And, once or twice, he derived from such evenings that
kind of happiness which one would be inclined (did it not originate in so
violent a reaction from an anxiety abruptly terminated) to call peaceful,
since it consists in a pacifying of the mind: he had looked in for a
moment at a revel in the painter's studio, and was getting ready to go
home; he was leaving behind him Odette, transformed into a brilliant
stranger, surrounded by men to whom her glances and her gaiety, which were
not for him, seemed to hint at some voluptuous pleasure to be enjoyed
there or elsewhere (possibly at the Bal des Incoherents, to which he
trembled to think that she might be going on afterwards) which made Swann
more jealous than the thought of their actual physical union, since it was
more difficult to imagine; he was opening the door to go, when he heard
himself called back in these words (which, by cutting off from the party
that possible ending which had so appalled him, made the party itself seem
innocent in retrospect, made Odette's return home a thing no longer
inconceivable and terrible, but tender and familiar, a thing that kept
close to his side, like a part of his own daily life, in his carriage; a
thing that stripped Odette herself of the excess of brilliance and gaiety
in her appearance, shewed that it was only a disguise which she had
assumed for a moment, for his sake and not in view of any mysterious
pleasures, a disguise of which she had already wearied)--in these words,
which Odette flung out after him as he was crossing the threshold: "Can't
you wait a minute for me? I'm just going; we'll drive back together and
you can drop me.
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