Eight days after he came back in a towering rage.
"The damned traitress!"
"Who, pray?"
"Madame Bordin."
And he related how he had been so infatuated as to offer to make her his wife, but all had come to an end a quarter of an hour since at Marescot's office. She wished to have for her marriage portion the Ecalles meadow, which he could not dispose of, having partly retained it, like the farm, with the money of another person.
"Exactly," said Pécuchet.
"I had had the folly to promise her any favour she asked—and this was what she was after! I attribute her obstinacy to this; for if she loved me she would have given way to me."
The widow, on the contrary, had attacked him in insulting language, and referred disparagingly to his physique, his big paunch.
"My paunch! Just imagine for a moment!"
Meanwhile Pécuchet had risen several times, and seemed to be in pain.