Of all that she read in the ashes, in the veiled softness of the lamps, of all her reminiscences, that of their married life was the most vague.

She found a few isolated traits of it, some absurd images, a fleeting and fastidious impression.
The time had not seemed long and had left nothing behind.

Six years had passed, and she did not even remember how she had regained her liberty, so prompt and easy had been her conquest of that husband, cold, sickly, selfish, and polite; of that man dried up and yellowed by business and politics, laborious, ambitious, and commonplace.

He liked women only through vanity, and he never had loved his wife.

The separation had been frank and complete.