Marcel’s room, overtaken by Genevieve de Brabant and Golo is perhaps one of the most captivating scenes in the book – and we can see it so clearly. Vibrant, stirring, emotionally resonant, gorgeously wrought. No translation could do justice to the French.
Au pas saccadé de son cheval, Golo, plein d’un affreux dessein, sortait de la petite forêt triangulaire qui veloutait d’un vert sombre la pente d’une colline, et s’avançait en tressautant vers le château de la pauvre Geneviève de Brabant.
Riding at a jerky trot, Golo, his mind filled with an infamous design, issued from the little three-cornered forest which dyed dark-green the slope of a convenient hill, and advanced by leaps and bounds towards the castle of poor Geneviève de Brabant.
Le corps de Golo lui-même, d’une essence aussi surnaturelle que celui de sa monture, s’arrangeait de tout obstacle matériel
The body of Golo himself, being of the same supernatural substance as his steed’s, overcame all material obstacles.
It seems pretty darn fantastic that Marcel’s bedroom in Combray is transformed, by way of the Magic Lantern. into an interior as resplendent as a church or a cathedral, as if fashioned from stained glass or the mosaic pieces from the Basilica San Marco.
I also love the fact that Golo performs exactly as the narrator, overcoming all material obstacles and becoming the walls and doorknobs and curtains themselves. Because doesn’t the narrator overtake each character in the same way? Golo is projected onto the walls much the same as the narrator projects himself onto all of the characters.
The parallel is so playfully wrought, so seamlessly integrated into the story line that you don’t really think about it very much. How else to link a bedroom in someone’s house to the glory of a church or cathedral than to fill it with images that resemble stained glass and mosaics. Piece by piece and scene by scene, the stage is set for such a transformation from the domestic to the sublime, a simple bedroom in Combray taking on the majesty of the Basilica de San Marco.
I also love that the story of Genevieve de Brabant is drawn from The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. And there we have it. From Combray to Venice, friends – from a book about saints to a cathedral of a saint of the book. From Marcel to St. Mark. Powerful, exquisite, touching, deft.