Page 436 - swanns-way
P. 436

benefit,  to  give  her  that  pained  expression,  that  plaintive
         voice, which seemed to falter beneath the effort that she was
         forcing herself to make, and to plead for pardon? He had
         an idea that it was not merely the truth about what had oc-
         curred that afternoon that she was endeavouring to hide
         from him, but something more immediate, something, pos-
         sibly, which had not yet happened, but might happen now
         at any time, and, when it did, would throw a light upon that
         earlier event. At that moment, he heard the front-door bell
         ring. Odette never stopped speaking, but her words dwin-
         dled into an inarticulate moan. Her regret at not having
         seen Swann that afternoon, at not having opened the door
         to him, had melted into a universal despair.
            He could hear the gate being closed, and the sound of a
         carriage, as though some one were going away—probably
         the person whom Swann must on no account meet—after
         being told that Odette was not at home. And then, when he
         reflected that, merely by coming at an hour when he was not
         in the habit of coming, he had managed to disturb so many
         arrangements of which she did not wish him to know, he
         had a feeling of discouragement that amounted, almost, to
         distress. But since he was in love with Odette, since he was
         in the habit of turning all his thoughts towards her, the pity
         with which he might have been inspired for himself he felt
         for her only, and murmured: ‘Poor darling!’ When finally he
         left her, she took up several letters which were lying on the
         table, and asked him if he would be so good as to post them
         for her. He walked along to the post-office, took the letters
         from his pocket, and, before dropping each of them into the

         436                                     Swann’s Way
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