Page 428 - swanns-way

ness for himself; he recalled the gravity of her head which
she seemed to have lifted from its axis to let it droop and
fall, as though against her will, upon his lips, as she had
done on that first evening in the carriage; her languishing
gaze at him while she lay nestling in his arms, her bended
head seeming to recede between her shoulders, as though
shrinking from the cold.
But then, at once, his jealousy, as it had been the shad-
ow of his love, presented him with the complement, with
the converse of that new smile with which she had greeted
him that very evening,—with which, now, perversely, she
was mocking Swann while she tendered her love to anoth-
er —of that lowering of her head, but lowered now to fall
on other lips, and (but bestowed upon a stranger) of all the
marks of affection that she had shewn to him. And all these
voluptuous memories which he bore away from her house
were, as one might say, but so many sketches, rough plans,
like the schemes of decoration which a designer submits to
one in outline, enabling Swann to form an idea of the vari-
ous attitudes, aflame or faint with passion, which she was
capable of adopting for others. With the result that he came
to regret every pleasure that he tasted in her company, every
new caress that he invented (and had been so imprudent as
to point out to her how delightful it was), every fresh charm
that he found in her, for he knew that, a moment later, they
would go to enrich the collection of instruments in his se-
cret torture-chamber.
A fresh turn was given to the screw when Swann re-
called a sudden expression which he had intercepted, a

428 Swann’s Way