Page 363 - swanns-way

our attack upon some unrehearsed incident in our relations
with them, as was originally for Swann the arrangement of
the cattleyas. He trembled as he hoped, that evening, (but
Odette, he told himself, if she were deceived by his strata-
gem, could not guess his intention) that it was the possession
of this woman that would emerge for him from their large
and richly coloured petals; and the pleasure which he al-
ready felt, and which Odette tolerated, he thought, perhaps
only because she was not yet aware of it herself, seemed to
him for that reason—as it might have seemed to the first
man when he enjoyed it amid the flowers of the earthly par-
adise—a pleasure which had never before existed, which
he was striving now to create, a pleasure—and the special
name which he was to give to it preserved its identity—en-
tirely individual and new.
The ice once broken, every evening, when he had taken
her home, he must follow her into the house; and often she
would come out again in her dressing-gown, and escort him
to his carriage, and would kiss him before the eyes of his
coachman, saying: ‘What on earth does it matter what peo-
ple see?’ And on evenings when he did not go to the
Verdurins’ (which happened occasionally, now that he had
opportunities of meeting Odette elsewhere), when—more
and more rarely—he went into society, she would beg him
to come to her on his way home, however late he might be.
The season was spring, the nights clear and frosty. He would
come away from an evening party, jump into his victoria,
spread a rug over his knees, tell the friends who were leav-
ing at the same time, and who insisted on his going home

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