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Updated: June 16, 2025
He had heard them order their horses to be brought out in a couple of hours' time, and finally, from a spy whom he employed among the servants, he learned that an unwonted bustle was going forward in Madame de Maintenon's room, that Mademoiselle Nanon was half wild with excitement, and that two court milliners had been hastily summoned to madame's apartment.
The goodman and Nanon were yoked together by a stout stick, each end of which rested on their shoulders; a stout rope was passed over it, on which was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere Grandet still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his leisure hours. "Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!" said the voice of Nanon. "What a pity that it is only copper sous!" answered Grandet.
"What's that, the marines of the guard? Is it salt? Does it go in the water?" "Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise; there's the key." Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing-gown made of green silk, brocaded with gold flowers of an antique design. "Are you going to put that on to go to bed with?" she asked. "Yes."
In thinking over the consequences of that legacy of anguish Grandet was perhaps more agitated than his brother had been at the moment of writing it. "I shall have that golden robe," thought Nanon, who went to sleep tricked out in her altar-cloth, dreaming for the first time in her life of flowers, embroidery, and damask, just as Eugenie was dreaming of love.
The modern god, the only god in whom faith is preserved, money, is here, in all its power, manifested in a single countenance. The tender sentiments of life hold here but a secondary place; only the three pure, simple hearts of Nanon, of Eugenie, and of her mother were inspired by them. And how much of ignorance there was in the simplicity of these poor women!
The goodman came down; but he spoke to his wife with an absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table without appearing to remember his threats of the night before. "What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble." "Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon. "So much the better; he won't want a wax candle," said Grandet in a jeering tone.
"She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing for himself," said a third man. When she came forth from the old house on her way to the parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood, received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street. Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a wedding present.
For some time past the old abbe had urged him to speak to Mademoiselle Grandet, from a purely religious point of view, about the duty of marriage for a woman in her position. When she saw her pastor, Eugenie supposed he had come for the thousand francs which she gave monthly to the poor, and she told Nanon to go and fetch them; but the cure only smiled.
Grandet thought himself very generous to his wife. Philosophers who meet the like of Nanon, of Madame Grandet, of Eugenie, have surely a right to say that irony is at the bottom of the ways of Providence.
'No, for she shall never go! 'There! lamented Nanon 'so she agitates herself, when it is but spoken of. And surely she had better make up her mind, for there is no other choice. 'Nay, Nanon, said M. Gardon, 'wherefore should she part with the charge that God has laid on her? Eustacie gave a little cry of grateful joy. 'Oh, sir, come nearer!
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