“Life is terrible.” Sighing, she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. The buoyant springs rocked her gently once or twice before they settled to rest. “To be married to a man like this. I shall soon be getting old and fat. And never once unfaithful. But look how he treats me.” She got up again and began to wander aimlessly about the room. “I won’t stand it, though,” she burst out. She had halted in front of the long mirror, and was admiring her own splendid tragic figure. No one would believe, to look at her, that she was over thirty. Behind the beautiful tragedian she could see in the glass a thin, miserable, old creature, with a yellow face and blue teeth, crouching over the trunk. Really, it was too disagreeable. Sophie looked like one of those beggar women one sees on a cold morning, standing in the gutter. Does one hurry past, trying not to look at them? Or does one stop, open one’s purse, and give them one’s copper and nickel--even as much as a two-franc note, if one has no change? But whatever one did, one always felt uncomfortable, one always felt apologetic for one’s furs. That was what came of walking. If one had a car--but that was another of Hégésippe’s meannesses--one wouldn’t, rolling along behind closed windows, have to be conscious of them at all. She turned away from the glass. “I won’t stand it,” she said, trying not to think of the beggar women, of blue teeth in a yellow face; “I won’t stand it.” She dropped into a chair. But think of a lover with a yellow face and blue, uneven teeth! She closed her eyes, shuddered at the thought. It would be enough to make one sick. She felt impelled to take another look: Sophie’s eyes were the colour of greenish lead, quite without life. What was one to do about it? The woman’s face was a reproach, an accusation. And besides, the sight of it was making her feel positively ill. She had never been so profoundly enervated. Sophie rose slowly and with difficulty from her knees; an expression of pain crossed her face. Slowly she walked to the chest of drawers, slowly counted out six pairs of silk stockings. She turned back towards the trunk. The woman was a walking corpse! “Life is terrible,” Madame repeated with conviction, “terrible, terrible, terrible.” She ought to send the woman to bed. But she would never be able to get her packing done by herself. And it was so important to get off to-morrow morning. She had told Hégésippe she would go, and he had simply laughed; he hadn’t believed it. She must give him a lesson this time. In Rome she would see Luigino. Such a charming boy, and a marquis, too. Perhaps.... But she could think of nothing but Sophie’s face; the leaden eyes, the bluish teeth, the yellow, wrinkled skin. “Sophie,” she said suddenly; it was with difficulty that she prevented herself screaming, “look on my dressing-table. You’ll see a box of rouge, the Dorin number twenty-four. Put a little on your cheeks. And there’s a stick of lip salve in the right-hand drawer.”