would have loved to know her,
that friend who went to the Hippodrome, how he would have loved her to
invite him there with Odette. How readily he would have sacrificed
all his acquaintance for no matter what person who was in the habit of
seeing Odette, were she but a manicurist or a girl out of a shop. He
would have taken more trouble, incurred more expense for them than for
queens. Would they not have supplied him, out of what was contained in
their knowledge of the life of Odette, with the one potent anodyne for
his pain? With what joy would he have hastened to spend his days with
one or other of those humble folk with whom Odette kept up friendly
relations, either with some ulterior motive or from genuine simplicity
of nature. How willingly would he have fixed his abode for ever in the
attics of some sordid but enviable house, where Odette went but never
took him, and where, if he had lived with the little retired dressmaker,
whose lover he would readily have pretended to be, he would have been
visited by. Odette almost daily. In those regions, that were almost
slums, what a modest existence, abject, if you please, but delightful,
nourished by tranquillity and happiness, he would have consented to lead
indefinitely.

It sometimes happened, again, that, when, after meeting Swann, she saw
some man approaching whom he did not know, he could distinguish upon
Odette's face that look of sorrow which she had worn on the day when he
had come to her while Forcheville was there. But this was rare; for, on
the days when, in spite of all that she had to do, and of her dread
of what people would think, she did actually manage to see Swann, the
predominant quality in her attitude, now, was self-assurance; a striking
contrast, perhaps an unconscious revenge for, perhaps a natural reaction
from the timorous emotion which, in the early days of their friendship,
she had felt in his presence, and even in his absence, when she began a
letter to him with the words: "My dear, my hand trembles so that I can
scarcely write." (So, at least, she pretended, and a little of that
emotion must have been sincere, or she would not have been anxious to
enlarge and emphasise it.) So Swann had been pleasing to her then. Our
hands do not tremble except for ourselves, or for those whom we love.
When they have ceased to control our happiness how peaceful, how easy,
how bold do we become in their presence! In speaking to him, in writing
to him now, she n