Page 438 - swanns-way

of no importance, and had nothing at all to do with love; it
was something to do with Odette’s uncle. Swann had read
quite plainly at the beginning of the line ‘I was right,’ but
did not understand what Odette had been right in doing,
until suddenly a word which he had not been able, at first,
to decipher, came to light and made the whole sentence in-
telligible: ‘I was right to open the door; it was my uncle.’
To open the door! Then Forcheville had been there when
Swann rang the bell, and she had sent him away; hence the
sound that Swann had heard.
After that he read the whole letter; at the end she apolo-
gised for having treated Forcheville with so little ceremony,
and reminded him that he had left his cigarette-case at her
house, precisely what she had written to Swann after one of
his first visits. But to Swann she had added: ‘Why did you
not forget your heart also? I should never have let you have
that back.’ To Forcheville nothing of that sort; no allusion
that could suggest any intrigue between them. And, really,
he was obliged to admit that in all this business Forcheville
had been worse treated than himself, since Odette was writ-
ing to him to make him believe that her visitor had been an
uncle. From which it followed that he, Swann, was the man
to whom she attached importance, and for whose sake she
had sent the other away. And yet, if there had been nothing
between Odette and Forcheville, why not have opened the
door at once, why have said, ‘I was right to open the door;
it was my uncle.’ Right? if she was doing nothing wrong at
that moment how could Forcheville possibly have account-
ed for her not opening the door? For a time Swann stood

438 Swann’s Way