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looking by turns at her husband and at me, never having dreamed perhaps
what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter abruptly into her rooms
in the middle of the night under this disquieting form of an unknown
person who asks for a refuge.
I made Madame de la R---- a thousand apologies, which she received with
perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go
and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the
end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to
forgive the refugee who had awakened her.
While chatting M. de la R---- lighted a capital fire in the grate, and
his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him,
and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed
on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an
arm-chair.
During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just
presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still
had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife,
which Madame de la R---- undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor
Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the
"Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R----. On that evening
(
Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play Hernani.
I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at
myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud,
gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of
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