First Part Chapter 45

As for writing long letters nowadays, how can I. This one, in which I
want to describe to you the daily routine of my life, will be a week
on the stocks. Who can tell but Armand may lay hold of it to make caps
for his regiments drawn up on my carpet, or vessels for the fleets
which sail his bath! A single day will serve as a sample of the rest,
for they are all exactly alike, and their characteristics reduce
themselves to two--either the children are well, or they are not. For
me, in this solitary grange, it is no exaggeration to say that hours
become minutes, or minutes hours, according to the children's health.

If I have some delightful hours, it is when they are asleep and I am
no longer needed to rock the one or soothe the other with stories.
When I have them sleeping by my side, I say to myself, "Nothing can go
wrong now." The fact is, my sweet, every mother spends her time, so
soon as her children are out of her sight, in imagining dangers for
them. Perhaps it is Armand seizing the razors to play with, or his
coat taking fire, or a snake biting him, or he might tumble in running
and start an abscess on his head, or he might drown himself in a pond.
A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft
and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.