Page 198 - swanns-way

And since this other, this irrepressible, dominant, despotic
Legrandin, if he lacked our Legrandin’s charming vocabu-
lary, shewed an infinitely greater promptness in expressing
himself, by means of what are called ‘reflexes,’ it followed
that, when Legrandin the talker attempted to silence him,
he would already have spoken, and it would be useless for
our friend to deplore the bad impression which the revela-
tions of his alter ego must have caused, since he could do no
more now than endeavour to mitigate them.
This was not to say that M. Legrandin was anything
but sincere when he inveighed against snobs. He could not
(from his own knowledge, at least) be aware that he was one
also, since it is only with the passions of others that we are
ever really familiar, and what we come to find out about our
own can be no more than what other people have shewn us.
Upon ourselves they react but indirectly, through our imag-
ination, which substitutes for our actual, primary motives
other, secondary motives, less stark and therefore more de-
cent. Never had Legrandin’s snobbishness impelled him to
make a habit of visiting a duchess as such. Instead, it would
set his imagination to make that duchess appear, in Legran-
din’s eyes, endowed with all the graces. He would be drawn
towards the duchess, assuring himself the while that he was
yielding to the attractions of her mind, and her other vir-
tues, which the vile race of snobs could never understand.
Only his fellow-snobs knew that he was of their number, for,
owing to their inability to appreciate the intervening efforts
of his imagination, they saw in close juxtaposition the social
activities of Legrandin and their primary cause.

198 Swann’s Way