r herself at a high rate, and thus acquired an income of about
fifteen thousand francs, resolving to devote the whole of it to the
education of her son, so as to give him all the personal advantages that
might help to make his fortune, while saving, by strict economy, a small
capital to be his when he came of age. It was bold; it was counting on
her own life; but without this boldness the good mother would certainly
have found it impossible to live and to bring her child up suitably, and
he was her only hope, her future, the spring of all her joys.

Rodolphe, the son of a most charming Parisian woman, and a man of mark,
a nobleman of Brabant, was cursed with extreme sensitiveness. From his
infancy he had in everything shown a most ardent nature. In him mere
desire became a guiding force and the motive power of his whole
being, the stimulus to his imagination, the reason of his actions.
Notwithstanding the pains taken by a clever mother, who was alarmed when
she detected this predisposition, Rodolphe wished for things as a poet
imagines, as a mathematician calculates, as a painter sketches, as a
musician creates melodies. Tender-hearted, like his mother, he dashed
with inconceivable violence and impetus of thought after the object of
his desires; he annihilated time. While dreaming of the fulfilment of
his schemes, he always overlooked the means of attainment. "When my son
has children," said his other, "he will want them born grown up."

This fine frenzy, carefully directed, enabled Rodolphe to achieve his
studies with brilliant results, and to become what the English call an
accomplished gentleman. His mother was then proud of him, though still
fearing a catastrophe if ever a passion should possess a heart at once
so tender and so susceptible, so vehement and so kind. Therefore, the
judicious mother had encouraged the friendship which bound Leopold to
Rodolphe and Rodolphe to Leopold, since she saw in the cold and faithful
young notary, a guardian, a comrade, who might to a certain extent
take her place if by some misfortune she should be lost to her son.
Rodolphe's mother, still handsome at three-and-forty, had inspired
Leopold with an ardent passion. This circumstance made the two young men
even more intimate.

So Leopold, knowing Rodolphe well, was not surprised to find
him stopping at a village and giving up the projected journey to
Saint-Gothard, on the strength of a single glance at the upper window
of a house.