Page 120 - swanns-way

this I had no thought of causing my uncle any unpleasant-
ness. How could I have thought such a thing, since I did not
wish it? And I could not suppose that my parents would see
any harm in a visit in which I myself saw none. Every day
of our lives does not some friend or other ask us to make
his apologies, without fail, to some woman to whom he has
been prevented from writing; and do not we forget to do
so, feeling that this woman cannot attach much importance
to a silence which has none for ourselves? I imagined, like
everyone else, that the brains of other people were lifeless
and submissive receptacles with no power of specific reac-
tion to any stimulus which might be applied to them; and I
had not the least doubt that when I deposited in the minds
of my parents the news of the acquaintance I had made at
my uncle’s I should at the same time transmit to them the
kindly judgment I myself had based on the introduction.
Unfortunately my parents had recourse to principles en-
tirely different from those which I suggested they should
adopt when they came to form their estimate of my uncle’s
conduct. My father and grandfather had ‘words’ with him
of a violent order; as I learned indirectly. A few days later,
passing my uncle in the street as he drove by in an open car-
riage, Î felt at once all the grief, the gratitude, the remorse
which I should have liked to convey to him. Beside the im-
mensity of these emotions I considered tha merely to raise
my hat to him would be incongruous and petty, and might
make him think that I regarded myself as bound to shew
him no more than the commonest form of courtesy. I decid-
ed to abstain from so inadéquate a gesture, and turned my

120 Swann’s Way