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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

"Madame Bovary"

"
Then she looked at the bank-notes, and dreaming of the unlimited number
of rendezvous represented by those two thousand francs, she stammered--
"What! what!"
"Oh!" he went on, laughing good-naturedly, "one puts anything one likes
on receipts. Don't you think I know what household affairs are?" And he
looked at her fixedly, while in his hand he held two long papers that he
slid between his nails. At last, opening his pocket-book, he spread out
on the table four bills to order, each for a thousand francs.
"Sign these," he said, "and keep it all!"
She cried out, scandalised.
"But if I give you the surplus," replied Monsieur Lheureux impudently,
"is that not helping you?"
And taking a pen he wrote at the bottom of the account, "Received of
Madame Bovary four thousand francs."
"Now who can trouble you, since in six months you'll draw the arrears
for your cottage, and I don't make the last bill due till after you've
been paid?"
Emma grew rather confused in her calculations, and her ears tingled
as if gold pieces, bursting from their bags, rang all round her on
the floor.


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