The ineffable utterance of one solitary man, absent, perhaps dead (Swann did not know whether Vinteuil was still alive), breathed out above the rites of those two hierophants
But suddenly it was as though she had entered, and this apparition was so agonisingly painful that his hand clutched at his heart. The violin had risen to a series of high notes on which it rested as though awaiting something, holding on to them in a prolonged expectancy, in the exaltation of alrea…
“Poor Swann,” said Mme des Laumes that night to her husband, “he’s as charming as ever, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You’ll see for yourself, as he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do feel it’s absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself suffer for a woman o…
From without, however, everything brought him fresh suffering. He decided to separate Odette from Forcheville by taking her away for a few days to the south. But he imagined that she was coveted by every male person in the hotel, and that she coveted them in return. And so he who in former days, on…
[...] made him feel that he was leading the life of the class of men whose existence is coloured by a love-affair, and in whom the perpetual sacrifice they make of their comfort and of their practical interests engenders a sort of inner charm. Then, though he may not consciously have taken this int…
