Quatuor is not a very easy word to say in French. Probably why it caught my attention.
I just loved that word all by itself. – the u and the o a bit of a tongue twister for me, the non-native French speaker. And in my mind, twisting letters around- because the line preceding it… used the word tour. “Ces réflexions avaient pris un tour un peu particulier. OR “These reflections had taken a somewhat particular turn.”
And then my thoughts started taking a turn that was a bit particular. It started with a question, no surprise.
Could Martin and Martine be part of a quartet? But I had no idea how. Or what Moors had to do with it. Or blacksmiths, for that matter.
I did some swift Wikipedia reading about the Moors and the Crusades, about a Moor wielding a hammer to face Charles Martel in the battle of Tours. I knew as well that there was a Persian influence answering to the dialogue taking place between Swann and young Marcel. But I didn’t find anything relevant, at least to serve my purposes. I kind of gave up looking after a point.
About a year or two later, bored I guess, and frankly super frustrated that I was missing something- I just knew I was- for some reason I plugged in the search terms ‘Moors Clocktower ‘ or ‘Moors Giant’ or ‘Moors jacquemart’- I can’t remember exactly what. And up popped this.
I was blown away.
But I felt stupid. I’d been to Venice before, but did not remember much other than our hotel flooding. It was November, and we came down in the morning to get our coffee and the entire entry was filled with water. I’m sure I heard the clocktower, but did I look up? Study it? Remember it? No.
No clue about the most famous clocktower sporting two Moors was located in Venice, on St. Mark’s Square, dating back to 1499. Two giants- one young, one old, shepherds both- strike the hours with hammers. Though not Moors, they came to be referred to as such because, years passing, their bronze skin developed a dark patina.
If you’re new to Proust, you probably haven’t yet read the very last sentence of the very last volume of ISOLT. Here it is:
So, if I were given long enough to accomplish my work, I should not fail, even if the effect were to make them resemble monsters, to describe men as occupying so considerable a place, compared with the restricted place which is reserved for them in space, a place on the contrary prolonged past measure, for simultaneously, like giants plunged into the years, they touch the distant epochs through which they have lived, between which so many days have come to range themselves – in Time.”
Did you get that? Here was a sentence literally referred to giants standing on a small pedestal, between them Time itself, a clock.
Were Martin and Martine one part of a quartet? Two Moors in Cambrai and two Moors in Venice. The quatuor. And I just loved the contrast from one clocktower to the other, and one town to the other- such a clear path from beginning to end. From the domestic village of Combray to the grandest drawing room of Europe, The Moors Tower in Venice and the Moors Tower in Cambrai – from the humble beginnings in his room in Combray to the ending point in the city of Venice.
The wooden figurines of Martin and Martine on the clocktower in Combray couldn’t possibly have presided over the ending of the Recherche, and yet their ‘presence,’ if in fact the rivalry pointed to these giants in Cambrai, would perfectly suit the beginning. And the Moors in Venice – an older and a younger man both in sheepskin tunics resembling skirts and sculpted in bronze- their skin ‘used’ – call to mind a Char-lus -( skin and sun) and a Jupien. (Jupe, skirt), and an author referring to two men (and not a couple) – sharing a spot in history. What really moved me was the image of a young man and an older man sharing the narrow stage- highlighting the passage of time poignantly.
Hey- here’s a link if you want to read the full first and last paragraphs of ISOLT side by side.