(See also Bach; Beethoven; Chopin; Debussy; Schumann; Wagner under Index of Persons.)
NAMES. By pronouncing a name one secures a sort of power over it (Guermantes): I 178. The name “Gilberte” heard for the first time by M at Tansonville: 199–200; and later in the Champs-Elysées: 560–62. Poetry of place-names: 545–60. Imaginative difference between words and proper names: 551–52. Images evoked by names of Italian, Norman and Breton towns: 552–53; (see also II 326). Effect on M of Gilberte calling him by his Christian name for the first time: 573–74. “Names are whimsical draughtsmen”: II 166. Names of the cathedral towns: 321. Place-names on the way to Balbec; contrast between place-names with and without personal associations: 326. Pleasures of collecting old names: 448–49. The name Simonet: 520–21, 528; importance of the single “n”: 579–80 (cf. III 504). “The names which designate things correspond invariably to an intellectual notion, alien to our true impressions;” Elstir re-creates things by renaming them: 566. Affective content of names and how it decays; changing connotations of the name Guermantes: III 4–9. M incapable of integrating the name Guermantes into the living figure of the Duchess: 28–29. Poetic German landscape evoked by the name Faffenheim-Munsterburg-Weinigen: 346–47. We hate our namesakes: 504. Nicknames in society: 591–93. Poetry of the name Isabella d’Este: 719. Names change their meaning for us more in a few years than words do in centuries: 728–29. The nobility are the etymologists of the language of names, but are oblivious of its poetry: 730. M’s aesthetic pleasure in historic names: 743–44. The name Surgis-le-Duc stripped of its poetry: IV 143–44. Noble names of Normandy: 251–52. Depoeticisation of place-names in the region of Balbec: 693–98. Bitter-sweet charm in the possessive use of a Christian name: V 124–25. Albertine after her departure scarcely exists for M save under the form of her name, which he repeats to himself incessantly: 581. Place-names near Balbec become impregnated with baleful mystery: 699. Habit strips names of their charm and significance:722–23. Venomous overtones of the name of Tours: 729. Succession to a name is a melancholy thing: VI 357. “A name: that very often is all that remains for us of a human being … even in his lifetime”: 406.
OLD AGE. The “great renunciation” of old age as it prepares for death: I 201–2. Disillusionment of old age; the futility of writing letters: II 82. The day when one feels that love is too big an undertaking for the little strength one has left: IV 382. “Old age makes us incapable of doing but not, at first, of desiring”: V 860–61. Charlus in old age: VI 358. Metamorphoses due to old age seen at the Guermantes reception: 336–81. We see our age in a mirror: 350. Old age is of all the realities of life “the one of which we preserve for longest a purely abstract conception”: 354–55. The phenomenon of old age seems, in its different modes, to take into account certain social habits: 372. The Duc de Guermantes in old age: 480–87. Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis in old age: V 947–50 (cf. 854–55).
PAINTING. Swann’s penchant for finding likenesses to real people in the old masters: I 314–16, 459–61; II 147–48. Elstir at work: 565–89; metaphors in his works: 567; description of his Carquethuit Harbour: 567–72; painting and photography: 570–71. Reflexions on portrait-painting: 601–4. Profundities of “still life”: 613 (cf. III 152). Race-courses and regattas as subjects for painting: 651–58. “The original painter proceeds on the lines of the oculist”—the visual world is created afresh: III 445. M’s reflexions on painting while studying the Guermantes’s El-stirs; Elstir’s relation to earlier painters; analysis of a waterside carnival; the painter’s eye; the immortalisation of a moment: 572–78. Conversation about painting with Mme de Cambremer at Balbec: IV 280–87. The “little patch of yellow wall”: V 244–45. Aesthetic truth and documentary truth in portraits: VI 359. “The artist may paint anything in the world that he chooses;” the artist of genius may be inspired by commonplace models: 44–46.
(See also Botticelli; Carpaccio; Giotto; Greco; Hooch; Leonardo; Manet; Mantegna; Michelangelo; Monet; Poussin; Rembrandt; Renoir; Turner; Vermeer; Veronese; Watteau; Whistler under Index of Persons.)
PARTIES. Dinner-party at the Verdurins’ at which Swann hears the Vinteuil sonata: I 281–304. Dinner-party at the Verdurins’ at which Forcheville is present: 355–75. Musical soirée at Mme de Saint-Euverte’s: 457–501. Elstir’s afternoon party to introduce Albertine: II 613–20. Afternoon party at Mme de Villeparisis’s: III 251–385. Theatrical soirée at Mme de Villeparisis’s for which M arrives too late: 507–23. Dinner-party at the Duchesse de Guermantes’s: 569–750. Evening party at the Princesse de Guermantes’s: IV 45–165. Dinner-party at La Raspelière: 404–514. Musical soirée at the Verdurins’ (Quai Conti): V 299–307. Afternoon party at the Princesse de Guermantes’s: VI 360.
PHOTOGRAPHY. Swann studies photographs of Odette: I 414, but prefers an old daguerreotype to more recent photographs: II 264 (see also V 267). M’s photograph of Berma, which he studies in bed: II 80, 82–83. Charlus on photography: “A photograph acquires something of the dignity which it ordinarily lacks when it ceases to be a reproduction of reality and shows us things that no longer exist”: 470. Saint-Loup photographs M’s grandmother: 500 (cf. IV 214, 237–43). An old photograph of the “little band”: 549–50. Influence of photography on painting: 570. Saint-Loup’s photograph of Mme de Guermantes seems to M like a “supplementary prolonged encounter” with her: III 99. By “a cruel trick of chance,” M sees his grandmother as a photograph: 183–85. Similar effects produced by photography and kissing: 498–99. Contrasting photographs of Odette, “the earlier a photograph the older a woman looks in it”: V 267. Saint-Loup’s stupefaction on seeing M’s photograph of Albertine: 588–92.
POLITICS. Diplomacy and politics; the “governmental mind” (Norpois): II 7. M discovers to his surprise that, in politics, to repeat what everyone else is thinking is the mark not of an inferior but of a superior mind: 40. Mme de Villeparisis’s “advanced” but anti-socialist opinions: 393–94. Saint-Loup’s “socialistic spoutings”: 426, 490–91. Elusiveness of truth in politics: III 325–26. Subtlety of politicians, a perversion of the science of “reading between the lines,” accounts for the behaviour of the Guermantes circle and in particular the Duchess’s paradoxical judgments; the Duke as politician: 646–51.
RAILWAYS. Arrival by train at Combray: I 65, 85, 159. The railway timetable “the most intoxicating romance in the lover’s library”: 415–16; timetables minister to M’s longing for aesthetic enjoyment; the “wizard’s cell”: 556–57. The “fine, generous” 1.22 train to Normandy and Brittany: 548–49; II 305–6. Reflexions on rail travel; railway stations “marvellous” but “tragic” places; the Gare Saint-Lazare: 301–3 (cf. IV 549–50). Journey to Balbec: 312–25. Concomitants of long railway journeys: sunrise, hard-boiled eggs, illustrated papers, packs of cards, rivers: 316. Whistling of locomotives at Doncières: III 179. Difference between arrival by train and by motor-car: IV 549–50 (cf. II 301–2). Return journey from Venice to Paris: V 887–88. Halt by a sunlit line of trees on M’s train-journey back to Paris from the sanatorium: VI 361. M’s memory of the hooting of the trains at night at Combray: 276.
The “little train.” M’s first journey on it; names of stations: II 326. Various colloquial names for it—“crawler” (Saint-Loup): 609, “tram,” “rattletrap” (Albertine): 623. Service suspended in winter: 725–26. Further nicknames: IV 249. Breakdown at Incarville: 262–63. Leisurely arrival at Balbec station: 345–16. M travels with Albertine to Doncières: 347–58. M travels with the “faithful” to Douville: 358–98, 589–622. Stations on the little railway: 647–48, 657, 662, 674–75, 682, 692–98. Halts on the little railway a setting for social intercourse: 694–98. M’s last journey on the little train—Albertine’s shattering revelation as it enters Parville station: 699–704.
ROOMS. M remembers various bedrooms in which he has slept: I 4–10, 263–64. His bedroom at Combray: 9–11. The little room at the top of t)ie house smelling of orris-root: 14, 122. Aunt Léonie’s rooms; the charm of
country rooms, reflecting “a whole secret system of life”: 66–67. Uncle Adolphe’s sanctum: 99 (cf. II 91). M’s room in summer: 113–14. Rooms in Odette’s house in the Rue La Perouse: 310–12. M’s bedroom in the Grand Hotel, Balbec: 545; II 332–34, 340–43, 690–91, 727–30. Waiting-room in Swann’s house: II 136–38. Mme Swann’s drawing-room: 153–55, 230–34, 288. Dining-room of the Grand Hotel: 343–45, 351–52, 613 (cf. IV 181). M’s grandmother’s room in the Grand Hotel: 386–87. Saint-Loup’s room at Doncières: III 91–92. “Unbreathable aroma” of every new bedroom: 102. Silent but alive and friendly rooms in the hotel at Doncières: 103–12. Dining-room at Doncières: 125–26. Mme de Villeparisis’s drawing-room: 251–52. M’s bedroom in Paris: 472–73, 534–35; V 1–4, 482, 501, 514–15, 553–54. Card-room at the Princesse de Guermantes’s—“magician’s cell”: IV 119. Drawing-room at La Raspelière: 411–12 (cf. V 378–80). Verdurin drawing-rooms at Rue Montalivet and Quai Conti: V 265–67, 378–80. Room in Andrée’s grandmother’s apartment: 527. M’s bedroom at Tansonville: VI 362. Eulalie’s room at Combray: 276.
SADISM. Scene of “sadism” at Montjouvain between Mile Vinteuil and her friend: I 226–33. Sadists of Mile Vinteuil’s sort are “purely sentimental, naturally virtuous”: 231. Real sadism—“pure and voluptuous cruelty”—uncommon: III 230. The sadism in Charlus—a medium: IV 555. Irresistible sadism as a motive for crime: V 269. Sado-masochistic scene in Jupien’s brothel: VI 363, and reflexions thereon: 195.
SEA. The sea reflected in the glass of the book-cases in M’s room at Balbec: I 545. M’s longing to witness a stormy sea: 546. The sea seen from M’s window at Balbec; variety of seascapes: II 341–44, 386–87, 521–26 (see also IV 221, 247–48). Sea glimpsed from high ground through trees: 391 (cf. IV 558–59). The “little band” inseparable from the sea: 562 (cf. III 481; V 81–84, 611). The sea in Elstir’s pictures: 567–71, 657–58. M’s efforts to see the sea through Elstir’s eyes: 658. “Perpetual recreation of the primordial elements of nature which we contemplate when we stand before the sea”: 663. M’s pleasure in returning to the sea: IV 221, 243. The “rural” sea: 247–48. Sight and sound of the sea from a hill near Douville: 283–84. The sea from La Raspelière: 540–42. “The plaintive ancestress of the earth”: 559. M and Albertine lie on the beach at night listening to the sea: 569 (cf. V 85). Albertine asleep reminds M of the sea: V 83–86.
SELF. “Our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people”: I 23. Mystery of personality: 438. Revival of an old self can make us experience feelings long dead: II 299–301 (cf. III 367–69). “Fragmentary and continuous death” of our successive selves: 340. Oneself: a subject on which other people’s views are never in accordance with one’s own: 437–42 (cf. IV 211–13). Uses of self-centredness: 478–79. Eclipse of one’s old self at a social gathering: 615–16. Friendship an abdication of self: 664. M’s “Self” which he rediscovers periodically when he arrives in a new place: III 102. Recovery of one’s own self after sleep: 109–11. Ephemeral personalities of characters in a play make one doubt the reality of the self: 228–29. Contrast between one’s own picture of one’s self and that seen by others: 367–69. Our body “a vase enclosing our spiritual nature”: IV 211–13. Our unfaithfulness to our former selves: 349. “Experience of oneself which is the only true experience”: 434. “We lack the sense of our own visibility”: 609–10. M’s several “selves,” notably the philosopher and “the little barometric mannikin”: V 5–6. “We detest what resembles ourselves”: 136. We do not see our own bodies, which other people see, while the object of our thoughts is invisible to them: 237. Our ignorance of ourselves: 563–64 (cf. 641). The “innumerable and humble ‘selves’ that compose our personality”: 578–79 (cf. 660: “a composite army,” and 713–14). Self-plagiarism: 586–87. “Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself”: 607. “Our ego is composed of the superimposition of our successive states”: 733–34. Other people are “merely showcases for the very perishable collections of one’s own mind”: 751. “Spare selves” that are substituted for a self “that has been too seriously wounded”: 803–5. Death of one’s former self no more distressing than the continuous eclipse of the various incompatible selves that make up one’s personality: 869–70. “Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves”: VI 364 (cf. 276–77; V 205).
SERVANTS. Françoise’s tyranny over other servants: I 173. Servants must be actuated by different motives from ours: 509. Servants observe and misinterpret the behaviour of their employers as human beings do animals: II 374. Lunch below stairs, Françoise holds court: III 11–27. Françoise less of a servant than others: 77. “Monstrous abnormality” of the life led by servants 78. Defects of his servants reveal to M his own shortcomings: 79. M’s pity for servants: IV 239–40. Power of divination in servants: 303. Servants recognise their own kind, as do convicts and animals: 526–27. Servants only make clearer the limitations of their caste the more they imagine they are penetrating ours: VI 365. Clichés in the servants’ hall as in social coteries: 230.
SLEEP. Depersonalisation due to sleep; the sleep of things; disorientation in time and space: I 1–9. Distortion in sleep of the sleeper’s real perceptions: 540–41. Sleep in a train: II 315–16. Sleep after evenings at Rivebelle; mysteries into which we are initiated by deep sleep; a form of intoxication; a potent narcotic; the body measures time in sleep: 544–47. Sleep at Doncières; poetic landscape of sleep; the “secret garden” in which different kinds of sleep grow “like unknown flowers;” “sleeping like a log”: III 105–11; “organic dislocations” produced by sleep after great fatigue take us back to our earlier selves; “a charming fairy-tale”: 115–16. Remains of waking thoughts subsist in sleep; diminutions that characterise sleep reflected symbolically in dreams: 191–92. The act of awakening is one of forgetting: 457. Insomnia helps us to appreciate sleep: IV 69. The world of sleep; an “inward Lethe”: 216. Mme Cottard falls asleep at La Raspelière; Cottard on soporifics: 488–90. Sleep like a second dwelling, a different world in which we lead another life; distortion of time during sleep; sensual pleasure enjoyed in sleep a positive waste: 516–20. Sleep itself the most powerful soporific; Bergson on soporifics; sleep and memory: 520–24. Albertine’s sleep: V 84–91, 142–46, 485–86, 494–95, 521–22. Refreshing quality of heavy sleep; changing rhythms of sleep; varieties of sleep; images of pity in sleep: 153–60. Insomnia and narcotics (Bergotte): 242–44. “That curiously alive and creative sleep of the unconscious”: 456. Sleep and the memory of Albertine: 604, 658–59. After all these centuries we still know very little about sleep: VI 366.
SMELL. Taste and smell alone bear “the vast structure of recollection”: I 63–64.
Evocative smells: Scent of the lilacs of Tansonville: I 190–91, 262; bitter-sweet almond fragrance of hawthorn blossom: 158, 194 (cf. IV 739); musty smell of the little trellised pavilion in the Champs-Elysées recalls Uncle Adolphe’s sanctum at Combray: II 87–88, 91 (cf. I 99–100); smell of a log fire and the paper of one of Bergotte’s books linked in M’s memory with the names of villages round Combray: 326; evocative power, for M, of a smell of leaves: 409–10; scent of twigs which Françoise throws on the fire revives memories of Combray and Doncières: V 24–25; smell of petrol reawakens memories of motoring at Balbec: 554–55.
Isolated smells: Smell of vétiver in an unfamiliar room: I 8; (see also II 334); smell of orris-root in the little closet: 14, 222; smell of varnish on the staircase at Combray: 36; smell of cooking from the Oiseau Flesché: 65–66; country smells concentrated in Aunt Léonie’s rooms: 66–68; “glutinous, insipid, indigestible and fruity” smell of her bedspread: 68; odour of unbleached calico in the draper’s shop: 88; balmy scent of the lime-trees on evening walks: 159; M’s chamber-pot “a vase of aromatic perfume” after eating asparagus: 169; aroma of roast chicken the “proper perfume” of one of Françoise’s virtues: 169; smell of asparagus gives the kitchen-maid asthma: 173; fragrance of Odette’s c
hrysanthemums: 311; fragrance of acacias in the Bois: 593; Odette’s scent, whose “fragrant exhalations” perfume the whole apartment: II 103, 113; lemon fragrance of guelder-roses: 288; Odette’s drawing-room permeated with the scent of flowers: 289; the smell of Albertine’s cheeks: 639, 701; (see also III 497). Coarse, stale, mouldy smell of the barracks at Doncières: III 91–92; “peculiar odour” of the soap in the Grand Hotel, Balbec: IV 222; M compares his desires for different girls to the perfumes of antiquity: 323–24; smell of rhino-gomenol exuded by Mme Verdurin on musical evenings: V 320; smells evoked by a spring morning: 553–54; “cool smell” of a forest: VI 367.