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Babal: see Bréauté-Consalvi
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Balleroy, Mme: great-aunt of a niece of the Duchesse de Guermantes
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Basin [bah´-sanh]: see Guermantes, Basin, Duc de
-
Barrister (see Blandais), president of the Cherbourg bar,
staying at the Grand Hotel at Balbec
-
Bathilde: grandmother of Narrator
-
Baveno, Marquise de: comments on the Duchesse de Guermantes'
"Teaser Augustus" pun
-
Beauserfeuil, General de:
overhears Swann's Jewish
witticism at the Guermantes' reception (see Monserfeuil, both names apply
interchangeably to the same general)
-
Beausergent, Marquis de: Mme d'Argencourt's
brother; seated in Mme de
Cambremer's box at the Opéra; at the
matinée Guermantes an aged colonel
-
Beautrellis, General de: an anti-Dreyfusard who
attends the Guermantes' dinner party
-
Bellery, Mme de: aunt of the Duchesse de Guermantes in The Prisoner
-
Bellœuvre, Gilbert de: young golfer at Balbec
-
Bergotte
[bair-goht´]: among the novel's representative artists, a distinguished writer greatly admired by the
Narrator, who "vanishes" when the Narrator meets him for the first time: "what had vanished . . . was not only the languorous old man, of whom now no vestige remained, but also the beauty of an immense work which I had contrived to enshrine in the frail and hollowed organism that I had constructed, like a temple, expressely for it, but for which no room was to be be found in the squat figure, packed tight with blood-vessels, bones, glands, sinews, of the little man with the snub nose and black beard who stood before me"
-
Berma: among the novel's representative artists, a famous actress; admired by Bergotte; the Narrator is initially disappointed by her performance
of scenes from Phèdre because it did not match his expectations
-
Berma's daughter: acts cruelly and selfishly towards her mother
-
Berma's son-in-law: acts with his wife in disrepect of his mother-in-law
-
Bernard, Nissim: great-uncle of Bloch; has relations with a young
waiter at the Grand Hotel, and with the
"tomato-headed" waiter at the "Cherry
Orchard"
-
Berthe: friend of Albertine
-
Bibi: friend of the Prince de Foix who gets engaged
to Daisy d'Ambresac
-
Biche ("Master"): the "little
clan's" nickname for Elstir
-
Blandais (see Barrister): notary from Le Mans on holiday at
Balbec
-
Blatin, Mme: reads the Journal des
Débats on the Champs-Elysées; she annoys
the Narrator's mother by
telling her he is "too beautiful for a boy"; Odette tells of how she offended
a Singhalese visiting the Zoo, who replied to her,
"Me nigger, you old cow"
-
Bloch, Albert:
schoolfriend of the Narrator; speaks in an affected
neo-Homeric jargon; later changes his name to Jacques du
Rozier
-
Bloch, Saloman: father of the above; tells
preposterous stories; claims to know people "from
having seen them at a distance in the theatre or in the
street"
-
Bloch's cousin: see Lévy Esther
-
Bloch's sisters, one
of whom causes a scandal at the Grand Hotel by her
behavior with an ex-actress
-
Bontemps, M.: Albertine's uncle, Chief Secretary
to the Minister of Public Works
-
Bontemps, Mme: Albertine's aunt
-
Borange: grocer, stationer and bookseller at
Combray
-
Borodino, Prince de:
calvary caption at Doncières; changes his mind
about not giving Saint-Loup
leave to meet Rachel in Bruges because of remarks by his
hair-dresser
-
Bouillon, Cyrus, Comte de: father of Mme de Villeparisis (confusingly, in
The Guermantes Way her father is called Florimond
de Guise)
-
Bouillon, Comtesse de: mother of Mme de Villeparisis
-
Boullion, Duc de: the uncle of the Duchesse de Guermantes and the brother
of Mme de Villeparisis; timid
and humble; identified as the only genuine surviving
member of the princely La Tour d'Auvergne family;
-
Boulbon, Doctor du: resembles a Tintoretto
portrait; attends the grandmother's bedside; provokes
Cottard's jealousy at
Balbec.
-
Bourbon, Princesse de: wife of Charlus
-
Bréaté-Consalvi, Marquis (or
Comte) Hannibal de ("Babal"): to Swann, his monocle "bore, glued
to its other side, like a specimen prepared on the slide
of a microscope, an infitesimal gaze that swarmed with
affability"; reputed to love OdetteOdette; introduces the Narrator
to the Prince de Guermantes
-
Bréquiny, Comte de: father of the ladies
with the walking sticks, Mme de
Plassac and Mme de
Tresmes
-
Breteuil, Quasimodo de: friend of Swann and the Duchesse de Guermantes
-
Bretonnerie, Mme de la: lady of Combray with whom
Eulalie had been in service
-
Brichot
[bree-show´]: Professeur at the Sorbonne; member of
the "little clan", dilates on etymological
origins of place-names for the benefit of the Narrator
-
Brissac, Mme de: at the Guermantes' dinner
states that "a distressing spectacle from which we
should turn away in real life, that's what attracts
Victor Hugo"
-
Burnier: one of Charlus' footmen
-
Butcher's Assistant: described as reminiscent
of a handsome angel on the Day of Judgment
-
Butcher's Boy: protégé of Françoise
-
Butler of the Narrator's family: see Victor
-
Butler of the Guermantes: see Antoine
-
Butler of the Swanns
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