The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Complete and Unabridged : 6-Book Bundle (58 page)

From that evening onwards, Swann understood that the feeling which Odette had once had for him would never revive, that his hopes of happiness would not be realised now. And on the days on which she happened to be once more kind and affectionate towards him, had shown him some thoughtful attention, he recorded these deceptive signs of a change of feeling on her part with the fond and sceptical solicitude, the desperate joy of people who, nursing a friend in the last days of an incurable illness, relate as facts of infinitely precious insignificance: “Yesterday he went through his accounts himself, and actually corrected a mistake we had made in adding them up; he ate an egg today and seemed quite to enjoy it, and if he digests it properly we shall try him with a cutlet tomorrow”—although they themselves know that these things are meaningless on the eve of an inevitable death. No doubt Swann was assured that if he had now been living at a distance from Odette he would gradually have lost interest in her, so that he would have been glad to learn that she was leaving Paris for ever; he would have had the heart to remain there; but he hadn’t the heart to go.

He had often thought of going. Now that he was once again at work upon his essay on Vermeer, he needed to return, for a few days at least, to The Hague, to Dresden, to Brunswick. He was convinced that a picture of “Diana and her Companions” which had been acquired by the Mauritshuis at the Goldschmidt sale as a Nicholas Maes was in reality a Vermeer. And he would have liked to be able to examine the picture on the spot, in order to buttress his conviction. But to leave Paris while Odette was there, and even when she was not there—for in strange
places where our sensations have not been numbed by habit, we revive, we resharpen an old pain—was for him so cruel a project that he felt capable of entertaining it incessantly in his mind only because he knew he was determined never to put it into effect. But it sometimes happened that, while he was asleep, the intention to travel would reawaken in him (without his remembering that it was out of the question) and would actually take place. One night he dreamed that he was going away for a year; leaning from the window of the train towards a young man on the platform who wept as he bade him farewell, he was trying to persuade this young man to come away also. The train began to move, he awoke in alarm, and remembered that he was not going away, that he would see Odette that evening, and the next day and almost every day. And then, being still deeply affected by his dream, he thanked heaven for those special circumstances which made him independent, thanks to which he could remain close to Odette, and could even succeed in getting her to allow him to see her sometimes; and, recapitulating all his advantages: his social position—his wealth, from which she stood too often in need of assistance not to shrink from the prospect of a definite rupture (having even, so people said, an ulterior plan of getting him to marry her)—his friendship with M. de Charlus, which, it was true, had never won him any very great favour from Odette, but which gave him the consolatory feeling that she was always hearing complimentary things said about him by this friend in common for whom she had so great an esteem—and even his intelligence, which was exclusively occupied in devising each day a fresh scheme which would make his presence, if not agreeable, at any rate
necessary to Odette—remembering all this, he thought of what might have become of him if these advantages had been lacking; it struck him that if, like so many other men, he had been poor, humble, deprived, forced to accept any work that might be offered to him, or tied down by parents or by a wife, he might have been obliged to part from Odette, that that dream, the terror of which was still so recent, might well have been true; and he said to himself: “People don’t know when they’re happy. One is never as unhappy as one thinks.” But he reflected that this existence had already lasted for several years, that all he could now hope for was that it would last for ever, that he would sacrifice his work, his pleasures, his friends, in fact the whole of his life to the daily expectation of a meeting which, if it occurred, could bring him no happiness; and he asked himself whether he was not mistaken, whether the circumstances that had favoured his liaison and had prevented its final rupture had not done a disservice to his career, whether the outcome to be desired might not have been that as to which he rejoiced that it had happened only in a dream—his own departure; and he said to himself that people did not know when they were unhappy, that one is never as happy as one thinks.

Sometimes he hoped that she would die, painlessly, in some accident, since she was out of doors, in the streets, crossing busy thoroughfares, from morning to night. And as she always returned safe and sound, he marvelled at the strength and the suppleness of the human body, which was able continually to hold at bay, to outwit all the perils that beset it (which to Swann seemed innumerable since his own secret desire had strewn them in her path), and so allowed mankind to abandon itself, day after
day, and almost with impunity, to its career of mendacity, to the pursuit of pleasure. And Swann felt a very cordial sympathy with the sultan Mahomet II whose portrait by Bellini he admired, who, on finding that he had fallen madly in love with one of his wives, stabbed her to death in order, as his Venetian biographer artlessly relates, to recover his peace of mind. Then he would be ashamed of thinking thus only of himself, and his own sufferings would seem to deserve no pity now that he himself held Odette’s very life so cheap.

Unable to cut himself off from her irrevocably, if at least he had seen her continuously and without separations his anguish would ultimately have been assuaged, and his love, perhaps, have died. And since she did not wish to leave Paris for ever, he hoped that she would never leave it. As he knew that her one prolonged absence, every year, was in August and September, at least he had abundant opportunity, several months in advance, to dissolve the bitter thought of it in all the Time to come which he stored up inside himself in anticipation, and which, composed of days identical with those of the present, flowed through his mind, transparent and cold, nourishing his sadness but without causing him any intolerable pain. But that inner future, that colourless, free-flowing stream, was suddenly convulsed by a single remark from Odette which, penetrating Swann’s defences, immobilised it like a block of ice, congealed its fluidity, froze it altogether; and Swann felt himself suddenly filled with an enormous and infrangible mass which pressed on the inner walls of his being until it almost burst asunder; for Odette had said to him casually, observing him with a malicious smile: “Forcheville’s going on a fine trip at
Whitsun. He’s going to Egypt!” and Swann had at once understood this to mean: “I’m going to Egypt at Whitsun with Forcheville.” And in fact, if, a few days later, Swann said to her: “About that trip you told me you were going to take with Forcheville,” she would answer carelessly: “Yes, my dear boy, we’re starting on the 19th; we’ll send you a view of the Pyramids.” Then he was determined to know whether she was Forcheville’s mistress, to ask her point-blank, to insist upon her telling him. He knew that, superstitious as she was, there were some perjuries which she would not commit, and besides, the fear, which had hitherto restrained his curiosity, of making Odette angry if he questioned her, of making her hate him, had ceased to exist now that he had lost all hope of ever being loved by her.

One day he received an anonymous letter telling him that Odette had been the mistress of countless men (several of whom it named, among them Forcheville, M. de Bréauté and the painter) and women, and that she frequented houses of ill-fame. He was tormented by the discovery that there was to be numbered among his friends a creature capable of sending him such a letter (for certain details betrayed in the writer a familiarity with his private life). He wondered who it could be. But he had never had any suspicion with regard to the unknown actions of other people, those which had no visible connexion with what they said. And when he pondered whether it was beneath the ostensible character of M. de Charlus, or of M. des Laumes, or of M. d’Orsan that he must seek the uncharted region in which this ignoble action had had its birth, since none of these men had ever, in conversation with Swann, given any indication of approving of anonymous
letters, and since everything they had ever said to him implied that they strongly disapproved, he saw no reason for associating this infamy with the character of any one of them rather than the others. M. de Charlus was somewhat inclined to eccentricity, but he was fundamentally good and kind; M. des Laumes was a trifle hard, but sound and straightforward. As for M. d’Orsan, Swann had never met anyone who, even in the most depressing circumstances, would approach him with more heartfelt words, in a more tactful and judicious manner. So much so that he was unable to understand the rather indelicate role commonly attributed to M. d’Orsan in his relations with a certain wealthy woman, and whenever he thought of him he was obliged to set that evil reputation on one side, as being irreconcilable with so many unmistakable proofs of his fastidiousness. 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 strength to return to these reflections. But then, having been unable to suspect anyone, he was forced to suspect everyone. After all, though M. de Charlus was fond of him, was extremely good-hearted, he was also a neurotic; tomorrow, perhaps, he would burst into tears on hearing that Swann was ill, and today, from jealousy, or anger, or carried away by a sudden whim, he might have wished to do him harm. 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 did not suffer from the same susceptibilities with regard to him; and besides, his was a nature which, though no doubt cold, was as incapable of base as of magnanimous actions. Swann regretted not having
formed attachments only to such people. Then he reflected that what prevents men from doing harm to their neighbours is fellow-feeling, that he could only, in the last resort, answer for 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 revolted him. But with an insensitive man, 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 kind heart was everything, and M. de Charlus had one. M. d’Orsan was not lacking in heart either, and his relations with Swann—cordial if not intimate, arising from the pleasure which, holding the same views about everything, they found in talking together—were more restful than the overwrought affection of M. de Charlus, capable of being led into acts of passion, good or evil. If there was anyone by whom Swann had always feit himself understood and discriminatingly liked, it was M. d’Orsan. Yes, but what of the disreputable life he led? Swann regretted that he had never taken any notice of those rumours, had often admitted jestingly that he had never felt so keen a sense of sympathy and respect as in the company of a scoundrel. “It’s not for nothing,” he now assured himself, “that whenever people pass judgment on their fellows, it’s always on their actions. It’s only what we do that counts, 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 may not have these faults, but he’s not a man of honour. He may have acted dishonourably once again.” Then Swann 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 reasons for bearing a grudge against Odette. And then, how could one not suppose that servants, living in a situation inferior to our own, adding to our wealth and our weaknesses imaginary riches and vices for which they envy and despise us, must inevitably be led to act in a manner abhorrent to people of our own class? He also suspected my grandfather. Every time Swann had asked a favour of him, had he not invariably refused? Besides, with his ideas of middle-class respectability, he might have thought that he was acting for Swann’s good. He went on to suspect Bergotte, the painter, the Verdurins, pausing for a moment to admire once again the wisdom of society people in refusing to mix with those artistic circles in which such things were possible, perhaps even openly avowed as good jokes; but then he recalled the traits 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 knew a human being capable of the most infamous conduct, but he could see no more reason why that infamy should lurk in the unfathomed depths of the character of the man with the warm heart rather than the cold, the artist rather than the bourgeois, the noble rather than the flunkey. What criterion ought one to adopt to judge one’s fellows? After all, there was not a single person 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 drew his hands two or three times across his brow, wiped his glasses with his handkerchief, and remembering that, after all, men 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 infamy, at least 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 sought to drive him to despair.

As for the actual contents of the letter, they did not disturb him since not one of the charges formulated against Odette had the slightest verisimilitude. Like many other men, Swann had a naturally lazy mind and lacked imagination. He knew perfectly well as a general truth that human life is full of contrasts, but in the case of each individual 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 condemn them by virtue of the same moral principles which Swann had always heard expressed by his own parents and to which he himself had remained faithful; and then she would arrange her flowers, would sip her tea, would inquire about Swann’s work. So Swann extended those attitudes to fill the rest of her life, and 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 procuresses, that she indulged in orgies with other women, that she led the crapulous existence of the most abject, the most contemptible of mortals—what an insane aberration, for the realisation of which, thank heaven, the remembered chrysanthemums, the daily cups of tea, the virtuous indignation left neither time nor place! However, from time to time 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 had involuntarily let slip of a 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 even suspected, for if he often adjured Odette never to swerve from the truth, that was only, whether he realised it or not, 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 pimp who could keep him in touch with the daily life of his mistress. Thus his love of sincerity, not being disinterested, had not improved his character. The truth which he cherished was the truth 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, 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.