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Updated: June 18, 2025
Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller. "Fast colors!" said the draper. "Quite likely to have children," said the salt merchant. "She's pickled in brine, saving your presence."
After breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the keeper from Froidfond, to whom the promised indemnity had never yet been paid, made his appearance, bearing a hare and some partridges shot in the park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the millers. "Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is all that fit to eat?"
When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon. "Don't let the dog loose, and don't go to bed; we have work to do together. At eleven o'clock Cornoiller will be at the door with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his knocking; tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don't allow nocturnal racket.
Every evening he brought the rich heiress a huge and magnificent bouquet, which Madame Cornoiller placed conspicuously in a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the court-yard when the visitors had departed.
It is unnecessary to say that the women-servants selected by Nanon were "perfect treasures." Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants, whose devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no change after Monsieur Grandet's death; the usages and customs he had sternly established were scrupulously carried out by Monsieur and Madame Cornoiller.
"Ah! you have the voice and manner of your deceased father," Madame des Grassins replied. "Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay us," said Nanon, producing Charles's cheque. "That's true; have the kindness to come with me now, Madame Cornoiller."
He had left Cornoiller at Angers to look after the horses, which were well-nigh foundered, with orders to bring them home slowly after they were rested. "I have got back from Angers, wife," he said; "I am hungry." Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: "Haven't you eaten anything since yesterday?" "Nothing," answered the old man. Nanon brought in the soup.
"Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I have gone into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive fast, Cornoiller; I must get to Angers before nine o'clock." The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose the dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in the neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or the object of his journey.
Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution.
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