And Fru Egholm brought out other things. There was a newspaper holder worked with poppies, and a cushion embroidered on canvas.
“There’s little pleasure in having them,” she sighed. “Egholm, he doesn’t value it more than the dirt under his feet.”
“Ah! It’s just the same with Hermansen, now. One Sunday afternoon I came home and found him, as true as I’m here, sitting on the curtains, smoking, as careless as could be. But your husband—I thought he was a model.”
“Egholm doesn’t smoke. If he did, he’d be just the same. But I can tell you a thing—just to show what he thinks about my work. Ah, Madam Hermansen, take my word for it, there’s many a slight a woman has to put up with that hurts more than all your blows.”
“And he’s been on the railway, too....”
“It doesn’t change human nature, after all. It was these here things from the auction at Gammelhauge, the mirror and the chest of drawers, and the big chair over by the window, and that very one you’re sitting in now. Now, tell me honestly, would you call them nice to look at?”
Madam Hermansen shifted a little under in her big green shawl.
“They’re a trifle old fashioned to my mind.” And she sniffed disdainfully.
“Old fashioned and worm eaten and heavy and clumsy—you needn’t be afraid to say it. Why, it’s almost two men’s work to lift a chair like that. And as for the glass—why, it makes you look like a chimney-sweep. The chest of drawers is not so bad; it does hold a good deal. Wools and odds and ends.... But, all the same....”