[The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac]@TWC D-Link bookThe Lesser Bourgeoisie CHAPTER III 12/16
Nevertheless, he found himself in rather a cramped condition when Mademoiselle Thuillier, in 1832, advised him to come and live near them; pointing out to him the possibility of obtaining some position in the mayor's office, which, in fact, he did obtain a few weeks later, at a salary of three thousand francs.
Thus Thuillier and Colleville were destined to end their days together.
In 1833 Madame Colleville, then thirty-five years old, settled herself in the rue d'Enfer, at the corner of the rue des Deux-Eglises with Celeste and little Theodore, the other boys being at their several schools. Colleville was equidistant between the mayor's office and the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer.
Thus the household, after a brilliant, gay, headlong, reformed, and calmed existence, subsided finally into bourgeois obscurity with five thousand four hundred francs a year for its sole dependence. Celeste was by this time twelve years of age, and she promised to be pretty.
She needed masters, and her education ought to cost not less than two thousand francs a year.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|