d closed behind Saniette, she had forced the normal
expression of her face down, as the saying is, by several pegs, so as to
bring herself on to the same level of vulgarity as Forcheville; her eyes
had sparkled with a malicious smile of congratulation upon his audacity,
of ironical pity for the poor wretch who had been its victim; she
had darted at him a look of complicity in the crime, which so clearly
implied: "That's finished him off, or I'm very much mistaken. Did you
see what a fool he looked? He was actually crying," that Forcheville,
when his eyes met hers, sobered in a moment from the anger, or pretended
anger with which he was still flushed, smiled as he explained: "He need
only have made himself pleasant and he'd have been here still; a good
scolding does a man no harm, at any time."

One day when Swann had gone out early in the afternoon to pay a call,
and had failed to find the person at home whom he wished to see, it
occurred to him to go, instead, to Odette, at an hour when, although he
never went to her house then as a rule, he knew that she was always at
home, resting or writing letters until tea-time, and would enjoy seeing
her for a moment, if it did not disturb her. The porter told him that he
believed Odette to be in; Swann rang the bell, thought that he heard a
sound, that he heard footsteps, but no one came to the door. Anxious and
annoyed, he went round to the other little street, at the back of her
house, and stood beneath her bedroom window; the curtains were drawn and
he could see nothing; he knocked loudly upon the pane, he shouted; still
no one came. He could see that the neighbours were staring at him. He
turned away, thinking that, after all, he had perhaps been mistaken in
believing that he heard footsteps; but he remained so preoccupied with
the suspicion that he could turn his mind to nothing else. After waiting
for an hour, he returned. He found her at home; she told him that she
had been in the house when he rang, but had been asleep; the bell had
awakened her; she had guessed that it must be Swann, and had run out
to meet him, but he had already gone. She had, of course, heard him
knocking at the window. Swann could at once detect in this story one of
those fragments of literal truth which liars, when taken by surprise,
console themselves by introducing into the composition of the falsehood
which they have to invent, thinking that it can be safely incorporated,
and will lend the whole