Sometimes she even opened a book, for she fancied herself in literary matters.

Her toilet kept her till close on five o'clock, and then only she would wake from her daylong drowse and drive out or receive a whole mob of men at her own house.

She would often dine abroad and always go to bed very late, only to rise again on the morrow with the same languor as before and to begin another day, differing in nothing from its predecessor.
The great distraction was to go to the Batignolles and see her little Louis at her aunt's.

For a fortnight at a time she forgot all about him, and then would follow an access of maternal love, and she would hurry off on foot with all the modesty and tenderness becoming a good mother.
On such occasions she would be the bearer of snuff for her aunt and of oranges and biscuits for the child, the kind of presents one takes to a hospital.

Or again she would drive up in her landau on her return from the Bois, decked in costumes, the resplendence of which greatly excited the dwellers in the solitary street.