In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

Of course, the atmosphere of the microcosm in which the old lady isolated herself was not poisoned with virulent bitterness, as was that of the group in which the wives of the solicitor and magistrate sat chattering with impotent rage. It was indeed embalmed with a delicate and old-world fragrance which, however, was none the less artificial. For at heart the old lady would probably have found in attracting, in attaching to herself (and, with that object, recreating herself), the mysterious sympathy of new friends a charm which is altogether lacking from the pleasure that is to be derived from mixing only with the people of one’s own world, and reminding oneself that, one’s own being the best of all possible worlds, the ill-informed contempt of ‘outsiders’ may be disregarded. Perhaps she felt that — were she to arrive incognito at the Grand Hotel, Balbec, she would, in her black stuff gown and old-fashioned bonnet, bring a smile to the lips of some old reprobate, who from the depths of his rocking chair would glance up and murmur, “What a scarecrow!” or,