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copper--made a candlestick for one candle, which was sufficient for
ordinary occasions. The chairs, antique in shape, were covered with
tapestry representing the fables of La Fontaine; it was necessary,
however, to know that writer well to guess at the subjects, for the
faded colors and the figures, blurred by much darning, were difficult
to distinguish.
At the four corners of the hall were closets, or rather buffets,
surmounted by dirty shelves. An old card-table in marquetry, of which
the upper part was a chess-board, stood in the space between the two
windows. Above this table was an oval barometer with a black border
enlivened with gilt bands, on which the flies had so licentiously
disported themselves that the gilding had become problematical. On the
panel opposite to the chimney-piece were two portraits in pastel,
supposed to represent the grandfather of Madame Grandet, old Monsieur
de la Bertelliere, as a lieutenant in the French guard, and the
deceased Madame Gentillet in the guise of a shepherdess. The windows
were draped with curtains of red _gros de Tours_ held back by silken
cords with ecclesiastical tassels. This luxurious decoration, little
in keeping with the habits of Monsieur Grandet, had been, together
with the steel pier-glass, the tapestries, and the buffets, which were
of rose-wood, included in the purchase of the house.
By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were
raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height
from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained
cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of
Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the lives had flowed
peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round of constant work from
the month of April to the month of November. On the first day of the
latter month they took their winter station by the chimney. Not until
that day did Grandet permit a fire to be lighted; and on the
thirty-first of March it was extinguished, without regard either to
the chills of the early spring or to those of a wintry autumn. A
foot-warmer, filled with embers from the kitchen fire, which la Grande
Nanon contrived to save for them, enabled Madame and Mademoiselle
Grandet to bear the chilly mornings and evenings of April and October.
Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and spent their
days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of working-women,
that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother she was
forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive her father to obtain
the necessary light. For a long time the miser had given out the
tallow candle to his daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out
every morning the bread and other necessaries for the daily
consumption.
La Grande Nanon was perhaps the only human being capable of accepting
willingly the despotism of her master.
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