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By Root 1460 0

spectacle of the world would appear as unstable as a dream. Of course I made efforts to emerge from this incoherence, to find reasons for things. I tried even to be “objective” and, to that end, to bear in mind the disproportion that existed between the importance which Gilberte had in my eyes and that, not only which I had in hers, but which she herself had in the eyes of other people, a disproportion which, had I failed to remark it, might have caused me to mistake mere friendliness on her part for a passionate avowal, and a grotesque and debasing display on mine for the simple and amiable impulse that directs us towards a pretty face. But I was afraid also of falling into the opposite excess, whereby I should have seen in Gilberte’s unpunctuality in keeping an appointment, merely on a bad-tempered impulse, an irremediable hostility. I tried to discover between these two perspectives, equally distorting, a third which would enable me to see things as they really were; the calculations I was obliged to make with that object helped to take my mind off my sufferings; and whether in obedience to the laws of arithmetic or because I had made them give me the answer that I desired, I made up my mind to go round to the Swanns’ next day, happy, but happy in the same way as people who, having long been tormented by the thought of a journey which they have not wished to make, go no further than the station and then return home to unpack their boxes. And since, while one is hesitating, the mere idea of a possible decision (unless one has rendered that idea sterile by deciding that one will make no decision) develops, like a seed in the ground, the lineaments, the minutiae, of the emotions that would spring from the performance of the action, I told myself that it had been quite absurd of me to go to as much trouble, in planning never to see Gilberte again, as if I had really had to put this plan into effect and that since, on the contrary, I was to end by returning to her side, I might have spared myself all those painful velleities and acceptances.

But this resumption of friendly relations lasted only so long as it took me to reach the Swanns’; not because their butler, who was really fond of me, told me that Gilberte had gone out (a statement the truth of which was confirmed to me, as it happened, the same evening, by people who had seen her somewhere), but because of the manner in which he said it: “Sir, the young lady is not at home; I can assure you, sir, that I am speaking the truth. If you wish to make any inquiries I can fetch the young lady’s maid. You know very well, sir, that I would do everything in my power to oblige you, and that if the young lady was at home I would take you to her at once.” These words being of the only kind that is really important, that is to say involuntary, the kind that gives us a sort of X-ray photograph of the unimaginable reality which would be wholly concealed beneath a prepared speech, proved that in Gilberte’s household there was an impression that she found me importunate; and so, scarcely had the man uttered them than they had aroused in me a hatred of which I preferred to make him rather than Gilberte the victim; he drew upon his own head all the angry feelings that I might have had for my beloved; relieved of them thanks to his words, my love subsisted alone; but his words had at the same time shown me that I must cease for the present to attempt to see Gilberte. She would be certain to write to me to apologise. In spite of which, I should not return at once to see her, so as to prove to her that I was capable of living without her. Besides, once I had received her letter, Gilberte’s society was a thing with which I could more easily dispense for a time, since I should be certain of finding her ready to receive me whenever I chose. All that I needed in order to support less gloomily the pain of a voluntary separation was to feel that my heart was rid of the terrible uncertainty as to whether we were not irreconcilably sundered, whether she had not become engaged, left Paris, been taken