Swann's Way
with Mme. Verdurin which she herself had repeated to Swann, he could
recognize those meaningless and dangerous pleasantries which, in their
inexperience of life and ignorance of vice, women often utter (thereby
certifying their own innocence), who--as, for instance, Odette,--would
be the last people in the world to feel any undue affection for one
another. Whereas, on the other hand, the indignation with which she
had scattered the suspicions which she had unintentionally brought into
being, for a moment, in his mind by her story, fitted in with everything
that he knew of the tastes, the temperament of his mistress. But at
that moment, by an inspiration of jealousy, analogous to the inspiration
which reveals to a poet or a philosopher, who has nothing, so far, but
an odd pair of rhymes or a detached observation, the idea or the natural
law which will give power, mastery to his work, Swann recalled for the
first time a remark which Odette had made to him, at least two years
before: "Oh, Mme. Verdurin, she won't hear of anything just now but me.
I'm a 'love,' if you please, and she kisses me, and wants me to go with
her everywhere, and call her by her Christian name." So far from seeing
in these expressions any connection with the absurd insinuations,
intended to create an atmosphere of vice, which Odette had since
repeated to him, he had welcomed them as a proof of Mme. Verdurin's
warm-hearted and generous friendship. But now this old memory of her
affection for Odette had coalesced suddenly with his more recent memory
of her unseemly conversation. He could no longer separate them in his
mind, and he saw them blended in reality, the affection imparting a
certain seriousness and importance to the pleasantries which, in return,
spoiled the affection of its innocence. He went to see Odette. He sat
down, keeping at a distance from her. He did not dare to embrace her,
not knowing whether in her, in himself, it would be affection or anger
that a kiss would provoke. He sat there silent, watching their love
expire. Suddenly he made up his mind.
"Odette, my darling," he began, "I know, I am being simply odious, but I
must ask you a few questions. You remember what I once thought about you
and Mme. Verdurin? Tell me, was it true? Have you, with her or anyone
else, ever?"
She shook her head, pursing her lips together; a sign which people
commonly employ to signify that they are not going, because it would
bore them to go, when some one has asked, "Are you coming to watch the
procession go by?", or "Will you be at the review?". But this shake of
the head, which is thus commonly used to decline participation in
an event that has yet to come, imparts for that reason an element of
uncertainty to the denial of participation in an event that is past.
Furthermore, it suggests reasons of personal convenience, rather than
any definite repudiation, any moral impossibility. When he saw Odette
thus make him a sign that the insinuation was false, he realised that it
was quite possibly true.
"I have told you, I never did; you know quite well," she added, seeming
angry and uncomfortable.
"Yes, I know all that; but are you quite sure? Don't say to me, 'You
know quite well'; say, 'I have never done anything of that sort with any
woman.'"
She repeated his words like a lesson learned by rote, and as though she
hoped, thereby, to be rid of him: "I have never done anything of that
sort with any woman."
"Can you swear it to me on your Laghetto medal?"
Swann knew that Odette would never perjure herself on that.
"Oh, you do make me so miserable," she cried, with a jerk of her body
as though to shake herself free of the constraint of his question. "Have
you nearly done? What is the matter with you to-day? You seem to have
made up your mind that I am to be forced to hate you, to curse you!
Look, I was anxious to be friends with you again, for us to have a nice
time together, like the old days; and this is all the thanks I get!"
However, he would not let her go, but sat there like a surgeon who waits
for a spasm to subside that has interrupted his operation but need not
make him abandon it.
"You are quite wrong in supposing that I bear you the least ill-will in
the world, Odette," he began with a persuasive and deceitful gentleness.
"I never speak to you except of what I already know, and I always know a
great deal more than I say. But you alone can mollify by your confession
what makes me hate you so long as it has been reported to me only by
other people. My anger with you is never due to your actions--I can
and do forgive you everything because I love you--but to your
untruthfulness, the ridiculous untruthfulness which makes you persist in
denying things which I know to be true. How can you expect that I shall
continue to love you, when I see you maintain, when I hear you swear to
me a thing which I know to be false? Odette, do not prolong this moment
which is torturing us both. If you are willing to end it at once, you
shall be free of it for ever. Tell me, upon your medal, yes or no,
whether you have ever done those things."
"How on earth can I tell?" she was furious. "Perhaps I have, ever so
long ago, when I didn't know what I was doing, perhaps two or three
times."
Swann had prepared himself for all possibilities. Reality must,
therefore, be something which bears no relation to possibilities,
any more than the stab of a knife in one's body bears to the gradual
movement of the clouds overhead, since those words "two or three times"
carved, as it were, a cross upon the living tissues of his heart. A
strange thing, indeed, that those words, "two or three times," nothing
more than a few words, words uttered in the air, at a distance, could so
lacerate a man's heart, as if they had actually pierced it, could sicken
a man, like a poison that he had drunk. Instinctively Swann thought of
the remark that he had heard at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's: "I have never
seen anything to beat it since the table-turning." The agony that he now
suffered in no way resembled what he had supposed. Not only because, in
the hours when he most entirely mistrusted her, he had rarely imagined
such a culmination of evil, but because, even when he did imagine that
offence, it remained vague, uncertain, was not clothed in the particular
horror which had escaped with the words "perhaps two or three times,"
was not armed with that specific cruelty, as different from anything
that he had known as a new malady by which one is attacked for the first
time. And yet this Odette, from whom all this evil sprang, was no less
dear to him, was, on the contrary, more precious, as if, in proportion
as his sufferings increased, there increased at the same time the price
of the sedative, of the antidote which this woman alone possessed. He
wished to pay her more attention, as one attends to a disease which
one discovers, suddenly, to have grown more serious. He wished that
the horrible thing which, she had told him, she had done "two or three
times" might be prevented from occurring again. To ensure that, he must
watch over Odette. People often say that, by pointing out to a man the
faults of his mistress, you succeed only in strengthening his attachment
to her, because he does not believe you; yet how much more so if he
does! But, Swann asked himself, how could he manage to protect her? He
might perhaps be able to preserve her from the contamination of any
one woman, but there were hundreds of other women; and he realised how
insane had been his ambition when he had begun (on the evening when
he had failed to find Odette at the Verdurins') to desire the
possession--as if that were ever possible--of another person. Happily
for Swann, beneath the mass of suffering which had invaded his soul like
a conquering horde of barbarians, there lay a natural foundation, older,
more placid, and silently laborious, like the cells of an injured organ
which at once set to work to repair the damaged tissues, or the muscles
of a paralysed limb which tend to recover their former movements. These
older, these autochthonous in-dwellers in his soul absorbed all Swann's
strength, for a while, in that obscure task of reparation which gives
one an illusory sense of repose during convalescence, or after an
operation. This time it was not so much--as it ordinarily was--in
Swann's brain that the slackening of tension due to exhaustion took
effect, it was rather in his heart. But all the things in life that have
once existed tend to recur, and, like a dying animal that is once more
stirred by the throes of a convulsion which was, apparently, ended, upon
Swann's heart, spared for a moment only, the same agony returned of its
own accord to trace the same cross again. He remembered those moonlit
evenings, when, leaning back in the victoria that was taking him to
the Rue La Pérouse, he would cultivate with voluptuous enjoyment the
emotions of a man in love, ignorant of the poisoned fruit that such
emotions must inevitably bear. But all those thoughts lasted for no more
than a second, the time that it took him to raise his hand to his heart,
to draw breath again and to contrive to smile, so as to dissemble
his torment. Already he had begun to put further questions. For his
jealousy, which had taken an amount of trouble, such as no enemy would
have incurred, to strike him this mortal blow, to make him forcibly
acquainted with the most cruel pain that he had ever known, his jealousy
was not satisfied that he had yet suffered enough, and sought to expose
his bosom to an even deeper wound. Like an evil deity, his jealousy was
inspiring Swann, was thrusting him on towards destruction. It was not
his fault, but Odette's alone, if at first his punishment was not more
severe.
"My darling," he began again, "it's all over now; was it with anyone I
know?"
"No, I swear it wasn't; besides, I think I exaggerated, I never really
went as far as that."
He smiled, and resumed with: "Just as you like. It doesn't really
matter, but it's unfortunate that you can't give me any name. If I were
able to form an idea of the person that would prevent my ever thinking
of her again. I say it for your own sake, because then I shouldn't
bother you any more about it. It's so soothing to be able to form a
clear picture of things in one's mind. What is really terrible is what
one cannot imagine. But you've been so sweet to me; I don't want to tire
you. I do thank you, with all my heart, for all the good that you have
done me. I've quite finished now. Only one word more: how many times?"
"Oh, Charles! can't you see, you're killing me? It's all ever so long
ago. I've never given it a thought. Anyone would say that you were
positively trying to put those ideas into my head again. And then you'd
be a lot better off!" she concluded, with unconscious stupidity but with
intentional malice.
"I only wished to know whether it had been since I knew you. It's only
natural. Did it happen here, ever? You can't give me any particular
evening, so that I can remind myself what I was doing at the time? You
understand, surely, that it's not possible that you don't remember with
whom, Odette, my love."
"But I don't know; really, I don't. I think it was in the Bois, one
evening when you came to meet us on the Island. You had been dining with
the Princesse des Laumes," she added, happy to be able to furnish him
with an exact detail, which testified to her veracity. "At the next
table there was a woman whom I hadn't seen for ever so long. She said to
me, 'Come along round behind the rock, there, and look at the moonlight
on the water!' At first I just yawned, and said, 'No, I'm too tired,
and I'm quite happy where I am, thank you.' She swore there'd never been