Page 569 - swanns-way

no harm. She was but half to blame. Had he not been told
that it was her own mother who had sold her, when she was
still little more than a child, at Nice, to a wealthy English-
man? But what an agonising truth was now contained for
him in those lines of Alfred de Vigny’s Journal d’un Poète
which he had previously read without emotion: ‘When one
feels oneself smitten by love for a woman, one ought to say
to oneself, ‘What are ‘her surroundings? What has been her
life?’ All one’s future happiness lies in the answer.’ Swann
was astonished that such simple phrases, spelt over in his
mind as, ‘I’ve heard that tale before,’ or ‘I knew quite well
what she was after,’ could cause him so much pain. But he
realised that what he had mistaken for simple phrases were
indeed parts of the panoply which held and could inflict on
him the anguish that he had felt while Odette was telling
her story. For it was the same anguish that he now was feel-
ing afresh. It was no good, his knowing now,—indeed, it
was no good, as time went on, his having partly forgotten
and altogether forgiven the offence—whenever he repeated
her words his old anguish refashioned him as he had been
before Odette began to speak: ignorant, trustful; his mer-
ciless jealousy placed him once again, so that he might be
effectively wounded by Odette’s admission, in the position
of a man who does not yet know the truth; and after several
months this old story would still dumbfounder him, like a
sudden revelation. He marvelled at the terrible recreative
power of his memory. It was only by the weakening of that
generative force, whose fecundity diminishes as age creeps
over one, that he could hope for a relaxation of his torments.

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