She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.
Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies. She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station since with women there is neither caste nor rank and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks.
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