hat had gripped him when he had heard her admission with regard to
the Maison Doree, and, like the obscene creatures in the 'Desolation of
Nineveh,' shattering, stone by stone, the whole edifice of his past....
If, now, he turned aside whenever his memory repeated the cruel name of
the Maison Doree it was because that name recalled to him, no longer,
as, such a little time since, at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's party, the good
fortune which he long had lost, but a misfortune of which he was now
first aware. Then it befell the Maison Doree, as it had befallen the
Island in the Bois, that gradually its name ceased to trouble him.
For what we suppose to be our love, our jealousy are, neither of them,
single, continuous and individual passions. They are composed of an
infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is
ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multitude they give us the
impression of continuity, the illusion of unity. The life of Swann's
love, the fidelity of his jealousy, were formed out of death, of
infidelity, of innumerable desires, innumerable doubts, all of which
had Odette for their object. If he had remained for any length of time
without seeing her, those that died would not have been replaced by
others. But the presence of Odette continued to sow in Swann's heart
alternate seeds of love and suspicion.

On certain evenings she would suddenly resume towards him a kindness of
which she would warn him sternly that he must take immediate advantage,
under penalty of not seeing it repeated for years to come; he must
instantly accompany her home, to "do a cattleya," and the desire
which she pretended to have for him was so sudden, so inexplicable, so
imperious, the kisses which she lavished on him were so demonstrative
and so unfamiliar, that this brutal and unnatural fondness made Swann
just as unhappy as any lie or unkind action. One evening when he had
thus, in obedience to her command, gone home with her, and while she was
interspersing her kisses with passionate words, in strange contrast to
her habitual coldness, he thought suddenly that he heard a sound; he
rose, searched everywhere and found nobody, but he had not the courage
to return to his place by her side; whereupon she, in a towering
rage, broke a vase, with "I never can do anything right with you,
you impossible person!" And he was left uncertain whether she had not
actually had some man concealed in the room, whose jealousy