchant (Joachim Clary) 71n14
Lives of the Saints. See Acta Sanctorum
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 63
Louvain 40
Maeterlinck, Maurice 73n23 & n25
‘Major, the,’ 24–5, 28–9, 74n30, 75n35
Mallarmé, Stéphane 73n23
Mametz 74n27
Mante-Proust, Suzy xiv
Maupassant, Guy de vii
Mauriac-Dyer, Nathalie 70n11
Mes heures perdues (Félix Arvers) 76n42
Monbrison, Jacqueline de. See Rehbinder, Countess Wladimir
Montesquiou, Count Robert de xii, 2, 38, 55, 69n6, 71n14, 77n49
Morand, Paul 57
Musée Carnavalet 53
Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits xvii, 64
Nerval, Gérard de 21, 73n24
Noailles, Countess Anna de 21, 53, 58, 73n22
Normandy 5, 64, 70n7
Notre Dame 41
Our Hearts (Maupassant) vii
Pallu, Alphonse 74n28
Pallu, Marie. See Williams, Marie
Parsifal (Wagner) ix
Pelléas and Mélisande (Debussy & Maeterlinck) 21, 32, 73n25, 76n40
Pernolet, Arthur 56, 57
Poulet Quartet 55
‘Prométhée triomphant’ (Reynaldo Hahn & Paul Reboux) 9, 70n10
Proust Museum 46
Proust, Robert xiv, 12, 30, 38–9
Proust Society 46
Reboux, Paul 70n10
Régnier, Marie de 21, 58
Rehbinder, Countess Wladimir 26, 74n32
Reims xi, xv, 40–1, 59,