Feeling as keenly as she did the thorns of a position which can only be likened to that of Saint-Laurence on his grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes cried out?
So, in her paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments when her wounded vanity gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon Xavier Rabourdin.

Was it not her husband's duty to give her a suitable position in the world?
If she were a man she would have had the energy to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored wife happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man.

In the mouth of some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility.

She sketched out for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles.

At such times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at the summit of her ideas.
When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical side, was cool.