"Coarse or not, I know bottles in which there is something very
different!" said Flora briskly, feeling bound to thank Swann as well as
her sister, since the present of Asti had been addressed to them both.
Celine began to laugh.

Swann was puzzled, but went on: "'I cannot say whether it was his
ignorance or a trap,' writes Saint-Simon; 'he wished to give his hand to
my children. I noticed it in time to prevent him.'"

My grandfather was already in ecstasies over "ignorance or a trap," but
Miss Celine--the name of Saint-Simon, a 'man of letters,' having arrested
the complete paralysis of her sense of hearing--had grown angry.

"What! You admire that, do you? Well, it is clever enough! But what is the
point of it? Does he mean that one man isn't as good as another? What
difference can it make whether he is a duke or a groom so long as he is
intelligent and good? He had a fine way of bringing up his children, your
Saint-Simon, if he didn't teach them to shake hands with all honest men.
Really and truly, it's abominable. And you dare to quote it!"

And my grandfather, utterly depressed, realising how futile it would be
for him, against this opposition, to attempt to get Swann to tell him the
stories which would have amused him, murmured to my mother: "Just tell me
again that line of yours which always comforts me so much on these
occasions. Oh, yes:

What virtues, Lord, Thou makest us abhor!

Good, that is, very good."