The concierge's daughter

On a street I don't usually walk down, someone called my name. It was an old acquaintance happy to see me, a kind, chic and lively woman I have known for many years but whom I had lost sight of recently. She looked prettier and younger than the last time I saw her.

"Oh, it's been a hard time," she said darkly when I asked her. "My husband was influencé par un personnage.* That lasted for three years. Our family was in such a state of chaos, I didn't want to see anyone. He didn't ever move out. It's all past now, thank God, but you never know. Les hommes....one will never understand them. The children were très choqués." She lowered her voice. "Don't tell anyone, but I had to send the youngest to a...psychologist."

This woman's pretty, blond, very bright daughter was accepted into a famously snobbish Paris private school, no doubt partly because of the family's address on one of the most prestigious avenues of the capitale. I wonder if they ever realized that the girl's mother, the woman I ran into, was the building's concierge.

*[Influenced by a personality.]

Comments

[franje]

Hi Sedulia,
could you tell me what means "influence par une personnage"?