“You—have not had one cold since you came here”?
She would have to be ill, to cough before he could understand what she suffered!
And she was filled with indignation, the angry indignation of a weak, timid being.
She must cough. Then, perhaps, he would take pity on her. Well, she would cough; he should hear her coughing; the doctor should be called in; he should see, her husband, he should see.
She got out of bed, her legs and her feet bare, and a childish idea made her smile:
“I want a furnace, and I must have it. I shall cough so much that he'll have to put one in the house.”
And she sat down in a chair in her nightdress. She waited an hour, two hours. She shivered, but she did not catch cold. Then she resolved on a bold expedient.
She noiselessly left her room, descended the stairs, and opened the gate into the garden.
The earth, covered with snows seemed dead. She abruptly thrust forward her bare foot, and plunged it into the icy, fleecy snow. A sensation of cold, painful as a wound, mounted to her heart. However, she stretched out the other leg, and began to descend the steps slowly.
Then she advanced through the grass saying to herself: