Page 437 - swanns-way

box, scanned its address. They were all to tradesmen, except
the last, which was to Forcheville. He kept it in his hand.
‘If I saw what was in this,’ he argued, ‘I should know what
she calls him, what she says to him, whether there really
is anything between them. Perhaps, if I don’t look inside,
I shall be lacking in delicacy towards Odette, since in this
way alone I can rid myself of a suspicion which is, perhaps,
a calumny on her, which must, in any case, cause her suf-
fering, and which can never possibly be set at rest, once the
letter is posted.’
He left the post-office and went home, but he had kept
the last letter in his pocket. He lighted a candle, and held
up close to its flame the envelope which he had not dared
to open. At first he could distinguish nothing, but the en-
velope was thin, and by pressing it down on to the stiff card
which it enclosed he was able, through the transparent pa-
per, to read the concluding words. They were a coldly formal
signature. If, instead of its being himself who was looking
at a letter addressed to Forcheville, it had been Forcheville
who had read a letter addressed to Swann, he might have
found words in it of another, a far more tender kind! He
took a firm hold of the card, which was sliding to and fro,
the envelope being too large for it and then, by moving it
with his finger and thumb, brought one line after another
beneath the part of the envelope where the paper was not
doubled, through which alone it was possible to read.
In spite of all these manoeuvres he could not make it out
clearly. Not that it mattered, for he had seen enough to as-
sure himself that the letter was about some trifling incident

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