A
LITTLE
PRESENT
IN THE
CAB

Proust used rides in the "Grand Hotel's" elevator as comic interludes which comment on the action of the novel surrounding the particular point in Time of the elevator trip. These elevator rides have all the imagined qualities of a return trip with Charon across the styx

--- Phil Ehrens

"You know, Sir, she's a fine lady, my sister is. She plays the piano, She talks Spanish. And you would never take her for the sister of the humble employee who brings you up in the lift, she denies herself nothing; Madame has a maid to herself, I shouldn't be surprised if one day she keeps her carriage. She is very pretty, if you could see her, a little too high and mighty, but, good lord, you can understand that. She's full of fun. She never leaves a hotel without doing something first in a wardrobe or drawer, just to leave a little keepsake with the chambermaid who will have to wipe it up. Sometimes she does it in a cab, and after she's paid her fare, she'll hide behind a tree, and she doesn't half laugh when the cabby finds he's got to clean his cab after her.... as my sister says, there will always have to be the poor so that now that I'm rich I can shit on them. You'll pardon the expression. Goodnight, Sir."