Marcel Proust

Patrick Alexander, author of "Marcel Proust's Search For Lost Time" (Vintage Books) has also published "A Dance to Lost Time" comparing Proust to Anthony Powell

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

All month the footman breathlessly anticipates his day-off, planning to spend it in the company of his fiancé - till the Duchess says "No".

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Françoise says the Duchess is mean to her servants and stops her footman from meeting his sweetheart, because she is jealous of his happiness.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Despite Robert’s criticism of his aunt the Duchess, and Françoise’s gossip of her meanness, she still represents all that I love and worship.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Robert briefly visited Paris but had no time to introduce me to his aunt. I have much better cousins for you, he said, younger and prettier.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

With the arrival of Spring, the Duchess is wearing lighter and brighter clothes with low-cut necks. Sometimes she greets me with a faint bow.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Resuming my morning walks I continue to meet the Duchess in the street but pretend to ignore her, thus appearing insolent and ill bred besides

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Grandma’s illness has changed her. I found a red-faced, heavy, vulgar, sick, vacant, dejected and slightly crazed old woman whom I no longer know.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Meantime, I received news from home, via the magical, new-fangled telephone, that Grandma is very ill and I must return to Paris at once. Alas, Robert's girlfriend will have to wait.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

She must be somebody magnificently special and unique to hold such power over Robert. I wonder what she looks like. Can’t wait to meet her!

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Just when Robert was beginning to get over his girlfriend’s long silence, she wrote to say she forgave him. So there he was, ensnared again!

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

I later discovered that Robert’s pro-Dreyfus position was dictated by his mistress, who’s an actress with avant-garde and left-wing, 'woke' friends.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Everyone else in the regiment hates Dreyfus and supports his punishment. If Robert wasn’t so popular, he’d be shot for his pro-Dreyfus stance.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Robert’s support of Dreyfus is very unusual for an aristocrat - especially a soldier. Usually it’s just Jews and Socialists who’d defend him.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Zola has publicly accused the government of a conspiracy to cover-up the framing of Dreyfus. The country’s divided between red and blue states

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

My letters to the newspaper editor never even get published. Émile Zola writes one and makes headlines on the front page. “J’ACCUSE!” he says.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

The Monarchists, the Catholic Church and the military all say Dreyfus is guilty. The Jews and the Socialist say he’s been framed - and I agree.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

The Dreyfus affair is tearing the country apart, into red and blue states, divided by class and religion; with conservatives versus liberals

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Dreyfus is a Jewish officer who’s been charged with treason and sent to Devil’s Island. All of France argues about whether he’s guilty or not.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

Opposed on all other matters, the aristocrats of the Ancién Regime and Napoleon’s ‘touched-up counts’ are united in their hatred of Dreyfus.

[Marcel Proust @ProustTweet]

While Robert’s family titles reach back before the days of Charlemagne, Borodino’s title reaches back no further than a stain on Napoleon’s bed-sheets.