en with
the family for forty years, alone glided in their slippers about the
deserted rooms, like a couple of ghosts. Now and then, at very
long intervals, there came a visitor: some octogenarian general, so
desiccated, so slight of build that he scarcely pressed on the carpet.
The house was also the home of shadows; the sun filtered with the mere
gleam of a night light through the Venetian blinds. Since madame had
become paralysed in the knees and stone blind, so that she no longer
left her room, she had had no other recreation than that of listening
to the reading of religious books. Ah! those endless readings, how
they weighed upon the girl at times! If she had only known a trade, how
gladly she would have cut out dresses, concocted bonnets, or goffered
the petals of artificial flowers. And to think that she was capable of
nothing, when she had been taught everything, and that there was only
enough stuff in her to make a salaried drudge, a semi-domestic! She
suffered horribly, too, in that stiff, lonely dwelling which smelt of
the tomb. She was seized once more with the vertigo of her childhood, as
when she had striven to compel herself to work, in order to please
her mother; her blood rebelled; she would have liked to shout and jump
about, in her desire for life. But madame treated her so gently, sending
her away from her room, and ordering her to take long walks, that she
felt full of remoras when, on her return to the Quai de Bourbon, she was
obliged to tell a falsehood; to talk of the Bois de Boulogne or invent
some ceremony at church where she now never set foot. Madame seemed to
take to her more and more every day; there were constant presents, now a
silk dress, now a tiny gold watch, even some underlinen. She herself was
very fond of Madame Vanzade; she had wept one day when the latter had
called her daughter; she had sworn never to leave her, such was her
heart-felt pity at seeing her so old and helpless.

'Well,' said Claude one morning, 'you'll be rewarded; she'll leave you
her money.'

Christine looked astonished. 'Do you think so? It is said that she is
worth three millions of francs. No, no, I have never dreamt of such a
thing, and I won't. What would become of me?'

Claude had averted his head, and hastily replied, 'Well, you'd become
rich, that's all. But no doubt she'll first of all marry you off--'

On hearing this, Christine could hold out no longer, but burst into
laughter. 'To one of her old f