Page 380 - swanns-way

rising impulsively to the surface through the acquired dil-
ettantism of the ‘light woman.’
People who enjoyed ‘picking-up’ things, who admired
poetry, despised sordid calculations of profit and loss, and
nourished ideals of honour and love, she placed in a class
by themselves, superior to the rest of humanity. There was
no need actually to have those tastes, provided one talked
enough about them; when a man had told her at dinner that
he loved to wander about and get his hands all covered with
dust in the old furniture shops, that he would never be re-
ally appreciated in this commercial age, since he was not
concerned about the things that interested it, and that he
belonged to another generation altogether, she would come
home saying: ‘Why, he’s an adorable creature; so sensitive!
I had no idea,’ and she would conceive for him a strong and
sudden friendship. But, on the other hand, men who, like
Swann, had these tastes but did not speak of them, left her
cold. She was obliged, of course, to admit that Swann was
most generous with his money, but she would add, pouting:
‘It’s not the same thing, you see, with him,’ and, as a matter
of fact, what appealed to her imagination was not the prac-
tice of disinterestedness, but its vocabulary.
Feeling that, often, he could not give her in reality the
pleasures of which she dreamed, he tried at least to ensure
that she should be happy in his company, tried not to con-
tradict those vulgar ideas, that bad taste which she displayed
on every possible occasion, which all the same he loved, as
he could not help loving everything that came from her,
which even fascinated him, for were they not so many more

380 Swann’s Way