“Where you have tied the goat she must browse,” she replied.
My grandmother, exasperated at these words, exclaimed: “Your husband doesn’t even give you grass to browse on.”
My mother remained obstinate with her habitual sourness, her bad temper, and her motiveless recriminations which she tried, as usual, to combine together, in order to prove that she was made unhappy by everyone.
“But, if you are turned out of doors with your daughter, where will you go?”
“Into the street, and Jean Louis will have the responsibility of having put me there. I do not wish that he should be absolved for his conduct by any one.”
It was therefore in order to prove her husband’s wrong-doing that she suffered abandonment and privations.
My grandmother said nothing more; but she arranged in her mind a plan for carrying me off.
“Whatever you decide,” she said, after the scene was over, “you must pay your debts, if you have any here. Do you wish me to give you some money?”
“Willingly.”
“Well, about how much do you think you owe?”