Swann's Way

surely people 'in society' (and, though one may find fault with them now
and then, still, after all they are a very different matter from that
gang of blackmailers) shew a profound sagacity in refusing to know
them, or even to dirty the tips of their fingers with them. 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