rrefonds, of all places, to-day. One
has plenty of time to see them in Paris; it would hardly be worth while
coming down here if one couldn't go a yard without meeting them." And
his host would fail to understand why, once they had reached the place,
Swann would change his plans twenty times in an hour, inspect the
dining-rooms of all the hotels in Compiegne without being able to make
up his mind to settle down in any of them, although he had found no
trace anywhere of the Verdurins, seeming to be in search of what he had
claimed to be most anxious to avoid, and would in fact avoid, the moment
he found it, for if he had come upon the little 'group,' he would have
hastened away at once with studied indifference, satisfied that he had
seen Odette and she him, especially that she had seen him when he was
not, apparently, thinking about her. But no; she would guess at
once that it was for her sake that he had come there. And when M. de
Forestelle came to fetch him, and it was time to start, he excused
himself: "No, I'm afraid not; I can't go to Pierrefonds to-day. You see,
Odette is there." And Swann was happy in spite of everything in feeling
that if he, alone among mortals, had not the right to go to Pierrefonds
that day, it was because he was in fact, for Odette, some one who
differed from all other mortals, her lover; and because that restriction
which for him alone was set upon the universal right to travel freely
where one would, was but one of the many forms of that slavery, that
love which was so dear to him. Decidedly, it was better not to risk a
quarrel with her, to be patient, to wait for her return. He spent his
days in poring over a map of the forest of Compiegne, as though it
had been that of the 'Pays du Tendre'; he surrounded himself with
photographs of the Chateau of Pierrefonds. When the day dawned on which
it was possible that she might return, he opened the time-table
again, calculated what train she must have taken, and, should she have
postponed her departure, what trains were still left for her to take. He
did not leave the house, for fear of missing a telegram, he did not go
to bed, in case, having come by the last train, she decided to surprise
him with a midnight visit. Yes! The front-door bell rang. There seemed
some delay in opening the door, he wanted to awaken the porter, he
leaned out of the window to shout to Odette, if it was Odette, for
in spite of the orders which he had gone downstairs a do