not explore the idea further, for a sudden access of that mental
lethargy which was, with him, congenital, intermittent and providential,
happened, at that moment, to extinguish every particle of light in his
brain, as instantaneously as, at a later period, when electric lighting
had been everywhere installed, it became possible, merely by fingering
a switch, to cut off all the supply of light from a house. His mind
fumbled, for a moment, in the darkness, he took off his spectacles,
wiped the glasses, passed his hands over his eyes, but saw no light
until he found himself face to face with a wholly different idea, the
realisation that he must endeavour, in the coming month, to send Odette
six or seven thousand-franc notes instead of five, simply as a surprise
for her and to give her pleasure.

In the evening, when he did not stay at home until it was time to meet
Odette at the Verdurins', or rather at one of the open-air restaurants
which they liked to frequent in the Bois and especially at Saint-Cloud,
he would go to dine in one of those fashionable houses in which, at one
time, he had been a constant guest. He did not wish to lose touch with
people who, for all that he knew, might be of use, some day, to Odette,
and thanks to whom he was often, in the meantime, able to procure for
her some privilege or pleasure. Besides, he had been used for so long to
the refinement and comfort of good society that, side by side with his
contempt, there had grown up also a desperate need for it, with the
result that, when he had reached the point after which the humblest
lodgings appeared to him as precisely on a par with the most princely
mansions, his senses were so thoroughly accustomed to the latter that he
could not enter the former without a feeling of acute discomfort. He
had the same regard--to a degree of identity which they would never have
suspected--for the little families with small incomes who asked him to
dances in their flats ("straight upstairs to the fifth floor, and the
door on the left") as for the Princesse de Parme, who gave the most
splendid parties in Paris; but he had not the feeling of being actually
'at the ball' when he found himself herded with the fathers of families
in the bedroom of the lady of the house, while the spectacle of
wash-hand-stands covered over with towels, and of beds converted into
cloak-rooms, with a mass of hats and great-coats sprawling over their
counterpanes, gave him the same stifl