Short Stories, vol 11 | Page 4

MAN
THE MASK THE PENGUINS ROCK A FAMILY SUICIDES AN
ARTIFICE DREAMS SIMON'S PAPA

THE UMBRELLA

Mme. Oreille was a very economical woman; she knew the value of a
centime, and possessed a whole storehouse of strict principles with
regard to the multiplication of money, so that her cook found the
greatest difficulty in making what the servants call their market-penny,
and her husband was hardly allowed any pocket money at all. They
were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children; but it really
pained Mme. Oreille to see any money spent; it was like tearing at her
heartstrings when she had to take any of those nice crown-pieces out of
her pocket; and whenever she had to spend anything, no matter how
necessary it might be, she slept badly the next night.
Oreille was continually saying to his wife:
"You really might be more liberal, as we have no children, and never
spend our income."
"You don't know what may happen," she used to reply. "It is better to
have too much than too little."
She was a little woman of about forty, very active, rather hasty,
wrinkled, very neat and tidy, and with a very short temper.
Her husband frequently complained of all the privations she made him
endure; some of them were particularly painful to him, as they touched
his vanity.
He was one of the head clerks in the War Office, and only stayed on
there in obedience to his wife's wish, to increase their income which
they did not nearly spend.
For two years he had always come to the office with the same old
patched umbrella, to the great amusement of his fellow clerks. At last
he got tired of their jokes, and insisted upon his wife buying him a new
one. She bought one for eight francs and a half, one of those cheap
articles which large houses sell as an advertisement. When the men in
the office saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the
thousand, they began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time
of it. They even made a song about it, which he heard from morning till
night all over the immense building.
Oreille was very angry, and peremptorily told his wife to get him a new
one, a good silk one, for twenty francs, and to bring him the bill, so that
he might see that it was all right.
She bought him one for eighteen francs, and said, getting red with
anger as she gave it to her husband:

"This will last you for five years at least."
Oreille felt quite triumphant, and received a small ovation at the office
with his new acquisition.
When he went home in the evening his wife said to him, looking at the
umbrella uneasily:
"You should not leave it fastened up with the elastic; it will very likely
cut the silk. You must take care of it, for I shall not buy you a new one
in a hurry."
She took it, unfastened it, and remained dumfounded with astonishment
and rage; in the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a
six-penny- piece; it had been made with the end of a cigar.
"What is that?" she screamed.
Her husband replied quietly, without looking at it:
"What is it? What do you mean?"
She was choking with rage, and could hardly get out a word.
"You--you--have--burned--your umbrella! Why--you must be--mad!
Do you wish to ruin us outright?"
He turned round, and felt that he was growing pale.
"What are you talking about?"
"I say that you have burned your umbrella. Just look here."
And rushing at him, as if she were going to beat him, she violently
thrust the little circular burned hole under his nose.
He was so utterly struck dumb at the sight of it that he could only
stammer out:
"What-what is it? How should I know? I have done nothing, I will
swear. I don't know what is the matter with the umbrella."
"You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been
playing the fool and opening it, to show it off!" she screamed.
"I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is all,
I swear."
But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which
make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a
battlefield where bullets are raining.
She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which
was of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly
with the mended article in his hand. He put it into a cupboard, and
thought no more of it than