Page 385 - swanns-way

cal, still he has one of the finest brains that I have ever come
across. Besides, what is most important, one feels quite free
there, one does what one likes without constraint or fuss.
What a flow of humour there is every day in that drawing-
room! Certainly, with a few rare exceptions, I never want to
go anywhere else again. It will become more and more of a
habit, and I shall spend the rest of my life among them.’
And as the qualities which he supposed to be an intrinsic
part of the Verdurin character were no more, really, than
their superficial reflection of the pleasure which had been
enjoyed in their society by his love for Odette, those qual-
ities became more serious, more profound, more vital, as
that pleasure increased. Since Mme. Verdurin gave Swann,
now and then, what alone could constitute his happiness;
since, on an evening when he felt anxious because Odette
had talked rather more to one of the party than to another,
and, in a spasm of irritation, would not take the initiative by
asking her whether she was coming home, Mme. Verdurin
brought peace and joy to his troubled spirit by the spon-
taneous exclamation: ‘Odette! You’ll see M. Swann home,
won’t you?’; since, when the summer holidays came, and
after he had asked himself uneasily whether Odette might
not leave Paris without him, whether he would still be able
to see her every day, Mme. Verdurin was going to invite
them both to spend the summer with her in the country;
Swann, unconsciously allowing gratitude and self-interest
to filter into his intelligence and to influence his ideas, went
so far as to proclaim that Mme. Verdurin was ‘a great and
noble soul.’ Should any of his old fellow-pupils in the Lou-

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