And so the simple and regular manifestations of a social organism, namely
the 'little clan,' were transformed for Swann into a series of daily
encounters with Odette, and enabled him to feign indifference to the
prospect of seeing her, or even a desire not to see her; in doing which he
incurred no very great risk since, even although he had written to her
during the day, he would of necessity see her in the evening and accompany
her home.
But one evening, when, irritated by the thought of that inevitable dark
drive together, he had taken his other 'little girl' all the way to the
Bois, so as to delay as long as possible the moment of his appearance at
the Verdurins', he was so late in reaching them that Odette, supposing
that he did not intend to come, had already left. Seeing the room bare of
her, Swann felt his heart wrung by sudden anguish; he shook with the sense
that he was being deprived of a pleasure whose intensity he began then for
the first time to estimate, having always, hitherto, had that certainty of
finding it whenever he would, which (as in the case of all our pleasures)
reduced, if it did not altogether blind him to its dimensions.
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