A
fortnight later he died, apparently calm, but in reality a prey to
bitter regrets. It was a terrible blow for his poor wife, and the
thought of her son alone reconciled her to life. Pascal was now
everything to her--her present and her future; and she solemnly
vowed that she would make a noble man of him. But alas!
misfortunes never come singly. One of her husband's friends, who
acted as administrator to the estate, took a contemptible
advantage of her inexperience. She went to sleep one night
possessing an income of fifteen thousand francs, but she awoke to
find herself ruined--so completely ruined that she did not know
where to obtain her dinner for that same evening. Had she been
alone in the world, she would not have grieved much over the
catastrophe, but she was sadly affected by the thought that her
son's future was, perhaps, irrevocably blighted, and that, in any
case, this disaster would condemn him to enter life through the
cramped and gloomy portals of poverty.
However, Madame Ferailleur was of too courageous and too proud a
nature not to meet this danger with virile energy. She wasted no
time in useless lamentations. She determined to repair the harm
as far as it was in her power to repair it, resolving that her
son's studies at the college of Louis-the-Great should not be
interrupted, even if she had to labor with her own hands. And
when she spoke of manual toil, it was no wild, unmeaning
exaggeration born of sorrow and a passing flash of courage.
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