It seemed to him as if they had lived in a sort of partnership since he had been able to walk and talk.

It had been as natural for him to spend his hours after school in stamping and sealing her large correspondence as it had been for her to pinch and arrange for years so as to send him to the university from which his father had been graduated.

She would have been glad, he knew, if he had decided to follow his father in the study of medicine, but he recoiled from so long a period of dependence; he liked to think that he brought to his financial reports something of a scientific inheritance.
She had, he thought, every virtue that a mother could have, and she combined them with a gaiety of spirit that made her take her virtues as if they were the most delightful amusements.

It was of this gaiety that he had first thought until Mathilde had pointed out to him that there was tragedy in the situation.

"What will your mother do without you ?" the girl kept saying.