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A Woman of Thirty by Honoré de Balzac
page 52 of 251 (20%)
as yet has found no name, a complaint spoken of among women in
confidential whispers. In spite of the silence in which her life was
spent, the cause of her ill-health was no secret. She was still but a
girl in spite of her marriage; the slightest glance threw her into
confusion. In her endeavor not to blush, she was always laughing,
always apparently in high spirits; she would never admit that she was
not perfectly well, and anticipated questions as to her health by
shame-stricken subterfuges.

In 1817, however, an event took place which did much to alleviate
Julie's hitherto deplorable existence. A daughter was born to her, and
she determined to nurse her child herself. For two years motherhood,
its all-absorbing multiplicity of cares and anxious joys, made life
less hard for her. She and her husband lived necessarily apart. Her
physicians predicted improved health, but the Marquise herself put no
faith in these auguries based on theory. Perhaps, like many a one for
whom life has lost its sweetness, she looked forward to death as a
happy termination of the drama.

But with the beginning of the year 1819 life grew harder than ever.
Even while she congratulated herself upon the negative happiness which
she had contrived to win, she caught a terrifying glimpse of yawning
depths below it. She had passed by degrees out of her husband's life.
Her fine tact and her prudence told her that misfortune must come, and
that not singly, of this cooling of an affection already lukewarm and
wholly selfish. Sure though she was of her ascendency over Victor, and
certain as she felt of his unalterable esteem, she dreaded the
influence of unbridled passions upon a head so empty, so full of rash
self-conceit.

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