Chapter 4

When the four relations were left alone, Monsieur Grandet said to his
nephew,--

"We must go to bed. It is too late to talk about the matters which
have brought you here; to-morrow we will take a suitable moment. We
breakfast at eight o'clock; at midday we eat a little fruit or a bit
of bread, and drink a glass of white wine; and we dine, like the
Parisians, at five o'clock. That's the order of the day. If you like
to go and see the town and the environs you are free to do so. You
will excuse me if my occupations do not permit me to accompany you.
You may perhaps hear people say that I am rich,--Monsieur Grandet
this, Monsieur Grandet that. I let them talk; their gossip does not
hurt my credit. But I have not a penny; I work in my old age like an
apprentice whose worldly goods are a bad plane and two good arms.
Perhaps you'll soon know yourself what a franc costs when you have got
to sweat for it. Nanon, where are the candles?"

"I trust, my nephew, that you will find all you want," said Madame
Grandet; "but if you should need anything else, you can call Nanon."

"My dear aunt, I shall need nothing; I have, I believe, brought
everything with me. Permit me to bid you good-night, and my young
cousin also."

Charles took a lighted wax candle from Nanon's hand,--an Anjou candle,
very yellow in color, and so shopworn that it looked like tallow and
deceived Monsieur Grandet, who, incapable of suspecting its presence
under his roof, did not perceive this magnificence.

"I will show you the way," he said.

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