In Search of Lost Time (49 page)

Even though in general she did not permit him to meet her in public places, saying that people would talk, sometimes at an evening party to which he and she both had been invited – at Forcheville's, at the painter's, or at a charity ball in one of the ministries – he would find himself there at the same time as she. He saw her but did not dare stay
for fear of irritating her by appearing to spy on the pleasures she was enjoying with other people, pleasures which – as he drove home alone, went to bed as anxious as I myself was to be some years later on the evenings when he would come to dine at the house, at Combray – seemed boundless to him because he had not seen them come to an end. And once or twice on such evenings he experienced the sort of happiness which, if it had not been so violently affected by the recoil from the abrupt cessation of anxiety, one would be tempted to call a tranquil happiness, because it consisted of a return to a peaceful state of mind: he had dropped in on a party at the painter's home and was preparing to go off again; behind him he was leaving Odette transformed into a brilliant stranger, surrounded by men to whom her glances and her gaiety, which were not for him, seemed to speak of some sensuous pleasure that would be enjoyed there or elsewhere (maybe at the ‘Bal des Incohérents'
⁷⁸
where he trembled at the idea that she would go afterwards) and that caused Swann more jealousy than the carnal act itself because he had more difficulty imagining it; he was already on the point of passing through the studio door, when he heard himself being called back with these words (which, by cutting off from the party that end which had terrified him so, made the party seem in retrospect innocent, made Odette's return a thing no longer inconceivable and terrible, but sweet and familiar and abiding next to him, like a bit of his everyday life, in his carriage, and divested Odette herself of her too brilliant and too gay appearance, showed that it was only a disguise which she had put on for a moment, for its own sake, not with a view to mysterious pleasures, and that she was already tired of it), with these words that Odette tossed at him, as he was already on the threshold: ‘Wouldn't you wait five minutes for me? I'm leaving, we'll go back together, you can take me home.'

True, one day Forcheville had asked to be taken back at the same time but, when they had arrived at Odette's door and he had asked permission to come in too, Odette had answered him, pointing to Swann: ‘Ah! That depends on this gentleman here, ask him. Well, all right, come in for a moment if you want, but not for long because I warn you he likes to talk quietly with me, and he doesn't much like having visitors when he comes. Ah! If you knew that creature as well
as I know him! Isn't that so,
my love
,
⁷⁹
I'm the only one who really knows you?'

And Swann was perhaps even more touched to see her addressing him thus, in front of Forcheville, not only these tender words of predilection, but also certain criticisms such as: ‘I'm sure you haven't answered your friends yet about that dinner on Sunday. Don't go if you don't want to, but at least be polite,' or: ‘Now, have you left your essay on Vermeer here so that you can do a little more of it tomorrow? How lazy you are! I'll make you work – you'll see!', which proved that Odette kept up with his social engagements and his literary work, that the two of them really had a life together. And as she said this she gave him a smile in the depths of which he felt she was entirely his.

And so at these moments, while she was making orangeade for them, suddenly, as when a badly regulated reflector first casts around an object, on the wall, large fantastic shadows, which then fold and disappear into it, all the terrible shifting ideas he had formed for himself about Odette would vanish, would rejoin the charming body that stood there in front of him. He had the sudden suspicion that this hour spent at Odette's house, in the lamplight, was perhaps not an artificial hour, invented for his own use (intended to mask that dismaying and delightful thing which he thought about endlessly without being able really to picture it, an hour in Odette's real life, in Odette's life when he himself was not there), with stage-set accessories and cardboard fruit, but was perhaps a real hour in Odette's life, that if he had not been there, she would have set out the same armchair for Forcheville and poured him not some unfamiliar drink, but that very same orangeade, that the world inhabited by Odette was not that other frightful and supernatural world where he spent his time locating her and which perhaps existed only in his imagination, but rather the real world, radiating no special sadness, comprising that table where he was going to be able to write and that drink which he would be permitted to taste, all those objects which he contemplated with as much curiosity and admiration as gratitude, for if by absorbing his dreams they had delivered him from them, they in return had been enriched by them, they showed him the palpable realization of his dreams, and they interested his mind, they assumed substance and
shape before his eyes at the same time that they soothed his heart. Ah! If fate had permitted him to have but a single home with Odette so that in her house he would be in his own, if when he asked the servant what was planned for lunch, it was Odette's menu that he had learned in answer, if when Odette wanted to go out in the morning to walk down the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, his duty as a good husband had obliged him, even if he did not want to go out, to accompany her, carrying her coat when she was too warm, and at night after dinner if she wanted to stay at home informally dressed, if he had been forced to stay there with her, to do what she wanted; then how completely all those trifles in Swann's life which seemed to him so sad, would, on the contrary, because they were at the same time part of Odette's life, have taken on, even the most familiar of them – like that lamp, that orangeade, that armchair which contained so much of his dreams, which materialized so much desire – a sort of superabundant sweetness and mysterious density.

Yet he actually suspected that what he thus longed for was a calm, a peace that would not have been a favourable atmosphere for his love. When Odette ceased to be for him a creature always absent, longed for, imaginary, when the feeling he had for her was no longer the same mysterious disturbance caused in him by the phrase from the sonata, but affection, gratitude, when normal relations were established between them that would put an end to his madness and his gloom, then no doubt the actions of Odette's daily life would appear to him of little interest in themselves – as he had several times already suspected they were, for example on the day when he had read through its envelope the letter addressed to Forcheville. Considering his disease with as much discernment as if he had inoculated himself with it in order to study it, he told himself that when he had recovered his health what Odette might be doing would leave him indifferent. But, from within his morbid state, in truth he feared death itself no more than such a recovery, which would in fact have been the death of all that he was at present.

After these peaceful evenings, Swann's suspicions would be calmed; he would bless Odette and the next day, first thing in the morning, he would send around to her house the most beautiful jewels, because
those kind attentions the night before had excited either his gratitude, or the desire to see them repeated, or a paroxysm of love that needed to expend itself.

But at other times his grief overcame him again, he imagined that Odette was Forcheville's mistress and that when the two of them had seen him, from the depths of the Verdurins' landau, at the Bois, the day before the Chatou party to which he had not been invited, entreat her vainly, with that look of despair which even his coachman had noticed, to go back with him, then return home on his own, alone and defeated, she must have had, as she pointed him out to Forcheville and said to him: ‘Look! How furious he is!' the same expression in her eyes, glittering, malicious, haughty and sly, as on the day when Forcheville had driven Saniette from the Verdurins' house.

Then Swann detested her. ‘But also, I'm too stupid, he would tell himself, I'm paying with my own money for other people's pleasures. All the same, she ought to take care and not pull too hard on her bowstring, because I might very well not give anything more at all. In any case, let's forgo the supplementary favours for the time being! To think that only yesterday, when she said she wanted to attend the season at Bayreuth,
⁸⁰
I was stupid enough to propose renting for the two of us one of the King of Bavaria's pretty castles in the vicinity. And anyway she did not seem all that delighted, she hasn't yet said either yes or no; let's hope she will decide against it. Good Lord! To spend two weeks listening to Wagner with her when she cares as much for it as a fish for an apple – what fun that would be!' And because his hatred, like his love, needed to manifest itself and to act, he took pleasure in pursuing his evil fantasies farther and farther, since, because of the perfidies he imputed to Odette, he detested her still more and could, if – something he tried to picture to himself – they were found to be true, have an occasion for punishing her and for satiating on her his increasing rage. Thus he went so far as to suppose that he was going to receive a letter from her in which she would ask him for money to rent that castle near Bayreuth, but warning him that he could not go there himself, because she had promised Forcheville and the Verdurins that she would invite them. Ah! How he would have liked her to be so bold! What joy he would feel as he refused, as he
drafted the vengeful answer, the terms of which he took satisfaction in choosing, in uttering out loud, as if he had actually received the letter!

Yet, this was in fact what happened the very next day. She wrote that the Verdurins and their friends had expressed a desire to attend these performances of Wagner and that, if he would be so good as to send her the money, she would at last, after having so often been entertained at their home, have the pleasure of inviting them in her turn. About him, she said not a word, it was implied that their presence would exclude his own.

And so that terrible answer, whose every word he had determined the day before without daring to hope that it would ever be used, he could now have the joy of sending off to her. Alas! He was quite aware that, all the same, with the money she had, or that she might easily find, she could rent something at Bayreuth since she wanted to, she who was incapable of telling the difference between Bach and Clapisson.
⁸¹
But still, she would live there more meanly. There would be no way, as there would have been had he sent her a few thousand-franc bills this time, of organizing every evening, in a castle, those exquisite suppers after which she would perhaps have indulged the whim – which it was possible she had never yet had – of falling into Forcheville's arms. And then at least he, Swann, was not the one who would be paying for this detested journey! – Oh, if only he could have prevented it! if only she could have sprained her ankle before she left, if the coachman of the carriage that would take her to the station had agreed, at no matter what price, to drive her to a place where for some time she would remain sequestered – this perfidious woman, her eyes enamelled by a smile of complicity addressed to Forcheville, which Odette had become for Swann in the past forty-eight hours!

But she was never that for very long; after a few days the gleaming, hypocritical gaze would lose some of its lustre and duplicity, the image of a despised Odette saying to Forcheville: ‘How furious he is!' would begin to grow pale, fade away. Then, gradually the face of the other Odette would reappear and rise up, shining softly, the Odette who also offered a smile to Forcheville, but a smile in which there was nothing but affection for Swann, when she said: ‘Don't stay long,
because this gentleman does not much like me to have visitors when he wants to be with me. Oh, if you knew this creature as well as I know him!', the same smile she wore when thanking Swann for some instance of his courtesy, which she prized so highly, for some advice she had asked of him in one of those serious circumstances in which she had confidence only in him.

Then, thinking of this Odette, he would ask himself how he could have written her that outrageous letter of which no doubt until now she had not thought him capable, and which must have brought him down from the high, the unique rank which by his goodness, his honesty, he had won in her esteem. He would now become less dear to her, because it was for those particular qualities, which she did not find in either Forcheville or any other man, that she loved him. It was because of them that Odette so often showed a graciousness towards him that he counted for nothing when he was jealous, because it was not a sign of desire, and even gave proof of affection rather than love, but whose importance he began to feel again in proportion as the spontaneous relaxation of his suspicions, a relaxation often increased by the distraction he found in reading about art or talking to a friend, caused his passion to become less demanding of reciprocities.

Now that, after this oscillation, Odette had naturally returned to the place from which Swann's jealousy had for a time removed her, to the angle from which he found her charming, he pictured her to himself as full of tenderness, with a look of consent, and so pretty thus that he could not help offering her his lips as if she had been there and he had been able to kiss her; and he felt as strong a gratitude towards her for this enchanting, kindly glance as if she had really given it to him, as if it were not merely his imagination that had just portrayed it in order to satisfy his desire.

How he must have hurt her! Of course he could find valid reasons for his resentment against her, but they would not have been enough to make him feel that resentment if he had not loved her so much. Had he not had grievances of equal gravity against other women, for whom he would nevertheless readily have done favours now, feeling no anger towards them because he no longer loved them? If some day he was ever to find himself in the same state of indifference towards Odette,
he would understand that it was his jealousy alone that had made him find something atrocious, unpardonable, in this desire of hers, fundamentally so natural, arising from a slight childishness and also a certain delicacy of soul, to be able in her turn, since an occasion presented itself, to repay some of the civilities of the Verdurins, play mistress of the house.