(UFRGS - 2007)Mr. Eugene Foster lives with his wif

(UFRGS - 2007)

Mr. Eugene Foster lives with his wife in a large house in New York City, and they ¹have four servants. On this particular morning, there is a great deal of bustling about. One maid is distributing dust sheets to every room, while another ²is draping them over the furniture. The butler is bringing down suitcases, and Mrs. Foster herself is flying from room to room and pretending to supervise these operations. Actually, she is thinking of nothing at all except that she is going to miss her plane if her husband doesn't come out of his study soon and get ready.

Mr. Foster may possibly have a right to be irritated with his wife's foolishness, but he can have no excuse for increasing her misery by .......... her waiting ⁴unnecessarily. It is by no means certain that this is what he ³does, yet whenever they go somewhere, his timing is so accurate and his manner so bland that it is hard to believe he isn't purposely inflicting a nasty torture of his own on the ⁵unhappy lady. And one thing he must know - that she would never dare to call out and tell him .......... . He disciplined her too well for that. He must also know that if he is prepared to wait even beyond the last moment of safety, he can ⁶drive her nearly into hysterics. It seems almost as though he 'wanted' to miss the plane simply to intensify the poor woman's suffering.

(Adapted from: DAHL, Roald. The way up to heaven. In: Tales of the unexpected. London: Penguin Book, 1979. p. 179-180.)

 

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