of kings Agamemnon holds himself, from the day that I was seized with
dread of being seen during sleep by any other eyes than those of
Providence. In the same way, too, from the day I heard my old nurse
snorting in her sleep "like a whale," to use a slang expression, I
have added a petition to the special litany which I address to
Saint-Honore, my patron saint, to the effect that he would save me
from indulging in this sort of eloquence.

When a man wakes up in the morning, his drowsy face grotesquely
surmounted by the folds of a silk handkerchief which falls over his
left temple like a police cap, he is certainly a laughable object, and
it is difficult to recognize in him the glorious spouse, celebrated in
the strophes of Rousseau; but, nevertheless, there is a certain gleam
of life to illume the stupidity of a countenance half dead--and if you
artists wish to make fine sketches, you should travel on the
stage-coach and, when the postilion wakes up the postmaster, just
examine the physiognomies of the departmental clerks! But, were you a
hundred times as pleasant to look upon as are these bureaucratic
physiognomies, at least, while you have your mouth shut, your eyes are
open, and you have some expression in your countenance. Do you know
how you looked an hour before you awoke, or during the first hour of
your sleep, when you were neither a man nor an animal, but merely a
thing, subject to the dominion of those dreams which issue from the
gate of horn? But this is a secret between your wife and God.

Is it for the purpose of insinuating the imbecility of slumber that
the Romans decorated the heads of their beds with the head of an ass?
We leave to the gentlemen who form the academy of inscriptions the
elucidation of this point.