She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes born, as if by a mistake of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no hopes, no way of becoming known and loved by a rich man. So she married a minor clerk at the Ministry of Education. She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, and she was unhappy, as if she had fallen from her proper place. She suffered without rest, feeling that she had been born for every delicacy and every luxury. She suffered from the poverty of her home, from the worn walls and the ugly chairs. All these things, which another woman of her class would not even have noticed, tortured her and made her angry. She thought of silent rooms, hung with eastern cloth and lit by tall lamps of bronze. She thought of long halls covered with old silk, of fine furniture carrying precious things, and of small perfumed rooms made for quiet talks at five o'clock with the closest friends. She thought too of the men, sought after and admired, whose attention every woman desires. When she sat down to dinner before the round table, where her husband uncovered the soup and cried with delight, "Ah, the good soup! I know nothing better!", she dreamed of elegant dinners, of shining silver and of delicate food served on wonderful plates. She had no fine dresses, no jewels, nothing at all; and she loved only these things. She had a rich friend, an old schoolmate, whom she no longer wished to visit, because she suffered so much when she came home. And for whole days afterward she would weep with sorrow, regret, despair and misery.