Madame Oreille was a very economical woman; she thoroughly knew the value of a half-penny, and possessed a whole store-house of strict principles with regard to the multiplication of money, so that her servant found the greatest difficulty in making what servants call their "market-penny," while her husband had great difficulty in getting any pocket-money at all. They were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children. 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 silver 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 stayed 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 things which big stores sell as an advertisement. When the others in the office saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the thousand, they began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time of it with them. The umbrella was no good. In three months it was done for and at the office everybody laughed. 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 then remained dumfounded, with astonishment and rage. In the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a six-penny-piece, as if 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 burned—your umbrella! Why—you must be—mad! Do you wish to ruin us outright?"
He turned round hastily, turning pale.
"What are you talking about?"
"I say that you have burned your umbrella. Just look here—"
And rushing at him, as if she were going to beat him, she violently thrust the little circular burned 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 of it than 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 now irreparable. It was covered with small holes, which evidently, proceeded from burns, just as if some one 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 dumb, in a state of frightened consternation.
They looked at each other; then he looked on to the floor. The next moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a transport of the most violent rage, for she had now recovered her voice:
"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. After the storm had raged for an hour, he, at last, was able 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 to 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 spoiled, 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 insurance pay for it. The companies pay for all articles that are burned, 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 Insurance Company, show them the state your umbrella is in, and make them pay for the damage."
M. Oreille fairly jumped, he was so startled at the proposal.
"I would not do it for my life! It is eighteen francs lost, that is all. It will not ruin us."
The next morning he took a walking-stick when he went out, for, luckily, it was a fine day.
Left at home alone, Mme Oreille could not get over the loss of her eighteen francs by any means. She had put the umbrella on the dining-room table, and she looked at it without being able to come to any determination.
Every moment she thought of the insurance company, but she did not dare to encounter the quizzical looks of the gentlemen who might receive her, for she was very, timid before people, and grew red at a mere nothing, feeling embarrassed when she had to speak to strangers.
But regret at the loss of the eighteen francs pained her as if she had been wounded. She tried not to think of it any more, and yet every moment the recollection of the loss struck her painfully. What was she to do, however? Time went on, and she could not decide; but suddenly, like all cowards, she made up her mind.
"I will go, and we will see what will happen."
But first of all she was obliged to prepare the umbrella so that the disaster might be complete, and the reason of it quite evident. She took a match from the mantelpiece, and between the ribs she burned a hole as big as the palm of her hand. Then she rolled it up carefully............