Thursday, March 22, 2012

Typical of a man who has married a whore

Having just left Swann's house with his literary idol, Bergotte, our narrator learns the truth about Odette's past.

"'I'll tell you who does need a good doctor, and that's our friend Swann,' said Bergotte. And upon my asking whether he was ill, 'Well, don't you see, he's typical of the man who has married a whore, and has to pocket a dozen insults a day from women who refuse to meet his wife or men who have slept with her. Just look, one day when you're there, at the way he lifts his eyebrows when he comes in, to see who's in the room.'"

It's a rather shocking comment made to a young teenager he has just met. The narrator says to himself, "Certainly a person like my great-aunt, for instance, would have been incapable of treating any of us to the blandishments which I had heard Bergotte lavish upon Swann."

"I bowed my head in silence." And he mentions it no further.

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