Presently two dear old women enter with an important air: they say good evening with a curtsey, which makes their large starched collarettes stand upright, and sit down in a corner. Then Pierre Kerbras, who is engaged to Anne. At last everybody is placed and we are all complete.
It is the great evening for the settlement of the family arrangements, when the old Keremenens are going to fulfil the promise they have made to their children. The two of them rise and open an old chest on which the carvings represent Sacred Hearts alternating with cocks; they remove papers, clothing, and from the bottom, take a little sack which seems heavy. Then they go to their bed, lift up the mattress and search beneath: a second sack!
They empty the sacks on the table, in front of their son Yves, and then appear all those shining pieces of gold and silver, stamped with ancient effigies, which, for the last half century, have been amassed one by one and put in hiding. They are counted out in little piles; the two thousand francs promised are there.
Now comes the turn of the old aunt who rises and empties a third little sack; another thousand francs in gold.
The old neighbour comes last; she brings five hundred in a stocking foot. And all this is lent to Yves, all this is heaped before him. He signs two little receipts on white paper and hands them to the two old lenders who make their curtsey preparatory to leaving, but who are detained, as custom ordains, and made to drink a glass of cider with us.
It is over. All this has been done without a notary, without a deed, without discussion, with a confidence and a simple honesty that are things of Toulven.
"Rat-tat-tat!" at the door. It is the contractor for the building, and he arrives in the nick of time.
But with this gentleman it is desirable to use stamped paper. He is an old rogue from Quimper, with only a smattering of French, but he seems cunning enough for all that, with his town manners.
It is given to me to explain to him a plan which we had thought out during our evenings on board, and in which a room is provided for me. I discuss the construction in the smallest details and the price of all the materials, with an air of knowledge which imposes on the old man, but which makes Yves and me laugh, when by ill-luck our eyes chance to meet.
On a sheet bearing a twelve sou stamp I write two pages of clauses and details: