'Eh? Yes?' said Mr Merdle, turning towards her.
'What is it?' 'What is it?' repeated Mrs Merdle. 'It is, I suppose, that you have not
heard a word of my complaint.' 'Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?' said Mr Merdle. 'I didn't know that you
were suffering from a complaint. What complaint?' 'A complaint of you,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Oh! A complaint of me,' said Mr Merdle. 'What is the--what have I--what
may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?' In his withdrawing,
abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to shape this question.
As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself that he was the master of
the house, he concluded by presenting his forefinger to the parrot, who
expressed his opinion on that subject by instantly driving his bill into
it. 'You were saying, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger
in his mouth, 'that you had a complaint against me?
' 'A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more
emphatically, than by having to repeat it,' said Mrs Merdle. 'I might as
well have stated it to the wall. I had far better have stated it to the
bird. He would at least have screamed.'
'You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,' said Mr Merdle,
taking a chair. 'Indeed I don't know,' retorted Mrs Merdle, 'but that you had better do
that, than be so moody and distraught. One would at least know that you
were sensible of what was going on around you.'
'A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle,
heavily. 'And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,'
returned Mrs Merdle. 'That's very true. If you wish to know the
complaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you
really ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate yourself
to Society.'
Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head
that he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair,
cried: 'Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who
does more for Society than I do?
Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle? Do you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle?
Do you look in the glass and see
yourself, Mrs Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, and who it's
all provided for? And yet will you tell me that I oughtn't to go into
Society? I, who shower money upon it in this way? I, who might always be
said--to--to--to harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go
about saturating Society every day of my life.' 'Pray, don't be violent, Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Violent?' said Mr Merdle. 'You are enough to make me desperate. You
don't know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don't know
anything of the sacrifices I make for it.'