ning room, the door of which opened at the foot of her bed. At last
she cried "Birotteau!" but got no answer. She thought she had called the
name aloud, though in fact she had only uttered it mentally.

"Has he a mistress? He is too stupid," she added. "Besides, he loves me
too well for that. Didn't he tell Madame Roguin that he had never been
unfaithful to me, even in thought? He is virtue upon earth, that man. If
any one ever deserved paradise he does. What does he accuse himself of
to his confessor, I wonder? He must tell him a lot of fiddle-faddle.
Royalist as he is, though he doesn't know why, he can't froth up his
religion. Poor dear cat! he creeps to Mass at eight o'clock as slyly as
if he were going to a bad house. He fears God for God's sake; hell
is nothing to him. How could he have a mistress? He is so tied to my
petticoat that he bores me. He loves me better than his own eyes; he
would put them out for my sake. For nineteen years he has never said to
me one word louder than another. His daughter is never considered before
me. But Cesarine is here--Cesarine! Cesarine!--Birotteau has never had
a thought which he did not tell me. He was right enough when he declared
to me at the Petit-Matelot that I should never know him till I tried
him. And _not here_! It is extraordinary!"

She turned her head with difficulty and glanced furtively about the
room, then filled with those picturesque effects which are the despair
of language and seem to belong exclusively to the painters of genre.
What words can picture the alarming zig-zags produced by falling
shadows, the fantastic appearance of curtains bulged out by the wind,
the flicker of uncertain light thrown by a night-lamp upon the folds of
red calico, the rays shed from a curtain-holder whose lurid centre
was like the eye of a burglar, the apparition of a kneeling dress,--in
short, all the grotesque effects which terrify the imagination at a
moment when it has no power except to foresee misfortunes and exaggerate
them? Madame Birotteau suddenly saw a strong light in the room beyond
her chamber, and thought of fire; but perceiving a red foulard which
looked like a pool of blood, her mind turned exclusively to burglars,
especially when she thought she saw traces of a struggle in the way the
furniture stood about the room. Recollecting the sum of money which
was in the desk, a generous fear put an end to the chill ferment of her
nightmare. She sprang terrified, and in h