In
the centre were photographs of Valerie and Reine, both of them at twenty
years of age, so that they looked like twin sisters; while symmetrically
disposed all around was an extraordinary number of other portraits, again
showing Valerie and Reine, now as children, now as girls, and now as
women, in every sort of position, too, and every kind of toilet. And
below them on the table, like an offering on an altar, was found more
than one hundred thousand francs, in gold, and silver, and even copper;
indeed, the whole fortune which Morange had been saving up for several
years by eating only dry bread, like a pauper.
At last, then, one knew what he had done with his savings; he had given
them to his dead wife and daughter, who had remained his will, passion,
and ambition. Haunted by remorse at having killed them while dreaming of
making them rich, he reserved for them that money which they had so
keenly desired, and which they would have spent with so much ardor. It
was still and ever for them that he earned it, and he took it to them,
lavished it upon them, never devoting even a tithe of it to any
egotistical pleasure, absorbed as he was in his vision-fraught worship
and eager to pacify and cheer their spirits.
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