"He must keep you up through dreadful nights waiting for him," said
Madame Guillaume. "But you go to bed, don't you? And when he has lost,
the wretch wakes you."

"No, mamma, on the contrary, he is sometimes in very good spirits. Not
unfrequently, indeed, when it is fine, he suggests that I should get
up and go into the woods."

"The woods! At that hour? Then have you such a small set of rooms that
his bedroom and his sitting-room are not enough, and that he must run
about? But it is just to give you cold that the wretch proposes such
expeditions. He wants to get rid of you. Did one ever hear of a man
settled in life, a well-behaved, quiet man galloping about like a
warlock?"

"But, my dear mother, you do not understand that he must have
excitement to fire his genius. He is fond of scenes which----"

"I would make scenes for him, fine scenes!" cried Madame Guillaume,
interrupting her daughter. "How can you show any consideration to such
a man? In the first place, I don't like his drinking water only; it is
not wholesome. Why does he object to see a woman eating? What queer
notion is that! But he is mad. All you tell us about him is
impossible. A man cannot leave his home without a word, and never come
back for ten days. And then he tells you he has been to Dieppe to
paint the sea. As if any one painted the sea! He crams you with a pack
of tales that are too absurd."

Augustine opened her lips to defend her husband; but Madame Guillaume