years of age. His reverie
was wandering. An indisposition of rather long duration had, however, at
one time interrupted his studies, and led to his being sent into the
country. He had remained for a long time without seeing Marie; during his
vacations spent at Neuilly he had twice failed to meet her, for she was
almost always travelling. He knew that she was very ill, in consequence
of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in a
girl's life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictory
advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a different
watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragical
death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. She
had been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which she
had contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule,
through having taken off her mantle to place it round the shoulders of
Marie, who had been conveyed thither for treatment. It had been necessary
that the father should at once start off to fetch his daughter, who was
mad with grief, and the corpse of his wife, who had been so suddenly torn
from him. And unhappily, after losing her, the affairs of the family went
from bad to worse in the hands of this architect, who, without counting,
flung his fortune into the yawning gulf of his unsuccessful enterprises.
Marie no longer stirred from her couch; only Blanche remained to manage
the household, and she had matters of her own to attend to, being busy
with the last examinations which she had to pass, the diplomas which she
was obstinately intent on securing, foreseeing as she did that she would
someday have to earn her bread.

All at once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten incidents,
Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision. Ill-health, he
remembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday. He had just
completed his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly behindhand, having so
far only secured the four minor orders; but on his return a
sub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an inviolable vow would
bind him for evermore. And the Guersaints' little garden at Neuilly,
whither he had formerly so often gone to play, again distinctly appeared
before him. Marie's couch had been rolled under the tall trees at the far
end of the garden near the hedge, they were alone together in the sad
peacefulness of an autumnal afternoon, and he saw Marie