Vinteuil lived. And so we used often to meet his daughter driving her
dogcart at full speed along the road. After a certain year we never saw
her alone, but always accompanied by a friend, a girl older than herself,
with an evil reputation in the neighbourhood, who in the end installed
herself permanently, one day, at Montjouvain. People said: "That poor M.
Vinteuil must be blinded by love not to see what everyone is talking
about, and to let his daughter--a man who is horrified if you use a word
in the wrong sense--bring a woman like that to live under his roof. He
says that she is a most superior woman, with a heart of gold, and that she
would have shewn extraordinary musical talent if she had only been
trained. He may be sure it is not music that she is teaching his
daughter." But M. Vinteuil assured them that it was, and indeed it is
remarkable that people never fail to arouse admiration of their normal
qualities in the relatives of anyone with whom they are in physical
intercourse. Bodily passion, which has been so unjustly decried, compels
its victims to display every vestige that is in them of unselfishness and
generosity, and so effectively that they shine resplendent in the eyes of
all beholders.
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