Swann's Way, Combray II, pp.165-186: Another Françoise, and M. Legrandin

Beginning with "One Sunday, when my aunt had received simultaneous visits from the Curé and Eulalie..." (bottom, p.165)

M. Legrandin. We met him back on pp.91-92, as the launcher of "furious tirades" "at the aristrocracy, at fashionable life, at snobbishness." Now we see "a Legrandin altogether different" (p.175), actually a social climber, it would seem. He snubs the family on a number of occasions. M dines with him alone and he claims to be a Jacobin, but M senses duplicity in him.

"But what I did understand was that Legrandin was not altogether truthful when he said tha the cared only for churches, moonlight, and youth; he cared also, he cared a very great deal, for people who lived in country houses, and in their presence was so overcome by fear of incurring their displeasure that he dared not let them see that he numbered among his friends middle-class people, the sons of solicitors and stockbrokers, preferring, if the truth must come to light, that it should do so in his absence, a long way away, and 'by default.' In a word, he was a snob." (p.180)

Legrandin is really playing two people, one for the middle class and one for the upper, landed, or noble class, and for each he pretends to hate the other. There is implication of social mobility here, a characteristic of these years in the third republic. This also harks back to M's earlier reflection: "even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people." (p.23).

Legrandin is also another example of the social triangle, this time a man caught between two classes of people, trying to maintain relationships with both while keeping the other unawares.


Françoise the cruel (p.170) Another view of Françoise, as the chicken brutalizer and insensitive head maid, except that she would apparently lay down her life for her own family, and really goes to great lengths for Léonie as well (although that could be said to be for her own family in the end).

And M brings things around so neatly, that the scads of asparagus mentioned earlier (several times, but most notably in an exchange with Léonie on p.79 "What, Françoise, more asparagus! It's a regular mania for asparagus you've got this year."), seemingly in passing, comes back on p.173 as a cunning plan of Françoise's to be rid of one of the kitchenmaids, who is allergic to it.


Cool stuff
Paul Desjardins (quoted by Legrandin on p.167) was a French philosopher who knew Proust and his family intimately.

Balbec is modeled off the real world Cabourg.


Notable (?) passages

"But what most enraptured me were the asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and pink which shaded off from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible gradations to their white feet—still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed—with an iridescence that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form and who, through the disguise of their firm, comestible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting like on of Shakespeare's fairies) at transforming my chamber pot into a vase of aromatic perfume." (pp.168-169)

There is no ode to asparagus like this one, and perhaps Proust can be quite the humorist

Swann's Way, Combray II, pp.91-110

We meet M. Legrandin. He is an engineer by trade, and a writer in his spare time. His job makes him more middle class, as opposed to Swann who is able to sometimes work on writing, sometimes do nothing, but the narrator's family considers him a gentleman of the "noblest and most delicate manner." All excepting the grandmother, that is, who thinks him unnatural, and we already know her affinity for the natural. Legrandin thinks highly of our hero's intellectual abilities, saying to him "You have a soul in you of rare quality, and artist's nature; never let it starve for lack of what it needs." (p.93)

Théodore is a wealth of information, being in regular contact with everyone in town because he is cantor and grocer's assistant, and what does everyone need? Food for the spirit and food for the physical body.

Eulalie is a retired maid or lady's companion and is now a regular visitor of Léonie. Eulalie's visits to Léonie are another example of habit, and of the discomfort of broken habits, since Léonie suffers greatly when she doesn't come or when she comes later than usual.

Uncle Adolphe, our hero's grandfather's brother, seems to have a love for theater, or at least for its women, and for "ladies of another class," as well. Our narrator's family will not associate with these women, but he sneaks an opportunity to do so and is disappointed to find that the actress (?) is not unlike other women. He is bothered by the fact that an immoral person could be so disguised as normal. Our narrator seems drawn to what is considered immoral, and yet repulsed by it.

The narrator's adoration of actors, even though he has yet to see a performance, is an example of obsession. It also fits into his tendency to compare life to art.

Social Triangles
Definitely a recurring theme. The narrator witnesses a triangle between Adolphe, the actress, and "the grand duke" that somewhat resembles (foreshadows) the triangle we see later with Swann and Odette. Also, the narrator is caught in a triangle that includes also his parents and his uncle, a triangle that because of miscommunication robs them all of each other's company.

Notable passages
"...thinking of the weary and fruitless novitiate eminent men would go through, perhaps for years on end, on the doorstep of some such lady who refused to answer their letters and had them sent packing by the hall-porter," (p.103) Foreshadowing/Swann

Interesting stuff:
Morris Columns (p.100) are cylindrical advertising structures on the sidewalks of Paris, a place for paper ads to be displayed. According to this article they've been a part of the Paris landscape for over 150 years, and their numbers have been (controversially) cut back in the last few.

Opéra-Comique (p.100)
Comédie-Française (p.101)

Diamants de la couronne and Domino Noir (p.101) are both works by Daniel Auber from the mid 19th century.

(p.102) Got, Delaunay, Febvre, Coquelin are real 19th century French actors, and I can find reference to a M. Thiron and Maubant as well.

(p.102) Sarah Bernhardt, Bartet, and Madeleine Brohan are all real 19th century French actresses. Jeanne Samary is also a real actress from the time, and was additionally a mistress of Renoir, showing up in many portraits, including the Luncheon of the Boating Party, which also includes our friend Charles Ephrussi (Swann). Art, mistress, Ephrussi...



I can find no reference to a Berma of the French theater, though.

Vocabulary
Blue (p.108) according to my book notes a blue, or bleu, is an "express letter transmitted by pneumatic tube (in Paris)"