midnight
The widow of a colonel who had died just as he was on the point of becoming a general , the mother of a captain whom she had followed even in his campaigns , she had acquired a military stiffness of bearing and formed for herself a code of honor , duty and patriotism which kept her rigid , desiccated , as it were , by the stern application of discipline . She seldom , if ever , complained . When her son had become a widower after five years of married life she had undertaken the education of little Charles as a matter of course , performing her duties with the severity of a sergeant drilling recruits . She watched over the child , never tolerating the slightest waywardness or irregularity , but compelling him to sit up till midnight when his exercises were not finished , and sitting up herself until he had completed them . Under such implacable despotism Charles , whose constitution was delicate , grew up pale and thin , with beautiful eyes , inordinately large and clear , shining in his white , pinched face . During the long hours of silence Mme Burle dwelt continuously upon one and the same idea : she had been disappointed in her son . This thought sufficed to occupy her mind , and under its influence she would live her whole life over again , from the birth of her son , whom she had pictured rising amid glory to the highest rank , till she came down to mean and narrow garrison life , the dull , monotonous existence of nowadays , that stranding in the post of a quartermaster , from which Burle would never rise and in which he seemed to sink more and more heavily .