which makes a cold shudder go right through one's heart."

She shuddered even as she spoke; closed her eyes, and threw her head
back. Then she resumed:

"People like you are so happy! You can interest yourselves in all
sorts of things!"

She gave a sidelong look at her husband, who was talking with the
innkeeper. Then she leaned towards me, and murmured very low:

"You see, Dimitri and I, we are both suffering from ennui! We
have still the match-boxes. But at last one gets tired even of
match-boxes. Besides, our collection will soon be complete. And
then what are we going to do?"

"Oh, Madame!" I exclaimed, touched by the moral unhappiness of this
pretty person, "if you only had a son, then you would know what to
do. You would then learn the purpose of your life, and your thoughts
would become at once more serious and yet more cheerful."

"But I have a son," she replied. "He is a big boy; he is eleven
years old, and he suffers from ennui like the rest of us. Yes, my
George has ennui, too; he is tired of everything. It is very
wretched."

She glanced again towards her husband, who was superintending the
harnessing of the mules on the road outside--testing the condition
of girths and straps. Then she asked me whether there had been many
changes on the Quai Malaquais during the past ten years. She declared