the country.

He would come back jovial, and covered with mud, rubbing his hands as he
exclaimed:

"What wretched weather!"

Or else:

"A fire looks comfortable!"

Or sometimes:

"Well, how are you to-day? Are you in good spirits?"

He was happy, in good health, without desires, thinking of nothing save
this simple, healthy, and quiet life.

About December, when the snow had come, she suffered so much from the
icy-cold air of the chateau which seemed to have become chilled in
passing through the centuries just as human beings become chilled with
years, that she asked her husband one evening:

"Look here, Henry! You ought to have a furnace put into the house; it
would dry the walls. I assure you that I cannot keep warm from morning
till night."

At first he was stunned at this extravagant idea of introducing a
furnace into his manor-house. It would have seemed more natural to him
to have his dogs fed out of silver dishes. He gave a tremendous laugh
from the bottom of his chest as he exclaimed:

"A furnace here! A furnace here! Ha! ha! ha! what a good joke!"

She persisted:

"I assure you, dear, I feel frozen; you don't feel it because you are
always moving about; but all the same, I feel frozen."

He replied, still laughing:

"Pooh! you'll get used to it, and besides it is excellent for the
health. You will only be all the better for it. We are not Parisians,
damn it! to live in hot-houses. And, besides, the spring is quite near."

About the beginning of January, a great misfortune befell her. Her
father and mother died in a carriage accident. She came to Paris for the
funeral. And her sorrow took entire possession of her mind for about six
months.

The mildness of the beautiful summer days finally roused her, and she
lived along in a state of sad languor until autumn.

When the cold weather returned, she was brought face to face, for the
first time, with the gloomy future. What was she to do? Nothing. What
was going to happen to her henceforth? Nothing. What expectation, what
hope, could revive her heart? None. A doctor who was consulted declared
that she would never have children.

Sharper, more penetrating still than the year before, the cold made her
suffer continually.

She stretched out her shivering hands to the big flames. The glaring
fire burned her face; but icy whiffs seemed to glide down her back and
to penetrate between her skin and her underclothing. And she shivered
from head to