Page 554 - swanns-way

when people pass judgment upon their neighbour, their
finding is based upon his actions. It is those alone that are
significant, and not at all what we say or what we think.
Charlus and des Laumes may have this or that fault, but
they are men of honour. Orsan, perhaps, has not the same
faults, but he is not a man of honour. He may have acted dis-
honourably once again.’ Then he suspected Rémi, who, it
was true, could only have inspired the letter, but he now felt
himself, for a moment, to be on the right track. To begin
with, Loredan had his own reasons for wishing harm to
Odette. And then, how were we not to suppose that our ser-
vants, living in a situation inferior to our own, adding to
our fortunes and to our frailties imaginary riches and vices
for which they at once envied and despised us, should not
find themselves led by fate to act in a manner abhorrent to
people of our own class? He also suspected my grandfather.
On every occasion when Swann had asked him to do him
any service, had he not invariably declined? Besides, with
his ideas of middle-class respectability, he might have
thought that he was acting for Swann’s good. He suspected,
in turn, Bergotte, the painter, the Verdurins; paused for a
moment to admire once again the wisdom of people in soci-
ety, who refused to mix in the artistic circles in which such
things were possible, were, perhaps, even openly avowed, as
excellent jokes; but then he recalled the marks of honesty
that were to be observed in those Bohemians, and contrast-
ed them with the life of expedients, often bordering on
fraudulence, to which the want of money, the craving for
luxury, the corrupting influence of their pleasures often

554 Swann’s Way