爱情与自我认同的混同 把Odette 神秘化，并逐渐用这段迷恋来重塑自我形象。那么这份爱情就不再是附属体验了，而是他精神生活的核心。白天的活动、晚上的会议，对音乐与艺术的敏感，都重新被这段感情所组织。倘若被治愈，那么此刻所维系的自我认同就瞬间被瓦解，等同于自己也随之死亡。
病态迷恋与快感循环作者常常把爱情当做一种病，它会把这种被感知为痛苦的本身作为快感的一部分。一边被嫉妒、猜疑与偷窥的病态所折磨，一边也被其所带来的持续刺激制造着脑内情感高高潮。 如果回复“健康”，哪些刺激必然消失，斯万所面里的不仅仅是情感失重的空洞，更是比肩真正的肉体死亡威胁所带来的恐惧。
斯万以审美欲望来逃避现实倦怠出生贵族 生于世家。让人不懂的是哪些精致的生活是如何让斯万觉得精致却又空洞的？他对绘画、音乐、美学的执迷，难道本质上是对日常空虚的补偿？或者说别人在升华之时他却选择了再次入世，把这个情妇作为一幅“艺术化的图景”，成为了全部审美兴趣的焦点。一边心疼 Odette 一秒之余，却也对这种如热情如果冷却，斯万将失去的不仅仅是一段感情，还失去了对这个世界美好的感知。
双重身份于是斯万开始了双重身份之旅。即沉溺与爱情，又冷眼旁观。这种病态的依恋让他开始不断的自残。
猜疑随之而来，幻想稍后就到。这种自我分裂强化了与其说是自我的剖析，不如说是他对病态的依赖。
深深陷入不能自拔，更别说离开这个环境稍作休息。
普鲁斯特的厉害之处，把这种终究被时间抹平的激情，通过繁琐而又精美的文字转化为记忆，充满审美之余，最后终究失去。斯万抗拒痊愈，其实是抗拒从“活的激情”退回到“仅存回忆”的赫然失落。
我们都在害怕着失去维系自我的幻想，以及在时间面前激情悄然折叠为回忆的必然命运。
于是，斯万继续在妒忌与煎熬中苟活，你我也继续在尘世中沉沦。 他不愿“痊愈”成一个对爱人冷漠、对世界麻木、对自身认同支离破碎的“活人”。
EN VERSION #
Why Swann Thinks Getting “Well” Means Dying: A Personal Take on Proust #
Reading Swann’s torment in In Search of Lost Time, you keep bumping into the same paradox: he prays for relief from his obsession with Odette, yet the very idea of being “cured” horrifies him. Dig a little deeper and you see that, for Swann, recovery would feel like outright extinction. Here’s why.
When Love Devours Identity Swann doesn’t merely love Odette; he mythologizes her until she becomes the axis of his inner life. Day plans, late-night reflections, even his taste for music and painting—all reorganize themselves around this single passion. Pull that pillar away and the whole edifice of self collapses. From Swann’s vantage point, losing Odette-love equals losing Swann.
Pleasure, Pain, and the Addict’s High Proust treats love as a gorgeous infection. The symptoms—jealousy, spying, paranoid daydreams—hurt like hell, yet they also flood the brain with drama and intensity. Swann dreads the flat calm of emotional “health” more than the fevers of jealousy. No torment, no rush; no rush, no pulse. What’s left would feel closer to bodily death than to peace.
Aesthetic Escape from Aristocratic Ennui Born to privilege, Swann drifts through salons polished to a frictionless shine. Art, music, and cultivated taste are his escape hatches from that velvet emptiness. Odette becomes the living centerpiece of his personal museum, the frame through which the world still looks vivid. Lose the frame and colors fade; life reverts to fussy, well-lit monotony.
The Two-Headed Self Swann is both lab rat and scientist—immersed in obsession while coolly observing it. This split only deepens the addiction: every new pang gives the analyst more data and the lover more fuel. Healing would silence the entire experiment. Better the agony you can study than the blank page you can’t.
Passion vs. Memory: Proust’s Masterstroke Proust’s real subject is time, and time’s talent for sanding passions down into tidy memories. Swann senses that “getting over” Odette would demote a blazing, living force to a pale archival note. He’d rather burn than fossilize.
The Universal Kick in the Gut Strip away the Paris salons and it’s a fear many of us share: the day our sustaining fantasies fall apart and time folds our brightest feelings into the dull filing cabinet of the past. Swann chooses jealousy and anguish because, to him, they still feel alive. Better a tortured heartbeat than the flatline of cured indifference.
In the end, Swann’s choice is tragic but recognizable. He would rather be an invalid in love than a healthy stranger to himself—and Proust makes us feel why that trade-off can look, in certain lights, horribly reasonable.