Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling and havoc-wreaking.

The remark crystallizes a recurrent Flaubertian insight: romantic feeling is fragile when confronted with the material realities of debt, dependence, and bargaining. A “request for money” turns affection into transaction, introducing suspicion (Is love being bought? Is obligation being imposed?) and puncturing the idealized self-image lovers cultivate. The metaphor of “icy blasts” suggests not merely discomfort but a sudden change of climate—warmth becomes cold, intimacy becomes calculation. In Flaubert’s world, where bourgeois practicality often corrodes sentiment, money functions as a solvent that exposes the limits of passion and the power dynamics hidden inside relationships.