Cigales

Cigales are the cicadas whose chorus recurs in Cécile’s memories of the terrace, where their heat-and-moonlit song accompanies both the languor of summer and a growing unease in her family life. Their sound is first part of an evening’s quiet after she meets Cyril; later, the same setting frames her wish to be comforted as her father and Anne draw closer.

Sound and Setting

After meeting Cyril, Cécile returns home absorbed in thoughts of him. That evening, she lies in a chair on the terrace beneath a sky scattered with stars. In the gravel, thousands of cicadas sing through the night. The contrast between their restless chorus and the still, starry sky gives the scene its distinctive summer atmosphere.

Cécile has been told that the insects make their sound by rubbing their wing-cases together, but she prefers to imagine a guttural, instinctive throat-song, like the sounds cats make in their season. The distinction reveals how she receives the natural world: an explanation is available, yet her preferred image preserves something bodily and mysterious in the noise.

Recurrence and Emotional Context

The cicadas return in a later terrace scene after dinner, when Cécile is distressed by her father’s intimacy with Anne. In the rectangle of light from the dining-room window, she sees Anne’s hand find her father’s. The terrace is again filled with moonlight and cicada sound, but Cécile now wants Cyril to take her in his arms and console her.

The repeated setting makes the chorus more than background. In the earlier scene, Cécile is newly absorbed by Cyril and the night’s languor; in the later one, she feels shut out from her father and longs for reassurance. Her father and Anne face a night of love, while she is left with Bergson. Against this contrast, the cicadas’ continuous song binds two evenings together without resolving the change in Cécile’s feelings.