ll refuse. Good God! Think of listening to Wagner for a
fortnight on end with her, who takes about as much interest in music as
a fish does in little apples; it will be fun!" And his hatred, like
his love, needing to manifest itself in action, he amused himself with
urging his evil imaginings further and further, because, thanks to the
perfidies with which he charged Odette, he detested her still more, and
would be able, if it turned out--as he tried to convince himself--that
she was indeed guilty of them, to take the opportunity of punishing her,
emptying upon her the overflowing vials of his wrath. In this way, he
went so far as to suppose that he was going to receive a letter from
her, in which she would ask him for money to take the house at Bayreuth,
but with the warning that he was not to come there himself, as she had
promised Forcheville and the Verdurins to invite them. Oh, how he
would have loved it, had it been conceivable that she would have
that audacity. What joy he would have in refusing, in drawing up that
vindictive reply, the terms of which he amused himself by selecting and
declaiming aloud, as though he had actually received her letter.

The very next day, her letter came. She wrote that the Verdurins and
their friends had expressed a desire to be present at these performances
of Wagner, and that, if he would be so good as to send her the money,
she would be able at last, after going so often to their house, to have
the pleasure of entertaining the Verdurins in hers. Of him she said not
a word; it was to be taken for granted that their presence at Bayreuth
would be a bar to his.

Then that annihilating answer, every word of which he had carefully
rehearsed overnight, without venturing to hope that it could ever be
used, he had the satisfaction of having it conveyed to her. Alas! he
felt only too certain that with the money which she had, or could easily
procure, she would be able, all the same, to take a house at Bayreuth,
since she wished to do so, she who was incapable of distinguishing
between Bach and Clapisson. Let her take it, then; she would have to
live in it more frugally, that was all. No means (as there would have
been if he had replied by sending her several thousand-franc notes) of
organising, each evening, in her hired castle, those exquisite little
suppers, after which she might perhaps be seized by the whim (which,
it was possible, had never yet seized her) of falling into the arms of