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"Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.
"Besides, we shall go fast," added the man; "your farmers have picked
out their best horses."
"Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?"
"I didn't know where."
"Very good. Is the carriage strong?"
"Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand weight.
How much does that old keg weigh?"
"Goodness!" exclaimed Nanon. "I ought to know! There's pretty nigh
eighteen hundred--"
"Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I have gone
into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive fast, Cornoiller; I
must get to Angers before nine o'clock."
The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose the
dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in the
neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or the object
of his journey. The precautions of the old miser and his reticence
were never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in that house, filled
as it was with gold. Hearing in the morning, through the gossip of the
port, that exchange on gold had doubled in price in consequence of
certain military preparations undertaken at Nantes, and that
speculators had arrived at Angers to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by
the simple process of borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the
chance of selling his gold and of bringing back in the form of
treasury notes the sum he intended to put into the Funds, having
swelled it considerably by the exchange.
VIII
"My father has gone," thought Eugenie, who heard all that took place
from the head of the stairs. Silence was restored in the house, and
the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer
echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment Eugenie heard in her
heart, before the sound caught her ears, a cry which pierced the
partitions and came from her cousin's chamber. A line of light, thin
as the blade of a sabre, shone through a chink in the door and fell
horizontally on the balusters of the rotten staircase.
"He suffers!" she said, springing up the stairs. A second moan brought
her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she pushed it
open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side of the old
armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, nearly touched
the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the strained posture
suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the room hastily.
"He must be very tired," she said to herself, glancing at a dozen
letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their addresses: "To
Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, & Co., carriage-makers"; "To Monsieur
Buisson, tailor," etc.
"He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France at once,"
she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The words, "My dear
Annette," at the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment.
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