" 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."