DiotimosReading Desk

Art

Embroidering

broder

Broder is literal needlework here, but the work also performs a social intention.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Meaning

Lemma.

Broder is literal needlework here, but the work also performs a social intention. Élodie varies her manner according to the person watching: languidly, capriciously or carefully. For Gamelin she chooses care in order to sustain serious feeling. The narrator does not make her affection false by showing that it has technique. Later her needle stops with her thoughts, and she offers to undo the old work like Penelope so that he can supply a new design. The ordinary verb makes intellectual, manual and erotic activity continuous.

Places to read

  1. Chapter III, paragraph 6FrenchElle se mit à broder avec soin pour Évariste: careful work directed to a particular spectator. The narrator specifies the serious feeling she intends to encourage.
  2. Chapter III, paragraph 21Frenchses méditations et son aiguille: thought and manual work stopped together. Élodie now asks for Gamelin’s replacement design.