Alphonse Daudet

“Aged Folk” (Les vieux) is a short story by the French writer Alphonse Daudet, published in Le Figaro on October 23, 1868, and later included in the collection Lettres de mon moulin (1869). A miller from Provence receives a letter from a friend in Paris asking him to do something unusual: to travel to the village of Eyguières to visit his grandparents, whom he hasn’t seen in over ten years. Reluctantly, the miller sets out on the journey to a humble house next to a convent, where he finds two elderly people who welcome him with overwhelming emotion and heartfelt hospitality.