Page 434 - swanns-way

with regard to the daily occupations of Odette, information
the lack of which would make him unhappy, just as he re-
served a margin for the gratification of other tastes from
which he knew that pleasure was to be expected (at least,
before he had fallen in love) such as his taste for collecting
things, or for good cooking.
When he proposed to take leave of Odette, and to re-
turn home, she begged him to stay a little longer, and even
detained him forcibly, seizing him by the arm as he was
opening the door to go. But he gave no thought to that, for,
among the crowd of gestures and speeches and other little
incidents which go to make up a conversation, it is inevitable
that we should pass (without noticing anything that arouses
our interest) by those that hide a truth for which our sus-
picions are blindly searching, whereas we stop to examine
others beneath which nothing lies concealed. She kept on
saying: ‘What a dreadful pity; you never by any chance come
in the afternoon, and the one time you do come then I miss
you.’ He knew very well that she was not sufficiently in love
with him to be so keenly distressed merely at having missed
his visit, but as she was a good-natured woman, anxious to
give him pleasure, and often sorry when she had done any-
thing that annoyed him, he found it quite natural that she
should be sorry, on this occasion, that she had deprived him
of that pleasure of spending an hour in her company, which
was so very great a pleasure, if not to herself, at any rate to
him. All the same, it was a matter of so little importance
that her air of unrelieved sorrow began at length to bewil-
der him. She reminded him, even more than was usual, of

434 Swann’s Way