Given that, everything that Odette might say appeared to him
suspect. Did she mention a name: it was obviously that of one of her
lovers; once this supposition had taken shape, he would spend weeks in
tormenting himself; on one occasion he even approached a firm of 'inquiry
agents' to find out the address and the occupation of the unknown rival
who would give him no peace until he could be proved to have gone abroad,
and who (he ultimately learned) was an uncle of Odette, and had been dead
for twenty years.
Although she would not allow him, as a rule, to meet her at public
gatherings, saying that people would talk, it happened occasionally that,
at an evening party to which he and she had each been invited--at
Forcheville's, at the painter's, or at a charity ball given in one of the
Ministries--he found himself in the same room with her. He could see her,
but dared not remain for fear of annoying her by seeming to be spying upon
the pleasures which she tasted in other company, pleasures which--while he
drove home in utter loneliness, and went to bed, as anxiously as I myself
was to go to bed, some years later, on the evenings when he came to dine
with us at Combray--seemed illimitable to him since he had not been able
to see their end.
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