Page 431 - swanns-way

knocking at the window. Swann could at once detect in this
story one of those fragments of literal truth which liars,
when taken by surprise, console themselves by introduc-
ing into the composition of the falsehood which they have
to invent, thinking that it can be safely incorporated, and
will lend the whole story an air of verisimilitude. It was true
that, when Odette had just done something which she did
not wish to disclose, she would take pains to conceal it in
a secret place in her heart. But as soon as she found herself
face to face with the man to whom she was obliged to lie, she
became uneasy, all her ideas melted like wax before a flame,
her inventive and her reasoning faculties were paralysed,
she might ransack her brain but would find only a void;
still, she must say something, and there lay within her reach
precisely the fact which she had wished to conceal, which,
being the truth, was the one thing that had remained. She
broke off from it a tiny fragment, of no importance in itself,
assuring herself that, after all, it was the best thing to do,
since it was a detail of the truth, and less dangerous, there-
fore, than a falsehood. ‘At any rate, this is true,’ she said to
herself; ‘that’s always something to the good; he may make
inquiries; he will see that this is true; it won’t be this, any-
how, that will give me away.’ But she was wrong; it was what
gave her away; she had not taken into account that this frag-
mentary detail of the truth had sharp edges which could
not: be made to fit in, except to those contiguous fragments
of the truth from which she had arbitrarily detached it, edg-
es which, whatever the fictitious details in which she might
embed it, would continue to shew, by their overlapping an-

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