Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-05-17
CHAPTER /.

cloister, the most melancholy ruins or
the dreariest stretch of sandy waste. Per
haps such houses as these combine the
characteristics of all the three. and TO
the dumb silence of the monastery they
unite the gauntness of the ruin and the
arid desolation of the waste. There is
one particular house front in Saumur
which possesses all these melancholy
characteristics, standing at the end of a
steep street. 1t was a venerable relic
OF bygone age. built for the men and
women of an older and simpler world,
from which our modern France is far
ther and farther removed day by day.
In a gloomy recess a doorway is dimly
visible. the door Of NJ. GraDdet's house.
NJ. Grandet enjoyed a certain reputa
ton in Saumur. There were still old
people in existence who could remember
former times and called NJ. Grandet
Goodman Grandet,' but there were not
many OF them left. and they were rap
idly disappearing year by year. In 1889
Grandet was master cooper, III very
good way of business, who could read
and write and cast accounts When the
French Republic confscated lands in the
district and proceeded to sell them by
auction, the cooper was forty years OF
age, and had just married the daughter
of wealthy timber merchant. AS Gran
det possessed at that moment his wife's
dowry as well as some considerable
amount of ready money of his own, he
acquired some of the best vineland in
the neighborhood, an old abbey and
few little farms, for an old song. In the
days of the Consulate he became Mayor,
did prudently in his public capacity and
did very we'll for himself. Times chang
ed, the empire was established and he
became Monsieur Grandet. He had a
fair claim to the Cross of the Legion
of Honor and he received it in 1906.
BY this time NJ Grandet was fifty
seven years old, and his wife about thir-
ty-six. The one child of the marriage
was a daughter, a little girl ten years
of age. In this year he succeeded to
three fortunes. Nine. Grandet's mother
and her father soon followed her; the
third in order was NJ. Grandet's grand
mother on the mothers side. NJ. Gran
Diet received new distinction-he paid
more taxes than any one else in the coun-
try around. He now cultivated hun
dred acres of vineyard. In a good year
they would yield seven or eight hundred
puneheons. He had thirteen little farms,
an old abbey and hundred and twenty
seven acres of grazing land, in which
three thousand poplars, planted in 1893,
were growing taller and larger every
year Finally he owned the house in
which he lived.
In these visible ways his prosperity
had increased. AS 10 his capital there
were only two people in a position TO
make a guess at its probable amount.
One of these was the notary, NJ. Cruchot,
who transacted all the necessary bust
ness whenever NJ. Grandet made an in
vestment, and the other was NJ. des
Grassins, the wealthiest banker in the
town. who did Grandet many good Of
fees which were unknown to Saumur.
There was no one in Saumur who did not
fully believe the report which told how,
In a secret hiding place, NJ. Grandet
had a hoard of louis, and how every
night he went to look at it and gave
himself up to the inexpressible delight
of gazing at the huge heap of gold.
In matters financial NJ Grandet might
be described as combining the character
istics of the Bengal tiger and the boa
constructor He could lie low and wait,
crouching. watching for his prey, and
make his spring unerringly at last; then
the jaws of his purse would unclose,
torrent of coin would be swallowed down,
and, as in the case of the gorged reptile,
there would be period Of inaction. Like
the serpent. moreover. he was cold, apa-
thedc, methodical, keeping to his own
mysterious times and seasons.
NJ. Grandet never bought either meat
or bread. Part of his rents were paid
In kind, and every week his tenants
brought in poultry. eggs, butter and
wheat sufficient for the needs of his
household. Moreover, he owned a mill,
and the miller, besides paying rent, came
over to fetch a certain quantity of corn
and brought him back both the bran and
the -four. Big NanOn, the one maid-ser-
want. baked all the bread once a week.
Others of the tenants were market gar
deners, and NJ. Grandet had arranged
that these were to keep him supplied
with fresh vegetables OF fruit there
was no lack Indeed, he sold good deal
of 1t in the market. Firewood was gath
cred from his own hedges or taken from
old stumps of trees that grew by the
sides of his fields. His tenants chopped
up the wood, carried it into the town and
obligingly stacked his fagots for him, re-
seldom had occasion to spend money. His
only known items of expenditure were
for sittings in the church for his wife
and daughter. their dress, Napon's wages,
renewals of the Innings of Nanon's sauce
pans, repairs about the house, candles,
rates and taxes. and the necessary out
laws of money for improvements. He
had recently acquired six hundred acres
haG I'D. o1I
belonging to a neighbor TO attend TO il,
promising to repay the man for his trou
BILE After this purchase had been made,
game appeared on the Grandets' table.
Grandet's manners were distinctly
homely He did not say very much. He
expressed his ideas as a rule in brief.
contentious phrases, uttered in a low
voice. He had other peculiarities. He
habitually drowned his ideas in food
of words more or less incoherent; his
singular inaptitude for reasoning logical
~ was usually set down to a defective
education; but this, like his unwelcome
fluency, the trick of stammering and va
rious other manneriSms, was assumed,
and for reasons which, in the course of
the story. will be made sufficiently clear
He never paid visits. never dined away
from home. nor asked any one 10 dinner.
His movements were almost noNeless.
He seemed 10 carry out his principles of
economy in everything-to make no use
less sound. TO be chary of spending even
physical energy. His respect for the
rights of ownership was so habitual that
he never displaced nor disturbed any
thing belonging to another. And yet in
spite Of the low tones of his voice. IN
spite of his discretion and cautious bear
ing. the cooper's real character showed
itself in his language and manners. and
this was more especially the case in his
own house. where he was less on his
guard than elsewhere.
AS to Grandet's exterior, he vas a
broad. SQuare-Shouldered, thick-set man,
about i've feet high. He had a bullet
shaped head a sun-burned face. SCARED
with the smallpox. and a narrow chin.