ming
soured, she was growing more lean and harsh. To see her, from morning
till night, whirling round the jars of oil, one would have thought she
believed that she could stimulate the sales by continually flitting
about like a restless fly. Her husband, on the contrary, became heavier;
misfortune fattened him, making him duller and more indolent. These
thirty years of combat did not, however, bring him to ruin. At each
annual stock-taking they managed to make both ends meet fairly well; if
they suffered any loss during one season, they recouped themselves the
next. However, it was precisely this living from hand to mouth which
exasperated Felicite. She would, by far, have preferred a big failure.
They would then, perhaps, have been able to commence life over again,
instead of obstinately persisting in their petty business, working
themselves to death to gain the bare necessaries of life. During one
third of a century they did not save fifty thousand francs.

It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their married
life, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became a heavy
burden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to 1815, Felicite
gave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing years she
presented her husband with two girls. These had but an indifferent
welcome; daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one has no dowry to
give them.

However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as the
cause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons' heads the
building of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They were
hardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers in her
dreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she centred
in them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They would
provide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give her
that wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain.
From that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle,
she conceived a second plan for obtaining the gratification of her
domineering instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst her
three sons, there should not be a man of superior intellect, who would
enrich them all. She felt it, she said. Accordingly, she nursed the
children with a fervour in which maternal severity was blended with an
usurer's solicitude. She amused herself by fattening them as though they
cons