From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) Suzanne's secret
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:14:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #8155535 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

alga,

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

     She spoke to me of myself, my family, my social background.  She
said: "Oh, I know your parents know some very nice people.  You're a
friend of Robert Forestier and Suzanne Delage."  For a moment these
names conveyed absolutely nothing to me.  But suddenly I remembered
that I had indeed played as a child in the Champs-Elysees with Robert
Forestier, whom I had never seen since.  As for Suzanne Delage, she
was the great-niece of Mme Blandais, and I had once been due to go to
a dancing lesson, and even to take a small part in a play at her
parents' house.  But the fear of getting a fit of giggles and a
nose-bleed had at the last moment prevented me, so that I had never
set eyes on her. I had at the most a vague idea that I had once heard
that the Swanns' feather-hatted governess had at one time been with
the Delages, but perhaps it was only a sister of this governess, or a
friend.  I protested to Albertine that Robert Forestier and Suzanne
Delage occupied a very small place in my life.  "That may be; but
your mothers are friends, I can place you by that.  I often pass
Suzanne Delage in the Avenue de Messine.  I admire her style."  Our
mothers were acquainted only in the imagination of Mme Bontemps,
who having heard that I had at one time played with Robert Forestier,
to whom, it appeared, I used to recite poetry, had concluded from
that that we were bound by family ties.  She could never, I gathered,
hear my mother's name mentioned without observing: "Oh yes, she
belongs to the Delage-Forestier set," giving my parents a good mark
which they had done nothing to deserve.








[Oh, now who could =that= be? <g>]





[Proust, THE GUERMANTES WAY, Chapter Two, p. 381-382]

=mantis=

P.S.  There is, of course, more to this story.  For example, what was
the book the narrator was reading that set him off on his mental
journeying?  It =might= be Proust, it certainly =reads= like Proust,
but if it is Proust it didn't jump out at me, even after I'd found our
girl SD in Proust (and that =is= her only Proustian appearance).
Otherwise the story seems like another PEACE satellite tale (I don't
believe the town is ever named, but the tenor is the same).

=m=

P.S.S.  What if I'm making all this up? <g>

=m=