It is believed that the title of VN’s novel Korol’, dama, valet (“King, Queen, Knave,” 1928) suggests a game of cards and refers back to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its “characters without thickness.” But nobody seems to have noticed that in Les regrets, rêveries couleur du temps (“Regrets, Reveries the Color of Time”), the penultimate story in Les Plaisirs et les Jours (“Pleasures and Days,” 1896), Marcel Proust speaks of novels and playing cards and mentions dames, rois ou valets (queens, kings or knaves