Odette de Crecy came again to see Swann; her visits grew more frequent,
and doubtless each visit revived the sense of disappointment which he felt
at the sight of a face whose details he had somewhat forgotten in the
interval, not remembering it as either so expressive or, in spite of her
youth, so faded; he used to regret, while she was talking to him, that her
really considerable beauty was not of the kind which he spontaneously
admired. It must be remarked that Odette's face appeared thinner and more
prominent than it actually was, because her forehead and the upper part of
her cheeks, a single and almost plane surface, were covered by the masses
of hair which women wore at that period, drawn forward in a fringe, raised
in crimped waves and falling in stray locks over her ears; while as for
her figure, and she was admirably built, it was impossible to make out its
continuity (on account of the fashion then prevailing, and in spite of her
being one of the best-dressed women in Paris) for the corset, jetting
forwards in an arch, as though over an imaginary stomach, and ending in a
sharp point, beneath which bulged out the balloon of her double skirts,
gave a woman, that year, the appearance of being composed of different
sections badly fitted together; to such an extent did the frills, the
flounces, the inner bodice follow, in complete independence, controlled
only by the fancy of their designer or the rigidity of their material, the
line which led them to the knots of ribbon, falls of lace, fringes of
vertically hanging jet, or carried them along the bust, but nowhere
attached themselves to the living creature, who, according as the
architecture of their fripperies drew them towards or away from her own,
found herself either strait-laced to suffocation or else completely
buried.
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