At the time our story has arrived, she went to La Sauvinière barely two or three times a month. In winter, she took the nine-thirty-five train that put her in Donges around eleven o'clock, crossed the Loire on a small steamboat nicknamed the Drowning by the locals and arrived in Paimbœuf around noon, to go straight home, in a rented cabriolet, or in a car that Lami sent her when he was notified. After having lunch with him and examining his accounts at leisure, she usually resumed the morning drive at around four o'clock and returned to Nantes for dinner with Lucien. In the summer, she preferred to get up earlier and board the steamer that goes down the Loire and drives directly to Paimbœuf at seven o'clock. Sometimes she didn’t even go to this town: Lami, to whom she had written the day b
