Swann's Way
was somewhat inclined to eccentricity, but he was fundamentally good and
kind; M. des Laumes was a trifle dry, but wholesome and straight. As for
M. d'Orsan, Swann had never met anyone who, even in the most depressing
circumstances, would come to him with a more heartfelt utterance, would
act more properly or with more discretion. So much so that he was unable
to understand the rather indelicate part commonly attributed to M.
d'Orsan in his relations with a certain wealthy woman, and that whenever
he thought of him he was obliged to set that evil reputation on one
side, as irreconcilable with so many unmistakable proofs of his genuine
sincerity and refinement. For a moment Swann felt that his mind was
becoming clouded, and he thought of something else so as to recover
a little light; until he had the courage to return to those other
reflections. But then, after not having been able to suspect anyone, he
was forced to suspect everyone that he knew. After all, M. de Charlus
might be most fond of him, might be most good-natured; but he was a
neuropath; to-morrow, perhaps, he would burst into tears on hearing that
Swann was ill; and to-day, from jealousy, or in anger, or carried away
by some sudden idea, he might have wished to do him a deliberate injury.
Really, that kind of man was the worst of all. The Prince des Laumes
was, certainly, far less devoted to Swann than was M. de Charlus. But
for that very reason he had not the same susceptibility with regard to
him; and besides, his was a nature which, though, no doubt, it was cold,
was as incapable of a base as of a magnanimous action. Swann regretted
that he had formed no attachments in his life except to such people.
Then he reflected that what prevents men from doing harm to their
neighbours is fellow-feeling, that he could not, in the last resort,
answer for any but men whose natures were analogous to his own, as was,
so far as the heart went, that of M. de Charlus. The mere thought of
causing Swann so much distress would have been revolting to him. But
with a man who was insensible, of another order of humanity, as was the
Prince des Laumes, how was one to foresee the actions to which he might
be led by the promptings of a different nature? To have a good heart was
everything, and M. de Charlus had one. But M. d'Orsan was not lacking
in that either, and his relations with Swann--cordial, but scarcely
intimate, arising from the pleasure which, as they held the same views
about everything, they found in talking together--were more quiescent
than the enthusiastic affection of M. de Charlus, who was apt to be
led into passionate activity, good or evil. If there was anyone by
whom Swann felt that he had always been understood, and (with delicacy)
loved, it was M. d'Orsan. Yes, but the life he led; it could hardly be
called honourable. Swann regretted that he had never taken any notice
of those rumours, that he himself had admitted, jestingly, that he had
never felt so keen a sense of sympathy, or of respect, as when he was
in thoroughly 'detrimental' society. "It is not for nothing," he now
assured himself, "that when people pass judgment upon their neighbour,
their finding is based upon his actions. It is those alone that are
significant, and not at all what we say or what we think. Charlus and
des Laumes may have this or that fault, but they are men of honour.
Orsan, perhaps, has not the same faults, but he is not a man of honour.
He may have acted dishonourably once again." Then he suspected Rémi,
who, it was true, could only have inspired the letter, but he now felt
himself, for a moment, to be on the right track. To begin with, Loredan
had his own reasons for wishing harm to Odette. And then, how were we
not to suppose that our servants, living in a situation inferior to our
own, adding to our fortunes and to our frailties imaginary riches and
vices for which they at once envied and despised us, should not find
themselves led by fate to act in a manner abhorrent to people of our own
class? He also suspected my grandfather. On every occasion when Swann
had asked him to do him any service, had he not invariably declined?
Besides, with his ideas of middle-class respectability, he might have
thought that he was acting for Swann's good. He suspected, in turn,
Bergotte, the painter, the Verdurins; paused for a moment to admire
once again the wisdom of people in society, who refused to mix in the
artistic circles in which such things were possible, were, perhaps, even
openly avowed, as excellent jokes; but then he recalled the marks of
honesty that were to be observed in those Bohemians, and contrasted them
with the life of expedients, often bordering on fraudulence, to which
the want of money, the craving for luxury, the corrupting influence of
their pleasures often drove members of the aristocracy. In a word, this
anonymous letter proved that he himself knew a human being capable of
the most infamous conduct, but he could see no reason why that infamy
should lurk in the depths--which no strange eye might explore--of
the warm heart rather than the cold, the artist's rather than the
business-man's, the noble's rather than the flunkey's. What criterion
ought one to adopt, in order to judge one's fellows? After all, there
was not a single one of the people whom he knew who might not, in
certain circumstances, prove capable of a shameful action. Must he then
cease to see them all? His mind grew clouded; he passed his hands two
or three times across his brow, wiped his glasses with his handkerchief,
and remembering that, after all, men who were as good as himself
frequented the society of M. de Charlus, the Prince des Laumes and
the rest, he persuaded himself that this meant, if not that they were
incapable of shameful actions, at least that it was a necessity in human
life, to which everyone must submit, to frequent the society of people
who were, perhaps, not incapable of such actions. And he continued to
shake hands with all the friends whom he had suspected, with the purely
formal reservation that each one of them had, possibly, been seeking to
drive him to despair. As for the actual contents of the letter, they
did not disturb him; for in not one of the charges which it formulated
against Odette could he see the least vestige of fact. Like many other
men, Swann had a naturally lazy mind, and was slow in invention. He knew
quite well as a general truth, that human life is full of contrasts, but
in the case of any one human being he imagined all that part of his or
her life with which he was not familiar as being identical with the
part with which he was. He imagined what was kept secret from him in the
light of what was revealed. At such times as he spent with Odette,
if their conversation turned upon an indelicate act committed, or
an indelicate sentiment expressed by some third person, she would
ruthlessly condemn the culprit by virtue of the same moral principles
which Swann had always heard expressed by his own parents, and to which
he himself had remained loyal; and then, she would arrange her flowers,
would sip her tea, would shew an interest in his work. So Swann extended
those habits to fill the rest of her life, he reconstructed those
actions when he wished to form a picture of the moments in which he and
she were apart. If anyone had portrayed her to him as she was, or rather
as she had been for so long with himself, but had substituted some
other man, he would have been distressed, for such a portrait would have
struck him as lifelike. But to suppose that she went to bad houses,
that she abandoned herself to orgies with other women, that she led
the crapulous existence of the most abject, the most contemptible of
mortals--would be an insane wandering of the mind, for the realisation
of which, thank heaven, the chrysanthemums that he could imagine, the
daily cups of tea, the virtuous indignation left neither time nor
place. Only, now and again, he gave Odette to understand that people
maliciously kept him informed of everything that she did; and making
opportune use of some detail--insignificant but true--which he had
accidentally learned, as though it were the sole fragment which he would
allow, in spite of himself, to pass his lips, out of the numberless
other fragments of that complete reconstruction of her daily life which
he carried secretly in his mind, he led her to suppose that he was
perfectly informed upon matters, which, in reality, he neither knew nor
suspected, for if he often adjured Odette never to swerve from or make
alteration of the truth, that was only, whether he realised it or no, in
order that Odette should tell him everything that she did. No doubt, as
he used to assure Odette, he loved sincerity, but only as he might
love a pander who could keep him in touch with the daily life of his
mistress. Moreover, his love of sincerity, not being disinterested, had
not improved his character. The truth which he cherished was that which
Odette would tell him; but he himself, in order to extract that truth
from her, was not afraid to have recourse to falsehood, that very
falsehood which he never ceased to depict to Odette as leading every
human creature down to utter degradation. In a word, he lied as much
as did Odette, because, while more unhappy than she, he was no less
egotistical. And she, when she heard him repeating thus to her the
things that she had done, would stare at him with a look of distrust
and, at all hazards, of indignation, so as not to appear to be
humiliated, and to be blushing for her actions. One day, after the
longest period of calm through which he had yet been able to exist
without being overtaken by an attack of jealousy, he had accepted an
invitation to spend the evening at the theatre with the Princesse des
Laumes. Having opened his newspaper to find out what was being
played, the sight of the title--_Les Filles de Marbre_, by Théodore
Barrière,--struck him so cruel a blow that he recoiled instinctively
from it and turned his head away. Illuminated, as though by a row of
footlights, in the new surroundings in which it now appeared, that word
'marble,' which he had lost the power to distinguish, so often had it
passed, in print, beneath his eyes, had suddenly become visible once
again, and had at once brought back to his mind the story which Odette
had told him, long ago, of a visit which she had paid to the Salon at
the Palais d'Industrie with Mme. Verdurin, who had said to her, "Take
care, now! I know how to melt you, all right. You're not made of
marble." Odette had assured him that it was only a joke, and he had
not attached any importance to it at the time. But he had had more
confidence in her then than he had now. And the anonymous letter
referred explicitly to relations of that sort. Without daring to lift
his eyes to the newspaper, he opened it, turned the page so as not to
see again the words, _Filles de Marbre_, and began to read mechanically
the news from the provinces. There had been a storm in the Channel,
and damage was reported from Dieppe, Cabourg, Beuzeval.... Suddenly he
recoiled again in horror.
The name of Beuzeval had suggested to him that of another place in the
same district, Beuzeville, which carried also, bound to it by a hyphen,
a second name, to wit Bréauté, which he had often seen on maps, but
without ever previously remarking that it was the same name as that
borne by his friend M. de Bréauté, whom the anonymous letter accused of
having been Odette's lover. After all, when it came to M. de Bréauté,
there was nothing improbable in the charge; but so far as Mme. Verdurin
was concerned, it was a sheer impossibility. From the fact that Odette
did occasionally tell a lie, it was not fair to conclude that she never,
by any chance, told the truth, and in these bantering conversations