to cultivate her refractory memory. She listened with pleasure to
social conversation, but she could contribute nothing brilliant. Her
religious notions and home-grown prejudices were antagonistic to the
complete emancipation of her intelligence. Finally, a foregone
conclusion against her had stolen into Theodore's mind, and this she
could not conquer. The artist would laugh, at those who flattered him
about his wife, and his irony had some foundation; he so overawed the
pathetic young creature that, in his presence, or alone with him, she
trembled. Hampered by her too eager desire to please, her wits and her
knowledge vanished in one absorbing feeling. Even her fidelity vexed
the unfaithful husband, who seemed to bid her do wrong by stigmatizing
her virtue as insensibility. Augustine tried in vain to abdicate her
reason, to yield to her husband's caprices and whims, to devote
herself to the selfishness of his vanity. Her sacrifices bore no
fruit. Perhaps they had both let the moment slip when souls may meet
in comprehension. One day the young wife's too sensitive heart
received one of those blows which so strain the bonds of feeling that
they seem to be broken. She withdrew into solitude. But before long a
fatal idea suggested to her to seek counsel and comfort in the bosom
of her family.

So one morning she made her way towards the grotesque facade of the
humble, silent home where she had spent her childhood. She sighed as
she looked up at the sash-window, whence one day she had sent her
first kiss to him who now shed as much sorrow as glory on her life.
Nothing was changed in the cavern, where the drapery business had,
however, started on a new life. Augustine's sister filled her mother's
old place at the desk. The unhappy young woman met her brother-in-law
with his pen behind his ear; he hardly listened to her, he was so full
of business. The formidable symptoms of stock-taking were visible all