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Proust and the Water Company: A Nineteenth-Century Bond

Abstract:Proust's À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs contains a description of a decorated share certificate issued by a Parisian water utility; I establish that Proust remembered or referred to an actual action from the Compaignie Générale des Eaux, and I reproduce a contemporary bond certificate with the same decorated border. This artifact is significant because the juxtaposition of its border—adorned with flowers, beautiful girls, and madeleine-shaped shells—with its function as a financial instrument illuminates larger themes in the Recherche: the homologies between social and financial markets and between capital accumulation and the composition of a novel.