This image has nothing to do with this post. Swann In Love was not written for early 20th century French citizens, it was written for all time. I also think it's supposed be adapted into a play and set in our contemporary world. I haven't googled yet to see if this exists, it must. I know there's a period film from the 80's. I'm going to type this out first before I burst my own bubble. It's just some rearranged text converted into dialogue, I don't know anything about how to properly arrange theatrical notes. I hope that, through this, you'll be able to see how fucking fantastic it would be for this story to exist as a contemporary play.
Swann, who has been seeing Odette, had a falling out with the Verdurins and is no longer welcome at their salon, where Odette spends most of her evenings. (the salon may become a bar, and the Verdurins its owners...) Forcheville (whose twat name will have already been addressed) is a new addition to the Verdurin scene, he and Odette have developed a mutual interest in Swann's absence. (Those whom I know personally may recognize why this story currently appeals to me)
Swann sits mumbling to himself in front of his laptop.
Swann: Yet it's not really anger... that I feel when I see how she longs to run away and scratch around in that lair of cacophony. It's disappointment, not of course for myself, but for her; I'm disappointed to find that, after living for more than six months in daily contact with me, she hasn't yet reached the stage of understanding that there are evenings when anyone with the least delicacy of feeling should be willing to forgo a pleasure when asked to do so. She ought to have the sense to say 'I won't go' if only from policy, since it is by her answer that the quality of her heart will be judged once and for all.
Swann begins to type out an email which he reads aloud
I swear to you, that in asking you not to go I should hope for nothing so much as that you should refuse, for I have a thousand other things to do this evening and I shall feel trapped myself if, after all, you tell me you're not going. But my occupations, my pleasures are not everything; I must think of you too. A day may come when, seeing me irrevocably sundered from you, you will be entitled to reproach me for not having warned you at the decisive hour in which I felt that I was about to pass judgment on you, one of those stern judgments which love cannot long resist. You see, your night out has no bearing on the point. What I must know is...
Forcheville begins to read the rest of the email mockingly, with Swann at first, from Odette's computer in her dressing room.
Forcheville: ...whether you are indeed one of those creatures in the lowest grade of mentality and even charm, one of those contemptible creatures who are incapable of forgoing even minor pleasures. And if you are such, how could anyone love you, for you are not even a person, a clearly defined entity, imperfect, but perfectible. You are a formless water that will trickle down any slope that offers itself, a fish devoid of memory, incapable of thought, which all its life long in its aquarium will continue to dash itself a hundred times a day against the glass wall, always mistaking it for water.
Odette: You shouldn't be reading that.
Forcheville: He shouldn't be writing it! How can you tolerate a message like this?
Odette takes Forcheville's place at the computer and finishes reading the message aloud. Unlike Forcheville, she reads it with sympathy and concern.
Odette: Do you realize that your answer will have the effect-- I won't say of making me cease loving you immediatly, of course, but making you less attractive in my eyes when I realize that you are not a person, that you are beneath everything in the world and incapable of raising yourself one inch higher. Obviously, I should have preferred to ask you as a matter of little or no importance to give up this night out in the hope that you would go on none the less. But, having decided to make such an issue of it, to draw such drastic consequences from your reply, I consider it more honorable to give you due warning.
Forcheville: You needn't pay any heed to those words that were just written, you have enough familiarity with the ways of men. You can conclude that that wouldn't have been written unless he was in love, and that since he is in love, it's unnecessary to obey it at all, as he'll only be more in love later on. We're late, we should go.
Odette types a quick reply.
Odette: If I go on reading this, I'll never get there in time for the Overture.
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