Page 383 - swanns-way

out recalling her. Besides, having allowed the intellectual
beliefs of his youth to grow faint, until his scepticism, as a
finished ‘man of the world,’ had gradually penetrated them
unawares, he held (or at least he had held for so long that he
had fallen into the habit of saying) that the objects which we
admire have no absolute value in themselves, that the whole
thing is a matter of dates and castes, and consists in a series
of fashions, the most vulgar of which are worth just as much
as those which are regarded as the most refined. And as he
had decided that the importance which Odette attached to
receiving cards tot a private view was not in itself any more
ridiculous than the pleasure which he himself had at one
time felt in going to luncheon with the Prince of Wales, so
he did not think that the admiration which she professed
for Monte-Carlo or for the Righi was any more unreason-
able than his own liking for Holland (which she imagined
as ugly) and for Versailles (which bored her to tears). And
so he denied himself the pleasure of visiting those places,
consoling himself with the reflection that it was for her sake
that he wished to feel, to like nothing that was not equally
felt and liked by her.
Like everything else that formed part of Odette’s en-
vironment, and was no more, in a sense, than the means
whereby he might see and talk to her more often, he en-
joyed the society of the Verdurins. With them, since, at
the heart of all their entertainments, dinners, musical eve-
nings, games, suppers in fancy dress, excursions to the
country, theatre parties, even the infrequent ‘big evenings’
when they entertained ‘bores,’ there were the presence of

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