The other evening I thought I was going to die, and could hardly manage
to crawl into bed."

But Chicot was not going to be taken in.

"Come, come, old lady, you are as strong as the church tower, and will
live till you are a hundred at least; you will no doubt see me put under
ground first."

The whole day was spent in discussing the money, and as the old woman
would not give in, the innkeeper consented to give the fifty crowns, and
she insisted upon having ten crowns over and above to strike the bargain.

Three years passed and the old dame did not seem to have grown a day
older. Chicot was in despair, and it seemed to him as if he had been
paying that annuity for fifty years, that he had been taken in, done,
ruined. From time to time he went to see the old lady, just as one goes
in July to see when the harvest is likely to begin. She always met him
with a cunning look, and one might have supposed that she was
congratulating herself on the trick she had played him. Seeing how well
and hearty she seemed he very soon got into his buggy again, growling to
himself:

"Will you never die, you old hag?"

He did not know what to do, and he felt inclined to strangle her when he
saw her. He hated her with a ferocious, cunning hatred, the hatred of a
peasant who has been robbed, and began to cast about for some means of
getting rid of her.