Nanon did
everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the
Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went
to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the
harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of
her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence,
obeyed without a murmur his most absurd exactions.
In the famous year of 1811, when the grapes were gathered with
unheard-of difficulty, Grandet resolved to give Nanon his old watch,
--the first present he had made her during twenty years of service.
Though he turned over to her his old shoes (which fitted her), it is
impossible to consider that quarterly benefit as a gift, for the shoes
were always thoroughly worn-out. Necessity had made the poor girl so
niggardly that Grandet had grown to love her as we love a dog, and
Nanon had let him fasten a spiked collar round her throat, whose
spikes no longer pricked her. If Grandet cut the bread with rather too
much parsimony, she made no complaint; she gaily shared the hygienic
benefits derived from the severe regime of the household, in which no
one was ever ill. Nanon was, in fact, one of the family; she laughed
when Grandet laughed, felt gloomy or chilly, warmed herself, and
toiled as he did. What pleasant compensations there were in such
equality! Never did the master have occasion to find fault with the
servant for pilfering the grapes, nor for the plums and nectarines
eaten under the trees.
Pages:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37