with him, a creature from whom he might, perhaps, be unable
to liberate himself, towards whom he might have to adopt some such
stratagem as one uses to outwit a master or a malady. And yet, during
this last moment in which he had felt that another, a fresh personality
was thus conjoined with his own, life had seemed, somehow, more
interesting.

It was in vain that he assured himself that this possible meeting at
Prevost's (the tension of waiting for which so ravished, stripped so
bare the intervening moments that he could find nothing, not one idea,
not one memory in his mind beneath which his troubled spirit might take
shelter and repose) would probably, after all, should it take place, be
much the same as all their meetings, of no great importance. As on every
other evening, once he was in Odette's company, once he had begun to
cast furtive glances at her changing countenance, and instantly to
withdraw his eyes lest she should read in them the first symbols of
desire and believe no more in his indifference, he would cease to
be able even to think of her, so busy would he be in the search for
pretexts which would enable him not to leave her immediately, and to
assure himself, without betraying his concern, that he would find her
again, next evening, at the Verdurins'; pretexts, that is to say, which
would enable him to prolong for the time being, and to renew for one day
more the disappointment, the torturing deception that must always come
to him with the vain presence of this woman, whom he might approach, yet
never dared embrace.

She was not at Prevost's; he must search for her, then, in every
restaurant upon the boulevards. To save time, while he went in one
direction, he sent in the other his coachman Remi (Rizzo's Doge Loredan)
for whom he presently--after a fruitless search--found himself waiting
at the spot where the carriage was to meet him. It did not appear, and
Swann tantalised himself with alternate pictures of the approaching
moment, as one in which Remi would say to him: "Sir, the lady is there,"
or as one in which Remi would say to him: "Sir, the lady was not in
any of the cafes." And so he saw himself faced by the close of his
evening--a thing uniform, and yet bifurcated by the intervening accident
which would either put an end to his agony by discovering Odette, or
would oblige him to abandon any hope of finding her that night, to
accept the necessity of returning home without having seen her.

T