The Way by Swann's

Author:Marcel Proust [Proust, Marcel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2003-08-19T22:00:00+00:00

The Verdurins had spoken in low voices and in vague terms, but the painter, probably inattentive, exclaimed:

– There must be no lights, and have him play the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata in the dark so we can watch how the light comes up.

Mme Verdurin, seeing that Swann was two steps away, now wore that expression in which the desire to make the person who is talking be quiet and the desire to maintain a look of innocence in the eyes of the person who is hearing, neutralize each other in an intense nullity of gaze, in which the motionless sign of intelligence and complicity is concealed beneath an innocent smile and which in the end, being common to all those who find themselves making a social blunder, reveals it instantly, if not to those making it, at least to the one who is its victim. Odette suddenly had the desperate look of one who has given up fighting the crushing difficulties of life, and Swann anxiously counted the minutes that separated him from the time when, after leaving the restaurant, during the drive home with her, he would be able to ask her for an explanation, persuade her not to go to Chatou the next day or to see that he was invited, and to soothe in her arms the anguish he was feeling. At last the carriages were sent for. Mme Verdurin said to Swann:

– Well now, good-bye, we’ll see you soon, I trust? attempting by the amiableness of her gaze and the constraint of her smile to keep him from realizing that she was not saying to him, as she had always done until now: ‘Tomorrow, then, at Chatou, the day after at my house.’

M. and Mme Verdurin made Forcheville get in with them, Swann’s carriage had pulled up behind theirs and he was waiting for theirs to leave so that he could help Odette into his.

– Odette, we’re taking you home, said Mme Verdurin, we have a little spot for you here next to M. de Forcheville.

– All right, Madame, answered Odette.

– What? I thought I was driving you home, cried Swann, saying what had to be said without dissembling, because the carriage door was open, the seconds were numbered, and he could not go home without her in his present state.

– But Mme Verdurin asked me…

– Now, you can certainly go home alone, we’ve let you have her to yourself often enough, said Mme Verdurin.

– But I had something important to say to Madame.

– Well, you can write it to her in a letter…

– Good-bye, Odette said, holding out her hand.

He tried to smile but looked utterly crushed.

– Did you see the way Swann permits himself to act with us now? said Mme Verdurin to her husband when they were back at home. I thought he was going to eat me alive, because we were taking Odette with us. It’s quite unseemly, really! Let him just say right out that we’re running a house of assignation! I don’t understand how Odette can tolerate such behavior.

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