Chapter 7

The morning of the 14th June arrived. Paris is then at its loveliest
season. The gardens in particular are worthy of the capital of Europe,
and they are open to all who can manage to make a decent appearance.
Adrienne's hotel had a little garden in the rear, and she sat at her
window endeavoring to breathe the balmy odors that arose from it.
Enter it she could not. It was the property, or devoted to the uses, of
the occupant of the rez de chaussee. Still she might look at it as often as
she dared to raise her eyes from her needle. The poor girl was not what
she had been two months before. The handkerchief wanted but a few
hours of being finished, it is true, but the pale cheeks, the hollow eyes
and the anxious look, proved at what a sacrifice of health and physical
force I had become what I was. As I had grown in beauty, the hand
that ornamented me had wasted, and when I looked up to catch the
smile of approbation, it was found to be care worn and melancholy. Still
the birds did not sing the less sweetly, for Paris is full of birds, the roses
were as fragrant, and the verdure was as deep as ever. Nature does not
stop to lament over any single victim of human society. When misery is
the deepest, there is something awful in this perpetual and smiling round
of natural movements. It teaches profoundly the insignificance of the
atoms of creation.

{rez de chaussee -- ground floor}

Adrienne had risen earlier than common, even, this morning, determined
to get through with her task by noon, for she was actually sewing on the
lace, and her impatience would not permit her to resume the work of
the milliner that day, at least. For the last month she had literally lived on
dry bread herself; at first with a few grapes to give her appetite a little
gratification, but toward the last, on nothing but bread and water. She
had not suffered so much from a want of food, however, as from a want
of air and exercise; from unremitting, wasting toil at a sedentary
occupation, from hope deferred and from sleepless nights. Then she
wanted the cheering association of sympathy. She was strictly alone;
with the exception of her short interviews with the milliner, she
conversed with no one. Her grandmother slept most of the time, and
when she did speak, it was with the querulousness of disease, and not in
the tones of affection. This was hardest of all to bear; but Adrienne did
bear up under all, flattering herself that when she could remove Mad. de
la Rocheaimard into the country, her grandmother would revive and
become as fond of her as ever. She toiled on, therefore, though she
could not altogether suppress her tears. Under her painful and pressing
circumstances, the poor girl felt her deepest affliction to be that she had
not