Wholly Platonic satisfaction

It was an invitation which, two years earlier, would have incensed M. Vinteuil, but which now filled him with so much gratitude that he felt obliged to refrain from the indiscretion of accepting. Swann's friendly regard for his daughter seemed to him to be in itself so honourable, so precious a support that he felt it would perhaps be advisable not to make use of it, so as to have the wholly Platonic satisfaction of preserving it.


This is a very Proustian psychological wrinkle. I'm not sure how many people actually think like this--how much, that is to say, Proust continually and vigorously projected his own mini-neuroticisms onto his characters. But that may be besides the point. The mere process of his teasing out such observations--as here, with the composer Vinteuil, who was so moved by Swann's support that he preferred not to engage it--is itself the marvel. This long and winding book is full of such moments.