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 exhilarated 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 being 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 between her and an old hag
like Verdurin. Verdurin! What a name! Oh, there's something complete about
them, something 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 promiscuous intercourse with such infamy,
such dung.
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