And that resolution transfigured her, restored to
her temporarily, something of her youth, which had
so soon fled away, and a poor, heroic saint amongst
all the saints, she took refuge in a Carmelite convent,
so as to escape from this returning temptation, and
to bequeath everything of which she could lawfully
dispose, to Monsieur de Gedre.
During the three years that she had been married,
she had not left the Val de Cire, where her
husband possessed two cotton-mills. She led a
quiet life, and although she had no children, she was
quite happy in her house among the trees, which the
work-people called the chateau.
Although Monsieur Vasseur was considerably older than
she was, he was very kind. She loved him, and
no guilty thought had ever entered her mind.
Her mother came and spent every summer at Cire, and
then returned to Paris for the winter, as soon as
the leaves began to fall.
Jeanne coughed a little every autumn, for the narrow
valley through which the river wound, grew foggy for
five months. First of all, slight mists hung
over the meadows, making all the low-lying ground look
like a large pond, out of which the roof of the houses
rose.
Then that white vapor, which rose like a tide, enveloped
everything, and turned the valley into a land of phantoms,
through which men moved about like ghosts, without
recognizing each other ten yards off, and the trees,
wreathed in mist, and dripping with moisture, rose
up through it.
But the people who went along the neighboring hills,
and who looked down upon the deep, white depression
of the valley, saw the two huge chimneys of Monsieur
Vasseur’s factories, rising above the mist below.
Day and night they vomited forth two long trails of
black smoke, and that alone indicated that people
were living in that hollow, which looked as if it
were filled with a cloud of cotton.
That year, when October came, the medical men advised
the young woman to go and spend the winter in Paris
with her mother, as the air of the valley was dangerous
for her weak chest, and she went. For a month
or so, she thought continually of the house which
she had left, to which she seemed rooted, and whose
well-known furniture and quiet ways she loved so much,
but by degrees she grew accustomed to her new life,
and got to liking entertainments, dinners and evening
parties, and balls.
Till then, she had retained her girlish manners, she
had been undecided and rather sluggish; she walked
languidly, and had a tired smile, but now she became
animated and merry, and was always ready for pleasure.
Men paid her marked attentions, and she was amused
at their talk, and made fun of their gallantries,
as she felt sure that she could resist them, for she
was rather disgusted with love, from what she had learned
of it in marriage.
The idea of giving up her body to the coarse caresses
of such bearded creatures, made her laugh with pity,
and shudder a little with ignorance.
