"It seems to me so difficult--with a scoundrel such as you represent him, and a daring woman like that crab-girl--as to be actually impossible," remarked Joseph. "We should have to stay a year in Issoudun to counteract their influence and overthrow their dominion over my uncle. Money isn't worth such a struggle,--not to speak of the meannesses to which we should have to condescend. My mother has only two weeks' leave of absence; her place is a permanent one, and she must not risk it. As for me, in the month of October I have an important work, which Schinner has just obtained for me from a peer of France; so you see, madame, my future fortune is in my brushes." This speech was received by Madame Hochon with much amazement. Though relatively superior to the town she lived in, the old lady did not believe in painting. She glanced at her goddaughter, and again pressed her hand. "This Maxence is the second volume of Philippe," whispered Joseph in his mother's ear, "--only cleverer and better behaved. Well, madame," he said, aloud, we won't trouble Monsieur Hochon by staying very long." "Ah! you are young; you know nothing of the world," said the old lady. "A couple of weeks, if you are judicious, may produce great results; listen to my advice, and act accordingly." "Oh! willingly," said Joseph, "I know I have a perfectly amazing incapacity for domestic statesmanship: for example, I am sure I don't know what Desroches himself would tell us to do if my uncle declines to see us." Mesdames Borniche, Goddet-Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau-Prangin and Fichet, decorated with their husbands, here entered the room. When the fourteen persons were seated, and the usual compliments were over, Madame Hochon presented her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph. Joseph sat in his armchair all the evening, engaged in slyly studying the sixty faces which, from five o'clock until half past nine, posed for him gratis, as he afterwards told his mother. Such behavior before the aristocracy of Issoudun did not tend to change the opinion of the little town concerning him: every one went home ruffled by his sarcastic glances, uneasy under his smiles, and even frightened at his face, which seemed sinister to a class of people unable to recognize the singularities of genius. After ten o'clock, when the household was in bed, Madame Hochon kept her goddaughter in her chamber until midnight. Secure from interruption, the two women told each other the sorrows of their lives, and exchanged their sufferings. As Agathe listened to the last echoes of a soul that had missed its destiny, and felt the sufferings of a heart, essentially generous and charitable, whose charity and generosity could never be exercised, she realized the immensity of the desert in which the powers of this noble, unrecognized soul had been wasted, and knew that she herself, with the little joys and interests of her city life relieving the bitter trials sent from God, was not the most unhappy of the two.