Una vida

At seventeen, Jeanne leaves boarding school to return to her parents' country estate in Normandy. Filled with high hopes, pampered by her family, and captivated by the fullness of a natural world that seems to whisper and dream along with her, she knows "nothing of love but its poetry." Within a few months, she is married to a young viscount; her husband’s desire and sensuality leave her feeling ashamed and humiliated. Yet, once the "mysterious revelation of those acts in which the great secret of love resides" has finally taken place, the routine of daily life—and the habit that inevitably follows great discoveries—soon reveals "Julien’s peculiarities of character, his harshness, his avarice, and, ultimately, his infidelity."