"I am comfortable because I did not betray my search for beauty," he says.
In particular, the introductions to both parts betray a much more generous sense of lyricism, enveloped in a palpable sense of mystery.
Both betray a supreme arrogance toward a Latin American neighbor of the US, a delusional self-confidence, and a tendency to rely on information from the local ruling class, its managers and its politicians.
But the report and statements he has made betray a view of welfare as a negative that needs to be reduced and which holds back rather than helps people.
These maps of Africa, drawn up by a small group of western cartographers, symbolically reinforced Europeans' sense of control over their mapped territories and subjects, but they didn't betray much in the way of real information.
The morning brought an attack on Ed Miliband by the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, over Trident, suggesting that just as the Labour leader had stabbed his brother David in the back, so he would betray Britain, bartering away the country's nuclear deterrent in return for enough Scottish National Party support to put him into Downing Street.
The figures betray a sense of the country's disproportionate focus on the influx of migrants.
Roping in a fremdwort (foreign word) to name an activity can sometimes betray a sense of unease, and Demontage is probably a good example of that: taking pleasure in someone's (symbolic) dismemberment sounds a little less problematic in exotic syllables.
The hardline anti-Europeans on the Tory benches, their antennae twitching for signs that their leader is about to betray them, are already suspicious that he wants a quick timetable because he's only looking to secure some modest concessions that they will condemn as merely cosmetic.
Soil samples are still also still being examined for fluids, footwear patterns and imprints that may betray the height and weight of the murderer.
Dark and rather cuddly, with good looks that betray his distant Portuguese ancestry, Mendes is a lot younger-looking than his 34 years.
