His farmers
supplied him weekly with a sufficiency of capons, chickens, eggs,
butter, and his tithe of wheat. He owned a mill; and the tenant was
bound, over and above his rent, to take a certain quantity of grain
and return him the flour and bran. La Grande Nanon, his only servant,
though she was no longer young, baked the bread of the household
herself every Saturday. Monsieur Grandet arranged with
kitchen-gardeners who were his tenants to supply him with vegetables.
As to fruits, he gathered such quantities that he sold the greater part
in the market. His fire-wood was cut from his own hedgerows or taken
from the half-rotten old sheds which he built at the corners of his
fields, and whose planks the farmers carted into town for him, all cut
up, and obligingly stacked in his wood-house, receiving in return his
thanks. His only known expenditures were for the consecrated bread, the
clothing of his wife and daughter, the hire of their chairs in church,
the wages of la Grand Nanon, the tinning of the saucepans, lights,
taxes, repairs on his buildings, and the costs of his various
industries. He had six hundred acres of woodland, lately purchased,
which he induced a neighbor's keeper to watch, under the promise of an
indemnity. After the acquisition of this property he ate game for the
first time.
Monsieur Grandet's manners were very simple. He spoke little. He
usually expressed his meaning by short sententious phrases uttered in
a soft voice.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25