Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of servitude.

“Approach, venerable Catherine Niçaise Elizabeth Leroux!” said the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the president; and, looking at the piece of paper and the old woman by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone⁠—“Approach! approach!”

“Are you deaf?” said Tuvache, fidgeting in his armchair; and he began shouting in her ear, “Fifty-four years of service. A silver medal! Twenty-five francs! For you!”

Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could hear her muttering “I’ll give it to our curé up home, to say some masses for me!”

“What fanaticism!” exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the notary.