“The grocer! what on earth can I owe to a grocer? I don’t eat here, that is to say, I send out for everything.”
“To be sure, no cooking is done in madame’s apartment, but I make her chocolate; and then candles,—madame uses a great many of them; and I have to have oil for the lamps, and then sugar—we can’t get along without sugar—and tea, and coffee—I take coffee in the morning. And then soap, and matches, and I don’t know what; there’s no end to the things, although we seem not to need anything.—In fact, he demands a total of ninety-six francs!”
“As much as that for trifles?”
“Yes, madame. I tell you the sugar goes fast, when one drinks tea!”
“Well, I will pay him when I have money.”
“That’s what I told him; but would you believe, madame, that he had the face to reply: ‘Your mistress has money enough to hire cabs, for she goes out in them often enough; she ought to have some to pay her grocer!’”
“What a shocking thing! Why, it is disgusting! The idea! I must stop to think before taking a cab, because of a miserable creditor!”
“Yes, madame, things have got to that point. That is the result of our revolutions.”
“Lizida, you will get nothing more at that man’s shop, I forbid you!”
“Oh! madame has no need to forbid me, there’s no danger of my going there again; besides, he wouldn’t let me have anything more on credit! He says that if he doesn’t get his money in two days he’ll go before the justice of the peace.”