Ah! had fate but allowed him to share a
single dwelling with Odette, so that in her house he should be in his own;
if, when asking his servant what there would be for luncheon, it had been
Odette's bill of fare that he had learned from the reply; if, when Odette
wished to go for a walk, in the morning, along the Avenue du
Bois-de-Boulogne, his duty as a good husband had obliged him, though he
had no desire to go out, to accompany her, carrying her cloak when she was
too warm; and in the evening, after dinner, if she wished to stay at home,
and not to dress, if he had been forced to stay beside her, to do what she
asked; then how completely would all the trivial details of Swann's life,
which seemed to him now so gloomy, simply because they would, at the same
time, have formed part of the life of Odette, have taken on--like that
lamp, that orangeade, that armchair, which had absorbed so much of his
dreams, which materialised so much of his longing,--a sort of
superabundant sweetness and a mysterious solidity.
And yet he was inclined to suspect that the state for which he so much
longed was a calm, a peace, which would not have created an atmosphere
favourable to his love.
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