Page 436 - swanns-way
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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