“Well, listen. It seems to me so far I’ve been very good to you.” And opening one of his ledgers, “See,” he said. Then running up the page with his finger, “Let’s see! let’s see! August 3rd, two hundred francs; June 17th, a hundred and fifty; March 23nd, forty-six. In April⁠—”

He stopped, as if afraid of making some mistake.

“Not to speak of the bills signed by Monsieur Bovary, one for seven hundred francs, and another for three hundred. As to your little installments, with the interest, why, there’s no end to ’em; one gets quite muddled over ’em. I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”

She wept; she even called him “her good Monsieur Lheureux.” But he always fell back upon “that rascal Vinçart.” Besides, he hadn’t a brass farthing; no one was paying him nowadays; they were eating his coat off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him couldn’t advance money.

Emma was silent, and Monsieur Lheureux, who was biting the feathers of a quill, no doubt became uneasy at her silence, for he went on⁠—