Reddish-purple

Meaning

Lemma.

Zinzolin is the colour of the older man’s coat in the Luxembourg garden, rendered “reddish-purple” in the edition. Together with the gold-braided tricorne and silver-embroidered waistcoat it belongs to an old bourgeois style. The narrator’s first impression of respectability is followed by the stranger’s retreat on discovering Julie is a woman; the colour is costume description, not an independent sign of moral character.