Why, on the other
side of Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for
a thousand francs a year. How well off we should be there! You
would never leave me, for I should be jealous--oh, so jealous!
We wouldn't have any servants, and you should see that I know how
to keep house."
Hector said nothing.
"While the money lasts," continued Jenny, "we'll laugh away the
days. When it's all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill
yourself--that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with
a pistol--No! We'll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another's
arms, and that will be the end. They say one doesn't suffer that
way at all."
This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a
recollection which ruffled all his vanity.
Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of
the suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had
bravely suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had
written a most touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of
killing himself like a cook made him shudder. He saw the
possibility of the horrible comparison. How ridiculous! And
the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome fear of ridicule.
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