‘If I have,’ replied the wife, not liking to tell a direct falsehood, ‘how do you know it is not with my own money? Tell me, have you missed any of yours?’
The miser was only the more angry at her way of putting the question, because he could not say he had actually missed the money; yet he was convinced it was his money she had been spending.
‘How do I know it is not your money, do you ask?’ he thundered; ‘because if you had had any money of your own you would never have come to live here, you would not have married me.’
But weak as he was with his bread and water diet, the excitement was too much for him. As he said these words a convulsion seized him, and he fell down dead.
Thus all his riches came into possession of the wife.
[1] ‘Il Vecchio Avaro.’ (The Avaricious Old Man.) [↑]
[2] ‘Che campasse d’aria,’ who should subsist on air. [↑]
[3] ‘Abbi pazienza,’ have patience; equivalent to ‘please,’ ‘pray excuse me,’ &c. [↑]
[4] ‘Trattoria,’ an eating-house, but one where, as a rule, dinners are sent out. [↑]