The Atom Station by Halldór Laxness

When my mother became sixty she was given a hundred kronur. It then turned out that she could not recognize money. She had never seen money before. On the other hand, the day had never dawned since she was twelve years old that she had worked less than sixteen hours out of twenty-four during the winter, and eighteen during the summer, unless she were ill. So it was little wonder that I felt I must have been drunk the previous evening, or in a cinema, to see all that money torn up and then burned.

Madam awoke for her chocolate at eleven o'clock and raised herself up in the huge big bed, glowing with happiness that there should be no justice in the world, and began to drink that sweet fatty brew and read the Conservative paper; for it was little wonder that the woman should think this a splendid world and want to conserve it. When I was on my way out again she cleared her throat delicately and told me to wait. She did nothing in haste, she drank up slowly and finished the article she was reading. When she had drunk and read her fill she got out of bed, slipped a dressing-gown on and sat down in front of the mirror with the back of her head towards me, and started to do herself up.