period of time, very short if judged by a watch, but immeasurable when
calculated by the rapidity of her impressions, the poor woman had the
supernatural power of emitting more ideas and bringing to the surface
more recollections than, under any ordinary use of her faculties, she
could put forth in the course of a whole day. The poignant tale of her
monologue may be abridged into a few absurd sentences, as
contradictory and bare of meaning as the monologue itself.

"There is no reason why Birotteau should leave my bed! He has eaten so
much veal that he may be ill. But if he were ill he would have waked
me. For nineteen years that we have slept together in this bed, in
this house, it has never happened that he left his place without
telling me,--poor sheep! He never slept away except to pass the night
in the guard-room. Did he come to bed to-night? Why, of course;
goodness! how stupid I am."

She cast her eyes upon the bed and saw her husband's night-cap, which
still retained the almost conical shape of his head.

"Can he be dead? Has he killed himself? Why?" she went on. "For the
last two years, since they made him deputy-mayor, he is
_all-I-don't-know-how_. To put him into public life! On the word of
an honest woman, isn't it pitiable? His business is doing well, for
he gave me a shawl. But perhaps it isn't doing well? Bah! I should
know of it. Does one ever know what a man has got in his head; or a
woman either?--there is no harm in that. Didn't we sell five thousand
francs' worth to-day? Besides, a deputy mayor couldn't kill himself;
he knows the laws too well. Where is he then?"

She could neither turn her neck, nor stretch out her hand to pull the