At this
instant, I know not to what degree from the North Pole she stands,
whether at Spitzberg or in Greenland. Cold and indifferent she goes to
bed thinking, as Mistress Walter Shandy might have thought, that the
morrow would be a day of sickness, that her husband is coming home
very late, that the beaten eggs which she has just eaten were not
sufficiently sweetened, that she owes more than five hundred francs to
her dressmaker; in fine, thinking about everything which you may
suppose would occupy the mind of a tired woman. In the meanwhile
arrives her great lout of a husband, who, after some business meeting,
has drunk punch, with a consequent elation. He takes off his boots,
leaves his stockings on a lounge, his bootjack lies before the
fireplace; and wrapping his head up in a red silk handkerchief,
without giving himself the trouble to tuck in the corners, he fires
off at his wife certain interjectory phrases, those little marital
endearments, which form almost the whole conversation at those
twilight hours, where drowsy reason is no longer shining in this
mechanism of ours. "What, in bed already! It was devilish cold this
evening! Why don't you speak, my pet? You've already rolled yourself
up in bed, then! Ah! you are in the dumps and pretend to be asleep!"
These exclamations are mingled with yawns; and after numberless little
incidents which according to the usage of each home vary this preface
of the night, our friend flings himself into his own bed with a heavy
thud.
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