In tears, at the foot of the bed, she was murmuring the most beautiful words of days gone by: “My country, my brother.” But he, having neither the desire nor the strength to undeceive her, smiled and reflected that his “country” was no longer in her, but in heaven and over all the earth. He repeated in his heart, “my brothers,” and if he gazed at her more than at the others, it was simply out of pity, for the flood of tears that he could see flowing right under his eyes, his eyes that would soon close and already had stopped weeping. But he did not love her any more or any differently than he loved the doctor, or his elderly relatives, or the servants. And that was the end of his jealousy.
Note on the Text
This translation is based on the text of Les Plaisirs et les jours contained in the Pléiade edition of Jean Santeuil, edited by Pierre Clarac and Yves Sandre (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). The translator was able to consult with great profit the fine translation by Louise Varese: Pleasures and Regrets (London: Peter Owen, 1986; tr. first published 1948).
Notes
p. 3,The grave Hesiod… Helicon: Works and Days is a long poem describing peasant life by the Greek writer Hesiod (fl.c.700 BC). Mount Helicon is a mountain in central Greece associated in Greek mythology with the muses.
p. 3,as the well-known English man of state… not for pleasures: A reference to George Bernard Shaw’s quip: “Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.”
p. 4,the ray of the German doctor: A reference to the discovery of the X-ray in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923).
p. 4,Bernardin de Saint Pierre… Petronius: A reference to Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814), the author of the 1787 novel Paul et Virginie about the corruption of youthful innocence, and Petronius Arbiter (c.27–66 AD), the author of the Satyricon, a bawdy and satirical account of Roman life.
p. 4,Madeleine Lemaire: Madeleine Lemaire (1845–1928) was a genre painter who illustrated Pleasures and Days.
p. 5,Willie Heath… 3rd October 1893: Willie Heath (1871–93) was a young English dandy whom Proust had met a few months before his untimely death of dysentery or typhoid fever.
p. 5,From the lap of God… make us love it: From the dedication of Life of Jesus (1863) by Ernest Renan (1823–92).
p. 5,Dumas’s word… after God: A reference to a comment by Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–95) about Madeleine Lemaire (see previous note).
p. 5,Robert de Montesquiou: Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1855–1921) was a famous Parisian poet and dandy.
p. 5,Vigée: A reference to the artist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842). The first, de-luxe edition of Pleasures and Days was embellished with watercolours by Madeleine Lemaire, acknowledged by Proust a few lines earlier.
p. 6,Van Dyck: A reference to the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641).
p. 7,opened the window… returned not again: The quotations are from Genesis 8:8–10.
p. 7,vain adornments… carefully gathered: From Act I, Sc.3, 7–9 of the play Phèdre (1677) by Jean Racine (1639–99).
p. 8,death who comes… difficult to accomplish: Slightly misquoted from Book 8, Chapter 1 of History of France (1833–67) by Jules Michelet (1798–1874).
p. 9,that true friend, and that illustrious and beloved Master: A reference to Reynaldo Hahn (see other notes).
p. 9,M. Darlu: Alphonse Darlu (1849–1921) was Proust’s philosophy teacher at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris.
p. 10,The poets say that Apollo… Emerson: A misquotation from ‘History’ (Essays: First Series, 1841) by Transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82).
p. 17,The flesh is sad, alas… Stéphane Mallarmé: The first words of the poem ‘Brise marine’ (‘Sea Breeze’, 1865) by the symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98).
p. 19,The din of his youthful days… Mme de Sévigné: From a letter by Madame de Sévigné (1626–96) to her daughter, dated 24th January 1689.
p. 26,Tomorrow… Macbeth: Macbeth, Act V, Sc. 5, 19–28.
p. 29,Now cracks… Hamlet: Hamlet, Act V, Sc. 2, 359–60.
p. 34,The Imitation of Christ, I, 7: A devotional handbook usually attributed to the German theologian Thomas à Kempis (c.1380–1471). The quotation from The Imitation of Christ in the following epigraph is from Book II, Chapter 7.
p. 46,As crabs, goats… Emerson: From ‘History’ (see previous note).
p. 50,Cires perdues: “Lost wax castings” (French).
p. 53,Le Gaulois: A literary and political journal which ran from 1868 to 1929.
p. 54,Your soul is… a deep dark forest: The expression is proverbial in Russia and has been used by several writers, but could not be traced in the works of Tolstoy.
p. 55,Bouillet: Marie-Nicolas Bouillet (1798–1865), a French historian who wrote, among other things, a Dictionnaire universel d’histoire et de géographie (1842); the other works mentioned (such as the Almanach de Gotha) were all guides to aristocratic society.
p. 56,Lamartine… Wagner: Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869), French poet and statesman; Richard Wagner (1813–83), German opera composer.
p. 57,Verlaine: Paul Verlaine (1844–96), French symbolist poet.
p. 64,Franck and d’Indy… Palestrina: César Franck (1822–90) and Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931) were French composers; Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525–94) was a prolific Italian composer of church music.
p. 64,Whistler… Bouguereau: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was an American painter known for his subtle tones and his belief in “art for art’s sake”, whereas William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) was a popular, traditionalist French genre painter.
p. 65,Pantaloon, Scaramouche or Pasquariello: Famous characters of Italian commedia dell’arte, along with Harlequin, mentioned later.
p. 71,Society: “The opinions ascribed here to the two celebrated characters from Flaubert are, of course, in no way those of the author.” (PROUST’S NOTE) In Flaubert’s last unfinished novel, published in 1881, the eponymous heroes Bouvard and Pécuchet come into some money and retire to the countryside, where they devote themselves, in a series of grimly farcical episodes, to cultivating the arts and sciences of their age: in doing so they run through most of the clichéd opinions their society has to offer. Proust here mimics Flaubert both stylistically and thematically.
p. 72,Leconte de Lisle: Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (1818–94) was a poet of the Parnassian movement.
p. 72,Loti: Pierre Loti (1850–1923) was a prolific French novelist who specialized in detailed descriptions of exotic destinations.
p. 72,André Laurie: One of the pseudonyms of Paschal Grousset (1844–1909), the author of adventure and science-fiction novels.
p. 72,Henri de Régnier: Henri de Régnier (1864–1936) was a symbolist poet and novelist.
p. 72,Maeterlinck: Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) was a Belgian symbolist poet and playwright.
p. 73,Revue des Deux Mondes: An influential cultural review founded in Paris in 1929.
p. 73,Lemaître: Jules Lemaître (1853–1914) was a literary critic and dramatist.
p. 73,France… Bourget: Anatole France (1844–1924) was the great French man of letters of his day, and the author of the preface to Pleasures and Days. Paul Bourget (1852–1935) was a French critic and realist novelist.
p. 76,Revocation… Massacre of St Bartholomew: The Edict of Nantes of 1598 gave civil rights to the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) and ended the French Wars of Religion, but it was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685. The 1572 St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris was a series of assassinations directed against the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion.
p. 78,Domino noir: An 1837 comic opera by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871) and Eugène Scribe (1791–1861).
p. 78,Berlin bawler… nicknamed him: Wagner was actually born in Leipzig, and was subsequently associated more with the cities of Dresden and Bayreuth than with Berlin.
p. 78,Colonne… Lamoureux: Charles Lamoureux (1834–99) was a conductor who founded the “Concerts Lamoureux”; Édouard Colonne (1838–1910) was also a conductor who promoted the work of Berlioz and Wagner.
p. 78,Parsifal: Wagner’s last completed opera, first staged in 1882. The Valkyrie (1870), Lohengrin (1850), Tannhäuser (1845) and Rienzi (1842), mentioned in the next paragraph, are also operas by Wagner.
p. 79,Gounod… Erik Satie: Charles Gounod (1818–93) was a French composer, most famous for his Ave Maria (1853) and his opera Faust (1859). Erik Satie (1866–1925) was a French avant-garde composer and pianist.
p. 79,Saint-Saëns… Massenet: Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Jules Massenet (1842–1912) was a popular composer, most famous now for his opera Manon (1884).
p. 79,Gaston Lemaire… Chausson with Chaminade: Jean Eugène Gaston Lemaire (1854–1928), Ernest Chausson (1855–99) and Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944) were French composers.
p. 79,Charles Lévadé… Mme de Girardin: Charles-Gaston Lévadé (1869–1948) was a French composer; Delphine de Girardin (1804–55) was a poet and writer of essays, sketches and plays.
p. 80,Reynaldo Hahn: Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947), a Venezuelan-born French composer and music critic, was a close friend and lover of Proust.
p. 80,Jacques Normand… Vicomte de Borelli: Jacques Normand (1848–1931) was a playwright and Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was a Nobel Prize-winning poet. The Vicomte Emmanuel Raymond de Borelli (1837–1906) was the captain of a French Foreign Legion company that fought during the Siege of Tuyên Quang in Vietnam in 1885, a battle which inspired him to write a famous poem to his men.
p. 81,Monsieur Delafosse: Léon Delafosse (1874–1951), a pianist and composer.
p. 82,Ariadne… were abandoned: This is another quotation from Phèdre by Racine, spoken by its lovelorn protagonist Phaedra.
p. 92,Dem Vogel… hold gewachsen: “The beak of the bird who sang today has become lovely” (German), from Wagner’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (1888), Act II, Sc. 3, 42–43.
p. 94,there are sensations… than infinity: From the prose poem ‘The Artist’s Confiteor’ (1862) by Charles Baudelaire (1821–67).
p. 94,αὐτόθ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀϊόνος… Theocritus, The Cyclops: From the Idylls XI, 14–16, by Theocritus (d.c.250 BC).
p. 99,Portraits of Painters and Musicians: Most of these painters and musicians are well known: the presence of the “Golden Age” figures of Aelbert Cuyp (1620–91) and Paulus Potter
