Read "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard" by Anatole France online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is done! -- they are betrothed. Gelis, who is an orphan, as Jeanne is, did not make his proposal to me in person. He got one of his professors, an old colleague of mine, highly esteemed for his learning and character, to come to me on his behalf. But what a love messenger! Great Heavens! A bear -- neat a bear of the Pyrenees, but a literary bear, and this latter variety of bear is much more ferocious than the former.
"Right or wrong (in my opinion wrong) Gelis says that he does not want any dowry; he takes your ward with nothing but her chemise. Say yes, and the thing is settled! Make haste about it! I want to show you two or three very curious old tokens from Lorraine which I am sure you never saw before."