Bridau’s death not a trace of coquetry, not even a woman’s ordinary care of her person, was left in the young widow of thirty-five.  Parted from the only man she had ever known, esteemed, and loved, from one who had never caused her the slightest unhappiness, she was no longer conscious of her womanhood; all things were as nothing to her; she no longer even thought of her dress.  Nothing was ever more simply done or more complete than this laying down of conjugal happiness and personal charm.  Some human beings obtain through love the power of transferring their self—­their I—­to the being of another; and when death takes that other, no life of their own is possible for them.

Agathe, who now lived only for her children, was infinitely sad at the thought of the privations this financial ruin would bring upon them.  From the time of her removal to the rue Mazarin a shade of melancholy came upon her face, which made it very touching.  She hoped a little in the Emperor; but the Emperor at that time could do no more than he was already doing; he was giving three hundred francs a year to each child from his privy purse, besides the scholarships.

As for the brilliant Descoings, she occupied an appartement on the second floor similar to that of her niece above her.  She had made Madame Bridau an assignment of three thousand francs out of her annuity.  Roguin, the notary, attended to this in Madame Bridau’s interest; but it would take seven years of such slow repayment to make good the loss.  The Descoings, thus reduced to an income of twelve hundred francs, lived with her niece in a small way.  These excellent but timid creatures employed a woman-of-all-work for the morning hours only.  Madame Descoings, who liked to cook, prepared the dinner.  In the evenings a few old friends, persons employed at the ministry who owed their places to Bridau, came for a game of cards with the two widows.  Madame Descoings still cherished her trey, which she declared was obstinate about turning up.  She expected, by one grand stroke, to repay the enforced loan she had made upon her niece.  She was fonder of the little Bridaus than she was of her grandson Bixiou,—­partly from a sense of the wrong she had done them, partly because she felt the kindness of her niece, who, under her worst deprivations, never uttered a word of reproach.  So Philippe and Joseph were cossetted, and the old gambler in the Imperial Lottery of France (like others who have a vice or a weakness to atone for) cooked them nice little dinners with plenty of sweets.  Later on, Philippe and Joseph could extract from her pocket, with the utmost facility, small sums of money, which the younger used for pencils, paper, charcoal and prints, the elder to buy tennis-shoes, marbles, twine, and pocket-knives.  Madame Descoings’s passion forced her to be content with fifty francs a month for her domestic expenses, so as to gamble with the rest.