return, if at least he had seen her continuously and without separations
his grief would ultimately have been assuaged, and his love would,
perhaps, have died. And from the moment when she did not wish to leave
Paris for ever he had hoped that she would never go. As he knew that her
one prolonged absence, every year, was in August and September, he had
abundant opportunity, several months in advance, to dissociate from it
the grim picture of her absence throughout Eternity which was lodged in
him by anticipation, and which, consisting of days closely akin to the
days through which he was then passing, floated in a cold transparency
in his mind, which it saddened and depressed, though without causing him
any intolerable pain. But that conception of the future, that flowing
stream, colourless and unconfined, a single word from Odette sufficed
to penetrate through all Swann's defences, and like a block of ice
immobilised it, congealed its fluidity, made it freeze altogether; and
Swann felt himself suddenly filled with an enormous and unbreakable mass
which pressed on the inner walls of his consciousness until he was fain
to burst asunder; for Odette had said casually, watching him with a
malicious smile: "Forcheville is going for a fine trip at Whitsuntide.
He's going to Egypt!" and Swann had at once understood that this meant:
"I am going to Egypt at Whitsuntide with Forcheville." And, in fact,
if, a few days later, Swann began: "About that trip that 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 there were some perjuries which, being so superstitious, she
would not commit, and besides, the fear, which had hitherto restrained
his curiosity, of making Odette angry if he questioned her, of making
himself odious, had ceased to exist now that he had lost all hope of
ever being loved by her.
One day he received an anonymous letter which told 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 connection with what they said.
And when he wanted to know whether it was rather beneath the apparent
character of M. de Charlus, or of M. des Laumes, or of M. d'Orsan that
he must place the untravelled region in which this ignoble action might
have had its birth; as none of these men had ever, in conversation
with Swann, suggested that he approved of anonymous letters, and as
everything that they had ever said to him implied that they strongly
disapproved, he saw no further reason for associating this infamy with
the character of any one of them more than with the rest. M. de Charlus
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
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."