[Gutenberg 56541] • The Joy of Life [La joie de vivre]

Pauline Quenu, the daughter of shopkeepers in the Parisian business district Les Halles (see *The Fat and the Thin* , aka *The Belly of Paris* ), is taken in by relatives on the coast of Normandy following the death of her parents. There, Pauline - kind and open-minded - is confronted with a gout-plagued host, his avaricious wife, and their lazy son, a morbid hypochondriac, whom she is expected to marry. While the family takes advantage of Pauline, using up the inheritance her parents left to her, Pauline is gradually transformed into a dejected and resigned young woman. Death and accident soon hang over the small house on the Norman coast...