Had there been such a thing as a determination to
apply to Swann a social coefficient peculiar to himself, as distinct from
all the other sons of other stockbrokers in his father's position, his
coefficient would have been rather lower than theirs, because, leading a
very simple life, and having always had a craze for 'antiques' and
pictures, he now lived and piled up his collections in an old house which
my grandmother longed to visit, but which stood on the Quai d'Orleans, a
neighbourhood in which my great-aunt thought it most degrading to be
quartered. "Are you really a connoisseur, now?" she would say to him; "I
ask for your own sake, as you are likely to have 'fakes' palmed off on you
by the dealers," for she did not, in fact, endow him with any critical
faculty, and had no great opinion of the intelligence of a man who, in
conversation, would avoid serious topics and shewed a very dull
preciseness, not only when he gave us kitchen recipes, going into the most
minute details, but even when my grandmother's sisters were talking to him
about art. When challenged by them to give an opinion, or to express his
admiration for some picture, he would remain almost impolitely silent, and
would then make amends by furnishing (if he could) some fact or other
about the gallery in which the picture was hung, or the date at which it
had been painted.
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