The Count of Monte Cristo

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thousand things, but still she never really wanted any. So long as the
nets were good, they caught fish; and so long as they sold their fish,
they were able to buy twine for new nets. And then, shut out from
friendship, having but one affection, which could not be mixed up with
her ordinary pursuits, she thought of herself--of no one but herself.
Upon the little she earned she lived as well as she could; now there
were two to be supported, and nothing to live upon.

Winter approached. Mercedes had no fire in that cold and naked
room--she, who was accustomed to stoves which heated the house from
the hall to the boudoir; she had not even one little flower--she whose
apartment had been a conservatory of costly exotics. But she had her
son. Hitherto the excitement of fulfilling a duty had sustained them.
Excitement, like enthusiasm, sometimes renders us unconscious to the
things of earth. But the excitement had calmed down, and they felt
themselves obliged to descend from dreams to reality; after having
exhausted the ideal, they found they must talk of the actual.