Page 381 - swanns-way

of those characteristic features, by virtue of which the essen-
tial qualities of the woman emerged, and were made visible?
And so, when she was in a happy mood because she was go-
ing to see the Reine Topaze, or when her eyes grew serious,
troubled, petulant, if she was afraid of missing the flower-
show, or merely of not being in time for tea, with muffins
and toast, at the Rue Royale tea-rooms, where she believed
that regular attendance was indispensable, and set the seal
upon a woman’s certificate of ‘smartness,’ Swann, enrap-
tured, as all of us are, at times, by the natural behaviour of
a child, or by the likeness of a portrait, which appears to be
on the point of speaking, would feel so distinctly the soul
of his mistress rising to fill the outlines of her face that he
could not refrain from going across and welcoming it with
his lips. ‘Oh, then, so little Odette wants us to take her to the
flower-show, does she? she wants to be admired, does she?
very well, we will take her there, we can but obey her wish-
es.’ As Swann’s sight was beginning to fail, he had to resign
himself to a pair of spectacles, which he wore at home, when
working, while to face the world he adopted a single eye-
glass, as being less disfiguring. The first time that she saw it
in his eye, she could not contain herself for joy: ‘I really do
think—for a man, that is to say—it is tremendously smart!
How nice you look with it! Every inch a gentleman. All you
want now is a title!’ she concluded, with a tinge of regret in
her voice. He liked Odette to say these things, just as, if he
had been in love with a Breton girl, he would have enjoyed
seeing her in her coif and hearing her say that she believed
in ghosts. Always until then, as is common among men

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