“And shall I tell you another thing?”
“What is it?” she asked.
He answered in a low, curt voice:—
“My fortune is made.”
The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: “Is the person who is addressing me on the point of going mad?”
He went on:—
“Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of the parish of die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have had enough of misery! my share and other people’s share! I am not joking any longer, I don’t find it comic any more, I’ve had enough of puns, good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of a millionaire!”
He took a turn round the hovel, and added:—
“Like other people.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the woman.
He shook his head, winked, screwed up one eye, and raised his voice like a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration:—
“What do I mean by that? Listen!”