Maya Lavault, associate professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre and a member of the Proust ITEM/CNRS team…
Translated from French.
Maya Lavault, an associate professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre and a member of the Proust ITEM/CNRS team, recalls in the foreword to this new @livredepoche edition 📙 the biographical details that inspired the plot of “The Prisoner”:
🖋️ “In early 1913, Agostinelli applied to Proust for a job as a chauffeur, but Proust was already employing Odilon Albaret, the husband of his maid Céleste, who had worked for the same taxi company 🚕 as Agostinelli in Cabourg. The writer offered him a job as a secretary to type up the second volume of “In Search of Lost Time” — which was then “The Guermantes Way” — and put him up in the family flat on Boulevard Haussmann, along with his partner Anna Square. On 26 July 1913, Proust set off for Cabourg ⛱️ with Agostinelli; but, ten days later, he suddenly decided to return to Paris with the chauffeur, without his luggage, following an excursion to Houlgate. Back in the Paris flat, Proust’s anguish and jealousy ❤️🔥 towards his secretary flared up once more. To please the young man and keep him in Paris, he paid for him to take flying lessons. But, in early December, in another dramatic turn of events, Agostinelli left Proust’s flat without warning, taking Anna with him to stay with his family in Nice. After much negotiation, the writer managed to persuade him to return to Paris; the young man moved back into the flat on Boulevard Haussmann from January to April 1914, before leaving again in May for the Côte d’Azur 🌅. Enrolled at the Antibes flying school under the name Marcel Swan, he died in a plane crash at sea on 30 May 1914, leaving Proust in a state of deep grief 💔.
“Albertine’s novel unfolds from 1914 onwards, as a consequence of Proust’s bereavement (…)”
Did you know the story of Alfred Agostinelli, and his significance in the creation of the “Albertine cycle”? 🗳️
#LaPrisonnière #AlbertineSimonet #MarcelProust #proustagram #Albertine #ITEM #ÀlaRechercheduTempsperdu #Balbec #RTP
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