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The Doctor, who had been listening, had an idea that it was the right moment to interject "Se non e vero," but he was not quite certain of the words, and was afraid of being caught out. After dinner, Forcheville went up to the Doctor. "She can't have been at all bad looking, Mme. Verdurin; anyhow, she's a woman you can really talk to; that's all I want.
Odette had looked on, impassive, at this scene; but when the door had closed behind Saniette, she had forced the normal expression of her face down, as the saying is, by several pegs, so as to bring herself on to the same level of vulgarity as Forcheville; her eyes had sparkled with a malicious smile of congratulation upon his audacity, of ironical pity for the poor wretch who had been its victim; she had darted at him a look of complicity in the crime, which so clearly implied: "That's finished him off, or I'm very much mistaken.
When they had all gone, Mme. Verdurin said to her husband: "Did you notice the way Swann laughed, such an idiotic laugh, when we spoke about Mme. La Tremoille?" She had remarked, more than once, how Swann and Forcheville suppressed the particle 'de' before that lady's name.
Wherefore believe that she would enjoy down there with Forcheville or with other men intoxicating pleasures which she had never known with him, and which his jealousy alone had fabricated in all their elements?
And yet, if there had been nothing between Odette and Forcheville, why not have opened the door at once, why have said, "I was right to open the door; it was my uncle." Right? if she was doing nothing wrong at that moment how could Forcheville possibly have accounted for her not opening the door?
"M. de Forcheville thinks Odette charming," M. Verdurin told his wife. "Why, do you know, she wants so much to meet you again some day at luncheon. We must arrange it, but don't on any account let Swann hear about it. He spoils everything, don't you know. I don't mean to say that you're not to come to dinner too, of course; we hope to see you very often.
Well, with anyone else he's not the same man, he's not in the least witty, you have to drag the words out of him, he's even boring." "That's strange," remarked Forcheville with fitting astonishment. A sort of wit like Brichot's would have been regarded as out-and-out stupidity by the people among whom Swann had spent his early life, for all that it is quite compatible with real intelligence.
He's going to Egypt!" and Swann had at once understood that this meant: "I am going to Egypt at Whitsuntide with Forcheville." And, in fact, if, a few days later, Swann began: "About that trip that you told me you were going to take with Forcheville," she would answer carelessly: "Yes, my dear boy, we're starting on the 19th; we'll send you a 'view' of the Pyramids."
And the very first dinner at the Verdurins' at which Forcheville was present threw a glaring light upon all the differences between them, made his qualities start into prominence and precipitated the disgrace of Swann. There was, at this dinner, besides the usual party, a professor from the Sorbonne, one Brichot, who had met M. and Mme.
Then gradually reappeared and rose before him, softly radiant, the face of the other Odette, of that Odette who al^o turned with a smile to Forcheville, but with a smile in which there was nothing but affection for Swann, when she said: "You mustn't stay long, for this gentleman doesn't much like my having visitors when he's here.
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