But at night, by herself, in her apartment, alone with her child, she could give free rein to the torment she felt. To her joy, too, her torrential passion. No need to take precautions any longer. There was no one from whom to hide herself. She had her son entirely at her mercy. She abused her power a little; she wearied him with her wild affection. Since here, away from Sylvie, he no longer had the upper hand, the little politician did not show his annoyance: till morning came he would have to humor this extravagant mother. He used strategy; he pretended to fall asleep. He did not have to pretend very much; sleep came quickly after his full days. All the same, it had not quite come when, like a lamb in his mother's arms, with his eyes closed, Marc would seem to be overwhelmed by it. Annette, interrupting her prattle, was obliged to carry him to bed; and the little comedian, in the half-sleep down which he let himself slip, step by step, down which he slid on the banisters to the foot, laughed in his sleeve as he watched through his eyelashes the credulous Mamma who was mutely adoring him. He had a sense of his superiority, he was grateful to her for it; and sometimes in a transport he would even throw his little arms about her neck as she knelt beside him. By a surprise like that Annette was repaid for her troubles. But the stingy child did not repeat it often, and Annette had to fall asleep hungry. It was not before she had turned over in bed many times to listen to the child's breathing as her thoughts revolved feverishly. He had not kissed her nicely, and she said to herself, "He doesn't love me." Her heart would shrink. But she would at once correct herself. "What nonsense I'm inventing!" The idea had to be repressed at once. How could one live with it? No, it wasn't true. . . . The good little creature she was accusing! She hastily sought among her memories for the best she had, for the pretty tricks of the child, for his lovable ways. At the images she called up she would have liked to snatch him out of his bed and kiss him. . . . But hush! She mustn't wake him up. That delicious little breath. . . . My treasure! . . . How good it will all be later! For as the present was decidedly meagre, Annette made up for it by inventing a future of motherly intimacy with her son that conformed with her desires. She needed an idol to absorb the energies of her nature. For some time now they had been troubling her again. XIV It was no longer a restless melancholy, that neurasthenic depression which had preceded her child's illness and which the illness had dissipated--those days of a life that was at a standstill, in which she felt emptied of energy and interest: the becalmed sea before the flow of the tide.