Mme. Oreille was a very economical woman; she thoroughly knew the value
of a halfpenny, and possessed a whole storehouse of strict principles
with regard to the multiplication of money, so that her cook found the
greatest difficulty in making what the servants call their
_market-penny_, while her husband was hardly allowed any pocket-money at
all. They were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children; but
it really pained Mme. Oreille to see any money spent; it was like
tearing at her heartstrings when she had to take any of those nice
crown-pieces out of her pocket; and whenever she had to spend anything,
no matter how necessary it was, she slept badly the next night.
Oreille was continually saying to his wife:
"You really might be more liberal, as we have no children, and never
spend our income."
"You don't know what may happen," she used to reply. "It is better to
have too much than too little."
She was a little woman of about forty, very active, rather hasty,
wrinkled, very neat and tidy, and with a very short temper.
Her husband very often used to complain of all the privations she made
him endure; some of them were particularly painful to him, as they
touched his vanity.
He was one of the upper clerks in the War Office, and only kept on there
in obedience to his wife's wish, so as to increase their income, which
they did not nearly spend.
For two years he had always come to the office with the same old patched
umbrella, to the great amusement of his fellow-clerks. At last he got
tired of their jokes, and insisted upon his wife buying him a new one.
She bought one for eight francs and a half, one of those cheap articles
which large houses sell as an advertisement. When the others in the
office saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the thousands,
they began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time of it with
them, and they even made a song about it, which he heard from morning
till night all over the immense building.
Oreille was very angry, and peremptorily told his wife to get him a new
one, a good silk one, for twenty francs, and to bring him the bill, so
that he might see that it was all right.
She bought him one for eighteen francs, and said, getting red with anger
as she gave it to her husband:
"This will last you for five years at least."
Oreille felt quite triumphant, and obtained a small ovation at the
office with his new acquisition.
When he went home in the evening, his wife said to him, looking at the
umbrella uneasily:
"You should not leave it fastened up with the elastic; it will very
likely cut the silk. You must take care of it, for I shall not buy you a
new one in a hurry."
She took it, unfastened it, and remained dumbfounded with astonishment
and rage; in the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a
sixpenny-piece; it had been made with the end of a cigar.
"What is that?" she screamed.
Her husband replied quietly, without looking at it: "What is it? What do
you mean?"
She was choking with rage, and could hardly get out a word.
"You--you--have burnt--your umbrella! Why--you must be--mad! Do you wish
to ruin us outright?"
He turned round, and felt that he was growing pale.
"What are you talking about?"
"I say that you have burnt your umbrella. Just look here--"
And rushing at him as if she were going to beat him, she violently
thrust the little circular burnt hole under his nose.
He was so utterly struck dumb at the sight of it that he could only
stammer out:
"What--what is it? How should I know? I have done nothing, I will swear.
I don't know what is the matter with the umbrella."
"You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been
playing the fool and opening it, to show it off," she screamed.
"I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is
all, I declare."
But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which
make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield
where bullets are raining.
She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which
was of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly
with the mended article in his hand. He put it into a cupboard, and
thought no more about it than one thinks of some unpleasant
recollection.
But he had scarcely got home that evening when his wife took the
umbrella from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had
befallen it, for the disaster was irreparable. It was covered with small
holes, which, evidently, proceeded from burns, just as if someone had
emptied the ashes from a lighted pipe on to it. It was done for utterly,
irreparably.
She looked at it without a word, in too great a passion to be able to
say anything. He also, when he saw the damage, remained almost struck
stupid, in a state of frightened consternation.
They looked at each other, then he looked on to the floor; and the next
moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a
transport of the most violent rage, for she had recovered her voice by
that time:
"Oh! you brute! you brute! You did it on purpose, but I will pay you out
for it. You shall not have another."
And then the scene began again, and after the storm had raged for an
hour, he, at last, was enabled to explain himself. He declared that he
could not understand it at all, and that it could only proceed from
malice or from vengeance.
A ring at the bell saved him; it was a friend whom they were expecting
for dinner.
Mme. Oreille submitted the case to him. As for buying a new umbrella,
that was out of the question; her husband should not have another.
The friend very sensibly said that in that case his clothes would be
spoilt, and they were certainly worth more than the umbrella. But the
little woman, who was still in a rage, replied:
"Very well, then, when it rains he may have the kitchen umbrella, for I
will not give him a new silk one."
Oreille utterly rebelled at such an idea.
"All right," he said; "then I shall resign my post. I am not going to
the office with the kitchen umbrella."
The friend interposed:
"Have this one re-covered; it will not cost much."
But Mme. Oreille, being in the temper that she was, said:
"It will cost at least eight francs to re-cover it. Eight and eighteen
are twenty-six. Just fancy, twenty-six francs for an umbrella! It is
utter madness!"
The friend, who was only a poor man of the middle-classes, had an
inspiration:
"Make your Fire Assurance pay for it. The companies pay for all articles
that are burnt, as long as the damage has been done in your own house."
On hearing this advice the little woman calmed down immediately, and
then, after a moment's reflection, she said to her husband:
"To-morrow, before going to your office, you will go to the _Maternelle_
Assurance Company, show them the state your umbrella is in, and make
them pay for the damage."