Esmeralda — Frances Hodgson Burnett

To begin I am a Frenchman a teacher of languages and a poor man necessarily a poor man as the great world would say or I should not be a teacher of languages and my wife a copyist of great pictures selling her copies at small prices In our own eyes it is true we are not so poor my Clélie and I Looking back upon our past we congratulate ourselves upon our prosperous condition There was a time when we were poorer than we are now and were not together and were moreover in London instead of in Paris These were indeed calamities to be poor to teach to live apart not even knowing each other and in England In England we spent years we instructed imbeciles of all grades we were chilled by east winds and tortured by influenza we vainly strove to conciliate the appalling English we were discouraged and desolate But this thank le bon Dieu is past We are united we have our little apartment upon the fifth floor it is true but still not hopelessly far from the Champs Elysées Clélie paints her little pictures or copies those of some greater artist and finds sale for them She is not a great artist herself and is charmingly conscious of the fact Tanıtım Bülteninden