Madame Dalmont's slender fortune would not allow her to live more expensively in Paris, where living is so dear, and it was in the hope of being less straitened and of being able to obtain more of the comforts of life, that she had formed the plan of going into the country—a plan which had keenly delighted her friend Agathe.
For women who go into society, who follow the fashions, who pass their evenings at theatres or concerts or balls, or at fashionable receptions, it seems a terrible penance to go to the country to live. To them it is equivalent to ceasing to exist, it means the renunciation of all the pleasures of life, it means, in short, condemning themselves to die of ennui.
But it is not so with those who, although they dwell in Paris, pass their lives in their own homes, seldom go out, and know nothing of that splendid capital save the uproar, the crowd, the vehicles which constantly threaten them with destruction out of doors, and the tumultuous throng that blocks the popular promenades on Sundays and holidays. To them there is nothing painful about leaving the great city. On the contrary, when they turn their backs on the tumult, the confusion, the incessant whirl of business and pleasure in which they have no part, they breathe more freely; they feel more at liberty to raise their heads, they find in nature something that they had lost; they have their places there, whereas in Paris they were nothing at all!
Honorine's past life had been uneventful. The daughter of respectable people who had not succeeded in business—there are many respectable people who do not make a fortune—she had nevertheless received a careful education. She had learned music and drawing; she was blessed by nature with that fortunate temperament which enables one to learn quickly and without much difficulty that which others often spend long years in studying.
Honorine, who was a very intelligent girl, would have liked to marry an artist, but circumstances did not permit her to choose. She was fain to be content with a simple government clerk, an honest fellow who had nothing poetic in his nature, but who attended punctually at his desk and performed his duties promptly.
Honorine longed to become a mother; that would at least afford some occupation for her heart, which longed for someone to adore; for, with the best will in the world, she could only esteem her husband.
After she had been married two years, she had a son; but she was denied the joy of rearing him; he died at the age of twenty months, when he was just beginning to stammer his mother's name and to take his first tottering steps. Honorine's grief was so intense that it affected her health. From that moment she began to lose her color, and her lungs seemed to be impaired. Another child alone could have consoled her for the loss of the first; for the heart is of all the organs most amenable to homœopathic treatment; but she had no other child, and a few months later her husband died suddenly of inflammation of the lungs.
At twenty-one, Honorine was left alone—a widow and an orphan, for her parents had died long before.
Then it was that she made the acquaintance of Madame Montoni, the mother of Agathe, at that time a child of nine.
Madame Montoni, who lived in the strictest retirement, happened to occupy an apartment in the same house as Madame Dalmont; she had seen her grief when she lost her child, and had been deeply moved by it. When she learned that she had lost her husband suddenly, she hastened to offer her consolation and attentions.