It is too absurd even to think of her....

Too absurd?
Why ?" Dorsenne was, on formulating that fantastic thought, upon the point of retiring.

He took up, as was his habit, one of the books on his table, in order to read a few pages, when once in bed.

He had thus within his reach the works by which he strengthened his doctrine of intransitive intellectuality; they were Goethe's Memoirs; a volume of George Sand's correspondence, in which were the letters to Flaubert; the 'Discours de la Methode' by Descartes, and the essay by Burckhart on the Renaissance.
But, after turning over the leaves of one of those volumes, he closed it without having read twenty lines.

He extinguished his lamp, but he could not sleep.