Book account

His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a
thousand servilities that had only estranged him the more. Lively once,
expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the
fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered,
grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so much without complaint at
first, until she had seem him going after all the village drabs, and
until a score of bad houses sent him back to her at night, weary,
stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted. After that she was silent,
burying her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death.
She was constantly going about looking after business matters. She
called on the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills fell due,
got them renewed, and at home ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the
workmen, paid the accounts, while he, troubling himself about nothing,
eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only roused himself
to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by the fire and spitting
into the cinders.


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