Free A Life by Guy de Maupassant

which was slightly heavier and which had already traced two dusty furrows all the way up and down the path where the grass had been worn away, she set off once more on the endless journey which brought her in a straight line from the corner of the house to the first shrubs on the edge of the copse. She had had a bench placed at each end of this itinerary; and every five minutes she would stop and say to the poor, long-suffering maid supporting her:
    'Let's sit down, my dear. I am a little tired.'
    And with each rest she would leave an article of clothing behind on the bench, first the scarf from round her head, then a shawl, and then the other shawl, the bonnet, and finally the cloak. This resulted in two large piles of clothing at each end of the avenue, which Rosalie would carry back on her free arm when they went in for lunch.
    And in the afternoon the Baroness would begin again at a more leisurely pace, taking longer rests and sometimes dozing off for as much as an hour on a chaise-longue which had been wheeled outside for her.
    She called this taking 'her' exercise, just as she used to refer to 'my' hypertrophy.
    A doctor she had consulted ten years earlier about her shortness of breath had talked of hypertrophy. Since then this word, the meaning of which she barely understood, had remained fixed in her mind. She would insist on the Baron, and Jeanne, and Rosalie each feeling her heart, though they no longer could, buried as it now was beneath the bloated mass of her chest. But she energetically refused to allow herself to be examined by any new doctor in case further ailments were discovered; and she  would talk of 'her' hypertrophy at every opportunity and with such frequency that it appeared as though this condition were peculiar to her, as if it belonged to her as something unique over which other people had no rights.
    The Baron would talk of 'my wife's hypertrophy' and Jeanne of 'Mummy's hypertrophy' the way one referred to her dress, or her hat, or her umbrella.
    She had been very pretty in her youth and pencil thin. Having waltzed in the arms of every man in uniform under the Empire, she had read Corinne , * which made her cry; and this novel had, as it were, left its mark on her ever since.
    As her figure had grown stouter, so her soul had taken wing on more poetic flights of fancy; and when corpulence at length confined her to an armchair, her thoughts began to rove through a series of amorous fantasies of which she imagined herself the heroine. Among these she had her favourites, which she would actively recall to mind in the course of her dreaming, like a music box being constantly rewound and playing the same tune over and over again. All those langorous romances about swallows and captive maidens * never failed to bring a tear to her eye; and she was even quite fond of some bawdy songs by Béranger * on account of their wistful sentiments.
    Often she would sit motionless, for hours on end, lost in her dream world; and living at Les Peuples gave her enormous pleasure because it provided the scenery for her soul's imaginings. The surrounding woods, the deserted heath, the vicinity of the sea, all of it reminded her of the novels by Walter Scott * which she had been reading for the past few months.
    On rainy days she would remain closeted in her bedroom, going through what she called her 'relics'. These were all the old letters she had kept, from her father and mother, from the Baron during their engagement, and from others besides.
    She kept them locked away in a mahogany writing-desk surmounted at each corner by brass sphinxes; and in a special voice she would say: 'Rosalie, my dear, bring me my memory drawer.'
    The maid would open the desk, take out the drawer, and place it on a chair beside her mistress, who then slowly began to read  the letters, one by one, occasionally shedding a tear over them.
    From time to time Jeanne would take Rosalie's place and accompany Mama on her walk, listening as she