"But in the end we shall all be equal."
"When?" asked Christophe. "After the social revolution?"
"The revolution?" said she. "Oh, there'll be much water flowing under bridges before that. I don't believe that stuff. Things will always be the same."
"When shall we all be equal, then?"
"When we're dead, of course! That's the end of everybody."
He was surprised by her calm materialism. He dared not say to her:
"Isn't it a frightful thing, in that case, if there is only one life, that it should be the like of yours, while there are so many others who are happy?"
But she seemed to have guessed his thought: she went on phlegmatically, resignedly, and a little ironically:
"One has to put up with it. Everybody cannot draw a prize. I've drawn a blank: so much the worse!"
She never even thought of looking for a more profitable place outside France. (She had once been offered a situation in America.) The idea of leaving the country never entered her head. She said: