He had ceased to pay any attention to women, and kept away
from the places in which they were ordinarily to be met. In a restaurant,
or in the country, his manner was deliberately and directly the opposite
of that by which, only a few days earlier, his friends would have
recognised him, that manner which had seemed permanently and unalterably
his own. To such an extent does passion manifest itself in us as a
temporary and distinct character, which not only takes the place of our
normal character but actually obliterates the signs by which that
character has hitherto been discernible. On the other hand, there was one
thing that was, now, invariable, namely that wherever Swann might be
spending the evening, he never failed to go on afterwards to Odette. The
interval of space separating her from him was one which he must as
inevitably traverse as he must descend, by an irresistible gravitation,
the steep slope of life itself. To be frank, as often as not, when he had
stayed late at a party, he would have preferred to return home at once,
without going so far out of his way, and to postpone their meeting until
the morrow; but the very fact of his putting himself to such inconvenience
at an abnormal hour in order to visit her, while he guessed that his
friends, as he left them, were saying to one another: "He is tied hand and
foot; there must certainly be a woman somewhere who insists on his going
to her at all hours," 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 which they are making of their comfort and of their
practical interests has engendered a spiritual charm.
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