Lost Time Thursday: A Malignant Laughter
Feb. 18th, 2016 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
"He could hear the jokes that Mme Verdurin would make after dinner, jokes which, whoever the 'bore' might be at whom they were aimed, had always amused him because he could watch Odette laughing with them, laughing with him, her laughter almost a part of his. Now he felt that it was possibly at him that they would make Odette laugh. 'What fetid humour!' he exclaimed, twisting his mouth into an expression of disgust so violent that he could feel the muscles of his throat stiffen against his collar. 'How in God's name can a creature made in his image find anything to laugh at in those nauseating witticisms? The least sensitive nose must turn away in horror from such stale exhalations. It's really impossible to believe that a human being can fail to understand that, in allowing herself to smile at the expense of a fellow-creature who has loyally held out his hand to her, she is sinking into a mire from which it will be impossible, with the best will in the world, ever to rescue her. I inhabit a plane so infinitely far above the sewers in which these filthy vermin sprawl and crawl and bawl their cheap obscenities that I cannot possibly be spattered by the witticisms of a Verdurin!' he shouted, tossing up his head and proudly throwing back his shoulders. 'God knows I've honestly tried to pull Odette out of that quagmire, and to teach her to breathe a nobler and a purer air. But human patience has its limits, and mine is at an end,' he concluded, as though this sacred mission to tear Odette away from an atmosphere of sarcasms dated from longer than a few minutes ago, as though he had not undertaken it only since it had occurred to him that those sarcasms might perhaps be directed at himself, and might have the effect of detaching Odette from him."
- Swann's Way, "Swann in Love," p. 406-407
OH SWANN. I could have told you myself that this day was going to come, if you weren't so far away and (semi?)fictional. The Verdurins and their friends are not really very funny, it's true, but M. Swann's soul-eating jealousy has also made him a little hyperbolic. Time to take refuge in snobbery, I guess!
"He could hear the jokes that Mme Verdurin would make after dinner, jokes which, whoever the 'bore' might be at whom they were aimed, had always amused him because he could watch Odette laughing with them, laughing with him, her laughter almost a part of his. Now he felt that it was possibly at him that they would make Odette laugh. 'What fetid humour!' he exclaimed, twisting his mouth into an expression of disgust so violent that he could feel the muscles of his throat stiffen against his collar. 'How in God's name can a creature made in his image find anything to laugh at in those nauseating witticisms? The least sensitive nose must turn away in horror from such stale exhalations. It's really impossible to believe that a human being can fail to understand that, in allowing herself to smile at the expense of a fellow-creature who has loyally held out his hand to her, she is sinking into a mire from which it will be impossible, with the best will in the world, ever to rescue her. I inhabit a plane so infinitely far above the sewers in which these filthy vermin sprawl and crawl and bawl their cheap obscenities that I cannot possibly be spattered by the witticisms of a Verdurin!' he shouted, tossing up his head and proudly throwing back his shoulders. 'God knows I've honestly tried to pull Odette out of that quagmire, and to teach her to breathe a nobler and a purer air. But human patience has its limits, and mine is at an end,' he concluded, as though this sacred mission to tear Odette away from an atmosphere of sarcasms dated from longer than a few minutes ago, as though he had not undertaken it only since it had occurred to him that those sarcasms might perhaps be directed at himself, and might have the effect of detaching Odette from him."
- Swann's Way, "Swann in Love," p. 406-407
OH SWANN. I could have told you myself that this day was going to come, if you weren't so far away and (semi?)fictional. The Verdurins and their friends are not really very funny, it's true, but M. Swann's soul-eating jealousy has also made him a little hyperbolic. Time to take refuge in snobbery, I guess!
