Page 441 - swanns-way

shot, assumed that expression in which the two-fold desire
to make the speaker be quiet and to preserve, oneself, an
appearance of guilelessness in the eyes of the listener, is
neutralised in an intense vacuity; in which the unflinch-
ing signs of intelligent complicity are overlaid by the smiles
of innocence, an expression invariably adopted by anyone
who has noticed a blunder, the enormity of which is thereby
at once revealed if not to those who have made it, at any rate
to him in whose hearing it ought not to have been made.
Odette seemed suddenly to be in despair, as though she
had decided not to struggle any longer against the crushing
difficulties of life, and Swann was anxiously counting the
minutes that still separated him from the point at which,
after leaving the restaurant, while he drove her home, he
would be able to ask for an explanation, to make her prom-
ise, either that she would not go to Chatou next day, or that
she would procure an invitation for him also, and to lull to
rest in her arms the anguish that still tormented him. At last
the carriages were ordered. Mme. Verdurin said to Swann:
‘Good-bye, then. We shall see you soon, I hope,’ trying,
by the friendliness of her manner and the constraint of her
smile, to prevent him from noticing that she Was not say-
ing, as she would always have until then:
‘To-morrow, then, at Chatou, and at my house the day af-
ter.’ M. and Mme. Verdurin made Forcheville get into their
carriage; Swann’s was drawn up behind it, and he waited for
theirs to start before helping Odette into his own.
‘Odette, we’ll take you,’ said Mme. Verdurin, ‘we’ve kept
a little corner specially for you, beside M. de Forcheville.’

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