Petty Troubles of Married Life by Honoré de Balzac
page 27 of 118 (22%)
page 27 of 118 (22%)
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omnibus horse, tired of his deplorable existence.
You think a good deal of this horse; your consider him an excellent one and he cost you twelve hundred francs. When a man has the honor of being the father of a family, he thinks as much of twelve hundred francs as you think of this horse. You see at once the frightful amount of your extra expenses, in case Coco should have to lie by. For two days you will have to take hackney coaches to go to your business. You wife will pout if she can't go out: but she will go out, and take a carriage. The horse will cause the purchase of numerous extras, which you will find in your coachman's bill,--your only coachman, a model coachman, whom you watch as you do a model anybody. To these thoughts you give expression in the gentle movement of the whip as it falls upon the animal's ribs, up to his knees in the black dust which lines the road in front of La Verrerie. At this moment, little Adolphe, who doesn't know what to do in this rolling box, has sadly twisted himself up into a corner, and his grandmother anxiously asks him, "What is the matter?" "I'm hungry," says the child. "He's hungry," says the mother to her daughter. "And why shouldn't he be hungry? It is half-past five, we are not at the barrier, and we started at two!" "Your husband might have treated us to dinner in the country." |
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