Helen would have blushed with indignation and shame had she been told of the part played by these trifles in her conjugal aversion. But is not the life of the heart, like physical life, a summing of the infinitely little? Moreover, these minute facts, which formed a mass in their totality, symbolised an essential ground for dissociation between the husband and wife, namely, the absolute distinction between the minds of both. Helen's instruction had not been of a very solid kind; she had not been fortified by that sum of positive learning which alone is able to balance intense development of thought. Thus, all her reading as a girl and as a young woman had been directed towards those works of imagination for which Alfred professed the innocent contempt of a scientist whose literary culture is almost non-existent. It appeared extraordinary to him, and he used ingenuously to say so, that in an age of chemistry, steam, and electricity, intelligent beings should occupy themselves with the composition of such trash. Hence, in conversation, husband and wife had not a single opinion in common. Alfred was quite sensible that an abyss, growing constantly more impassable, was yawning between Helen and himself, and he was pained by it, but in the way that he would have been pained by an incomprehensible misfortune. "What does she want to make her happy?" he would ask himself, and then he would in thought draw up a list of the conditions for happiness that were realised about his wife: "We have money, and a dear child; she wished to live in Paris, and here we are; I give her every freedom; I have the most absolute confidence in her; I do her honour by my position; everything smiles upon us and flatters us--and she is not happy!" No, Helen had not been happy, and on the morning of this winter day, which was to prove to her a date that could never be forgotten, she felt her whole melancholy past surging back upon her. A thousand scenes showed themselves, and she discerned that through them all she had been advancing towards the hour at which, as she believed, her true life would begin. Often at Bourges, while walking with her husband along the Seraucourt promenade, she had asked herself whether she should ever, ever be acquainted with happiness, with the warm radiancy within her of a light that might illumine the cold darkness in which she languished. Her husband conversed with her about his plans, his college life, and his companions, with the calmness which he displayed in all matters, holding it a principle that a man should look at life on its good side, should be submissive, and accept.