These thoughts haunted her, spoiled everything she might have relished, turned into grief everything that would have given her joy, left her no pleasure, no contentment, no gaiety intact. She was forever trembling with an exasperated need to shake off the burden of misery that crushed her, for without this distressing importunity she would yet have been happy, alert, and healthy. She felt that her soul was spirited and fresh, her heart ever young, the ardor of a being that is beginning to live, an insatiable appetite for happiness, more ravenous even than heretofore, and a devouring desire to love.

And lo! All good things, all sweet, delicious, poetic things that embellish life and render it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her because she was growing old. It was over. Yet she still found within herself the sensibility of a young girl and the passionate impulse of a young woman. Nothing had grown old but her body, her miserable skin, that bag of bones, faded little by little, moth-eaten like the slip-cover of a piece of furniture. The obsession with this decay had fastened itself upon her and become the curse of a physical suffering.