Suppose he breaks my arm, then what will become
of me--who will take care of and feed my children? If I am forced to go the
hospital, they will die of hunger then. Thus you can imagine, my brother, I
preferred to give my money to my husband, not on account of the beating,
but that I might not be wounded, and remain _able to work_."
"Poor woman. Bah! they talk of martyrdom--it is you who are a martyr!"
"And yet I have never harmed any one; I only ask to work to take care of my
children; but what would you? There are the happy and unhappy, as there are
the good and the wicked."
"Yes, and it is astonishing how happy the good are! But you have finally
got rid of that scoundrel of a husband?"
"I hope so, for he did not leave me until he had sold my bedstead, and the
cradle of my two little children. But I think he wished to do something
worse."
"What do you mean?"
"I say him, but it was rather this bad woman who urged him; it is on that
account I speak of it. 'I say,' one day he said to me, 'when in a family
there is a pretty girl of fifteen like ours, it is very stupid not to make
use of her beauty.'"
"Oh! good! I understand. After having sold the clothes, he wished to sell
the body."
"When he said that, Fortune, my blood boiled; and, to be just, I made him
blush with shame at my reproaches: and as this bad woman wished to meddle
in our quarrel by asserting that my husband could do with his daughter as
he pleased, I treated her so badly, the wretch, that my husband beat me,
and since that time I have not seen them.
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