Cineraria blue

"There are tints in the clouds this evening, violets and blues, which are very beautiful, are they not, my friend?" he said to my father, "a blue, especially, more floral than aerial, a cineraria blue, which it is surprising to see in the sky."


M. Legrandin is talking about the sky again, and in so doing blends two of Proust's obsessions: the sky, and flowers. In "Combray" in particular he turns his eyes often to the sky, and clouds, and the rays of the sun, noticing and describing in detail; and throughout Swann's Way he is almost mystically attracted to flowers. How nice of his character to here, then, to describing the color of the sky as "cineraria blue."