Page 359 - madame-bovary

stead of sending a reply she came herself; and when Emma
wanted to know whether he had got anything out of her,
‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘but she wants to see the account.’ The next
morning at daybreak Emma ran to Lheureux to beg him to
make out another account for not more than a thousand
francs, for to show the one for four thousand it would be
necessary to say that she had paid two-thirds, and confess,
consequently, the sale of the estate—a negotiation admira-
bly carried out by the shopkeeper, and which, in fact, was
only actually known later on.
Despite the low price of each article, Madame Bovary se-
nior, of course, thought the expenditure extravagant.
‘Couldn’t you do without a carpet? Why have recovered
the arm-chairs? In my time there was a single arm-chair
in a house, for elderly persons—at any rate it was so at my
mother’s, who was a good woman, I can tell you. Every-
body can’t be rich! No fortune can hold out against waste!
I should be ashamed to coddle myself as you do! And yet
I am old. I need looking after. And there! there! fitting up
gowns! fallals! What! silk for lining at two francs, when you
can get jaconet for ten sous, or even for eight, that would do
well enough!’
Emma, lying on a lounge, replied as quietly as possible—
‘Ah! Madame, enough! enough!’
The other went on lecturing her, predicting they would
end in the workhouse. But it was Bovary’s fault. Luckily he
had promised to destroy that power of attorney.
‘What?’
‘Ah! he swore he would,’ went on the good woman.

Madame Bovary