Page 561 - swanns-way

added, seeming angry and uncomfortable.
‘Yes, I know all that; but are you quite sure? Don’t say to
me, ‘You know quite well’; say, ‘I have never done anything
of that sort with any woman.’’
She repeated his words like a lesson learned by rote, and
as though she hoped, thereby, to be rid of him: ‘I have never
done anything of that sort with any woman.’
‘Can you swear it to me on your Laghetto medal?’
Swann knew that Odette would never perjure herself on
that.
‘Oh, you do make me so miserable,’ she cried, with a jerk
of her body as though to shake herself free of the constraint
of his question. ‘Have you nearly done? What is the matter
with you to-day? You seem to have made up your mind that
I am to be forced to hate you, to curse you! Look, I was anx-
ious to be friends with you again, for us to have a nice time
together, like the old days; and this is all the thanks I get!’
However, he would not let her go, but sat there like a sur-
geon who waits for a spasm to subside that has interrupted
his operation but need not make him abandon it.
‘You are quite wrong in supposing that I bear you the
least ill-will in the world, Odette,’ he began with a persua-
sive and deceitful gentleness. ‘I never speak to you except of
what I already know, and I always know a great deal more
than I say. But you alone can mollify by your confession
what makes me hate you so long as it has been reported to
me only by other people. My anger with you is never due
to your actions—I can and do forgive you everything be-
cause I love you—but to your untruthfulness, the ridiculous

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