Page 31 - swanns-way

Mahon!’ This view of Swann’s social atmosphere which
prevailed in my family seemed to be confirmed later on by
his marriage with a woman of the worst class, you might al-
most say a ‘fast’ woman, whom, to do him justice, he never
attempted to introduce to us, for he continued to come to
us alone, though he came more and more seldom; but from
whom they thought they could establish, on the assumption
that he had found her there, the circle, unknown to them, in
which he ordinarily moved.
But on one occasion my grandfather read in a newspaper
that M. Swann was one of the most faithful attendants at the
Sunday luncheons given by the Duc de X——, whose father
and uncle had been among our most prominent statesmen
in the reign of Louis Philippe. Now my grandfather was cu-
rious to learn all the little details which might help him to
take a mental share in the private lives of men like Mole,
the Due Pasquier, or the Duc de Broglie. He was delighted
to find that Swann associated with people who had known
them. My great-aunt, however, interpreted this piece of news
in a sense discreditable to Swann; for anyone who chose his
associates outside the caste in which he had been born and
bred, outside his ‘proper station,’ was condemned to utter
degradation in her eyes. It seemed to her that such a one
abdicated all claim to enjoy the fruits of those friendly rela-
tions with people of good position which prudent parents
cultivate and store up for their children’s benefit, for my
great-aunt had actually ceased to ‘see’ the son of a lawyer we
had known because he had married a ‘Highness’ and had
thereby stepped down—in her eyes—from the respectable

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