An imperfect idea (though possibly all the more profound in
consequence), if one were to judge it from the point of view of Swann, who
would doubtless have considered that Odette failed to understand him, just
as a morphinomaniac or a consumptive, each persuaded that he has been
thrown back, one by some outside event, at the moment when he was just
going to shake himself free from his inveterate habit, the other by an
accidental indisposition at the moment when he was just going to be
finally cured, feels himself to be misunderstood by the doctor who does
not attach the same importance to these pretended contingencies, mere
disguises, according to him, assumed, so as to be perceptible by his
patients, by the vice of one and the morbid state of the other, which in
reality have never ceased to weigh heavily and incurably upon them while
they were nursing their dreams of normality and health. And, as a matter
of fact, Swann's love had reached that stage at which the physician and
(in the case of certain affections) the boldest of surgeons ask themselves
whether to deprive a patient of his vice or to rid him of his malady is
still reasonable, or indeed possible.
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