The wildest waste
went on in the kitchen: the place, metaphorically speaking was one great
river which stove in cask upon cask of wine and swept great bills with
it, swollen by three or four successive manipulators. Victorine and
Francois reigned supreme in the kitchen, whither they invited friends.
In addition to these there was quite a little tribe of cousins, who were
cockered up in their homes with cold meats and strong soup. Julien made
the trades-people give him commissions, and the glaziers never put up
a pane of glass at a cost of a franc and a half but he had a franc
put down to himself. Charles devoured the horses' oats and doubled the
amount of their provender, reselling at the back door what came in at
the carriage gate, while amid the general pillage, the sack of the
town after the storm, Zoe, by dint of cleverness, succeeded in saving
appearances and covering the thefts of all in order the better to slur
over and make good her own. But the household waste was worse than the
household dishonesty. Yesterday's food was thrown into the gutter, and
the collection of provisions in the house was such that the servants
grew disgusted with it. The glass was all sticky with sugar, and the gas
burners flared and flared till the rooms seemed ready to explode.
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