Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier
than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house
to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.
The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten
years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from
suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the
ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"
and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,
her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and
slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still
remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"
which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love
stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among
tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new
home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful
framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the
waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the
novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some
months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending
Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"
which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.

Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,
and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The
young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was
astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines
itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that
awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the
hearts of the last.