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Updated: May 23, 2025
She escaped beneath the archway; Charles followed her there. On seeing him, she withdrew to the foot of the staircase and opened the self-closing door; then hardly knowing where she was going, Eugenie found herself near Nanon's den, in the darkest part of the passage.
She put into Nanon's head the notion of passing a warming-pan between the sheets. She herself covered the old table with a cloth and requested Nanon to change it every morning; she convinced her mother that it was necessary to light a good fire, and persuaded Nanon to bring up a great pile of wood into the corridor without saying anything to her father.
"He is not up," she thought, hearing Nanon's morning cough as the good soul went and came, sweeping out the halls, lighting her fire, chaining the dog, and speaking to the beasts in the stable. Eugenie at once went down and ran to Nanon, who was milking the cow. "Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for my cousin's breakfast."
"They are very good women," said he shortly, remembering Mademoiselle Nanon's warning, and fearing to trench upon the dangerous subject. "And doubtless you have had the privilege also of seeing the holy Bishop Laval?" "Yes, madame, I have seen Bishop Laval." "And I trust that the Sulpitians still hold their own against the Jesuits?"
There, no doubt, some hiding-place had been ingeniously constructed; there the title-deeds of property were stored; there hung the scales on which to weigh the louis; there were devised, by night and secretly, the estimates, the profits, the receipts, so that business men, finding Grandet prepared at all points, imagined that he got his cue from fairies or demons; there, no doubt, while Nanon's loud snoring shook the rafters, while the wolf-dog watched and yawned in the courtyard, while Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleeping, came the old cooper to cuddle, to con over, to caress and clutch and clasp his gold.
The cure went away; Mademoiselle Grandet went up to her father's secret room and spent the day there alone, without coming down to dinner, in spite of Nanon's entreaties. She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news of Charles's return and his foolish treachery had spread through the whole town.
Charles took a lighted wax candle from Nanon's hand, an Anjou candle, very yellow in color, and so shopworn that it looked like tallow and deceived Monsieur Grandet, who, incapable of suspecting its presence under his roof, did not perceive this magnificence. "I will show you the way," he said.
She wrapped herself quickly in a loose garment, a sort of pelisse with a hood, and was about to leave the room when a bright light coming through the chinks of her door made her think of fire. But she recovered herself as she heard Nanon's heavy steps and gruff voice mingling with the snorting of several horses.
To the poor peasant who in her youth had earned nothing but harsh treatment, to the pauper girl picked up by charity, Grandet's ambiguous laugh was like a sunbeam. Moreover, Nanon's simple heart and narrow head could hold only one feeling and one idea.
When she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon's den, in the darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him.
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