Mathilde's dreams are both understandable and exaggerated. From an objective standpoint she is not really a sensational beauty. Maupassant makes it clear in the opening sentence that she belongs to a fairly common class of young women. The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She is one of many. She belongs to a type. But from her subjective point...
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