Page 446 - swanns-way

fault with them now and then, still, after all they are a very
different matter from that gang of blackmailers) shew a pro-
found sagacity in refusing to know them, or even to dirty
the tips of their fingers with them. What a sound intuition
there is in that ‘Noli me tangere’ motto of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain.’
He had long since emerged from the paths and avenues
of the Bois, he had almost reached his own house, and still,
for he had not yet thrown off the intoxication of grief, or
his whim of insincerity, but was ever more and more ex-
hilarated by the false intonation, the artificial sonority of
his own voice, he continued to perorate aloud in the silence
of the night: ‘People ‘in society’ have their failings, as no
one knows better than I; but, after all, they are people to
whom some things, at least, are impossible. So-and-so’ (a
fashionable woman whom he had known) ‘was far from be-
ing perfect, but, after all, one did find in her a fundamental
delicacy, a loyalty in her conduct which made her, whatever
happened, incapable of a felony, which fixes a vast gulf be-
tween her and an old hag like Verdurin. Verdurin! What a
name! Oh, there’s something complete about them, some-
thing almost fine in their trueness to type; they’re the most
perfect specimens of their disgusting class! Thank God, it
was high time that I stopped condescending to promiscu-
ous intercourse with such infamy, such dung.’
But, just as the virtues which he had still attributed, an
hour or so earlier, to the Verdurins, would not have sufficed,
even although the Verdurins had actually possessed them,
if they had not also favoured and protected his love, to ex-

446 Swann’s Way