, to decide once and for all
whom one is going to like and dislike, to stick to the people one likes,
and, to make up for the time one has wasted with the others, never to
leave them again as long as one lives. Very well!" he went on, with the
slight emotion which a man feels when, even without being fully aware of
what he is doing, he says something, not because it is true but because
he enjoys saying it, and listens to his own voice uttering the words
as though they came from some one else, "The die is now cast; I have
elected to love none but magnanimous souls, and to live only in an
atmosphere of magnanimity. You ask me whether Mme. Verdurin is really
intelligent. I can assure you that she has given me proofs of a nobility
of heart, of a loftiness of soul, to which no one could possibly
attain--how could they?--without a corresponding loftiness of mind.
Without question, she has a profound understanding of art. But it is
not, perhaps, in that that she is most admirable; every little action,
ingeniously, exquisitely kind, which she has performed for my sake,
every friendly attention, simple little things, quite domestic and yet
quite sublime, reveal a more profound comprehension of existence than
all your textbooks of philosophy."

* * *

He might have reminded himself, all the same, that there were various
old friends of his family who were just as simple as the Verdurins,
companions of his early days who were just as fond of art, that he knew
other 'great-hearted creatures,' and that, nevertheless, since he had
cast his vote in favour of simplicity, the arts, and magnanimity, he had
entirely ceased to see them. But these people did not know Odette, and,
if they had known her, would never have thought of introducing her to
him.

And so there was probably not, in the whole of the Verdurin circle, a
single one of the 'faithful' who loved them, or believed that he loved
them, as dearly as did Swann. And yet, when M. Verdurin said that he was
not satisfied with Swann, he had not only expressed his own sentiments,
he had unwittingly discovered his wife's. Doubtless Swann had too
particular an affection for Odette, as to which he had failed to take
Mme. Verdurin daily into his confidence; doubtless the very discretion
with which he availed himself of the Verdurins' hospitality, refraining,
often, from coming to dine with them for a reason which they never
suspected, and in place of which they saw only an anxiet