This money was burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled away his time by spending it in imagination.

His mother moved about, in her stiff, automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his presence.

During the last few days her children had been coming to her rather frequently, in a state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression.

She knew nothing of the fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes.

Now and again, however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety, occasionally made her blink.