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staircase shaking under her father's step. Already she felt the
effects of that virgin modesty and that special consciousness of
happiness which lead us to fancy, not perhaps without reason, that our
thoughts are graven on our foreheads and are open to the eyes of all.
Perceiving for the first time the cold nakedness of her father's
house, the poor girl felt a sort of rage that she could not put it in
harmony with her cousin's elegance. She felt the need of doing
something for him,--what, she did not know. Ingenuous and truthful,
she followed her angelic nature without mistrusting her impressions or
her feelings. The mere sight of her cousin had wakened within her the
natural yearnings of a woman,--yearnings that were the more likely to
develop ardently because, having reached her twenty-third year, she
was in the plenitude of her intelligence and her desires. For the
first time in her life her heart was full of terror at the sight of
her father; in him she saw the master of the fate, and she fancied
herself guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his knowledge certain
thoughts. She walked with hasty steps, surprised to breathe a purer
air, to feel the sun's rays quickening her pulses, to absorb from
their heat a moral warmth and a new life. As she turned over in her
mind some stratagem by which to get the cake, a quarrel--an event as
rare as the sight of swallows in winter--broke out between la Grande
Nanon and Grandet. Armed with his keys, the master had come to dole
out provisions for the day's consumption.
"Is there any bread left from yesterday?" he said to Nanon.
"Not a crumb, monsieur."
Grandet took a large round loaf, well floured and moulded in one of
the flat baskets which they use for baking in Anjou, and was about to
cut it, when Nanon said to him,--
"We are five, to-day, monsieur."
"That's true," said Grandet, "but your loaves weigh six pounds;
there'll be some left. Besides, these young fellows from Paris don't
eat bread, you'll see."
"Then they must eat _frippe_?" said Nanon.
_Frippe_ is a word of the local lexicon of Anjou, and means any
accompaniment of bread, from butter which is spread upon it, the
commonest kind of _frippe_, to peach preserve, the most distinguished
of all the _frippes_; those who in their childhood have licked the
_frippe_ and left the bread, will comprehend the meaning of Nanon's
speech.
"No," answered Grandet, "they eat neither bread nor _frippe_; they are
something like marriageable girls."
After ordering the meals for the day with his usual parsimony, the
goodman, having locked the closets containing the supplies, was about
to go towards the fruit-garden, when Nanon stopped him to say,--
"Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, and I'll make a
_galette_ for the young ones."
"Are you going to pillage the house on account of my nephew?"
"I wasn't thinking any more of your nephew than I was of your dog,
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