朋友們都感到驚訝，斯萬敢情變了。再也收不到他要求介紹女人的信了。他不再注意別的女人，避免到能碰見女人的地方。在餐館裏，在鄉下，他的舉止也全然變了；朋友們原來可以據以把他辨認出來，也以為今後將永遠不變的那種舉止也不知哪裡去了。一種一時的異常的性格不僅能取代正常的性格，也能消除正常的性格直至此時所由表現的恒常的外部特徵，激情在我們心中造成的變化也是如此！與此相反，現在卻有一件事情是不變的，那就是不管斯萬晚上到哪裡，他必然要去跟奧黛特相會。把他和她相隔開的這段路程就是他每天必不可少地要走一次的路程，仿佛這是他生命歷程中無法避免的一個下滑的徒坡。

(p.256 追憶似水年華 I 在斯萬家那邊 聯經版 1992)  

His friends would be left marvelling, and, as a matter of fact, Swann was no longer the same man. No one ever received a letter from him now demanding an introduction to a woman. He had ceased to pay any attention to women, and kept away from the places in which they were ordinarily to be met. In a restaurant, or in the country, his manner was deliberately and directly the opposite of that by which, only a few days earlier, his friends would have recognised him, that manner which had seemed permanently and unalterably his own. To such an extent does passion manifest itself in us as a temporary and distinct character, which not only takes the place of our normal character but actually obliterates the signs by which that character has hitherto been discernible. On the other hand, there was one thing that was, now, invariable, namely that wherever Swann might be spending the evening, he never failed to go on afterwards to Odette. The interval of space separating her from him was one which he must as inevitably traverse as he must descend, by an irresistible gravitation, the steep slope of life itself.

(Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff ) 

Eux s’étonnaient, et de fait, Swann n’était plus le même. On ne recevait plus jamais de lettre de lui où il demandât à connaître une femme. Il ne faisait plus attention à aucune, s’abstenait d’aller dans les endroits où on en rencontre. Dans un restaurant, à la campagne, il avait l’attitude inverse de celle à quoi, hier encore, on l’eût reconnu et qui avait semblé devoir toujours être la sienne. Tant une passion est en nous comme un caractère momentané et différent qui se substitue à l’autre et abolit les signes jusque-là invariables par lesquels il s’exprimait ! En revanche ce qui était invariable maintenant, c’était que où que Swann se trouvât, il ne manquât pas d’aller rejoindre Odette. Le trajet qui le séparait d’elle était celui qu’il parcourait inévitablement et comme la pente même, irrésistible et rapide, de sa vie.

(l’édition Gallimard, Paris, 1946-47 )