Helene felt ill at ease every time that she entered the Khlobestovsky's
drawing-room, not exactly because she disliked the mistress of the
house; they had been school-fellows and had remained friends. The
general was always absent; he preferred country life and the
superintendence of his estate, in the first place because his affairs
got on the better for it, and secondly he was thus out of reach of the
sentimental and romantic claims of his wife, claims which his personal
appearance did little to justify.
Each time that the general's wife saw Helene again, she applied a fine
cambric handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away some tears, her flabby
cheeks quivered, and innumerable wrinkles appeared round her chin and
mouth.
"What self-sacrifice!" she invariably exclaimed, pressing her friend's
hands. "How happy you are, my darling! while we are--how does one say
it?--drowned in sin."
"Plunged," corrected her children's governess.
"Yes, plunged. Exactly so! You, on the other, are saving your soul, and
are quite absorbed in God."