fairest impression that remains in our minds of a favourite air is one
which has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskilful fin-
gers upon a tuneless piano. The little phrase was associated still, in
Swann's mind, with his love for Odette. He felt clearly that this love was
something to which there were no corresponding external signs, whose
meaning could not be proved by any but himself; he realised, too, that
Odette's qualities were not such as to justify his setting so high a value
on the hours he spent in her company. And often, when the cold govern-
ment of reason stood unchallenged, he would readily have ceased to sac-
rifice so many of his intellectual and social interests to this imaginary
pleasure. But the little phrase, as soon as it struck his ear, had the power
to liberate in him the room that was needed to contain it; the proportions
of Swann's soul were altered; a margin was left for a form of enjoyment
which corresponded no more than his love for Odette to any external ob-
ject, and yet was not, like his enjoyment of that love, purely individual,
but assumed for him an objective reality superior to that of other con-
crete things. This thirst for an untasted charm, the little phrase would
stimulate it anew in him, but without bringing him any definite gratifica-
tion to assuage it. With the result that those parts of Swann's soul in
which the little phrase had obliterated all care for material interests,
those human considerations which affect all men alike, were left bare by
it, blank pages on which he was at liberty to inscribe the name of Odette.
Moreover, where Odette's affection might seem ever so little abrupt and
disappointing, the little phrase would come to supplement it, to amal-
gamate with it its own mysterious essence. Watching Swann's face while
he listened to the phrase, one would have said that he was inhaling an
anaesthetic which allowed him to breathe more deeply. And the pleasure
which the music gave him, which was shortly to create in him a real
longing, was in fact closely akin, at such moments, to the pleasure which
he would have derived from experimenting with perfumes, from enter-
ing into contract with a world for which we men were not created, which
appears to lack form because our eyes cannot perceive it, to lack
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significance because it escapes our intelligence, to which we may attain
by way of one sense only. Deep repose, mysterious refreshment for
Swann,—for him whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting,
whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever
the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life,—to feel himself trans-
formed into a creature foreign to humanity, blinded, deprived of his lo-
gical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimaera-like creature con-
scious of the world through his two ears alone. And as, notwithstanding,
he sought in the little phrase for a meaning to which his intelligence
could not descend, with what a strange frenzy of intoxication must he
strip bare his innermost soul of the whole armour of reason, and make it
pass, unattended, through the straining vessel, down into the dark filter
of sound. He began to reckon up how much that was painful, perhaps
even how much secret and unappeased sorrow underlay the sweetness
of the phrase; and yet to him it brought no suffering. What matter
though the phrase repeated that love is frail and fleeting, when his love
was so strong! He played with the melancholy which the phrase dif-
fused, he felt it stealing over him, but like a caress which only deepened
and sweetened his sense of his own happiness. He would make Odette
play him the phrase again, ten, twenty times on end, insisting that, while
she played, she must never cease to kiss him. Every kiss provokes anoth-
er. Ah, in those earliest days of love how naturally the kisses spring into
life. How closely, in their abundance, are they pressed one against anoth-
er; until lovers would find it as hard to count the kisses exchanged in an
hour, as to count the flowers in a meadow in May. Then she would pre-
tend to stop, saying: "How do you expect me to play when you keep on
holding me? I can't do everything at once. Make up your mind what you
want; am I to play the phrase or do you want to play with me?" Then he
would become annoyed, and she would burst out with a laugh which,
was transformed, as it left her lips, and descended upon him in a shower
of kisses. Or else she would look at him sulkily, and he would see once
again a face worthy to figure in Botticelli's 'Life of Moses,' he would
place it there, giving to Odette's neck the necessary inclination; and
when he had finished her portrait in distemper, in the fifteenth century,
on the wall of the Sixtine, the idea that she was, none the less, in the
room with him still, by the piano, at that very moment, ready to be
kissed and won, the idea of her material existence, of her being alive,
would sweep over him with so violent an intoxication that, with eyes
starting from his head and jaws that parted as though to devour her, he
would fling himself upon this Botticelli maiden and kiss and bite her
227
cheeks. And then, as soon as he had left the house, not without returning
to kiss her once again, because he had forgotten to take away with him,
in memory, some detail of her fragrance or of her features, while he
drove home in his victoria, blessing the name of Odette who allowed
him to pay her these daily visits, which, although they could not, he felt,
bring any great happiness to her, still, by keeping him immune from the
fever of jealousy—by removing from him every possibility of a fresh out-
break of the heart-sickness which had manifested itself in him that even-
ing, when he had failed to find her at the Verdurins'—might help him to
arrive, without any recurrence of those crises, of which the first had been
so distressing that it must also be the last, at the termination of this
strange series of hours in his life, hours almost enchanted, in the same
manner as these other, following hours, in which he drove through a
deserted Paris by the light of the moon: noticing as he drove home that
the satellite had now changed its position, relatively to his own, and was
almost touching the horizon; feeling that his love, also, was obedient to
these immutable laws of nature, he asked himself whether this period,
upon which he had entered, was to last much longer, whether presently
his mind's eye would cease to behold that dear countenance, save as oc-
cupying a distant and diminished position, and on the verge of ceasing
to shed on him the radiance of its charm. For Swann was finding in
things once more, since he had fallen in love, the charm that he had
found when, in his adolescence, he had fancied himself an artist; with
this difference, that what charm lay in them now was conferred by
Odette alone. He could feel reawakening in himself the inspirations of
his boyhood, which had been dissipated among the frivolities of his later
life, but they all bore, now, the reflection, the stamp of a particular being;
and during the long hours which he now found a subtle pleasure in
spending at home, alone with his convalescent spirit, he became gradu-
ally himself again, but himself in thraldom to another.
He went to her only in the evenings, and knew nothing of how she
spent her time during the day, any more than he knew of her past; so
little, indeed, that he had not even the tiny, initial clue which, by allow-
ing us to imagine what we do not know, stimulates a desire foreknow-
ledge. And so he never asked himself what she might be doing, or what
her life had been. Only he smiled sometimes at the thought of how, some
years earlier, when he still did not know her, some one had spoken to
him of a woman who, if he remembered rightly, must certainly have
been Odette, as of a 'tart,' a 'kept' woman, one of those women to whom
he still attributed (having lived but little in their company) the entire set
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of characteristics, fundamentally perverse, with which they had been, for
many years, endowed by the imagination of certain novelists. He would
say to himself that one has, as often as not, only to take the exact counter-
part of the reputation created by the world in order to judge a person
fairly, when with such a character he contrasted that of Odette, so good,
so simple, so enthusiastic in the pursuit of ideals, so nearly incapable of
not telling the truth that, when he had once begged her, so that they
might dine together alone, to write to Mme. Verdurin, saying that she
was unwell, the next day he had seen her, face to face with Mme. Ver-
durin, who asked whether she had recovered, blushing, stammering,
and, in spite of herself, revealing in every feature how painful, what a
torture it was to her to act a lie; and, while in her answer she multiplied
the fictitious details of an imaginary illness, seeming to ask pardon, by
her suppliant look and her stricken accents, for the obvious falsehood of
her words.
On certain days, however, though these came seldom, she would call
upon him in the afternoon, to interrupt his musings or the essay on Ver-
meer to which he had latterly returned. His servant would come in to
say that Mme. de Crécy was in the small drawing-room. He would go in
search of her, and, when he opened the door, on Odette's blushing coun-
tenance, as soon as she caught sight of Swann, would appear—changing
the curve of her lips, the look in her eyes, the moulding of her
cheeks—an all-absorbing smile. Once he was left alone he would see
again that smile, and her smile of the day before, another with which she
had greeted him sometime else, the smile which had been her answer, in
the carriage that night, when he had asked her whether she objected to
his rearranging her cattleyas; and the life of Odette at all other times,
since he knew nothing of it, appeared to him upon a neutral and colour-
less background, like those sheets of sketches by Watteau upon which
one sees, here and there, in every corner and in all directions, traced in
three colours upon the buff paper, innumerable smiles. But, once in a
while, illuminating a chink of that existence which Swann still saw as a
complete blank, even if his mind assured him that it was not so, because
he was unable to imagine anything that might occupy it, some friend
who knew them both, and suspecting that they were in love, had not
dared to tell him anything about her that was of the least importance,
would describe Odette's figure, as he had seen her, that very morning,
going on foot up the Rue Abbattucci, in a cape trimmed with skunks,
wearing a Rembrandt hat, and a bunch of violets in her bosom. This
simple outline reduced Swann to utter confusion by enabling him
229
suddenly to perceive that Odette had an existence which was not wholly
subordinated to his own; he burned to know whom she had been seek-
ing to fascinate by this costume in which he had never seen her; he re-
gistered a vow to insist upon her telling him where she had been going
at that intercepted moment, as though, in all the colourless life—a life al-
most nonexistent, since she was then invisible to him—of his mistress,
there had been but a single incident apart from all those smiles directed
towards himself; namely, her walking abroad beneath a Rembrandt hat,
with a bunch of violets in her bosom.
Except when he asked her for Vinteuil's little phrase instead of the
Valse des Roses, Swann made no effort to induce her to play the things
that he himself preferred, nor, in literature any more than in music, to
correct the manifold errors of her taste. He fully realised that she was not
intelligent. When she said how much she would like him to tell her
about the great poets, she had imagined that she would suddenly get to
know whole pages of romantic and heroic verse, in the style of the
Vicomte de Borelli, only even more moving. As for Vermeer of Delft, she
asked whether he had been made to suffer by a woman, if it was a wo-
man that had inspired him, and once Swann had told her that no one
knew, she had lost all interest in that painter. She would often say: "I'm sure, poetry; well, of course, there'd be nothing like it if it was all true, if the poets really believed the things they said. But as often as not you'll
find there's no one so mean and calculating as those fellows. I know
something about poetry. I had a friend, once, who was in love with a
poet of sorts. In his verses he never spoke of anything but love, and
heaven, and the stars. Oh! she was properly taken in! He had more than
three hundred thousand francs out of her before he'd finished." If, then,
Swann tried to shew her in what artistic beauty consisted, how one
ought to appreciate poetry or painting, after a minute or two she would
cease to listen, saying: "Yes… I never thought it would be like that." And he felt that her disappointment was so great that he preferred to lie to
her, assuring her that what he had said was nothing, that he had only
touched the surface, that he had not time to go into it all properly, that
there was more in it than that. Then she would interrupt with a brisk,
"More in it? What?… Do tell me!", but he did not tell her, for he realised how petty it would appear to her, and how different from what she had
expected, less sensational and less touching; he was afraid, too, lest, disil-
lusioned in the matter of art, she might at the same time be disillusioned
in the greater matter of love.
230
With the result that she found Swann inferior, intellectually, to what
she had supposed. "You're always so reserved; I can't make you out." She marvelled increasingly at his indifference to money, at his courtesy to
everyone alike, at the delicacy of his mind. And indeed it happens, often
enough, to a greater man than Swann ever was, to a scientist or artist,
when he is not wholly misunderstood by the people among whom he
lives, that the feeling in them which proves that they have been con-
vinced of the superiority of his intellect is created not by any admiration
for his ideas—for those are entirely beyond them—but by their respect
for what they term his good qualities. There was also the respect with
which Odette was inspired by the thought of Swann's social position, al-
though she had no desire that he should attempt to secure invitations for
herself. Perhaps she felt that such attempts would be bound to fail; per-
haps, indeed, she feared lest, merely by speaking of her to his friends, he
should provoke disclosures of an unwelcome kind. The fact remains that
she had consistently held him to his promise never to mention her name.
Her reason for not wishing to go into society was, she had told him, a
quarrel which she had had, long ago, with another girl, who had
avenged herself by saying nasty things about her. "But," Swann objected,
"surely, people don't all know your friend." "Yes, don't you see, it's like a spot of oil; people are so horrid." Swann was unable, frankly, to appreciate this point; on the other hand, he knew that such generalisations as
"People are so horrid," and "A word of scandal spreads like a spot of oil,"
were generally accepted as true; there must, therefore, be cases to which
they were literally applicable. Could Odette's case be one of these? He
teased himself with the question, though not for long, for he too was
subject to that mental oppression which had so weighed upon his father,
whenever he was faced by a difficult problem. In any event, that world
of society which concealed such terrors for Odette inspired her, prob-
ably, with no very great longing to enter it, since it was too far removed
from the world which she already knew for her to be able to form any
clear conception of it. At the same time, while in certain respects she had
retained a genuine simplicity (she had, for instance, kept up a friendship
with a little dressmaker, now retired from business, up whose steep and
dark and fetid staircase she clambered almost every day), she still
thirsted to be in the fashion, though her idea of it was not altogether that
held by fashionable people. For the latter, fashion is a thing that eman-
ates from a comparatively small number of leaders, who project it to a
considerable distance—with more or less strength according as one is
nearer to or farther from their intimate centre—over the widening circle
231
of their friends and the friends of their friends, whose names form a sort
of tabulated index. People 'in society' know this index by heart, they are
gifted in such matters with an erudition from which they have extracted
a sort of taste, of tact, so automatic in its operation that Swann, for ex-
ample, without needing to draw upon his knowledge of the world, if he
read in a newspaper the names of the people who had been guests at a
dinner, could tell at once how fashionable the dinner had been, just as a
man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the liter-
ary merit of its author. But Odette was one of those persons (an ex-
tremely numerous class, whatever the fashionable world may think, and
to be found in every section of society) who do not share this knowledge,
but imagine fashion to be something of quite another kind, which as-
sumes different aspects according to the circle to which they themselves
belong, but has the special characteristic—common alike to the fashion
of which Odette used to dream and to that before which Mme. Cottard
bowed—of being directly accessible to all. The other kind, the fashion of
'fashionable people,' is, it must be admitted, accessible also; but there are
inevitable delays. Odette would say of some one: "He never goes to any
place that isn't really smart."
And if Swann were to ask her what she meant by that, she would an-
swer, with a touch of contempt, "Smart places! Why, good heavens, just
fancy, at your age, having to be told what the smart places are in Paris!
What do you expect me to say? Well, on Sunday mornings there's the
Avenue de l'Impératrice, and round the lake at five o'clock, and on
Thursdays the Eden-Théâtre, and the Hippodrome on Fridays; then there
are the balls… "
"What balls?"
"Why, silly, the balls people give in Paris; the smart ones, I mean. Wait
now, Herbinger, you know who I mean, the fellow who's in one of the
jobbers' offices; yes, of course, you must know him, he's one of the best-
known men in Paris, that great big fair-haired boy who wears such
swagger clothes; he always has a flower in his buttonhole and a light-col-
oured overcoat with a fold down the back; he goes about with that old
image, takes her to all the first-nights. Very well! He gave a ball the other
night, and all the smart people in Paris were there. I should have loved
to go! but you had to shew your invitation at the door, and I couldn't get
one anywhere. After all, I'm just as glad, now, that I didn't go; I should
have been killed in the crush, and seen nothing. Still, just to be able to
say one had been to Herbinger's ball. You know how vain I am!
However, you may be quite certain that half the people who tell you
232
they were there are telling stories… . But I am surprised that you weren't
there, a regular 'tip-topper' like you."
Swann made no attempt, however, to modify this conception of fash-
ion; feeling that his own came no nearer to the truth, was just as fatuous,
devoid of all importance, he saw no advantage to be gained by imparting
it to his mistress, with the result that, after a few months, she ceased to
take any interest in the people to whose houses he went, except when
they were the means of his obtaining tickets for the paddock at race-
meetings or first-nights at the theatre. She hoped that he would continue
to cultivate such profitable acquaintances, but she had come to regard
them as less smart since the day when she had passed the Marquise de
Villeparisis in the street, wearing a black serge dress and a bonnet with
strings.
"But she looks like a pew-opener, like an old charwoman, darling! That
a marquise! Goodness knows I'm not a marquise, but you'd have to pay
me a lot of money before you'd get me to go about Paris rigged out like
that!"
Nor could she understand Swann's continuing to live in his house on
the Quai d'Orléans, which, though she dared not tell him so, she con-
sidered unworthy of him.
It was true that she claimed to be fond of 'antiques,' and used to as-
sume a rapturous and knowing air when she confessed how she loved to
spend the whole day 'rummaging' in second-hand shops, hunting for
'bric-à-brac,' and things of the 'right date.' Although it was a point of
honour, to which she obstinately clung, as though obeying some old
family custom, that she should never answer any questions, never give
any account of what she did during the daytime, she spoke to Swann
once about a friend to whose house she had been invited, and had found
that everything in it was 'of the period.' Swann could not get her to tell
him what 'period' it was. Only after thinking the matter over she replied
that it was 'mediaeval'; by which she meant that the walls were panelled.
Some time later she spoke to him again of her friend, and added, in the
hesitating but confident tone in which one refers to a person whom one
has met somewhere, at dinner, the night before, of whom one had never
heard until then, but whom one's hosts seemed to regard as some one so
celebrated and important that one hopes that one's listener will know
quite well who is meant, and will be duly impressed: "Her dining-
room… is… eighteenth century!" Incidentally, she had thought it
hideous, all bare, as though the house were still unfinished; women
looked frightful in it, and it would never become the fashion. She
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mentioned it again, a third time, when she shewed Swann a card with
the name and address of the man who had designed the dining-room,
and whom she wanted to send for, when she had enough money, to see
whether he could not do one for her too; not one like that, of course, but
one of the sort she used to dream of, one which, unfortunately, her little
house would not be large enough to contain, with tall sideboards,
Renaissance furniture and fireplaces like the Château at Blois. It was on
this occasion that she let out to Swann what she really thought of his
abode on the Quai d'Orléans; he having ventured the criticism that her
friend had indulged, not in the Louis XVI style, for, he went on, although
that was not, of course, done, still it might be made charming, but in the
'Sham-Antique.'
"You wouldn't have her live, like you, among a lot of broken-down
chairs and threadbare carpets!" she exclaimed, the innate respectability
of the middle-class housewife rising impulsively to the surface through
the acquired dilettantism of the 'light woman.'
People who enjoyed 'picking-up' things, who admired poetry, des-
pised sordid calculations of profit and loss, and nourished ideals of hon-
our and love, she placed in a class by themselves, superior to the rest of
humanity. There was no need actually to have those tastes, provided one
talked enough about them; when a man had told her at dinner that he
loved to wander about and get his hands all covered with dust in the old
furniture shops, that he would never be really appreciated in this com-
mercial age, since he was not concerned about the things that interested
it, and that he belonged to another generation altogether, she would
come home saying: "Why, he's an adorable creature; so sensitive! I had
no idea," and she would conceive for him a strong and sudden friend-
ship. But, on the other hand, men who, like Swann, had these tastes but
did not speak of them, left her cold. She was obliged, of course, to admit
that Swann was most generous with his money, but she would add,
pouting: "It's not the same thing, you see, with him," and, as a matter of fact, what appealed to her imagination was not the practice of disinterestedness, but its vocabulary.
Feeling that, often, he could not give her in reality the pleasures of
which she dreamed, he tried at least to ensure that she should be happy
in