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Instead of leaving the hall by the door which opened under the
archway, Grandet ceremoniously went through the passage which divided
the hall from the kitchen. A swing-door, furnished with a large oval
pane of glass, shut this passage from the staircase, so as to fend off
the cold air which rushed through it. But the north wind whistled none
the less keenly in winter, and, in spite of the sand-bags at the
bottom of the doors of the living-room, the temperature within could
scarcely be kept at a proper height. Nanon went to bolt the outer
door; then she closed the hall and let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark
was so strangled that he seemed to have laryngitis. This animal, noted
for his ferocity, recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored
children of the fields understood each other.
When Charles saw the yellow, smoke-stained walls of the well of the
staircase, where each worm-eaten step shook under the heavy foot-fall
of his uncle, his expectations began to sober more and more. He
fancied himself in a hen-roost. His aunt and cousin, to whom he turned
an inquiring look, were so used to the staircase that they did not
guess the cause of his amazement, and took the glance for an
expression of friendliness, which they answered by a smile that made
him desperate.
"Why the devil did my father send me to such a place?" he said to
himself.
When they reached the first landing he saw three doors painted in
Etruscan red and without casings,--doors sunk in the dusty walls and
provided with iron bars, which in fact were bolts, each ending with
the pattern of a flame, as did both ends of the long sheath of the
lock. The first door at the top of the staircase, which opened into a
room directly above the kitchen, was evidently walled up. In fact, the
only entrance to that room was through Grandet's bedchamber; the room
itself was his office. The single window which lighted it, on the side
of the court, was protected by a lattice of strong iron bars. No one,
not even Madame Grandet, had permission to enter it. The old man chose
to be alone, like an alchemist in his laboratory. 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 walls were thick, the screens sure. He alone had the key of
this laboratory, where--so people declared--he studied the maps on
which his fruit-trees were marked, and calculated his profits to a
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