M. de Coralth had shown excellent judgment when he compared her to a family portrait. She was, in fact, exactly the person a painter would select to represent some old burgher’s wife--a chaste and loving spouse, a devoted mother, an incomparable housewife--in one phrase, the faithful guardian of her husband’s domestic happiness. She had just passed her fiftieth birthday, and looked fully her age. She had suffered. A close observer would have detected traces of weeping about her wrinkled eyelids; and the twinge of her lips was expressive of cruel anguish, heroically endured. Still, she was not severe, nor even too sedate; and the few friends who visited her were often really astonished at her wit. Besides, she was one of those women who have no history, and who find happiness in what others would call duty. Her life could be summed up in a single sentence: she had loved; she had mourned.
The daughter of a petty clerk in one of the government departments, and merely dowered with a modest portion of three thousand francs, she had married a young man as poor as herself, but intelligent and industrious, whom she loved, and who adored her. This young man on marrying had sworn that he would make a fortune; not that he cared for money for himself, but he wished to provide his idol with every luxury. His love, enhancing his energy, no doubt hastened his success. Attached as a chemist to a large manufacturing establishment, his services soon became so invaluable to his employers that they gave him a considerable interest in the business. His name even obtained an honorable place among modern inventors; and we are indebted to him for the discovery of one of those brilliant colors that are extracted from common coal. At the end of ten years he had become a man of means. He loved his wife as fondly as on the day of their marriage, and he had a son--Pascal.
Unfortunate fellow! One day, in the full sunshine of happiness and success, while he was engaged in a series of experiments for the purpose of obtaining a durable, and at the same time perfectly harmless, green, the chemicals exploded, smashing the mortar which he held, and wounding him horribly about the head and chest. A fortnight later he died, apparently calm, but in reality a prey to bitter regrets. It was a terrible blow for his poor wife, and the thought of her son alone reconciled her to life. Pascal was now everything to her--her present and her future; and she solemnly vowed that she would make a noble man of him. But alas! misfortunes never come singly. One of her husband’s friends, who acted as administrator to the estate, took a contemptible advantage of her inexperience. She went to sleep one night possessing an income of fifteen thousand francs, but she awoke to find herself ruined--so completely ruined that she did not know where to obtain her dinner for that same evening. Had she been alone in the world, she would not have grieved much over the catastrophe, but she was sadly affected by the thought that her son’s future was, perhaps, irrevocably blighted, and that, in any case, this disaster would condemn him to enter life through the cramped and gloomy portals of poverty.