This time it
was not so much--as it ordinarily was--in Swann's brain that the
slackening of tension due to exhaustion took effect, it was rather in his
heart. But all the things in life that have once existed tend to recur,
and, like a dying animal that is once more stirred by the throes of a
convulsion which was, apparently, ended, upon Swann's heart, spared for a
moment only, the same agony returned of its own accord to trace the same
cross again. He remembered those moonlit evenings, when, leaning back in
the victoria that was taking him to the Rue La Perouse, he would cultivate
with voluptuous enjoyment the emotions of a man in love, ignorant of the
poisoned fruit that such emotions must inevitably bear. But all those
thoughts lasted for no more than a second, the time that it took him to
raise his hand to his heart, to draw breath again and to contrive to
smile, so as to dissemble his torment. Already he had begun to put further
questions. For his jealousy, which had taken an amount of trouble, such as
no enemy would have incurred, to strike him this mortal blow, to make him
forcibly acquainted with the most cruel pain that he had ever known, his
jealousy was not satisfied that he had yet suffered enough, and sought to
expose his bosom to an even deeper wound.
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