Page 462 - swanns-way

the threshold: ‘Can’t you wait a minute for me? I’m just go-
ing; we’ll drive back together and you can drop me.’ It was
true that on one occasion Forcheville had asked to be driven
home at the same time, but when, on reaching Odette’s gate,
he had begged to be allowed to come in too, she had replied,
with a finger pointed at Swann: ‘Ah! That depends on this
gentleman. You must ask him. Very well, you may come in,
just for a minute, if you insist, but you mustn’t stay long, for,
I warn you, he likes to sit and talk quietly with me, and he’s
not at all pleased if I have visitors when he’s here. Oh, if you
only knew the creature as I know him; isn’t that so, my love,
there’s no one that really knows you, is there, except me?’
And Swann was, perhaps, even more touched by the
spectacle of her addressing him thus, in front of Forcheville,
not only in these tender words of predilection, but also with
certain criticisms, such as: ‘I feel sure you haven’t written
yet to your friends, about dining with them on Sunday. You
needn’t go if you don’t want to, but you might at least be po-
lite,’ or ‘Now, have you left your essay on Vermeer here, so
that you can do a little more to it to-morrow? What a lazy-
bones! I’m going to make you work, I can tell you,’ which
proved that Odette kept herself in touch with his social en-
gagements and his literary work, that they had indeed a life
in common. And as she spoke she bestowed on him a smile
which he interpreted as meaning that she was entirely his.
And then, while she was making them some orangeade,
suddenly, just as when the reflector of a lamp that is badly
fitted begins by casting all round an object, on the wall be-
yond it, huge and fantastic shadows which, in time, contract

462 Swann’s Way