Page 364 - swanns-way

with them, that he could not, that he was not going in their
direction; then the coachman would start off at a fast trot
without further orders, knowing quite well where he had to
go. His friends would be left marvelling, and, as a matter of
fact, Swann was no longer the same man. No one ever re-
ceived a letter from him now demanding an introduction to
a woman. He had ceased to pay any attention to women,
and kept away from the places in which they were ordinar-
ily to be met. In a restaurant, or in the country, his manner
was deliberately and directly the opposite of that by which,
only a few days earlier, his friends would have recognised
him, that manner which had seemed permanently and un-
alterably his own. To such an extent does passion manifest
itself in us as a temporary and distinct character, which not
only takes the place of our normal character but actually
obliterates the signs by which that character has hitherto
been discernible. On the other hand, there was one thing
that was, now, invariable, namely that wherever Swann
might be spending the evening, he never failed to go on af-
terwards to Odette. The interval of space separating her
from him was one which he must as inevitably traverse as he
must descend, by an irresistible gravitation, the steep slope
of life itself. To be frank, as often as not, when he had stayed
late at a party, he would have preferred to return home at
once, without going so far out of his way, and to postpone
their meeting until the morrow; but the very fact of his put-
ting himself to such inconvenience at an abnormal hour in
order to visit her, while he guessed that his friends, as he left
them, were saying to one another: ‘He is tied hand and foot;

364 Swann’s Way