Page 582 - swanns-way

long before she begins talking about you. And you know
quite well, it isn’t nasty things she says. What! you don’t
believe me!’ she went on, noticing that Svrann looked scep-
tical. And, carried away by the sincerity of her conviction,
without putting any evil meaning into the word, which she
used purely in the sense in which one employs it to speak of
the affection that unites a pair of friends: ‘Why, she adores
you! No, indeed; I’m sure it would never do to say anything
against you when she was about; one would soon be taught
one’s place! Whatever we might be doing, if we were looking
at a picture, for instance, she would say, ‘If only we had him
here, he’s the man who could tell us whether it’s genuine or
not. There’s no one like him for that.’ And all day long she
would be saying, ‘What can he be doing just now? I do hope,
he’s doing a little work! It’s too dreadful that a fellow with
such gifts as he has should be so lazy.’ (Forgive me, won’t
you.) ‘I can see him this very moment; he’s thinking of us,
he’s wondering where we are.’ Indeed, she used an expres-
sion which I thought very pretty at the time. M. Verdurin
asked her, ‘How in the world can you see what he’s doing,
when he’s a thousand miles away?’ And Odette answered,
‘Nothing is impossible to the eye of a friend.’
‘No, I assure you, I’m not saying it just to flatter you; you
have a true friend in her, such as one doesn’t often find. I can
tell you, besides, in case you don’t know it, that you’re the
only one. Mme. Verdurin told me as much herself on our
last day with them (one talks more freely, don’t you know,
before a parting), ‘I don’t say that Odette isn’t fond of us, but
anything that we may say to her counts for very little beside

582 Swann’s Way