Swann's Way

first finding out which of the 'faithful' had anyone whom they must
warn. But Odette would thank him, and assure him that she had no message
for anyone, for she had told Swann, once and for all, that she could
not possibly send messages to him, before all those people, without
compromising herself. Sometimes she would be absent for several days
on end, when the Verdurins took her to see the tombs at Dreux, or to
Compiègne, on the painter's advice, to watch the sun setting through the
forest--after which they went on to the Château of Pierrefonds.

"To think that she could visit really historic buildings with me, who
have spent ten years in the study of architecture, who am constantly
bombarded, by people who really count, to take them over Beauvais or
Saint-Loup-de-Naud, and refuse to take anyone but her; and instead of
that she trundles off with the lowest, the most brutally degraded
of creatures, to go into ecstasies over the petrified excretions of
Louis-Philippe and Viollet-le-Duc! One hardly needs much knowledge
of art, I should say, to do that; though, surely, even without any
particularly refined sense of smell, one would not deliberately choose
to spend a holiday in the latrines, so as to be within range of their