"Meanwhile, having acknowledged with a nod the greeting of some terrified young man who had already passed out of sight though his heart was still beating furiously, Mme Swann turned to me: 'Then it's all over?' she said. 'You aren't ever coming to see Gilberte again? I'm glad you make an exception of me, and are not going to drop me completely. I like seeing you, but I also liked the influence you had over my daughter. I'm sure she's very sorry about it, too. However, I mustn't bully you, or you'll make up your mind at once that you never want to set eyes on me again.' 'Odette, there's Sagan saying good-day to you,' Swann pointed out to his wife. And there indeed was the Prince, as in some grand finale at the theatre or the circus or in an old painting, wheeling his horse round so as to face her, and doffing his hat with a sweeping theatrical and, as it were, allegorical flourish in which he displayed all the chivalrous courtesy of the great nobleman bowing in token of respect for Womanhood, even if it was embodied in a woman whom it was impossible for his mother or his sister to know. And in fact at every turn, recognised in the depths of the liquid transparency and of the luminous glaze of the shadow which her parasol cast over her, Mme Swann received the salutations of the last belated horseman, who passed as though filmed at the gallop in the blinding glare of the Avenue, clubmen whose names, those of celebrities for the public - Antoine de Castellane, Adalbert de Montmorency and the rest - were for Mme Swann the familiar names of friends. And as the average span of life, the relative longevity of our memories of poetical sensations is much greater than that of our memories of what the heart has suffered, now that the sorrows that I once felt on Gilberte's account have long since faded and vanished, there has survived them the pleasure that I still derive - whenever I close my eyes and read, as it were upon the face of a sundial, the minutes that are received between a quarter past twelve and one o'clock in the month of May - from seeing myself once again strolling and talking thus with Mme Swann, beneath her parasol, as though in the coloured shade of a wisteria bower."
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 689-690
And so, at least temporarily, but sadly I have a feeling permanently, Mme Swann passes from Proust's story. If this is the end, I'm sorry to see her go and I wish I had known her better, as with any person who passes through your life and you only later realize that they have prematurely, as least for you, departed. Initially I intended to include this section mainly to bring a close to the section entitled "Madame Swann at Home," but the more I read it the more I was drawn to it. So much of the novel so far has revolved around her, although, like Pluto, with a highly elliptical orbit, but she has nonetheless remained maddeningly out of focus. If she is passing out of the novel, then at least she did so in grand fashion: "And there indeed was the Prince, as in some grand finale at the theatre or the circus or in an old painting, wheeling his horse round so as to face her, and doffing his hat with a sweeping theatrical and, as it were, allegorical flourish in which he displayed at the chivalrous courtesy of the great nobleman bowing in token of respect for Womanhood, even if it was embodied in a woman whom it was impossible for his mother or his sister to know." It is a lovely allegorical send off, as the patriarchy thanks her for her service, in this case mainly sexual, while at the same time it is understood that no respectable woman would have anything to do with her. For some reason I flashed back to the oddities of Female Genital Mutilation where often times it is the women of the tribe who are the more active agents in their own oppression, even if in the end they are the indirect, unwilling and in many ways powerless tools of male hegemony. Or, are men just more forgiving than women? Sometimes I think that men just work through issues, especially slights to their honor, much quicker, even if it's just beating each other up, whereas women tend to bear grudges almost generationally. Of course, it's doubtless not that simple either, because it's probably not a case where one sex is more a less absolutely forgiving; I've observed that both sexes are much harder on their own sex and more forgiving of the other sex. If this is the final bow of Mme Swann then she also passed out as the coquette, using her powers to the end: "Then it's all over?" she said. "You aren't ever coming to see Gilberte again? I'm glad you make an exception of me, and are not going to drop me completely. I like seeing you, but I also liked the influence you had over my daughter. I'm sure she's very sorry about it, too. However, I mustn't bully you, or you'll make up your mind at once that you never want to set eyes on me again."
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