Swann's Way

'sadist'; it is behind the footlights of a Paris theatre, and not under
the homely lamp of an actual country house, that one expects to see a
girl leading her friend on to spit upon the portrait of a father who has
lived and died for nothing and no one but herself; and when we find in
real life a desire for melodramatic effect, it is generally the 'sadic'
instinct that is responsible for it. It is possible that, without being
in the least inclined towards 'sadism,' a girl might have shewn the
same outrageous cruelty as Mlle. Vinteuil in desecrating the memory and
defying the wishes of her dead father, but she would not have given them
deliberate expression in an act so crude in its symbolism, so lacking
in subtlety; the criminal element in her behaviour would have been less
evident to other people, and even to herself, since she would not have
admitted to herself that she was doing wrong. But, appearances apart, in
Mlle. Vinteuil's soul, at least in the earlier stages, the evil element
was probably not unmixed. A 'sadist' of her kind is an artist in evil,
which a wholly wicked person could not be, for in that case the evil
would not have been external, it would have seemed quite natural to her,