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+<title>Eugenie Grandet</title>
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+<h1>Project Gutenberg Etext of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de
+Balzac</h1>
+
+<h2>#63 in our series by Balzac</h2>
+
+<pre>
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+
+Eugenie Grandet
+
+by Honore de Balzac
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+April, 1999  [Etext #1715]
+[Most recently updated October 23, 2002]
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+</pre>
+
+<p>EUGENIE GRANDET</p>
+
+<p>by HONORE DE BALZAC</p>
+
+<p>Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>DEDICATION</p>
+
+<p>To Maria.</p>
+
+<p>May your name, that of one whose portrait is the noblest
+ornament of this work, lie on its opening pages like a branch of
+sacred box, taken from an unknown tree, but sanctified by
+religion, and kept ever fresh and green by pious hands to bless
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>De Balzac.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h2 align="center">EUGENIE GRANDET</h2>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect
+inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre
+cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within
+these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the
+barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are
+so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited,
+were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of
+a motionless person, whose half- monastic face peers beyond the
+window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.</p>
+
+<p>Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were,
+of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the
+steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the
+town. This street--now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in
+winter, dark in certain sections--is remarkable for the resonance
+of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the
+narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness
+of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped
+by the ramparts. Houses three centuries old are still solid,
+though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the
+originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the
+attention of artists and antiquaries.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to pass these houses without admiring the
+enormous oaken beams, their ends carved into fantastic figures,
+which crown with a black bas-relief the lower floor of most of
+them. In one place these transverse timbers are covered with
+slate and mark a bluish line along the frail wall of a dwelling
+covered by a roof <i>en</i> <i>colombage</i> which bends beneath
+the weight of years, and whose rotting shingles are twisted by
+the alternate action of sun and rain. In another place blackened,
+worn-out window-sills, with delicate sculptures now scarcely
+discernible, seem too weak to bear the brown clay pots from which
+springs the heart's-ease or the rose-bush of some poor working-
+woman. Farther on are doors studded with enormous nails, where
+the genius of our forefathers has traced domestic hieroglyphics,
+of which the meaning is now lost forever. Here a Protestant
+attested his belief; there a Leaguer cursed Henry IV.; elsewhere
+some bourgeois has carved the insignia of his <i>noblesse de
+cloches</i>, symbols of his long- forgotten magisterial glory.
+The whole history of France is there.</p>
+
+<p>Next to a tottering house with roughly plastered walls, where
+an artisan enshrines his tools, rises the mansion of a country
+gentleman, on the stone arch of which above the door vestiges of
+armorial bearings may still be seen, battered by the many
+revolutions that have shaken France since 1789. In this hilly
+street the ground-floors of the merchants are neither shops nor
+warehouses; lovers of the Middle Ages will here find the
+<i>ouvrouere</i> of our forefathers in all its naive simplicity.
+These low rooms, which have no shop-frontage, no show-windows, in
+fact no glass at all, are deep and dark and without interior or
+exterior decoration. Their doors open in two parts, each roughly
+iron-bound; the upper half is fastened back within the room, the
+lower half, fitted with a spring-bell, swings continually to and
+fro. Air and light reach the damp den within, either through the
+upper half of the door, or through an open space between the
+ceiling and a low front wall, breast-high, which is closed by
+solid shutters that are taken down every morning, put up every
+evening, and held in place by heavy iron bars.</p>
+
+<p>This wall serves as a counter for the merchandise. No delusive
+display is there; only samples of the business, whatever it may
+chance to be, --such, for instance, as three or four tubs full of
+codfish and salt, a few bundles of sail-cloth, cordage, copper
+wire hanging from the joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged
+along the wall, or a few pieces of cloth upon the shelves. Enter.
+A neat girl, glowing with youth, wearing a white kerchief, her
+arms red and bare, drops her knitting and calls her father or her
+mother, one of whom comes forward and sells you what you want,
+phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly, according to his or her
+individual character, whether it be a matter of two sous' or
+twenty thousand francs' worth of merchandise. You may see a
+cooper, for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his
+thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns
+nothing more than a few miserable boat-ribs and two or three
+bundles of laths; but below in the port his teeming wood-yard
+supplies all the cooperage trade of Anjou. He knows to a plank
+how many casks are needed if the vintage is good. A hot season
+makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single morning
+puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six. In
+this country, as in Touraine, atmospheric vicissitudes control
+commercial life. Wine-growers, proprietors, wood- merchants,
+coopers, inn-keepers, mariners, all keep watch of the sun. They
+tremble when they go to bed lest they should hear in the morning
+of a frost in the night; they dread rain, wind, drought, and want
+water, heat, and clouds to suit their fancy. A perpetual duel
+goes on between the heavens and their terrestrial interests. The
+barometer smooths, saddens, or makes merry their countenances,
+turn and turn about. From end to end of this street, formerly the
+Grand'Rue de Saumur, the words: "Here's golden weather," are
+passed from door to door; or each man calls to his neighbor: "It
+rains louis," knowing well what a sunbeam or the opportune
+rainfall is bringing him.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturdays after midday, in the fine season, not one sou's
+worth of merchandise can be bought from these worthy traders.
+Each has his vineyard, his enclosure of fields, and all spend two
+days in the country. This being foreseen, and purchases, sales,
+and profits provided for, the merchants have ten or twelve hours
+to spend in parties of pleasure, in making observations, in
+criticisms, and in continual spying. A housewife cannot buy a
+partridge without the neighbors asking the husband if it were
+cooked to a turn. A young girl never puts her head near a window
+that she is not seen by idling groups in the street. Consciences
+are held in the light; and the houses, dark, silent, impenetrable
+as they seem, hide no mysteries. Life is almost wholly in the
+open air; every household sits at its own threshold, breakfasts,
+dines, and quarrels there. No one can pass along the street
+without being examined; in fact formerly, when a stranger entered
+a provincial town he was bantered and made game of from door to
+door. From this came many good stories, and the nickname
+<i>copieux</i>, which was applied to the inhabitants of Angers,
+who excelled in such urban sarcasms.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient mansions of the old town of Saumur are at the top
+of this hilly street, and were formerly occupied by the nobility
+of the neighborhood. The melancholy dwelling where the events of
+the following history took place is one of these
+mansions,--venerable relics of a century in which men and things
+bore the characteristics of simplicity which French manners and
+customs are losing day by day. Follow the windings of the
+picturesque thoroughfare, whose irregularities awaken
+recollections that plunge the mind mechanically into reverie, and
+you will see a somewhat dark recess, in the centre of which is
+hidden the door of the house of Monsieur Grandet. It is
+impossible to understand the force of this provincial
+expression--the house of Monsieur Grandet--without giving the
+biography of Monsieur Grandet himself.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet enjoyed a reputation in Saumur whose causes
+and effects can never be fully understood by those who have not,
+at one time or another, lived in the provinces. In 1789 Monsieur
+Grandet-- still called by certain persons le Pere Grandet, though
+the number of such old persons has perceptibly diminished--was a
+master-cooper, able to read, write, and cipher. At the period
+when the French Republic offered for sale the church property in
+the arrondissement of Saumur, the cooper, then forty years of
+age, had just married the daughter of a rich wood-merchant.
+Supplied with the ready money of his own fortune and his wife's
+<i>dot</i>, in all about two thousand louis-d'or, Grandet went to
+the newly established "district," where, with the help of two
+hundred double louis given by his father-in-law to the surly
+republican who presided over the sales of the national domain, he
+obtained for a song, legally if not legitimately, one of the
+finest vineyards in the arrondissement, an old abbey, and several
+farms. The inhabitants of Saumur were so little revolutionary
+that they thought Pere Grandet a bold man, a republican, and a
+patriot with a mind open to all the new ideas; though in point of
+fact it was open only to vineyards. He was appointed a member of
+the administration of Saumur, and his pacific influence made
+itself felt politically and commercially. Politically, he
+protected the ci-devant nobles, and prevented, to the extent of
+his power, the sale of the lands and property of the
+<i>emigres</i>; commercially, he furnished the Republican armies
+with two or three thousand puncheons of white wine, and took his
+pay in splendid fields belonging to a community of women whose
+lands had been reserved for the last lot.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Consulate Grandet became mayor, governed wisely, and
+harvested still better pickings. Under the Empire he was called
+Monsieur Grandet. Napoleon, however, did not like republicans,
+and superseded Monsieur Grandet (who was supposed to have worn
+the Phrygian cap) by a man of his own surroundings, a future
+baron of the Empire. Monsieur Grandet quitted office without
+regret. He had constructed in the interests of the town certain
+fine roads which led to his own property; his house and lands,
+very advantageously assessed, paid moderate taxes; and since the
+registration of his various estates, the vineyards, thanks to his
+constant care, had become the "head of the country,"--a local
+term used to denote those that produced the finest quality of
+wine. He might have asked for the cross of the Legion of
+honor.</p>
+
+<p>This event occurred in 1806. Monsieur Grandet was then
+fifty-seven years of age, his wife thirty-six, and an only
+daughter, the fruit of their legitimate love, was ten years old.
+Monsieur Grandet, whom Providence no doubt desired to compensate
+for the loss of his municipal honors, inherited three fortunes in
+the course of this year, --that of Madame de la Gaudiniere, born
+de la Bertelliere, the mother of Madame Grandet; that of old
+Monsieur de la Bertelliere, her grandfather; and, lastly, that of
+Madame Gentillet, her grandmother on the mother's side: three
+inheritances, whose amount was not known to any one. The avarice
+of the deceased persons was so keen that for a long time they had
+hoarded their money for the pleasure of secretly looking at it.
+Old Monsieur de la Bertelliere called an investment an
+extravagance, and thought he got better interest from the sight
+of his gold than from the profits of usury. The inhabitants of
+Saumur consequently estimated his savings according to "the
+revenues of the sun's wealth," as they said.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet thus obtained that modern title of nobility
+which our mania for equality can never rub out. He became the
+most imposing personage in the arrondissement. He worked a
+hundred acres of vineyard, which in fruitful years yielded seven
+or eight hundred hogsheads of wine. He owned thirteen farms, an
+old abbey, whose windows and arches he had walled up for the sake
+of economy,--a measure which preserved them,--also a hundred and
+twenty-seven acres of meadow-land, where three thousand poplars,
+planted in 1793, grew and flourished; and finally, the house in
+which he lived. Such was his visible estate; as to his other
+property, only two persons could give even a vague guess at its
+value: one was Monsieur Cruchot, a notary employed in the
+usurious investments of Monsieur Grandet; the other was Monsieur
+des Grassins, the richest banker in Saumur, in whose profits
+Grandet had a certain covenanted and secret share.</p>
+
+<p>Although old Cruchot and Monsieur des Grassins were both
+gifted with the deep discretion which wealth and trust beget in
+the provinces, they publicly testified so much respect to
+Monsieur Grandet that observers estimated the amount of his
+property by the obsequious attention which they bestowed upon
+him. In all Saumur there was no one not persuaded that Monsieur
+Grandet had a private treasure, some hiding-place full of louis,
+where he nightly took ineffable delight in gazing upon great
+masses of gold. Avaricious people gathered proof of this when
+they looked at the eyes of the good man, to which the yellow
+metal seemed to have conveyed its tints. The glance of a man
+accustomed to draw enormous interest from his capital acquires,
+like that of the libertine, the gambler, or the sycophant,
+certain indefinable habits,--furtive, eager, mysterious
+movements, which never escape the notice of his co-religionists.
+This secret language is in a certain way the freemasonry of the
+passions. Monsieur Grandet inspired the respectful esteem due to
+one who owed no man anything, who, skilful cooper and experienced
+wine-grower that he was, guessed with the precision of an
+astronomer whether he ought to manufacture a thousand puncheons
+for his vintage, or only five hundred, who never failed in any
+speculation, and always had casks for sale when casks were worth
+more than the commodity that filled them, who could store his
+whole vintage in his cellars and bide his time to put the
+puncheons on the market at two hundred francs, when the little
+proprietors had been forced to sell theirs for five louis. His
+famous vintage of 1811, judiciously stored and slowly disposed
+of, brought him in more than two hundred and forty thousand
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>Financially speaking, Monsieur Grandet was something between a
+tiger and a boa-constrictor. He could crouch and lie low, watch
+his prey a long while, spring upon it, open his jaws, swallow a
+mass of louis, and then rest tranquilly like a snake in process
+of digestion, impassible, methodical, and cold. No one saw him
+pass without a feeling of admiration mingled with respect and
+fear; had not every man in Saumur felt the rending of those
+polished steel claws? For this one, Maitre Cruchot had procured
+the money required for the purchase of a domain, but at eleven
+per cent. For that one, Monsieur des Grassins discounted bills of
+exchange, but at a frightful deduction of interest. Few days ever
+passed that Monsieur Grandet's name was not mentioned either in
+the markets or in social conversations at the evening gatherings.
+To some the fortune of the old wine-grower was an object of
+patriotic pride. More than one merchant, more than one innkeeper,
+said to strangers with a certain complacency: "Monsieur, we have
+two or three millionaire establishments; but as for Monsieur
+Grandet, he does not himself know how much he is worth."</p>
+
+<p>In 1816 the best reckoners in Saumur estimated the landed
+property of the worthy man at nearly four millions; but as, on an
+average, he had made yearly, from 1793 to 1817, a hundred
+thousand francs out of that property, it was fair to presume that
+he possessed in actual money a sum nearly equal to the value of
+his estate. So that when, after a game of boston or an evening
+discussion on the matter of vines, the talk fell upon Monsieur
+Grandet, knowing people said: "Le Pere Grandet? le Pere Grandet
+must have at least five or six millions."</p>
+
+<p>"You are cleverer than I am; I have never been able to find
+out the amount," answered Monsieur Cruchot or Monsieur des
+Grassins, when either chanced to overhear the remark.</p>
+
+<p>If some Parisian mentioned Rothschild or Monsieur Lafitte, the
+people of Saumur asked if he were as rich as Monsieur Grandet.
+When the Parisian, with a smile, tossed them a disdainful
+affirmative, they looked at each other and shook their heads with
+an incredulous air. So large a fortune covered with a golden
+mantle all the actions of this man. If in early days some
+peculiarities of his life gave occasion for laughter or ridicule,
+laughter and ridicule had long since died away. His least
+important actions had the authority of results repeatedly shown.
+His speech, his clothing, his gestures, the blinking of his eyes,
+were law to the country-side, where every one, after studying him
+as a naturalist studies the result of instinct in the lower
+animals, had come to understand the deep mute wisdom of his
+slightest actions.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a hard winter," said one; "Pere Grandet has put on
+his fur gloves."</p>
+
+<p>"Pere Grandet is buying quantities of staves; there will be
+plenty of wine this year."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet never bought either bread or meat. His
+farmers supplied him weekly with a sufficiency of capons,
+chickens, eggs, butter, and his tithe of wheat. He owned a mill;
+and the tenant was bound, over and above his rent, to take a
+certain quantity of grain and return him the flour and bran. La
+Grande Nanon, his only servant, though she was no longer young,
+baked the bread of the household herself every Saturday. Monsieur
+Grandet arranged with kitchen- gardeners who were his tenants to
+supply him with vegetables. As to fruits, he gathered such
+quantities that he sold the greater part in the market. His
+fire-wood was cut from his own hedgerows or taken from the
+half-rotten old sheds which he built at the corners of his
+fields, and whose planks the farmers carted into town for him,
+all cut up, and obligingly stacked in his wood-house, receiving
+in return his thanks. His only known expenditures were for the
+consecrated bread, the clothing of his wife and daughter, the
+hire of their chairs in church, the wages of la Grand Nanon, the
+tinning of the saucepans, lights, taxes, repairs on his
+buildings, and the costs of his various industries. He had six
+hundred acres of woodland, lately purchased, which he induced a
+neighbor's keeper to watch, under the promise of an indemnity.
+After the acquisition of this property he ate game for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet's manners were very simple. He spoke little.
+He usually expressed his meaning by short sententious phrases
+uttered in a soft voice. After the Revolution, the epoch at which
+he first came into notice, the good man stuttered in a wearisome
+way as soon as he was required to speak at length or to maintain
+an argument. This stammering, the incoherence of his language,
+the flux of words in which he drowned his thought, his apparent
+lack of logic, attributed to defects of education, were in
+reality assumed, and will be sufficiently explained by certain
+events in the following history. Four sentences, precise as
+algebraic formulas, sufficed him usually to grasp and solve all
+difficulties of life and commerce: "I don't know; I cannot; I
+will not; I will see about it." He never said yes, or no, and
+never committed himself to writing. If people talked to him he
+listened coldly, holding his chin in his right hand and resting
+his right elbow in the back of his left hand, forming in his own
+mind opinions on all matters, from which he never receded. He
+reflected long before making any business agreement. When his
+opponent, after careful conversation, avowed the secret of his
+own purposes, confident that he had secured his listener's
+assent, Grandet answered: "I can decide nothing without
+consulting my wife." His wife, whom he had reduced to a state of
+helpless slavery, was a useful screen to him in business. He went
+nowhere among friends; he neither gave nor accepted dinners; he
+made no stir or noise, seeming to economize in everything, even
+movement. He never disturbed or disarranged the things of other
+people, out of respect for the rights of property. Nevertheless,
+in spite of his soft voice, in spite of his circumspect bearing,
+the language and habits of a coarse nature came to the surface,
+especially in his own home, where he controlled himself less than
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Physically, Grandet was a man five feet high, thick-set,
+square-built, with calves twelve inches in circumference, knotted
+knee-joints, and broad shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and
+pitted by the small- pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no
+curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring
+expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead,
+full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant
+protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and
+gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety
+of making a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His nose, thick at the
+end, bore a veined wen, which the common people said, not without
+reason, was full of malice. The whole countenance showed a
+dangerous cunning, an integrity without warmth, the egotism of a
+man long used to concentrate every feeling upon the enjoyments of
+avarice and upon the only human being who was anything whatever
+to him,--his daughter and sole heiress, Eugenie. Attitude,
+manners, bearing, everything about him, in short, testified to
+that belief in himself which the habit of succeeding in all
+enterprises never fails to give to a man.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, though his manners were unctuous and soft outwardly,
+Monsieur Grandet's nature was of iron. His dress never varied;
+and those who saw him to-day saw him such as he had been since
+1791. His stout shoes were tied with leathern thongs; he wore, in
+all weathers, thick woollen stockings, short breeches of coarse
+maroon cloth with silver buckles, a velvet waistcoat, in
+alternate stripes of yellow and puce, buttoned squarely, a large
+maroon coat with wide flaps, a black cravat, and a quaker's hat.
+His gloves, thick as those of a gendarme, lasted him twenty
+months; to preserve them, he always laid them methodically on the
+brim of his hat in one particular spot. Saumur knew nothing
+further about this personage.</p>
+
+<p>Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur
+Grandet's house. The most important of the first three was a
+nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of
+the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of
+Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons.
+Any litigant so ill- advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot
+would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate
+protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he
+favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur
+de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and
+possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven
+thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of
+his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot,
+a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom
+were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a
+goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the
+town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the
+Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.</p>
+
+<p>Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of
+age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping
+to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des
+Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife
+by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser,
+and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three
+des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their
+faithful allies. On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of
+the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply
+contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and
+tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the
+president.</p>
+
+<p>This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the
+prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept
+the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would
+Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur
+Adolphe des Grassins? To this problem some replied that Monsieur
+Grandet would never give his daughter to the one or to the other.
+The old cooper, eaten up with ambition, was looking, they said,
+for a peer of France, to whom an income of three hundred thousand
+francs would make all the past, present, and future casks of the
+Grandets acceptable. Others replied that Monsieur and Madame des
+Grassins were nobles, and exceedingly rich; that Adolphe was a
+personable young fellow; and that unless the old man had a nephew
+of the pope at his beck and call, such a suitable alliance ought
+to satisfy a man who came from nothing,--a man whom Saumur
+remembered with an adze in his hand, and who had, moreover, worn
+the <i>bonnet rouge</i>. Certain wise heads called attention to
+the fact that Monsieur Cruchot de Bonfons had the right of entry
+to the house at all times, whereas his rival was received only on
+Sundays. Others, however, maintained that Madame des Grassins was
+more intimate with the women of the house of Grandet than the
+Cruchots were, and could put into their minds certain ideas which
+would lead, sooner or later, to success. To this the former
+retorted that the Abbe Cruchot was the most insinuating man in
+the world: pit a woman against a monk, and the struggle was even.
+"It is diamond cut diamond," said a Saumur wit.</p>
+
+<p>The oldest inhabitants, wiser than their fellows, declared
+that the Grandets knew better than to let the property go out of
+the family, and that Mademoiselle Eugenie Grandet of Saumur would
+be married to the son of Monsieur Grandet of Paris, a wealthy
+wholesale wine- merchant. To this the Cruchotines and the
+Grassinists replied: "In the first place, the two brothers have
+seen each other only twice in thirty years; and next, Monsieur
+Grandet of Paris has ambitious designs for his son. He is mayor
+of an arrondissement, a deputy, colonel of the National Guard,
+judge in the commercial courts; he disowns the Grandets of
+Saumur, and means to ally himself with some ducal family,--ducal
+under favor of Napoleon." In short, was there anything not said
+of an heiress who was talked of through a circumference of fifty
+miles, and even in the public conveyances from Angers to Blois,
+inclusively!</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of 1811, the Cruchotines won a signal
+advantage over the Grassinists. The estate of Froidfond,
+remarkable for its park, its mansion, its farms, streams, ponds,
+forests, and worth about three millions, was put up for sale by
+the young Marquis de Froidfond, who was obliged to liquidate his
+possessions. Maitre Cruchot, the president, and the abbe, aided
+by their adherents, were able to prevent the sale of the estate
+in little lots. The notary concluded a bargain with the young man
+for the whole property, payable in gold, persuading him that
+suits without number would have to be brought against the
+purchasers of small lots before he could get the money for them;
+it was better, therefore, to sell the whole to Monsieur Grandet,
+who was solvent and able to pay for the estate in ready money.
+The fine marquisate of Froidfond was accordingly conveyed down
+the gullet of Monsieur Grandet, who, to the great astonishment of
+Saumur, paid for it, under proper discount, with the usual
+formalities.</p>
+
+<p>This affair echoed from Nantes to Orleans. Monsieur Grandet
+took advantage of a cart returning by way of Froidfond to go and
+see his chateau. Having cast a master's eye over the whole
+property, he returned to Saumur, satisfied that he had invested
+his money at five per cent, and seized by the stupendous thought
+of extending and increasing the marquisate of Froidfond by
+concentrating all his property there. Then, to fill up his
+coffers, now nearly empty, he resolved to thin out his woods and
+his forests, and to sell off the poplars in the meadows.</p>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>It is now easy to understand the full meaning of the term,
+"the house of Monsieur Grandet,"--that cold, silent, pallid
+dwelling, standing above the town and sheltered by the ruins of
+the ramparts. The two pillars and the arch, which made the
+porte-cochere on which the door opened, were built, like the
+house itself, of tufa,--a white stone peculiar to the shores of
+the Loire, and so soft that it lasts hardly more than two
+centuries. Numberless irregular holes, capriciously bored or
+eaten out by the inclemency of the weather, gave an appearance of
+the vermiculated stonework of French architecture to the arch and
+the side walls of this entrance, which bore some resemblance to
+the gateway of a jail. Above the arch was a long bas-relief, in
+hard stone, representing the four seasons, the faces already
+crumbling away and blackened. This bas-relief was surmounted by a
+projecting plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had
+sprung up,--yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, nettles,
+plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already grown to some
+height.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the archway was made of solid oak, brown,
+shrunken, and split in many places; though frail in appearance,
+it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in
+symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red
+with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a
+motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck
+upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the
+oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called
+<i>jaquemart</i>, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an
+antiquary who examined it attentively might have found
+indications of the figure, essentially burlesque, which it once
+represented, and which long usage had now effaced. Through this
+little grating--intended in olden times for the recognition of
+friends in times of civil war--inquisitive persons could
+perceive, at the farther end of the dark and slimy vault, a few
+broken steps which led to a garden, picturesquely shut in by
+walls that were thick and damp, and through which oozed a
+moisture that nourished tufts of sickly herbage. These walls were
+the ruins of the ramparts, under which ranged the gardens of
+several neighboring houses.</p>
+
+<p>The most important room on the ground-floor of the house was a
+large hall, entered directly from beneath the vault of the
+porte-cochere. Few people know the importance of a hall in the
+little towns of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry. The hall is at one
+and the same time antechamber, salon, office, boudoir, and
+dining-room; it is the theatre of domestic life, the common
+living-room. There the barber of the neighborhood came, twice a
+year, to cut Monsieur Grandet's hair; there the farmers, the
+cure, the under-prefect, and the miller's boy came on business.
+This room, with two windows looking on the street, was entirely
+of wood. Gray panels with ancient mouldings covered the walls
+from top to bottom; the ceiling showed all its beams, which were
+likewise painted gray, while the space between them had been
+washed over in white, now yellow with age. An old brass clock,
+inlaid with arabesques, adorned the mantel of the ill-cut white
+stone chimney-piece, above which was a greenish mirror, whose
+edges, bevelled to show the thickness of the glass, reflected a
+thread of light the whole length of a gothic frame in damascened
+steel-work. The two copper-gilt candelabra which decorated the
+corners of the chimney-piece served a double purpose: by taking
+off the side-branches, each of which held a socket, the main
+stem--which was fastened to a pedestal of bluish marble tipped
+with copper--made a candlestick for one candle, which was
+sufficient for ordinary occasions. The chairs, antique in shape,
+were covered with tapestry representing the fables of La
+Fontaine; it was necessary, however, to know that writer well to
+guess at the subjects, for the faded colors and the figures,
+blurred by much darning, were difficult to distinguish.</p>
+
+<p>At the four corners of the hall were closets, or rather
+buffets, surmounted by dirty shelves. An old card-table in
+marquetry, of which the upper part was a chess-board, stood in
+the space between the two windows. Above this table was an oval
+barometer with a black border enlivened with gilt bands, on which
+the flies had so licentiously disported themselves that the
+gilding had become problematical. On the panel opposite to the
+chimney-piece were two portraits in pastel, supposed to represent
+the grandfather of Madame Grandet, old Monsieur de la
+Bertelliere, as a lieutenant in the French guard, and the
+deceased Madame Gentillet in the guise of a shepherdess. The
+windows were draped with curtains of red <i>gros de Tours</i>
+held back by silken cords with ecclesiastical tassels. This
+luxurious decoration, little in keeping with the habits of
+Monsieur Grandet, had been, together with the steel pier-glass,
+the tapestries, and the buffets, which were of rose-wood,
+included in the purchase of the house.</p>
+
+<p>By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose
+legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet,
+to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table
+of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little
+armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the
+lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round
+of constant work from the month of April to the month of
+November. On the first day of the latter month they took their
+winter station by the chimney. Not until that day did Grandet
+permit a fire to be lighted; and on the thirty- first of March it
+was extinguished, without regard either to the chills of the
+early spring or to those of a wintry autumn. A foot- warmer,
+filled with embers from the kitchen fire, which la Grande Nanon
+contrived to save for them, enabled Madame and Mademoiselle
+Grandet to bear the chilly mornings and evenings of April and
+October. Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and
+spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of
+working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for
+her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and
+deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time
+the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la
+Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and
+other necessaries for the daily consumption.</p>
+
+<p>La Grande Nanon was perhaps the only human being capable of
+accepting willingly the despotism of her master. The whole town
+envied Monsieur and Madame Grandet the possession of her. La
+Grande Nanon, so called on account of her height, which was five
+feet eight inches, had lived with Monsieur Grandet for
+thirty-five years. Though she received only sixty francs a year
+in wages, she was supposed to be one of the richest serving-women
+in Saumur. Those sixty francs, accumulating through thirty-five
+years, had recently enabled her to invest four thousand francs in
+an annuity with Maitre Cruchot. This result of her long and
+persistent economy seemed gigantic. Every servant in the town,
+seeing that the poor sexagenarian was sure of bread for her old
+age, was jealous of her, and never thought of the hard slavery
+through which it had been won.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty-two years of age the poor girl had been unable to
+find a situation, so repulsive was her face to almost every one.
+Yet the feeling was certainly unjust: the face would have been
+much admired on the shoulders of a grenadier of the guard; but
+all things, so they say, should be in keeping. Forced to leave a
+farm where she kept the cows, because the dwelling-house was
+burned down, she came to Saumur to find a place, full of the
+robust courage that shrinks from no labor. Le Pere Grandet was at
+that time thinking of marriage and about to set up his household.
+He espied the girl, rejected as she was from door to door. A good
+judge of corporeal strength in his trade as a cooper, he guessed
+the work that might be got out of a female creature shaped like a
+Hercules, as firm on her feet as an oak sixty years old on its
+roots, strong in the hips, square in the back, with the hands of
+a cartman and an honesty as sound as her unblemished virtue.
+Neither the warts which adorned her martial visage, nor the
+red-brick tints of her skin, nor the sinewy arms, nor the ragged
+garments of la Grande Nanon, dismayed the cooper, who was at that
+time still of an age when the heart shudders. He fed, shod, and
+clothed the poor girl, gave her wages, and put her to work
+without treating her too roughly. Seeing herself thus welcomed,
+la Grande Nanon wept secretly tears of joy, and attached herself
+in all sincerity to her master, who from that day ruled her and
+worked her with feudal authority. Nanon did everything. She
+cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and
+brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to
+bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the
+harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the
+property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of
+blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd
+exactions.</p>
+
+<p>In the famous year of 1811, when the grapes were gathered with
+unheard-of difficulty, Grandet resolved to give Nanon his old
+watch,-- the first present he had made her during twenty years of
+service. Though he turned over to her his old shoes (which fitted
+her), it is impossible to consider that quarterly benefit as a
+gift, for the shoes were always thoroughly worn-out. Necessity
+had made the poor girl so niggardly that Grandet had grown to
+love her as we love a dog, and Nanon had let him fasten a spiked
+collar round her throat, whose spikes no longer pricked her. If
+Grandet cut the bread with rather too much parsimony, she made no
+complaint; she gaily shared the hygienic benefits derived from
+the severe regime of the household, in which no one was ever ill.
+Nanon was, in fact, one of the family; she laughed when Grandet
+laughed, felt gloomy or chilly, warmed herself, and toiled as he
+did. What pleasant compensations there were in such equality!
+Never did the master have occasion to find fault with the servant
+for pilfering the grapes, nor for the plums and nectarines eaten
+under the trees. "Come, fall-to, Nanon!" he would say in years
+when the branches bent under the fruit and the farmers were
+obliged to give it to the pigs.</p>
+
+<p>To the poor peasant who in her youth had earned nothing but
+harsh treatment, to the pauper girl picked up by charity,
+Grandet's ambiguous laugh was like a sunbeam. Moreover, Nanon's
+simple heart and narrow head could hold only one feeling and one
+idea. For thirty-five years she had never ceased to see herself
+standing before the wood- yard of Monsieur Grandet, ragged and
+barefooted, and to hear him say: "What do you want, young one?"
+Her gratitude was ever new. Sometimes Grandet, reflecting that
+the poor creature had never heard a flattering word, that she was
+ignorant of all the tender sentiments inspired by women, that she
+might some day appear before the throne of God even more chaste
+than the Virgin Mary herself,--Grandet, struck with pity, would
+say as he looked at her, "Poor Nanon!" The exclamation was always
+followed by an undefinable look cast upon him in return by the
+old servant. The words, uttered from time to time, formed a chain
+of friendship that nothing ever parted, and to which each
+exclamation added a link. Such compassion arising in the heart of
+the miser, and accepted gratefully by the old spinster, had
+something inconceivably horrible about it. This cruel pity,
+recalling, as it did, a thousand pleasures to the heart of the
+old cooper, was for Nanon the sum total of happiness. Who does
+not likewise say, "Poor Nanon!" God will recognize his angels by
+the inflexions of their voices and by their secret sighs.</p>
+
+<p>There were very many households in Saumur where the servants
+were better treated, but where the masters received far less
+satisfaction in return. Thus it was often said: "What have the
+Grandets ever done to make their Grande Nanon so attached to
+them? She would go through fire and water for their sake!" Her
+kitchen, whose barred windows looked into the court, was always
+clean, neat, cold,--a true miser's kitchen, where nothing went to
+waste. When Nanon had washed her dishes, locked up the remains of
+the dinner, and put out her fire, she left the kitchen, which was
+separated by a passage from the living- room, and went to spin
+hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle sufficed the family
+for the evening. The servant slept at the end of the passage in a
+species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health
+enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there she could
+hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which reigned
+night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she slept
+with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.</p>
+
+<p>A description of the other parts of the dwelling will be found
+connected with the events of this history, though the foregoing
+sketch of the hall, where the whole luxury of the household
+appears, may enable the reader to surmise the nakedness of the
+upper floors.</p>
+
+<p>In 1819, at the beginning of an evening in the middle of
+November, la Grande Nanon lighted the fire for the first time.
+The autumn had been very fine. This particular day was a fete-day
+well known to the Cruchotines and the Grassinists. The six
+antagonists, armed at all points, were making ready to meet at
+the Grandets and surpass each other in testimonials of
+friendship. That morning all Saumur had seen Madame and
+Mademoiselle Grandet, accompanied by Nanon, on their way to hear
+Mass at the parish church, and every one remembered that the day
+was the anniversary of Mademoiselle Eugenie's birth. Calculating
+the hour at which the family dinner would be over, Maitre
+Cruchot, the Abbe Cruchot, and Monsieur C. de Bonfons hastened to
+arrive before the des Grassins, and be the first to pay their
+compliments to Mademoiselle Eugenie. All three brought enormous
+bouquets, gathered in their little green-houses. The stalks of
+the flowers which the president intended to present were
+ingeniously wound round with a white satin ribbon adorned with
+gold fringe. In the morning Monsieur Grandet, following his usual
+custom on the days that commemorated the birth and the fete of
+Eugenie, went to her bedside and solemnly presented her with his
+paternal gift,--which for the last thirteen years had consisted
+regularly of a curious gold-piece. Madame Grandet gave her
+daughter a winter dress or a summer dress, as the case might be.
+These two dresses and the gold-pieces, of which she received two
+others on New Year's day and on her father's fete-day, gave
+Eugenie a little revenue of a hundred crowns or thereabouts,
+which Grandet loved to see her amass. Was it not putting his
+money from one strong-box to another, and, as it were, training
+the parsimony of his heiress? from whom he sometimes demanded an
+account of her treasure (formerly increased by the gifts of the
+Bertellieres), saying: "It is to be your marriage dozen."</p>
+
+<p>The "marriage dozen" is an old custom sacredly preserved and
+still in force in many parts of central France. In Berry and in
+Anjou, when a young girl marries, her family, or that of the
+husband, must give her a purse, in which they place, according to
+their means, twelve pieces, or twelve dozen pieces, or twelve
+hundred pieces of gold. The poorest shepherd-girl never marries
+without her dozen, be it only a dozen coppers. They still tell in
+Issoudun of a certain "dozen" presented to a rich heiress, which
+contained a hundred and forty-four <i>portugaises d'or</i>. Pope
+Clement VII., uncle of Catherine de' Medici, gave her when he
+married her to Henri II. a dozen antique gold medals of priceless
+value.</p>
+
+<p>During dinner the father, delighted to see his Eugenie looking
+well in a new gown, exclaimed: "As it is Eugenie's birthday let
+us have a fire; it will be a good omen."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle will be married this year, that's certain," said
+la Grande Nanon, carrying away the remains of the goose,--the
+pheasant of tradesmen.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any one suitable for her in Saumur," said Madame
+Grandet, glancing at her husband with a timid look which,
+considering her years, revealed the conjugal slavery under which
+the poor woman languished.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet looked at his daughter and exclaimed gaily,--</p>
+
+<p>"She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child; we must soon
+begin to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance of
+intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet was a dry, thin woman, as yellow as a quince,
+awkward, slow, one of those women who are born to be
+down-trodden. She had big bones, a big nose, a big forehead, big
+eyes, and presented at first sight a vague resemblance to those
+mealy fruits that have neither savor nor succulence. Her teeth
+were black and few in number, her mouth was wrinkled, her chin
+long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, a true la
+Bertelliere. L'abbe Cruchot found occasional opportunity to tell
+her that she had not done ill; and she believed him. Angelic
+sweetness, the resignation of an insect tortured by children, a
+rare piety, a good heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made
+her universally pitied and respected. Her husband never gave her
+more than six francs at a time for her personal expenses.
+Ridiculous as it may seem, this woman, who by her own fortune and
+her various inheritances brought Pere Grandet more than three
+hundred thousand francs, had always felt so profoundly humiliated
+by her dependence and the slavery in which she lived, against
+which the gentleness of her spirit prevented her from revolting,
+that she had never asked for one penny or made a single remark on
+the deeds which Maitre Cruchot brought for her signature. This
+foolish secret pride, this nobility of soul perpetually
+misunderstood and wounded by Grandet, ruled the whole conduct of
+the wife.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown of greenish
+levantine silk, endeavoring to make it last nearly a year; with
+it she wore a large kerchief of white cotton cloth, a bonnet made
+of plaited straws sewn together, and almost always a black-silk
+apron. As she seldom left the house she wore out very few shoes.
+She never asked anything for herself. Grandet, seized with
+occasional remorse when he remembered how long a time had elapsed
+since he gave her the last six francs, always stipulated for the
+"wife's pin-money" when he sold his yearly vintage. The four or
+five louis presented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who purchased
+the wine were the chief visible signs of Madame Grandet's annual
+revenues. But after she had received the five louis, her husband
+would often say to her, as though their purse were held in
+common: "Can you lend me a few sous?" and the poor woman, glad to
+be able to do something for a man whom her confessor held up to
+her as her lord and master, returned him in the course of the
+winter several crowns out of the "pin-money." When Grandet drew
+from his pocket the five-franc piece which he allowed monthly for
+the minor expenses,-- thread, needles, and toilet,--of his
+daughter, he never failed to say as he buttoned his breeches'
+pocket: "And you, mother, do you want anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," Madame Grandet would answer, moved by a sense of
+maternal dignity, "we will see about that later."</p>
+
+<p>Wasted dignity! Grandet thought himself very generous to his
+wife. Philosophers who meet the like of Nanon, of Madame Grandet,
+of Eugenie, have surely a right to say that irony is at the
+bottom of the ways of Providence.</p>
+
+<p>After the dinner at which for the first time allusion had been
+made to Eugenie's marriage, Nanon went to fetch a bottle of
+black-currant ratafia from Monsieur Grandet's bed-chamber, and
+nearly fell as she came down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You great stupid!" said her master; "are you going to tumble
+about like other people, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which has given
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"She is right," said Madame Grandet; "it ought to have been
+mended long ago. Yesterday Eugenie nearly twisted her ankle."</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said Grandet to Nanon, seeing that she looked quite
+pale, "as it is Eugenie's birthday, and you came near falling,
+take a little glass of ratafia to set you right."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith! I've earned it," said Nanon; "most people would have
+broken the bottle; but I'd sooner have broken my elbow holding it
+up high."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Nanon!" said Grandet, filling a glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Eugenie, looking kindly at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't fall; I threw myself back on my haunches."</p>
+
+<p>"Well! as it is Eugenie's birthday," said Grandet, "I'll have
+the step mended. You people don't know how to set your foot in
+the corner where the wood is still firm."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet took the candle, leaving his wife, daughter, and
+servant without any other light than that from the hearth, where
+the flames were lively, and went into the bakehouse to fetch
+planks, nails, and tools.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I help you?" cried Nanon, hearing him hammer on the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! I'm an old hand at it," answered the former
+cooper.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment when Grandet was mending his worm-eaten
+staircase and whistling with all his might, in remembrance of the
+days of his youth, the three Cruchots knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?" asked Nanon, peeping through
+the little grating.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the president.</p>
+
+<p>Nanon opened the door, and the light from the hearth,
+reflected on the ceiling, enabled the three Cruchots to find
+their way into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! you've come a-greeting," said Nanon, smelling the
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, messieurs," cried Grandet, recognizing their
+voices; "I'll be with you in a moment. I'm not proud; I am
+patching up a step on my staircase."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man's house is his castle,"
+said the president sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting
+by the darkness, said to Eugenie:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the
+day of your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of
+the health which you now enjoy?"</p>
+
+<p>He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were
+rare in Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed
+her on each side of her neck with a complacency that made her
+blush. The president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt
+that his courtship was progressing.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't stand on ceremony," said Grandet, entering. "How well
+you do things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!"</p>
+
+<p>"When it concerns mademoiselle," said the abbe, armed with his
+own bouquet, "every day is a fete-day for my nephew."</p>
+
+<p>The abbe kissed Eugenie's hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he
+boldly kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: "How we sprout up,
+to be sure! Every year is twelve months."</p>
+
+<p>As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who
+never forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he
+thought them funny, said,--</p>
+
+<p>"As this is Eugenie's birthday let us illuminate."</p>
+
+<p>He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a
+socket on each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with
+paper twisted round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made
+it firm, lit it, and then sat down beside his wife, looking
+alternately at his friends, his daughter, and the two candles.
+The Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little man, with a red wig
+plastered down and a face like an old female gambler, said as he
+stretched out his feet, well shod in stout shoes with silver
+buckles: "The des Grassins have not come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"But are they coming?" asked the old notary, twisting his
+face, which had as many holes as a collander, into a queer
+grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," answered Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Are your vintages all finished?" said Monsieur de Bonfons to
+Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all of them," said the old man, rising to walk up and
+down the room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the
+words, "all of them." Through the door of the passage which led
+to the kitchen he saw la Grande Nanon sitting beside her fire
+with a candle and preparing to spin there, so as not to intrude
+among the guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon," he said, going into the passage, "put out that fire
+and that candle, and come and sit with us. Pardieu! the hall is
+big enough for all."</p>
+
+<p>"But monsieur, you are to have the great people."</p>
+
+<p>"Are not you as good as they? They are descended from Adam,
+and so are you."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet came back to the president and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Have you sold your vintage?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not I; I shall keep it. If the wine is good this year, it
+will be better two years hence. The proprietors, you know, have
+made an agreement to keep up the price; and this year the
+Belgians won't get the better of us. Suppose they are sent off
+empty-handed for once, faith! they'll come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but let us mind what we are about," said Grandet in a
+tone which made the president tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he driving some bargain?" thought Cruchot.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the knocker announced the des Grassins family,
+and their arrival interrupted a conversation which had begun
+between Madame Grandet and the abbe.</p>
+
+<p>Madame des Grassins was one of those lively, plump little
+women, with pink-and-white skins, who, thanks to the claustral
+calm of the provinces and the habits of a virtuous life, keep
+their youth until they are past forty. She was like the last rose
+of autumn,--pleasant to the eye, though the petals have a certain
+frostiness, and their perfume is slight. She dressed well, got
+her fashions from Paris, set the tone to Saumur, and gave
+parties. Her husband, formerly a quartermaster in the Imperial
+guard, who had been desperately wounded at Austerlitz, and had
+since retired, still retained, in spite of his respect for
+Grandet, the seeming frankness of an old soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Grandet," he said, holding out his hand and
+affecting a sort of superiority, with which he always crushed the
+Cruchots. "Mademoiselle," he added, turning to Eugenie, after
+bowing to Madame Grandet, "you are always beautiful and good, and
+truly I do not know what to wish you." So saying, he offered her
+a little box which his servant had brought and which contained a
+Cape heather,--a flower lately imported into Europe and very
+rare.</p>
+
+<p>Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately,
+pressed her hand, and said: "Adolphe wishes to make you my little
+offering."</p>
+
+<p>A tall, blond young man, pale and slight, with tolerable
+manners and seemingly rather shy, although he had just spent
+eight or ten thousand francs over his allowance in Paris, where
+he had been sent to study law, now came forward and kissed
+Eugenie on both cheeks, offering her a workbox with utensils in
+silver-gilt,--mere show-case trumpery, in spite of the monogram
+E.G. in gothic letters rather well engraved, which belonged
+properly to something in better taste. As she opened it, Eugenie
+experienced one of those unexpected and perfect delights which
+make a young girl blush and quiver and tremble with pleasure. She
+turned her eyes to her father as if to ask permission to accept
+it, and Monsieur Grandet replied: "Take it, my daughter," in a
+tone which would have made an actor illustrious.</p>
+
+<p>The three Cruchots felt crushed as they saw the joyous,
+animated look cast upon Adolphe des Grassins by the heiress, to
+whom such riches were unheard-of. Monsieur des Grassins offered
+Grandet a pinch of snuff, took one himself, shook off the grains
+as they fell on the ribbon of the Legion of honor which was
+attached to the button-hole of his blue surtout; then he looked
+at the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say, "Parry that
+thrust if you can!" Madame des Grassins cast her eyes on the blue
+vases which held the Cruchot bouquets, looking at the enemy's
+gifts with the pretended interest of a satirical woman. At this
+delicate juncture the Abbe Cruchot left the company seated in a
+circle round the fire and joined Grandet at the lower end of the
+hall. As the two men reached the embrasure of the farthest window
+the priest said in the miser's ear: "Those people throw money out
+of the windows."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter if it gets into my cellar?" retorted
+the old wine-grower.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to give gilt scissors to your daughter, you have
+the means," said the abbe.</p>
+
+<p>"I give her something better than scissors," answered
+Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"My nephew is a blockhead," thought the abbe as he looked at
+the president, whose rumpled hair added to the ill grace of his
+brown countenance. "Couldn't he have found some little trifle
+which cost money?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will join you at cards, Madame Grandet," said Madame des
+Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>"We might have two tables, as we are all here."</p>
+
+<p>"As it is Eugenie's birthday you had better play loto all
+together," said Pere Grandet: "the two young ones can join"; and
+the old cooper, who never played any game, motioned to his
+daughter and Adolphe. "Come, Nanon, set the tables."</p>
+
+<p>"We will help you, Mademoiselle Nanon," said Madame des
+Grassins gaily, quite joyous at the joy she had given
+Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never in my life been so pleased," the heiress said to
+her; "I have never seen anything so pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"Adolphe brought it from Paris, and he chose it," Madame des
+Grassins whispered in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on! go on! damned intriguing thing!" thought the
+president. "If you ever have a suit in court, you or your
+husband, it shall go hard with you."</p>
+
+<p>The notary, sitting in his corner, looked calmly at the abbe,
+saying to himself: "The des Grassins may do what they like; my
+property and my brother's and that of my nephew amount in all to
+eleven hundred thousand francs. The des Grassins, at the most,
+have not half that; besides, they have a daughter. They may give
+what presents they like; heiress and presents too will be ours
+one of these days."</p>
+
+<p>At half-past eight in the evening the two card-tables were set
+out. Madame des Grassins succeeded in putting her son beside
+Eugenie. The actors in this scene, so full of interest,
+commonplace as it seems, were provided with bits of pasteboard
+striped in many colors and numbered, and with counters of blue
+glass, and they appeared to be listening to the jokes of the
+notary, who never drew a number without making a remark, while in
+fact they were all thinking of Monsieur Grandet's millions. The
+old cooper, with inward self-conceit, was contemplating the pink
+feathers and the fresh toilet of Madame des Grassins, the martial
+head of the banker, the faces of Adolphe, the president, the
+abbe, and the notary, saying to himself:--</p>
+
+<p>"They are all after my money. Hey! neither the one nor the
+other shall have my daughter; but they are useful--useful as
+harpoons to fish with."</p>
+
+<p>This family gaiety in the old gray room dimly lighted by two
+tallow candles; this laughter, accompanied by the whirr of
+Nanon's spinning- wheel, sincere only upon the lips of Eugenie or
+her mother; this triviality mingled with important interests;
+this young girl, who, like certain birds made victims of the
+price put upon them, was now lured and trapped by proofs of
+friendship of which she was the dupe,-- all these things
+contributed to make the scene a melancholy comedy. Is it not,
+moreover, a drama of all times and all places, though here
+brought down to its simplest expression? The figure of Grandet,
+playing his own game with the false friendship of the two
+families and getting enormous profits from it, dominates the
+scene and throws light upon it. The modern god,--the only god in
+whom faith is preserved,-- money, is here, in all its power,
+manifested in a single countenance. The tender sentiments of life
+hold here but a secondary place; only the three pure, simple
+hearts of Nanon, of Eugenie, and of her mother were inspired by
+them. And how much of ignorance there was in the simplicity of
+these poor women! Eugenie and her mother knew nothing of
+Grandet's wealth; they could only estimate the things of life by
+the glimmer of their pale ideas, and they neither valued nor
+despised money, because they were accustomed to do without it.
+Their feelings, bruised, though they did not know it, but
+ever-living, were the secret spring of their existence, and made
+them curious exceptions in the midst of these other people whose
+lives were purely material. Frightful condition of the human
+race! there is no one of its joys that does not come from some
+species of ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment when Madame Grandet had won a loto of sixteen
+sous,--the largest ever pooled in that house,--and while la
+Grande Nanon was laughing with delight as she watched madame
+pocketing her riches, the knocker resounded on the house-door
+with such a noise that the women all jumped in their chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no man in Saumur who would knock like that," said
+the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"How can they bang in that way!" exclaimed Nanon; "do they
+want to break in the door?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who the devil is it?" cried Grandet.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door,
+followed by her master.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandet! Grandet!" cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse
+of fear, and running to the door of the room.</p>
+
+<p>All the players looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we all go?" said Monsieur des Grassins; "that knock
+strikes me as evil-intentioned."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was Monsieur des Grassins allowed to see the figure of
+a young man, accompanied by a porter from the coach-office
+carrying two large trunks and dragging a carpet-bag after him,
+than Monsieur Grandet turned roughly on his wife and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Grandet, go back to your loto; leave me to speak with
+monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited players
+returned to their seats, but did not continue the game.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des Grassins?"
+asked his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is a traveller."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have come from Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said the notary, pulling out his watch, which was
+two inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war; "it's nine
+o'clock; the diligence of the Grand Bureau is never late."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the gentleman young?" inquired the Abbe Cruchot.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Monsieur des Grassins, "and he has brought
+luggage which must weigh nearly three tons."</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon does not come back," said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be one of your relations," remarked the
+president.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go on with our game," said Madame Grandet gently. "I
+know from Monsieur Grandet's tone of voice that he is annoyed;
+perhaps he would not like to find us talking of his affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," said Adolphe to his neighbor, "it is no doubt
+your cousin Grandet,--a very good-looking young man; I met him at
+the ball of Monsieur de Nucingen." Adolphe did not go on, for his
+mother trod on his toes; and then, asking him aloud for two sous
+to put on her stake, she whispered: "Will you hold your tongue,
+you great goose!"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Grandet returned, without la Grande Nanon,
+whose steps, together with those of the porter, echoed up the
+staircase; and he was followed by the traveller who had excited
+such curiosity and so filled the lively imaginations of those
+present that his arrival at this dwelling, and his sudden fall
+into the midst of this assembly, can only be likened to that of a
+snail into a beehive, or the introduction of a peacock into some
+village poultry-yard.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down near the fire," said Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>Before seating himself, the young stranger saluted the
+assembled company very gracefully. The men rose to answer by a
+courteous inclination, and the women made a ceremonious bow.</p>
+
+<p>"You are cold, no doubt, monsieur," said Madame Grandet; "you
+have, perhaps, travelled from--"</p>
+
+<p>"Just like all women!" said the old wine-grower, looking up
+from a letter he was reading. "Do let monsieur rest himself!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take something,"
+said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"He has got a tongue," said the old man sternly.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger was the only person surprised by this scene; all
+the others were well-used to the despotic ways of the master.
+However, after the two questions and the two replies had been
+exchanged, the newcomer rose, turned his back towards the fire,
+lifted one foot so as to warm the sole of its boot, and said to
+Eugenie,--</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. And," he added,
+looking at Grandet, "I need nothing; I am not even tired."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur has come from the capital?" asked Madame des
+Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Charles,--such was the name of the son of Monsieur
+Grandet of Paris,--hearing himself addressed, took a little
+eye-glass, suspended by a chain from his neck, applied it to his
+right eye to examine what was on the table, and also the persons
+sitting round it. He ogled Madame des Grassins with much
+impertinence, and said to her, after he had observed all he
+wished,--</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame. You are playing at loto, aunt," he added. "Do
+not let me interrupt you, I beg; go on with your game: it is too
+amusing to leave."</p>
+
+<p>"I was certain it was the cousin," thought Madame des
+Grassins, casting repeated glances at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty-seven!" cried the old abbe. "Mark it down, Madame des
+Grassins. Isn't that your number?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife's card, who
+sat watching first the cousin from Paris and then Eugenie,
+without thinking of her loto, a prey to mournful presentiments.
+From time to time the young the heiress glanced furtively at her
+cousin, and the banker's wife easily detected a <i>crescendo</i>
+of surprise and curiosity in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Charles Grandet, a handsome young man of twenty-two,
+presented at this moment a singular contrast to the worthy
+provincials, who, considerably disgusted by his aristocratic
+manners, were all studying him with sarcastic intent. This needs
+an explanation. At twenty-two, young people are still so near
+childhood that they often conduct themselves childishly. In all
+probability, out of every hundred of them fully ninety-nine would
+have behaved precisely as Monsieur Charles Grandet was now
+behaving.</p>
+
+<p>Some days earlier than this his father had told him to go and
+spend several months with his uncle at Saumur. Perhaps Monsieur
+Grandet was thinking of Eugenie. Charles, sent for the first time
+in his life into the provinces, took a fancy to make his
+appearance with the superiority of a man of fashion, to reduce
+the whole arrondissement to despair by his luxury, and to make
+his visit an epoch, importing into those country regions all the
+refinements of Parisian life. In short, to explain it in one
+word, he mean to pass more time at Saumur in brushing his nails
+than he ever thought of doing in Paris, and to assume the extra
+nicety and elegance of dress which a young man of fashion often
+lays aside for a certain negligence which in itself is not devoid
+of grace. Charles therefore brought with him a complete
+hunting-costume, the finest gun, the best hunting-knife in the
+prettiest sheath to be found in all Paris. He brought his whole
+collection of waistcoats. They were of all kinds,--gray, black,
+white, scarabaeus-colored: some were shot with gold, some
+spangled, some <i>chined</i>; some were double-breasted and
+crossed like a shawl, others were straight in the collar; some
+had turned-over collars, some buttoned up to the top with gilt
+buttons. He brought every variety of collar and cravat in fashion
+at that epoch. He brought two of Buisson's coats and all his
+finest linen He brought his pretty gold toilet-set,--a present
+from his mother. He brought all his dandy knick-knacks, not
+forgetting a ravishing little desk presented to him by the most
+amiable of women,--amiable for him, at least,--a fine lady whom
+he called Annette and who at this moment was travelling,
+matrimonially and wearily, in Scotland, a victim to certain
+suspicions which required a passing sacrifice of happiness; in
+the desk was much pretty note-paper on which to write to her once
+a fortnight.</p>
+
+<p>In short, it was as complete a cargo of Parisian frivolities
+as it was possible for him to get together,--a collection of all
+the implements of husbandry with which the youth of leisure tills
+his life, from the little whip which helps to begin a duel, to
+the handsomely chased pistols which end it. His father having
+told him to travel alone and modestly, he had taken the coupe of
+the diligence all to himself, rather pleased at not having to
+damage a delightful travelling- carriage ordered for a journey on
+which he was to meet his Annette, the great lady who, etc.,--whom
+he intended to rejoin at Baden in the following June. Charles
+expected to meet scores of people at his uncle's house, to hunt
+in his uncle's forests,--to live, in short, the usual chateau
+life; he did not know that his uncle was in Saumur, and had only
+inquired about him incidentally when asking the way to Froidfond.
+Hearing that he was in town, he supposed that he should find him
+in a suitable mansion.</p>
+
+<p>In order that he might make a becoming first appearance before
+his uncle either at Saumur or at Froidfond, he had put on his
+most elegant travelling attire, simple yet
+exquisite,--"adorable," to use the word which in those days
+summed up the special perfections of a man or a thing. At Tours a
+hairdresser had re-curled his beautiful chestnut locks; there he
+changed his linen and put on a black satin cravat, which,
+combined with a round shirt-collar, framed his fair and smiling
+countenance agreeably. A travelling great-coat, only half
+buttoned up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere
+waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat
+of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket,
+was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray
+trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams
+with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a
+cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his
+gray gloves. And to complete all, his cap was in excellent taste.
+None but a Parisian, and a Parisian of the upper spheres, could
+thus array himself without appearing ridiculous; none other could
+give the harmony of self-conceit to all these fopperies, which
+were carried off, however, with a dashing air,--the air of a
+young man who has fine pistols, a sure aim, and Annette.</p>
+
+<p>Now if you wish to understand the mutual amazement of the
+provincial party and the young Parisian; if you would clearly see
+the brilliance which the traveller's elegance cast among the gray
+shadows of the room and upon the faces of this family
+group,--endeavor to picture to your minds the Cruchots. All three
+took snuff, and had long ceased to repress the habit of
+snivelling or to remove the brown blotches which strewed the
+frills of their dingy shirts and the yellowing creases of their
+crumpled collars. Their flabby cravats were twisted into ropes as
+soon as they wound them about their throats. The enormous
+quantity of linen which allowed these people to have their
+clothing washed only once in six months, and to keep it during
+that time in the depths of their closets, also enabled time to
+lay its grimy and decaying stains upon it. There was perfect
+unison of ill-grace and senility about them; their faces, as
+faded as their threadbare coats, as creased as their trousers,
+were worn-out, shrivelled-up, and puckered. As for the others,
+the general negligence of their dress, which was incomplete and
+wanting in freshness,--like the toilet of all country places,
+where insensibly people cease to dress for others and come to
+think seriously of the price of a pair of gloves,--was in keeping
+with the negligence of the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the
+only point on which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines
+agreed.</p>
+
+<p>When the Parisian took up his eye-glass to examine the strange
+accessories of this dwelling,--the joists of the ceiling, the
+color of the woodwork, and the specks which the flies had left
+there in sufficient number to punctuate the "Moniteur" and the
+"Encyclopaedia of Sciences,"--the loto-players lifted their noses
+and looked at him with as much curiosity as they might have felt
+about a giraffe. Monsieur des Grassins and his son, to whom the
+appearance of a man of fashion was not wholly unknown, were
+nevertheless as much astonished as their neighbors, whether it
+was that they fell under the indefinable influence of the general
+feeling, or that they really shared it as with satirical glances
+they seemed to say to their compatriots,--</p>
+
+<p>"That is what you see in Paris!"</p>
+
+<p>They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without
+fearing to displease the master of the house. Grandet was
+absorbed in the long letter which he held in his hand; and to
+read it he had taken the only candle upon the card-table, paying
+no heed to his guests or their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a
+type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely
+unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from
+seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted
+from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have
+liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied
+Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and
+refinement of his features. In short,--if it is possible to sum
+up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young
+girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her
+father's clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean
+rafters, seeing none but occasional passers along the silent
+street,--this vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion
+of delicate desire like that inspired in a young man by the
+fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the English
+"Keepsakes," and that engraved by the Findens with so clever a
+tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the paper, that the
+celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew from his
+pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now
+travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work,
+done in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at
+her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to make use
+of it. The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in
+which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness,
+his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so
+much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently
+regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous,--all these
+things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased
+Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams
+of her phoenix cousin.</p>
+
+<p>The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and presently the
+game came suddenly to an end. La Grand Nanon entered and said
+aloud: "Madame, I want the sheets for monsieur's bed."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des Grassins said in a
+low voice: "Let us keep our sous and stop playing." Each took his
+or her two sous from the chipped saucer in which they had been
+put; then the party moved in a body toward the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you finished your game?" said Grandet, without looking
+up from his letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" replied Madame des Grassins, taking a seat near
+Charles.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie, prompted by a thought often born in the heart of a
+young girl when sentiment enters it for the first time, left the
+room to go and help her mother and Nanon. Had an able confessor
+then questioned her she would, no doubt, have avowed to him that
+she thought neither of her mother nor of Nanon, but was pricked
+by a poignant desire to look after her cousin's room and concern
+herself with her cousin; to supply what might be needed, to
+remedy any forgetfulness, to see that all was done to make it, as
+far as possible, suitable and elegant; and, in fact, she arrived
+in time to prove to her mother and Nanon that everything still
+remained to be done. She put into Nanon's head the notion of
+passing a warming-pan between the sheets. She herself covered the
+old table with a cloth and requested Nanon to change it every
+morning; she convinced her mother that it was necessary to light
+a good fire, and persuaded Nanon to bring up a great pile of wood
+into the corridor without saying anything to her father. She ran
+to get, from one of the corner-shelves of the hall, a tray of old
+lacquer which was part of the inheritance of the late Monsieur de
+la Bertelliere, catching up at the same time a six-sided crystal
+goblet, a little tarnished gilt spoon, an antique flask engraved
+with cupids, all of which she put triumphantly on the corner of
+her cousin's chimney-piece. More ideas surged through her head in
+one quarter of an hour than she had ever had since she came into
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma," she said, "my cousin will never bear the smell of a
+tallow candle; suppose we buy a wax one?" And she darted, swift
+as a bird, to get the five-franc piece which she had just
+received for her monthly expenses. "Here, Nanon," she cried,
+"quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"What will your father say?" This terrible remonstrance was
+uttered by Madame Grandet as she beheld her daughter armed with
+an old Sevres sugar-basin which Grandet had brought home from the
+chateau of Froidfond. "And where will you get the sugar? Are you
+crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, Nanon can buy some sugar as well as the candle."</p>
+
+<p>"But your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely his nephew ought not to go without a glass of <i>eau
+sucree</i>? Besides, he will not notice it."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father sees everything," said Madame Grandet, shaking
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>Nanon hesitated; she knew her master.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nanon, go,--because it is my birthday."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon gave a loud laugh as she heard the first little jest her
+young mistress had ever made, and then obeyed her.</p>
+
+<p>While Eugenie and her mother were trying to embellish the
+bedroom assigned by Monsieur Grandet for his nephew, Charles
+himself was the object of Madame des Grassins' attentions; to all
+appearances she was setting her cap at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very courageous, monsieur," she said to the young
+dandy, "to leave the pleasures of the capital at this season and
+take up your abode in Saumur. But if we do not frighten you away,
+you will find there are some amusements even here."</p>
+
+<p>She threw him the ogling glance of the provinces, where women
+put so much prudence and reserve into their eyes that they impart
+to them the prudish concupiscence peculiar to certain
+ecclesiastics to whom all pleasure is either a theft or an error.
+Charles was so completely out of his element in this abode, and
+so far from the vast chateau and the sumptuous life with which
+his fancy had endowed his uncle, that as he looked at Madame des
+Grassins he perceived a dim likeness to Parisian faces. He
+gracefully responded to the species of invitation addressed to
+him, and began very naturally a conversation, in which Madame des
+Grassins gradually lowered her voice so as to bring it into
+harmony with the nature of the confidences she was making. With
+her, as with Charles, there was the need of conference; so after
+a few moments spent in coquettish phrases and a little serious
+jesting, the clever provincial said, thinking herself unheard by
+the others, who were discussing the sale of wines which at that
+season filled the heads of every one in Saumur,--</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur if you will do us the honor to come and see us, you
+will give as much pleasure to my husband as to myself. Our salon
+is the only one in Saumur where you will find the higher business
+circles mingling with the nobility. We belong to both societies,
+who meet at our house simply because they find it amusing. My
+husband--I say it with pride--is as much valued by the one class
+as by the other. We will try to relieve the monotony of your
+visit here. If you stay all the time with Monsieur Grandet, good
+heavens! what will become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser
+who thinks of nothing but his vines; your aunt is a pious soul
+who can't put two ideas together; and your cousin is a little
+fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who will
+spend her life in darning towels."</p>
+
+<p>"She is really very nice, this woman," thought Charles Grandet
+as he duly responded to Madame des Grassins' coquetries.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me, wife, that you are taking possession of
+monsieur," said the stout banker, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>On this remark the notary and the president said a few words
+that were more or less significant; but the abbe, looking at them
+slyly, brought their thoughts to a focus by taking a pinch of
+snuff and saying as he handed round his snuff-box: "Who can do
+the honors of Saumur for monsieur so well as madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! what do you mean by that, monsieur l'abbe?" demanded
+Monsieur des Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it in the best possible sense for you, for madame, for
+the town of Saumur, and for monsieur," said the wily old man,
+turning to Charles.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbe Cruchot had guessed the conversation between Charles
+and Madame des Grassins without seeming to pay attention to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Adolphe to Charles with an air which he tried
+to make free and easy, "I don't know whether you remember me, but
+I had the honor of dancing as your <i>vis-a-vis</i> at a ball
+given by the Baron de Nucingen, and--"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur," answered Charles,
+pleased to find himself the object of general attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur is your son?" he said to Madame des Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>The abbe looked at her maliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said
+Charles, addressing Adolphe.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know, monsieur," said the abbe, "that we send them
+to Babylon as soon as they are weaned."</p>
+
+<p>Madame des Grassins examined the abbe with a glance of extreme
+penetration.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only in the provinces," he continued, "that you will
+find women of thirty and more years as fresh as madame, here,
+with a son about to take his degree. I almost fancy myself back
+in the days when the young men stood on chairs in the ball-room
+to see you dance, madame," said the abbe, turning to his female
+adversary. "To me, your triumphs are but of yesterday--"</p>
+
+<p>"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed
+my intentions?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that I shall have a good deal of success in Saumur,"
+thought Charles as he unbuttoned his great-coat, put a hand into
+his waistcoat, and cast a glance into the far distance, to
+imitate the attitude which Chantrey has given to Lord Byron.</p>
+
+<p>The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more truly, the
+preoccupation of mind into which the reading of the letter had
+plunged him, did not escape the vigilance of the notary and the
+president, who tried to guess the contents of the letter by the
+almost imperceptible motions of the miser's face, which was then
+under the full light of the candle. He maintained the habitual
+calm of his features with evident difficulty; we may, in fact,
+picture to ourselves the countenance such a man endeavored to
+preserve as he read the fatal letter which here follows:--</p>
+
+<p>My Brother,--It is almost twenty-three years since we have
+seen each other. My marriage was the occasion of our last
+interview, after which we parted, and both of us were happy.
+Assuredly I could not then foresee that you would one day be the
+prop of the family whose prosperity you then predicted.</p>
+
+<p>When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no
+longer living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive the
+disgrace of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of the gulf
+until the last moment, hoping to save myself. The end has come, I
+must sink into it. The double bankruptcies of my broker and of
+Roguin, my notary, have carried off my last resources and left me
+nothing. I have the bitterness of owing nearly four millions,
+with assets not more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay
+them. The wines in my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices
+caused by the abundance and quality of your vintage. In three
+days Paris will cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I,
+an honest man, shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I
+deprive my son of a good name, which I have stained, and the
+fortune of his mother, which I have lost. He knows nothing of all
+this,--my unfortunate child whom I idolize! We parted tenderly.
+He was ignorant, happily, that the last beatings of my heart were
+spent in that farewell. Will he not some day curse me? My
+brother, my brother! the curses of our children are horrible;
+they can appeal against ours, but theirs are irrevocable.
+Grandet, you are my elder brother, you owe me your protection;
+act for me so that Charles may cast no bitter words upon my
+grave! My brother, if I were writing with my blood, with my
+tears, no greater anguish could I put into this letter,--nor as
+great, for then I should weep, I should bleed, I should die, I
+should suffer no more, but now I suffer and look at death with
+dry eyes.</p>
+
+<p>From henceforth you are my son's father; he has no relations,
+as you well know, on his mother's side. Why did I not consider
+social prejudices? Why did I yield to love? Why did I marry the
+natural daughter of a great lord? Charles has no family. Oh, my
+unhappy son! my son! Listen, Grandet! I implore nothing for
+myself,-- besides, your property may not be large enough to carry
+a mortgage of three millions,--but for my son! Brother, my
+suppliant hands are clasped as I think of you; behold them!
+Grandet, I confide my son to you in dying, and I look at the
+means of death with less pain as I think that you will be to him
+a father. He loved me well, my Charles; I was good to him, I
+never thwarted him; he will not curse me. Ah, you see! he is
+gentle, he is like his mother, he will cause you no grief. Poor
+boy! accustomed to all the enjoyments of luxury, he knows nothing
+of the privations to which you and I were condemned by the
+poverty of our youth. And I leave him ruined! alone! Yes, all my
+friends will avoid him, and it is I who have brought this
+humiliation upon him! Would that I had the force to send him with
+one thrust into the heavens to his mother's side! Madness! I come
+back to my disaster--to his. I send him to you that you may tell
+him in some fitting way of my death, of his future fate. Be a
+father to him, but a good father. Do not tear him all at once
+from his idle life, it would kill him. I beg him on my knees to
+renounce all rights that, as his mother's heir, he may have on my
+estate. But the prayer is superfluous; he is honorable, and he
+will feel that he must not appear among my creditors. Bring him
+to see this at the right time; reveal to him the hard conditions
+of the life I have made for him: and if he still has tender
+thoughts of me, tell him in my name that all is not lost for him.
+Yes, work, labor, which saved us both, may give him back the
+fortune of which I have deprived him; and if he listens to his
+father's voice as it reaches him from the grave, he will go the
+Indies. My brother, Charles is an upright and courageous young
+man; give him the wherewithal to make his venture; he will die
+sooner than not repay you the funds which you may lend him.
+Grandet! if you will not do this, you will lay up for yourself
+remorse. Ah, should my child find neither tenderness nor succor
+in you, I would call down the vengeance of God upon your
+cruelty!</p>
+
+<p>If I had been able to save something from the wreck, I might
+have had the right to leave him at least a portion of his
+mother's property; but my last monthly payments have absorbed
+everything. I did not wish to die uncertain of my child's fate; I
+hoped to feel a sacred promise in a clasp of your hand which
+might have warmed my heart: but time fails me. While Charles is
+journeying to you I shall be preparing my assignment. I shall
+endeavor to show by the order and good faith of my accounts that
+my disaster comes neither from a faulty life nor from dishonesty.
+It is for my son's sake that I strive to do this.</p>
+
+<p>Farewell, my brother! May the blessing of God be yours for the
+generous guardianship I lay upon you, and which, I doubt not, you
+will accept. A voice will henceforth and forever pray for you in
+that world where we must all go, and where I am now as you read
+these lines.</p>
+
+<p>Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"So you are talking?" said Pere Grandet as he carefully folded
+the letter in its original creases and put it into his
+waistcoat-pocket. He looked at his nephew with a humble, timid
+air, beneath which he hid his feelings and his calculations.
+"Have you warmed yourself?" he said to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Thoroughly, my dear uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, where are the women?" said his uncle, already
+forgetting that his nephew was to sleep at the house. At this
+moment Eugenie and Madame Grandet returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the room all ready?" said Grandet, recovering his
+composure.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, father."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, my nephew, if you are tired, Nanon shall show you
+your room. It isn't a dandy's room; but you will excuse a poor
+wine-grower who never has a penny to spare. Taxes swallow up
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"We do not wish to intrude, Grandet," said the banker; "you
+may want to talk to your nephew, and therefore we will bid you
+good-night."</p>
+
+<p>At these words the assembly rose, and each made a parting bow
+in keeping with his or her own character. The old notary went to
+the door to fetch his lantern and came back to light it, offering
+to accompany the des Grassins on their way. Madame des Grassins
+had not foreseen the incident which brought the evening
+prematurely to an end, her servant therefore had not arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do me the honor to take my arm, madame?" said the
+abbe.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, monsieur l'abbe, but I have my son," she answered
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies cannot compromise themselves with me," said the
+abbe.</p>
+
+<p>"Take Monsieur Cruchot's arm," said her husband.</p>
+
+<p>The abbe walked off with the pretty lady so quickly that they
+were soon some distance in advance of the caravan.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a good-looking young man, madame," he said, pressing
+her arm. "Good-by to the grapes, the vintage is done. It is all
+over with us. We may as well say adieu to Mademoiselle Grandet.
+Eugenie will belong to the dandy. Unless this cousin is enamoured
+of some Parisian woman, your son Adolphe will find another rival
+in--"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, monsieur l'abbe. This young man cannot fail to
+see that Eugenie is a little fool,--a girl without the least
+freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a
+quince."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you made the cousin notice it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not take the trouble--"</p>
+
+<p>"Place yourself always beside Eugenie, madame, and you need
+never take the trouble to say anything to the young man against
+his cousin; he will make his own comparisons, which--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he has promised to dine with me the day after
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! if you only <i>would</i>, madame--" said the abbe.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that you wish me to do, monsieur l'abbe? Do you
+mean to offer me bad advice? I have not reached the age of
+thirty-nine, without a stain upon my reputation, thank God! to
+compromise myself now, even for the empire of the Great Mogul.
+You and I are of an age when we both know the meaning of words.
+For an ecclesiastic, you certainly have ideas that are very
+incongruous. Fie! it is worthy of Faublas!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have read Faublas?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, monsieur l'abbe; I meant to say the <i>Liaisons
+dangereuses</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that book is infinitely more moral," said the abbe,
+laughing. "But you make me out as wicked as a young man of the
+present day; I only meant--"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you dare to tell me you were not thinking of putting
+wicked things into my head? Isn't it perfectly clear? If this
+young man--who I admit is very good-looking--were to make love to
+me, he would not think of his cousin. In Paris, I know, good
+mothers do devote themselves in this way to the happiness and
+welfare of their children; but we live in the provinces, monsieur
+l'abbe."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame."</p>
+
+<p>"And," she continued, "I do not want, and Adolphe himself
+would not want, a hundred millions brought at such a price."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, I said nothing about a hundred millions; that
+temptation might be too great for either of us to withstand.
+Only, I do think that an honest woman may permit herself, in all
+honor, certain harmless little coquetries, which are, in fact,
+part of her social duty and which--"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are we not bound, madame, to make ourselves agreeable to each
+other? --Permit me to blow my nose.--I assure you, madame," he
+resumed, "that the young gentleman ogled you through his glass in
+a more flattering manner than he put on when he looked at me; but
+I forgive him for doing homage to beauty in preference to old
+age--"</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite apparent," said the president in his loud voice,
+"that Monsieur Grandet of Paris has sent his son to Saumur with
+extremely matrimonial intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"But in that case the cousin wouldn't have fallen among us
+like a cannon-ball," answered the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't prove anything," said Monsieur des Grassins;
+"the old miser is always making mysteries."</p>
+
+<p>"Des Grassins, my friend, I have invited the young man to
+dinner. You must go and ask Monsieur and Madame de Larsonniere
+and the du Hautoys, with the beautiful demoiselle du Hautoy, of
+course. I hope she will be properly dressed; that jealous mother
+of hers does make such a fright of her! Gentlemen, I trust that
+you will all do us the honor to come," she added, stopping the
+procession to address the two Cruchots.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are at home, madame," said the notary.</p>
+
+<p>After bowing to the three des Grassins, the three Cruchots
+returned home, applying their provincial genius for analysis to
+studying, under all its aspects, the great event of the evening,
+which undoubtedly changed the respective positions of Grassinists
+and Cruchotines. The admirable common-sense which guided all the
+actions of these great machinators made each side feel the
+necessity of a momentary alliance against a common enemy. Must
+they not mutually hinder Eugenie from loving her cousin, and the
+cousin from thinking of Eugenie? Could the Parisian resist the
+influence of treacherous insinuations, soft-spoken calumnies,
+slanders full of faint praise and artless denials, which should
+be made to circle incessantly about him and deceive him?</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>When the four relations were left alone, Monsieur Grandet said
+to his nephew,--</p>
+
+<p>"We must go to bed. It is too late to talk about the matters
+which have brought you here; to-morrow we will take a suitable
+moment. We breakfast at eight o'clock; at midday we eat a little
+fruit or a bit of bread, and drink a glass of white wine; and we
+dine, like the Parisians, at five o'clock. That's the order of
+the day. If you like to go and see the town and the environs you
+are free to do so. You will excuse me if my occupations do not
+permit me to accompany you. You may perhaps hear people say that
+I am rich,--Monsieur Grandet this, Monsieur Grandet that. I let
+them talk; their gossip does not hurt my credit. But I have not a
+penny; I work in my old age like an apprentice whose worldly
+goods are a bad plane and two good arms. Perhaps you'll soon know
+yourself what a franc costs when you have got to sweat for it.
+Nanon, where are the candles?"</p>
+
+<p>"I trust, my nephew, that you will find all you want," said
+Madame Grandet; "but if you should need anything else, you can
+call Nanon."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear aunt, I shall need nothing; I have, I believe,
+brought everything with me. Permit me to bid you good-night, and
+my young cousin also."</p>
+
+<p>Charles took a lighted wax candle from Nanon's hand,--an Anjou
+candle, very yellow in color, and so shopworn that it looked like
+tallow and deceived Monsieur Grandet, who, incapable of
+suspecting its presence under his roof, did not perceive this
+magnificence.</p>
+
+<p>"I will show you the way," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of leaving the hall by the door which opened under the
+archway, Grandet ceremoniously went through the passage which
+divided the hall from the kitchen. A swing-door, furnished with a
+large oval pane of glass, shut this passage from the staircase,
+so as to fend off the cold air which rushed through it. But the
+north wind whistled none the less keenly in winter, and, in spite
+of the sand-bags at the bottom of the doors of the living-room,
+the temperature within could scarcely be kept at a proper height.
+Nanon went to bolt the outer door; then she closed the hall and
+let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that he seemed
+to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for his ferocity,
+recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored children of the
+fields understood each other.</p>
+
+<p>When Charles saw the yellow, smoke-stained walls of the well
+of the staircase, where each worm-eaten step shook under the
+heavy foot-fall of his uncle, his expectations began to sober
+more and more. He fancied himself in a hen-roost. His aunt and
+cousin, to whom he turned an inquiring look, were so used to the
+staircase that they did not guess the cause of his amazement, and
+took the glance for an expression of friendliness, which they
+answered by a smile that made him desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the devil did my father send me to such a place?" he said
+to himself.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the first landing he saw three doors painted
+in Etruscan red and without casings,--doors sunk in the dusty
+walls and provided with iron bars, which in fact were bolts, each
+ending with the pattern of a flame, as did both ends of the long
+sheath of the lock. The first door at the top of the staircase,
+which opened into a room directly above the kitchen, was
+evidently walled up. In fact, the only entrance to that room was
+through Grandet's bedchamber; the room itself was his office. The
+single window which lighted it, on the side of the court, was
+protected by a lattice of strong iron bars. No one, not even
+Madame Grandet, had permission to enter it. The old man chose to
+be alone, like an alchemist in his laboratory. There, no doubt,
+some hiding-place had been ingeniously constructed; there the
+title- deeds of property were stored; there hung the scales on
+which to weigh the louis; there were devised, by night and
+secretly, the estimates, the profits, the receipts, so that
+business men, finding Grandet prepared at all points, imagined
+that he got his cue from fairies or demons; there, no doubt,
+while Nanon's loud snoring shook the rafters, while the wolf-dog
+watched and yawned in the courtyard, while Madame and
+Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleeping, came the old cooper
+to cuddle, to con over, to caress and clutch and clasp his gold.
+The walls were thick, the screens sure. He alone had the key of
+this laboratory, where--so people declared--he studied the maps
+on which his fruit-trees were marked, and calculated his profits
+to a vine, and almost to a twig.</p>
+
+<p>The door of Eugenie's chamber was opposite to the walled-up
+entrance to this room. At the other end of the landing were the
+appartements of the married pair, which occupied the whole front
+of the house. Madame Grandet had a room next to that of Eugenie,
+which was entered through a glass door. The master's chamber was
+separated from that of his wife by a partition, and from the
+mysterious strong-room by a thick wall. Pere Grandet lodged his
+nephew on the second floor, in the high mansarde attic which was
+above his own bedroom, so that he might hear him if the young man
+took it into his head to go and come. When Eugenie and her mother
+reached the middle of the landing they kissed each other for
+good-night; then with a few words of adieu to Charles, cold upon
+the lips, but certainly very warm in the heart of the young girl,
+they withdrew into their own chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are in your room, my nephew," said Pere Grandet as
+he opened the door. "If you need to go out, call Nanon; without
+her, beware! the dog would eat you up without a word. Sleep well.
+Good-night. Ha! why, they have made you a fire!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Nanon appeared with the warming pan.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's something more!" said Monsieur Grandet. "Do you take
+my nephew for a lying-in woman? Carry off your brazier,
+Nanon!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gentleman is as
+delicate as a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on, as you've taken it into your head," said
+Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; "but don't set things on
+fire." So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling
+indistinct sentences.</p>
+
+<p>Charles stood aghast in the midst of his trunks. After casting
+his eyes on the attic-walls covered with that yellow paper
+sprinkled with bouquets so well known in dance-houses, on the
+fireplace of ribbed stone whose very look was chilling, on the
+chairs of yellow wood with varnished cane seats that seemed to
+have more than the usual four angles, on the open night-table
+capacious enough to hold a small sergeant-at-arms, on the meagre
+bit of rag-carpet beside the bed, on the tester whose cloth
+valance shook as if, devoured by moths, it was about to fall, he
+turned gravely to la Grande Nanon and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Look here! my dear woman, just tell me, am I in the house of
+Monsieur Grandet, formerly mayor of Saumur, and brother to
+Monsieur Grandet of Paris?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur; and a very good, a very kind, a very perfect
+gentleman. Shall I help you to unpack your trunks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Faith! yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn't you serve in
+the marines of the Imperial Guard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Nanon. "What's that,--the marines of the
+guard? Is it salt? Does it go in the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise; there's the
+key."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing-gown made
+of green silk, brocaded with gold flowers of an antique
+design.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to put that on to go to bed with?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Virgin! what a beautiful altar-cloth it would make for
+the parish church! My dear darling monsieur, give it to the
+church, and you'll save your soul; if you don't, you'll lose it.
+Oh, how nice you look in it! I must call mademoiselle to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nanon, if Nanon you are, hold your tongue; let me go to
+bed. I'll arrange my things to-morrow. If my dressing-gown
+pleases you so much, you shall save your soul. I'm too good a
+Christian not to give it to you when I go away, and you can do
+what you like with it."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon stood rooted to the ground, gazing at Charles and unable
+to put faith into his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Nanon."</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world have I come here for?" thought Charles as
+he went to sleep. "My father is not a fool; my journey must have
+some object. Pshaw! put off serious thought till the morrow, as
+some Greek idiot said."</p>
+
+<p>"Blessed Virgin! how charming he is, my cousin!" Eugenie was
+saying, interrupting her prayers, which that night at least were
+never finished.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet had no thoughts at all as she went to bed. She
+heard the miser walking up and down his room through the door of
+communication which was in the middle of the partition. Like all
+timid women, she had studied the character of her lord. Just as
+the petrel foresees the storm, she knew by imperceptible signs
+when an inward tempest shook her husband; and at such times, to
+use an expression of her own, she "feigned dead."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet gazed at the door lined with sheet-iron which he
+lately put to his sanctum, and said to himself,--</p>
+
+<p>"What a crazy idea of my brother to bequeath his son to me! A
+fine legacy! I have not fifty francs to give him. What are fifty
+francs to a dandy who looked at my barometer as if he meant to
+make firewood of it!"</p>
+
+<p>In thinking over the consequences of that legacy of anguish
+Grandet was perhaps more agitated than his brother had been at
+the moment of writing it.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have that golden robe," thought Nanon, who went to
+sleep tricked out in her altar-cloth, dreaming for the first time
+in her life of flowers, embroidery, and damask, just as Eugenie
+was dreaming of love.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a
+delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when
+the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the
+heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt
+all thoughts into a vague desire,--day of innocent melancholy and
+of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young
+girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she
+smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not
+love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of
+earthly things had come for Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes
+and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,--a
+business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she
+brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy
+masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing
+the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a
+symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the
+simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent
+sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again
+in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she
+looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her
+cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so
+delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest
+shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single
+eyelet. And then, wishing for the first time in her life to
+appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well
+made, which rendered her attractive.</p>
+
+<p>As she finished her toilet the clock of the parish church
+struck the hour; to her astonishment, it was only seven. The
+desire of having plenty of time for dressing carefully had led
+her to get up too early. Ignorant of the art of retouching every
+curl and studying every effect, Eugenie simply crossed her arms,
+sat down by the window, and looked at the court-yard, the narrow
+garden, and the high terraced walls that over-topped it: a
+dismal, hedged-in prospect, yet not wholly devoid of those
+mysterious beauties which belong to solitary or uncultivated
+nature. Near the kitchen was a well surrounded by a curb, with a
+pulley fastened to a bent iron rod clasped by a vine whose leaves
+were withered, reddened, and shrivelled by the season. From
+thence the tortuous shoots straggled to the wall, clutched it,
+and ran the whole length of the house, ending near the wood-pile,
+where the logs were ranged with as much precision as the books in
+a library. The pavement of the court-yard showed the black stains
+produced in time by lichens, herbage, and the absence of all
+movement or friction. The thick walls wore a coating of green
+moss streaked with waving brown lines, and the eight stone steps
+at the bottom of the court-yard which led up to the gate of the
+garden were disjointed and hidden beneath tall plants, like the
+tomb of a knight buried by his widow in the days of the Crusades.
+Above a foundation of moss-grown, crumbling stones was a trellis
+of rotten wood, half fallen from decay; over them clambered and
+intertwined at will a mass of clustering creepers. On each side
+of the latticed gate stretched the crooked arms of two stunted
+apple-trees. Three parallel walks, gravelled and separated from
+each other by square beds, where the earth was held in by box-
+borders, made the garden, which terminated, beneath a terrace of
+the old walls, in a group of lindens. At the farther end were
+raspberry- bushes; at the other, near the house, an immense
+walnut-tree drooped its branches almost into the window of the
+miser's sanctum.</p>
+
+<p>A clear day and the beautiful autumnal sun common to the banks
+of the Loire was beginning to melt the hoar-frost which the night
+had laid on these picturesque objects, on the walls, and on the
+plants which swathed the court-yard. Eugenie found a novel charm
+in the aspect of things lately so insignificant to her. A
+thousand confused thoughts came to birth in her mind and grew
+there, as the sunbeams grew without along the wall. She felt that
+impulse of delight, vague, inexplicable, which wraps the moral
+being as a cloud wraps the physical body. Her thoughts were all
+in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, and the
+harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies of nature. When
+the sun reached an angle of the wall where the "Venus- hair" of
+southern climes drooped its thick leaves, lit with the changing
+colors of a pigeon's breast, celestial rays of hope illumined the
+future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze upon that
+piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue harebells, its
+wilting herbage, with which she mingled memories as tender as
+those of childhood. The noise made by each leaf as it fell from
+its twig in the void of that echoing court gave answer to the
+secret questionings of the young girl, who could have stayed
+there the livelong day without perceiving the flight of time.
+Then came tumultuous heavings of the soul. She rose often, went
+to her glass, and looked at herself, as an author in good faith
+looks at his work to criticise it and blame it in his own
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not beautiful enough for him!" Such was Eugenie's
+thought,--a humble thought, fertile in suffering. The poor girl
+did not do herself justice; but modesty, or rather fear, is among
+the first of love's virtues. Eugenie belonged to the type of
+children with sturdy constitutions, such as we see among the
+lesser bourgeoisie, whose beauties always seem a little vulgar;
+and yet, though she resembled the Venus of Milo, the lines of her
+figure were ennobled by the softer Christian sentiment which
+purifies womanhood and gives it a distinction unknown to the
+sculptors of antiquity. She had an enormous head, with the
+masculine yet delicate forehead of the Jupiter of Phidias, and
+gray eyes, to which her chaste life, penetrating fully into them,
+carried a flood of light. The features of her round face,
+formerly fresh and rosy, were at one time swollen by the
+small-pox, which destroyed the velvet texture of the skin, though
+it kindly left no other traces, and her cheek was still so soft
+and delicate that her mother's kiss made a momentary red mark
+upon it. Her nose was somewhat too thick, but it harmonized well
+with the vermilion mouth, whose lips, creased in many lines, were
+full of love and kindness. The throat was exquisitely round. The
+bust, well curved and carefully covered, attracted the eye and
+inspired reverie. It lacked, no doubt, the grace which a fitting
+dress can bestow; but to a connoisseur the non-flexibility of her
+figure had its own charm. Eugenie, tall and strongly made, had
+none of the prettiness which pleases the masses; but she was
+beautiful with a beauty which the spirit recognizes, and none but
+artists truly love. A painter seeking here below for a type of
+Mary's celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud
+modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often
+due to chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life
+alone can bestow or keep unchanged,--such a painter, in love with
+his ideal, would have found in the face of Eugenie the innate
+nobleness that is ignorant of itself; he would have seen beneath
+the calmness of that brow a world of love; he would have felt, in
+the shape of the eyes, in the fall of the eyelids, the presence
+of the nameless something that we call divine. Her features, the
+contour of her head, which no expression of pleasure had ever
+altered or wearied, were like the lines of the horizon softly
+traced in the far distance across the tranquil lakes. That calm
+and rosy countenance, margined with light like a lovely
+full-blown flower, rested the mind, held the eye, and imparted
+the charm of the conscience that was there reflected. Eugenie was
+standing on the shore of life where young illusions flower, where
+daisies are gathered with delights ere long to be unknown; and
+thus she said, looking at her image in the glass, unconscious as
+yet of love: "I am too ugly; he will not notice me."</p>
+
+<p>Then she opened the door of her chamber which led to the
+staircase, and stretched out her neck to listen for the household
+noises. "He is not up," she thought, hearing Nanon's morning
+cough as the good soul went and came, sweeping out the halls,
+lighting her fire, chaining the dog, and speaking to the beasts
+in the stable. Eugenie at once went down and ran to Nanon, who
+was milking the cow.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for my cousin's
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mademoiselle, you should have thought of that
+yesterday," said Nanon, bursting into a loud peal of laughter. "I
+can't make cream. Your cousin is a darling, a darling! oh, that
+he is! You should have seen him in his dressing-gown, all silk
+and gold! I saw him, I did! He wears linen as fine as the
+surplice of monsieur le cure."</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, please make us a <i>galette</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And who'll give me wood for the oven, and flour and butter
+for the cakes?" said Nanon, who in her function of prime-minister
+to Grandet assumed at times enormous importance in the eyes of
+Eugenie and her mother. "Mustn't rob the master to feast the
+cousin. You ask him for butter and flour and wood: he's your
+father, perhaps he'll give you some. See! there he is now, coming
+to give out the provisions."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie escaped into the garden, quite frightened as she heard
+the staircase shaking under her father's step. Already she felt
+the effects of that virgin modesty and that special consciousness
+of happiness which lead us to fancy, not perhaps without reason,
+that our thoughts are graven on our foreheads and are open to the
+eyes of all. Perceiving for the first time the cold nakedness of
+her father's house, the poor girl felt a sort of rage that she
+could not put it in harmony with her cousin's elegance. She felt
+the need of doing something for him,--what, she did not know.
+Ingenuous and truthful, she followed her angelic nature without
+mistrusting her impressions or her feelings. The mere sight of
+her cousin had wakened within her the natural yearnings of a
+woman,--yearnings that were the more likely to develop ardently
+because, having reached her twenty-third year, she was in the
+plenitude of her intelligence and her desires. For the first time
+in her life her heart was full of terror at the sight of her
+father; in him she saw the master of the fate, and she fancied
+herself guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his knowledge
+certain thoughts. She walked with hasty steps, surprised to
+breathe a purer air, to feel the sun's rays quickening her
+pulses, to absorb from their heat a moral warmth and a new life.
+As she turned over in her mind some stratagem by which to get the
+cake, a quarrel--an event as rare as the sight of swallows in
+winter--broke out between la Grande Nanon and Grandet. Armed with
+his keys, the master had come to dole out provisions for the
+day's consumption.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any bread left from yesterday?" he said to
+Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a crumb, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet took a large round loaf, well floured and moulded in
+one of the flat baskets which they use for baking in Anjou, and
+was about to cut it, when Nanon said to him,--</p>
+
+<p>"We are five, to-day, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Grandet, "but your loaves weigh six
+pounds; there'll be some left. Besides, these young fellows from
+Paris don't eat bread, you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they must eat <i>frippe</i>?" said Nanon.</p>
+
+<p><i>Frippe</i> is a word of the local lexicon of Anjou, and
+means any accompaniment of bread, from butter which is spread
+upon it, the commonest kind of <i>frippe</i>, to peach preserve,
+the most distinguished of all the <i>frippes</i>; those who in
+their childhood have licked the <i>frippe</i> and left the bread,
+will comprehend the meaning of Nanon's speech.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Grandet, "they eat neither bread nor
+<i>frippe</i>; they are something like marriageable girls."</p>
+
+<p>After ordering the meals for the day with his usual parsimony,
+the goodman, having locked the closets containing the supplies,
+was about to go towards the fruit-garden, when Nanon stopped him
+to say,--</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, and I'll
+make a <i>galette</i> for the young ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to pillage the house on account of my
+nephew?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't thinking any more of your nephew than I was of your
+dog,-- not more than you think yourself; for, look here, you've
+only forked out six bits of sugar. I want eight."</p>
+
+<p>"What's all this, Nanon? I have never seen you like this
+before. What have you got in your head? Are you the mistress
+here? You sha'n't have more than six pieces of sugar."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, how is your nephew to sweeten his coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"With two pieces; I'll go without myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Go without sugar at your age! I'd rather buy you some out of
+my own pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind your own business."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the recent fall in prices, sugar was still in
+Grandet's eyes the most valuable of all the colonial products; to
+him it was always six francs a pound. The necessity of
+economizing it, acquired under the Empire, had grown to be the
+most inveterate of his habits. All women, even the greatest
+ninnies, know how to dodge and dodge to get their ends; Nanon
+abandoned the sugar for the sake of getting the
+<i>galette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle!" she called through the window, "do you want
+some <i>galette</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," answered Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nanon," said Grandet, hearing his daughter's voice.
+"See here." He opened the cupboard where the flour was kept, gave
+her a cupful, and added a few ounces of butter to the piece he
+had already cut off.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall want wood for the oven," said the implacable
+Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, take what you want," he answered sadly; "but in that
+case you must make us a fruit-tart, and you'll cook the whole
+dinner in the oven. In that way you won't need two fires."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!" cried Nanon, "you needn't tell me that."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his
+faithful deputy.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," she cried, when his back was turned, "we shall
+have the <i>galette</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and
+arranged a plateful on the kitchen-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Just see, monsieur," said Nanon, "what pretty boots your
+nephew has. What leather! why it smells good! What does he clean
+it with, I wonder? Am I to put your egg-polish on it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, I think eggs would injure that kind of leather. Tell
+him you don't know how to black morocco; yes, that's morocco. He
+will get you something himself in Saumur to polish those boots
+with. I have heard that they put sugar into the blacking to make
+it shine."</p>
+
+<p>"They look good to eat," said the cook, putting the boots to
+her nose. "Bless me! if they don't smell like madame's
+eau-de-cologne. Ah! how funny!"</p>
+
+<p>"Funny!" said her master. "Do you call it funny to put more
+money into boots than the man who stands in them is worth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," she said, when Grandet returned the second time,
+after locking the fruit-garden, "won't you have the
+<i>pot-au-feu</i> put on once or twice a week on account of your
+nephew?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to go to the butcher's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls; the farmers
+will bring them. I shall tell Cornoiller to shoot some crows;
+they make the best soup in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a fool, Nanon. They eat what they can get, like the
+rest of the world. Don't we all live on the dead? What are
+legacies?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet, having no further orders to give, drew out
+his watch, and seeing that he had half an hour to dispose of
+before breakfast, he took his hat, went and kissed his daughter,
+and said to her:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, down by the
+Loire? I have something to do there."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink taffeta;
+then the father and daughter went down the winding street to the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going at this early hour?" said Cruchot, the
+notary, meeting them.</p>
+
+<p>"To see something," answered Grandet, not duped by the
+matutinal appearance of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>When Pere Grandet went to "see something," the notary knew by
+experience there was something to be got by going with him; so he
+went.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Cruchot," said Grandet, "you are one of my friends.
+I'll show you what folly it is to plant poplar-trees on good
+ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call the sixty thousand francs that you pocketed for
+those that were in your fields down by the Loire, folly?" said
+Maitre Cruchot, opening his eyes with amazement. "What luck you
+have had! To cut down your trees at the very time they ran short
+of white-wood at Nantes, and to sell them at thirty francs!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie listened, without knowing that she approached the most
+solemn moment of her whole life, and that the notary was about to
+bring down upon her head a paternal and supreme sentence. Grandet
+had now reached the magnificent fields which he owned on the
+banks of the Loire, where thirty workmen were employed in
+clearing away, filling up, and levelling the spots formerly
+occupied by the poplars.</p>
+
+<p>"Maitre Cruchot, see how much ground this tree once took up!
+Jean," he cried to a laborer, "m-m-measure with your r-r-rule,
+b-both ways."</p>
+
+<p>"Four times eight feet," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-two feet lost," said Grandet to Cruchot. "I had three
+hundred poplars in this one line, isn't that so? Well, then,
+three h-h-hundred times thir-thirty-two lost m-m-me five hundred
+in h-h-hay; add twice as much for the side rows,--fifteen
+hundred; the middle rows as much more. So we may c-c-call it a
+th-thousand b-b-bales of h-h-hay--"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said Cruchot, to help out his friend; "a thousand
+bales are worth about six hundred francs."</p>
+
+<p>"Say t-t-twelve hundred, be-c-cause there's three or four
+hundred francs on the second crop. Well, then, c-c-calculate that
+t-twelve thousand francs a year for f-f-forty years with interest
+c-c-comes to--"</p>
+
+<p>"Say sixty thousand francs," said the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"I am willing; c-c-comes t-t-to sixty th-th-thousand. Very
+good," continued Grandet, without stuttering: "two thousand
+poplars forty years old will only yield me fifty thousand francs.
+There's a loss. I have found that myself," said Grandet, getting
+on his high horse. "Jean, fill up all the holes except those at
+the bank of the river; there you are to plant the poplars I have
+bought. Plant 'em there, and they'll get nourishment from the
+government," he said, turning to Cruchot, and giving a slight
+motion to the wen on his nose, which expressed more than the most
+ironical of smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"True enough; poplars should only be planted on poor soil,"
+said Cruchot, amazed at Grandet's calculations.</p>
+
+<p>"Y-y-yes, monsieur," answered the old man satirically.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie, who was gazing at the sublime scenery of the Loire,
+and paying no attention to her father's reckonings, presently
+turned an ear to the remarks of Cruchot when she heard him
+say,--</p>
+
+<p>"So you have brought a son-in-law from Paris. All Saumur is
+talking about your nephew. I shall soon have the
+marriage-contract to draw up, hey! Pere Grandet?"</p>
+
+<p>"You g-g-got up very early to t-t-tell me that," said Grandet,
+accompanying the remark with a motion of his wen. "Well, old
+c-c-comrade, I'll be frank, and t-t-tell you what you want t-t-to
+know. I would rather, do you see, f-f-fling my daughter into the
+Loire than g-g-give her to her c-c-cousin. You may t-t-tell that
+everywhere, --no, never mind; let the world t-t-talk."</p>
+
+<p>This answer dazzled and blinded the young girl with sudden
+light. The distant hopes upspringing in her heart bloomed
+suddenly, became real, tangible, like a cluster of flowers, and
+she saw them cut down and wilting on the earth. Since the
+previous evening she had attached herself to Charles by those
+links of happiness which bind soul to soul; from henceforth
+suffering was to rivet them. Is it not the noble destiny of women
+to be more moved by the dark solemnities of grief than by the
+splendors of fortune? How was it that fatherly feeling had died
+out of her father's heart? Of what crime had Charles been guilty?
+Mysterious questions! Already her dawning love, a mystery so
+profound, was wrapping itself in mystery. She walked back
+trembling in all her limbs; and when she reached the gloomy
+street, lately so joyous to her, she felt its sadness, she
+breathed the melancholy which time and events had printed there.
+None of love's lessons lacked. A few steps from their own door
+she went on before her father and waited at the threshold. But
+Grandet, who saw a newspaper in the notary's hand, stopped short
+and asked,--</p>
+
+<p>"How are the Funds?"</p>
+
+<p>"You never listen to my advice, Grandet," answered Cruchot.
+"Buy soon; you will still make twenty per cent in two years,
+besides getting an excellent rate of interest,--five thousand a
+year for eighty thousand francs fifty centimes."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see about that," answered Grandet, rubbing his
+chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?" cried Grandet; and at the same moment Cruchot
+put the newspaper under his eyes and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Read that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Grandet, one of the most respected merchants in
+Paris, blew his brains out yesterday, after making his usual
+appearance at the Bourse. He had sent his resignation to the
+president of the Chamber of Deputies, and had also resigned his
+functions as a judge of the commercial courts. The failures of
+Monsieur Roguin and Monsieur Souchet, his broker and his notary,
+had ruined him. The esteem felt for Monsieur Grandet and the
+credit he enjoyed were nevertheless such that he might have
+obtained the necessary assistance from other business houses. It
+is much to be regretted that so honorable a man should have
+yielded to momentary despair," etc.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it," said the old wine-grower to the notary.</p>
+
+<p>The words sent a chill of horror through Maitre Cruchot, who,
+notwithstanding his impassibility as a notary, felt the cold
+running down his spine as he thought that Grandet of Paris had
+possibly implored in vain the millions of Grandet of Saumur.</p>
+
+<p>"And his son, so joyous yesterday--"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows nothing as yet," answered Grandet, with the same
+composure.</p>
+
+<p>"Adieu! Monsieur Grandet," said Cruchot, who now understood
+the state of the case, and went off to reassure Monsieur de
+Bonfons.</p>
+
+<p>On entering, Grandet found breakfast ready. Madame Grandet,
+round whose neck Eugenie had flung her arms, kissing her with the
+quick effusion of feeling often caused by secret grief, was
+already seated in her chair on castors, knitting sleeves for the
+coming winter.</p>
+
+<p>"You can begin to eat," said Nanon, coming downstairs four
+steps at a time; "the young one is sleeping like a cherub. Isn't
+he a darling with his eyes shut? I went in and I called him: no
+answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him sleep," said Grandet; "he'll wake soon enough to hear
+ill- tidings."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Eugenie, putting into her coffee the two
+little bits of sugar weighing less than half an ounce which the
+old miser amused himself by cutting up in his leisure hours.
+Madame Grandet, who did not dare to put the question, gazed at
+her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"His father has blown his brains out."</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle?" said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor young man!" exclaimed Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor indeed!" said Grandet; "he isn't worth a sou!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh! poor boy, and he's sleeping like the king of the world!"
+said Nanon in a gentle voice.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie stopped eating. Her heart was wrung, as the young
+heart is wrung when pity for the suffering of one she loves
+overflows, for the first time, the whole being of a woman. The
+poor girl wept.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you crying about? You didn't know your uncle," said
+her father, giving her one of those hungry tigerish looks he
+doubtless threw upon his piles of gold.</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur," said Nanon, "who wouldn't feel pity for the
+poor young man, sleeping there like a wooden shoe, without
+knowing what's coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't speak to you, Nanon. Hold your tongue!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie learned at that moment that the woman who loves must
+be able to hide her feelings. She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You will say nothing to him about it, Ma'ame Grandet, till I
+return," said the old man. "I have to go and straighten the line
+of my hedge along the high-road. I shall be back at noon, in time
+for the second breakfast, and then I will talk with my nephew
+about his affairs. As for you, Mademoiselle Eugenie, if it is for
+that dandy you are crying, that's enough, child. He's going off
+like a shot to the Indies. You will never see him again."</p>
+
+<p>The father took his gloves from the brim of his hat, put them
+on with his usual composure, pushed them in place by shoving the
+fingers of both hands together, and went out.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, I am suffocating!" cried Eugenie when she was alone
+with her mother; "I have never suffered like this."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened the window
+and let her breathe fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel better!" said Eugenie after a moment.</p>
+
+<p>This nervous excitement in a nature hitherto, to all
+appearance, calm and cold, reacted on Madame Grandet; she looked
+at her daughter with the sympathetic intuition with which mothers
+are gifted for the objects of their tenderness, and guessed all.
+In truth the life of the Hungarian sisters, bound together by a
+freak of nature, could scarcely have been more intimate than that
+of Eugenie and her mother,--always together in the embrasure of
+that window, and sleeping together in the same atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor child!" said Madame Grandet, taking Eugenie's head
+and laying it upon her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>At these words the young girl raised her head, questioned her
+mother by a look, and seemed to search out her inmost
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Why send him to the Indies?" she said. "If he is unhappy,
+ought he not to stay with us? Is he not our nearest
+relation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father has his
+reasons: we must respect them."</p>
+
+<p>The mother and daughter sat down in silence, the former upon
+her raised seat, the latter in her little armchair, and both took
+up their work. Swelling with gratitude for the full
+heart-understanding her mother had given her, Eugenie kissed the
+dear hand, saying,--</p>
+
+<p>"How good you are, my kind mamma!"</p>
+
+<p>The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn
+and blighted as it was by many sorrows.</p>
+
+<p>"You like him?" asked Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet only smiled in reply. Then, after a moment's
+silence, she said in a low voice: "Do you love him already? That
+is wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Wrong?" said Eugenie. "Why is it wrong? You are pleased with
+him, Nanon is pleased with him; why should he not please me?
+Come, mamma, let us set the table for his breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying,
+"Foolish child!" But she sanctioned the child's folly by sharing
+it. Eugenie called Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let him have his coffee very strong; I heard Monsieur
+des Grassins say that they make the coffee very strong in Paris.
+Put in a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"Where am I to get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Buy some."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose monsieur meets me?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone to his fields."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll run, then. But Monsieur Fessard asked me yesterday if
+the Magi had come to stay with us when I bought the wax candle.
+All the town will know our goings-on."</p>
+
+<p>"If your father finds it out," said Madame Grandet, "he is
+capable of beating us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let him beat us; we will take his blows on our
+knees."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet for all answer raised her eyes to heaven. Nanon
+put on her hood and went off. Eugenie got out some clean
+table-linen, and went to fetch a few bunches of grapes which she
+had amused herself by hanging on a string across the attic; she
+walked softly along the corridor, so as not to waken her cousin,
+and she could not help listening at the door to his quiet
+breathing.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorrow is watching while he sleeps," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>She took the freshest vine-leaves and arranged her dish of
+grapes as coquettishly as a practised house-keeper might have
+done, and placed it triumphantly on the table. She laid hands on
+the pears counted out by her father, and piled them in a pyramid
+mixed with leaves. She went and came, and skipped and ran. She
+would have liked to lay under contribution everything in her
+father's house; but the keys were in his pocket. Nanon came back
+with two fresh eggs. At sight of them Eugenie almost hugged her
+round the neck.</p>
+
+<p>"The farmer from Lande had them in his basket. I asked him for
+them, and he gave them to me, the darling, for nothing, as an
+attention!"</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>After two hours' thought and care, during which Eugenie jumped
+up twenty times from her work to see if the coffee were boiling,
+or to go and listen to the noise her cousin made in dressing, she
+succeeded in preparing a simple little breakfast, very
+inexpensive, but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from
+the inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast was
+always taken standing. Each took a slice of bread, a little fruit
+or some butter, and a glass of wine. As Eugenie looked at the
+table drawn up near the fire with an arm-chair placed before her
+cousin's plate, at the two dishes of fruit, the egg- cup, the
+bottle of white wine, the bread, and the sugar heaped up in a
+saucer, she trembled in all her limbs at the mere thought of the
+look her father would give her if he should come in at that
+moment. She glanced often at the clock to see if her cousin could
+breakfast before the master's return.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes in, I will
+take it all upon myself," said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie could not repress a tear.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my good mother!" she cried, "I have never loved you
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>Charles, who had been tramping about his room for some time,
+singing to himself, now came down. Happily, it was only eleven
+o'clock. The true Parisian! he had put as much dandyism into his
+dress as if he were in the chateau of the noble lady then
+travelling in Scotland. He came into the room with the smiling,
+courteous manner so becoming to youth, which made Eugenie's heart
+beat with mournful joy. He had taken the destruction of his
+castles in Anjou as a joke, and came up to his aunt gaily.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"I? perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be hungry, cousin," said Eugenie; "will you take
+your seat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never breakfast before midday; I never get up till then.
+However, I fared so badly on the journey that I am glad to eat
+something at once. Besides--" here he pulled out the prettiest
+watch Breguet ever made. "Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven
+o'clock!"</p>
+
+<p>"Early?" said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. Well, I shall be
+glad to have anything to eat,--anything, it doesn't matter what,
+a chicken, a partridge."</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.</p>
+
+<p>"A partridge!" whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly
+have given the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit down," said his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a
+pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother
+took ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you always live here?" said Charles, thinking the room
+uglier by daylight than it had seemed the night before.</p>
+
+<p>"Always," answered Eugenie, looking at him, "except during the
+vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des
+Noyers."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you ever take walks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine,"
+said Madame Grandet, "we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch
+the haymakers."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a theatre?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play!
+Why, monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?"</p>
+
+<p>"See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here
+are your chickens,--in the shell."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! fresh eggs," said Charles, who, like all people
+accustomed to luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge,
+"that is delicious: now, if you will give me the butter, my good
+girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Butter! then you can't have the <i>galette</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his sippets, with
+as much pleasure as a grisette takes in a melodrama where
+innocence and virtue triumph. Charles, brought up by a charming
+mother, improved, and trained by a woman of fashion, had the
+elegant, dainty, foppish movements of a coxcomb. The
+compassionate sympathy and tenderness of a young girl possess a
+power that is actually magnetic; so that Charles, finding himself
+the object of the attentions of his aunt and cousin, could not
+escape the influence of feelings which flowed towards him, as it
+were, and inundated him. He gave Eugenie a bright, caressing look
+full of kindness,--a look which seemed itself a smile. He
+perceived, as his eyes lingered upon her, the exquisite harmony
+of features in the pure face, the grace of her innocent attitude,
+the magic clearness of the eyes, where young love sparkled and
+desire shone unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my dear cousin, if you were in full dress at the Opera, I
+assure you my aunt's words would come true,--you would make the
+men commit the mortal sin of envy, and the women the sin of
+jealousy."</p>
+
+<p>The compliment went to Eugenie's heart and set it beating,
+though she did not understand its meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! cousin," she said, "you are laughing at a poor little
+country girl."</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew me, my cousin, you would know that I abhor
+ridicule; it withers the heart and jars upon all my feelings."
+Here he swallowed his buttered sippet very gracefully. "No, I
+really have not enough mind to make fun of others; and doubtless
+it is a great defect. In Paris, when they want to disparage a
+man, they say: 'He has a good heart.' The phrase means: 'The poor
+fellow is as stupid as a rhinoceros.' But as I am rich, and known
+to hit the bull's-eye at thirty paces with any kind of pistol,
+and even in the open fields, ridicule respects me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a very pretty ring," said Eugenie; "is there any
+harm in asking to see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles held out his hand after loosening the ring, and
+Eugenie blushed as she touched the pink nails of her cousin with
+the tips of her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship."</p>
+
+<p>"My! there's a lot of gold!" said Nanon, bringing in the
+coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he pointed to
+an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed on the inside, and
+edged with a fringe of ashes, from the bottom of which the
+coffee-grounds were bubbling up and falling in the boiling
+liquid.</p>
+
+<p>"It is boiled coffee," said Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my dear aunt, I shall at least leave one beneficent trace
+of my visit here. You are indeed behind the age! I must teach you
+to make good coffee in a Chaptal coffee-pot."</p>
+
+<p>He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious! if there are so many things as all that to do,"
+said Nanon, "we may as well give up our lives to it. I shall
+never make coffee that way; I know that! Pray, who is to get the
+fodder for the cow while I make the coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will make it," said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Child!" said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The word recalled to their minds the sorrow that was about to
+fall upon the unfortunate young man; the three women were silent,
+and looked at him with an air of commiseration that caught his
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anything the matter, my cousin?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to
+answer; "you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not
+to speak to monsieur--"</p>
+
+<p>"Say Charles," said young Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!" cried
+Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. At this
+moment Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, who had all three been
+thinking with a shudder of the old man's return, heard the knock
+whose echoes they knew but too well.</p>
+
+<p>"There's papa!" said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>She removed the saucer filled with sugar, leaving a few pieces
+on the table-cloth; Nanon carried off the egg-cup; Madame Grandet
+sat up like a frightened hare. It was evidently a panic, which
+amazed Charles, who was wholly unable to understand it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why! what is the matter?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"My father has come," answered Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of that?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen eye upon the
+table, upon Charles, and saw the whole thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! so you have been making a feast for your nephew; very
+good, very good, very good indeed!" he said, without stuttering.
+"When the cat's away, the mice will play."</p>
+
+<p>"Feast!" thought Charles, incapable of suspecting or imagining
+the rules and customs of the household.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me my glass, Nanon," said the master</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie brought the glass. Grandet drew a horn-handled knife
+with a big blade from his breeches' pocket, cut a slice of bread,
+took a small bit of butter, spread it carefully on the bread, and
+ate it standing. At this moment Charlie was sweetening his
+coffee. Pere Grandet saw the bits of sugar, looked at his wife,
+who turned pale, and made three steps forward; he leaned down to
+the poor woman's ear and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get all that sugar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon fetched it from Fessard's; there was none."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to picture the profound interest the three
+women took in this mute scene. Nanon had left her kitchen and
+stood looking into the room to see what would happen. Charles,
+having tasted his coffee, found it bitter and glanced about for
+the sugar, which Grandet had already put away.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" said his uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"The sugar."</p>
+
+<p>"Put in more milk," answered the master of the house; "your
+coffee will taste sweeter."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put away and placed
+it on the table, looking calmly at her father as she did so. Most
+assuredly, the Parisian woman who held a silken ladder with her
+feeble arms to facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no
+greater courage than Eugenie displayed when she replaced the
+sugar upon the table. The lover rewarded his mistress when she
+proudly showed him her beautiful bruised arm, and bathed every
+swollen vein with tears and kisses till it was cured with
+happiness. Charles, on the other hand, never so much as knew the
+secret of the cruel agitation that shook and bruised the heart of
+his cousin, crushed as it was by the look of the old miser.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not eating your breakfast, wife."</p>
+
+<p>The poor helot came forward with a piteous look, cut herself a
+piece of bread, and took a pear. Eugenie boldly offered her
+father some grapes, saying,--</p>
+
+<p>"Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will eat some, will
+you not? I went to get these pretty grapes expressly for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for you,
+nephew. When you have finished, we will go into the garden; I
+have something to tell you which can't be sweetened."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning
+the young man could not mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of my poor
+mother"--at these words his voice softened--"no other sorrow can
+touch me."</p>
+
+<p>"My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to
+try us?" said his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta," said Grandet, "there's your nonsense
+beginning. I am sorry to see those white hands of yours, nephew";
+and he showed the shoulder-of-mutton fists which Nature had put
+at the end of his own arms. "There's a pair of hands made to pick
+up silver pieces. You've been brought up to put your feet in the
+kid out of which we make the purses we keep our money in. A bad
+look-out! Very bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, uncle? I'll be hanged if I understand a
+single word of what you are saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" said Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the
+last of his wine, and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, take courage!"</p>
+
+<p>The tone of the young girl struck terror to Charles's heart,
+and he followed his terrible uncle, a prey to disquieting
+thoughts. Eugenie, her mother, and Nanon went into the kitchen,
+moved by irresistible curiosity to watch the two actors in the
+scene which was about to take place in the garden, where at first
+the uncle walked silently ahead of the nephew. Grandet was not at
+all troubled at having to tell Charles of the death of his
+father; but he did feel a sort of compassion in knowing him to be
+without a penny, and he sought for some phrase or formula by
+which to soften the communication of that cruel truth. "You have
+lost your father," seemed to him a mere nothing to say; fathers
+die before their children. But "you are absolutely without
+means,"-- all the misfortunes of life were summed up in those
+words! Grandet walked round the garden three times, the gravel
+crunching under his heavy step.</p>
+
+<p>In the crucial moments of life our minds fasten upon the
+locality where joys or sorrows overwhelm us. Charles noticed with
+minute attention the box-borders of the little garden, the yellow
+leaves as they fluttered down, the dilapidated walls, the gnarled
+fruit-trees,-- picturesque details which were destined to remain
+forever in his memory, blending eternally, by the mnemonics that
+belong exclusively to the passions, with the recollections of
+this solemn hour.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very fine weather, very warm," said Grandet, drawing a
+long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, uncle; but why--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my lad," answered his uncle, "I have some bad news to
+give you. Your father is ill--"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why am I here?" said Charles. "Nanon," he cried, "order
+post- horses! I can get a carriage somewhere?" he added, turning
+to his uncle, who stood motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Horses and carriages are useless," answered Grandet, looking
+at Charles, who remained silent, his eyes growing fixed. "Yes, my
+poor boy, you guess the truth,--he is dead. But that's nothing;
+there is something worse: he blew out his brains."</p>
+
+<p>"My father!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but that's not the worst; the newspapers are all talking
+about it. Here, read that."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet, who had borrowed the fatal article from Cruchot,
+thrust the paper under his nephew's eyes. The poor young man,
+still a child, still at an age when feelings wear no mask, burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"That's good!" thought Grandet; "his eyes frightened me. He'll
+be all right if he weeps,--That is not the worst, my poor
+nephew," he said aloud, not noticing whether Charles heard him,
+"that is nothing; you will get over it: but--"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!"</p>
+
+<p>"He has ruined you, you haven't a penny."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"</p>
+
+<p>His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and
+reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity,
+wept also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter.
+Charles, without listening further to his uncle, ran through the
+court and up the staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself
+across the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace
+for his lost parents.</p>
+
+<p>"The first burst must have its way," said Grandet, entering
+the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed
+their seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping
+their eyes. "But that young man is good for nothing; his head is
+more taken up with the dead than with his money."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie shuddered as she heard her father's comment on the
+most sacred of all griefs. From that moment she began to judge
+him. Charles's sobs, though muffled, still sounded through the
+sepulchral house; and his deep groans, which seemed to come from
+the earth beneath, only ceased towards evening, after growing
+gradually feebler.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor young man!" said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>Fatal exclamation! Pere Grandet looked at his wife, at
+Eugenie, and at the sugar-bowl. He recollected the extraordinary
+breakfast prepared for the unfortunate youth, and he took a
+position in the middle of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me," he said, with his usual composure. "I hope
+that you will not continue this extravagance, Madame Grandet. I
+don't give you MY money to stuff that young fellow with
+sugar."</p>
+
+<p>"My mother had nothing to do with it," said Eugenie; "it was I
+who--"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it because you are of age," said Grandet, interrupting his
+daughter, "that you choose to contradict me? Remember,
+Eugenie--"</p>
+
+<p>"Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from
+us--"</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" exclaimed the cooper on four chromatic
+tones; "the son of my brother this, my nephew that! Charles is
+nothing at all to us; he hasn't a farthing, his father has
+failed; and when this dandy has cried his fill, off he goes from
+here. I won't have him revolutionize my household."</p>
+
+<p>"What is 'failing,' father?" asked Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"To fail," answered her father, "is to commit the most
+dishonorable action that can disgrace a man."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a great sin," said Madame Grandet, "and our
+brother may be damned."</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, don't begin with your litanies!" said Grandet,
+shrugging his shoulders. "To fail, Eugenie," he resumed, "is to
+commit a theft which the law, unfortunately, takes under its
+protection. People have given their property to Guillaume Grandet
+trusting to his reputation for honor and integrity; he has made
+away with it all, and left them nothing but their eyes to weep
+with. A highway robber is better than a bankrupt: the one attacks
+you and you can defend yourself, he risks his own life; but the
+other--in short, Charles is dishonored."</p>
+
+<p>The words rang in the poor girl's heart and weighed it down
+with their heavy meaning. Upright and delicate as a flower born
+in the depths of a forest, she knew nothing of the world's
+maxims, of its deceitful arguments and specious sophisms; she
+therefore believed the atrocious explanation which her father
+gave her designedly, concealing the distinction which exists
+between an involuntary failure and an intentional one.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, could you not have prevented such a misfortune?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes four
+millions."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a 'million,' father?" she asked, with the simplicity
+of a child which thinks it can find out at once all that it wants
+to know.</p>
+
+<p>"A million?" said Grandet, "why, it is a million pieces of
+twenty sous each, and it takes five twenty sous pieces to make
+five francs."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" cried Eugenie, "how could my uncle possibly have
+had four millions? Is there any one else in France who ever had
+so many millions?" Pere Grandet stroked his chin, smiled, and his
+wen seemed to dilate. "But what will become of my cousin
+Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is going off to the West Indies by his father's request,
+and he will try to make his fortune there."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he got the money to go with?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall pay for his journey as far as--yes, as far as
+Nantes."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie sprang into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, how good you are!"</p>
+
+<p>She kissed him with a warmth that almost made Grandet ashamed
+of himself, for his conscience galled him a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Will it take much time to amass a million?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here!" said the old miser, "you know what a napoleon is?
+Well, it takes fifty thousand napoleons to make a million."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, we must say a great many <i>neuvaines</i> for
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking so," said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way, always spending my money!" cried the father.
+"Do you think there are francs on every bush?"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a muffled cry, more distressing than all the
+others, echoed through the garrets and struck a chill to the
+hearts of Eugenie and her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, go upstairs and see that he does not kill himself,"
+said Grandet. "Now, then," he added, looking at his wife and
+daughter, who had turned pale at his words, "no nonsense, you
+two! I must leave you; I have got to see about the Dutchmen who
+are going away to-day. And then I must find Cruchot, and talk
+with him about all this."</p>
+
+<p>He departed. As soon as he had shut the door Eugenie and her
+mother breathed more freely. Until this morning the young girl
+had never felt constrained in the presence of her father; but for
+the last few hours every moment wrought a change in her feelings
+and ideas.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred and fifty
+francs, sometimes two hundred,--at least, so I've heard say."</p>
+
+<p>"Then papa must be rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me he bought
+Froidfond two years ago; that may have pinched him."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie, not being able to understand the question of her
+father's fortune, stopped short in her calculations.</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't even see me, the darling!" said Nanon, coming back
+from her errand. "He's stretched out like a calf on his bed and
+crying like the Madeleine, and that's a blessing! What's the
+matter with the poor dear young man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go and console him, mamma; if any one knocks, we can
+come down."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet was helpless against the sweet persuasive tones
+of her daughter's voice. Eugenie was sublime: she had become a
+woman. The two, with beating hearts, went up to Charles's room.
+The door was open. The young man heard and saw nothing; plunged
+in grief, he only uttered inarticulate cries.</p>
+
+<p>"How he loves his father!" said Eugenie in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>In the utterance of those words it was impossible to mistake
+the hopes of a heart that, unknown to itself, had suddenly become
+passionate. Madame Grandet cast a mother's look upon her
+daughter, and then whispered in her ear,--</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, you will love him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Love him!" answered Eugenie. "Ah! if you did but know what my
+father said to Monsieur Cruchot."</p>
+
+<p>Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"I have lost my father, my poor father! If he had told me his
+secret troubles we might have worked together to repair them. My
+God! my poor father! I was so sure I should see him again that I
+think I kissed him quite coldly--"</p>
+
+<p>Sobs cut short the words.</p>
+
+<p>"We will pray for him," said Madame Grandet. "Resign yourself
+to the will of God."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," said Eugenie, "take courage! Your loss is
+irreparable; therefore think only of saving your honor."</p>
+
+<p>With the delicate instinct of a woman who intuitively puts her
+mind into all things, even at the moment when she offers
+consolation, Eugenie sought to cheat her cousin's grief by
+turning his thoughts inward upon himself.</p>
+
+<p>"My honor?" exclaimed the young man, tossing aside his hair
+with an impatient gesture as he sat up on his bed and crossed his
+arms. "Ah! that is true. My uncle said my father had failed." He
+uttered a heart- rending cry, and hid his face in his hands.
+"Leave me, leave me, cousin! My God! my God! forgive my father,
+for he must have suffered sorely!"</p>
+
+<p>There was something terribly attractive in the sight of this
+young sorrow, sincere without reasoning or afterthought. It was a
+virgin grief which the simple hearts of Eugenie and her mother
+were fitted to comprehend, and they obeyed the sign Charles made
+them to leave him to himself. They went downstairs in silence and
+took their accustomed places by the window and sewed for nearly
+an hour without exchanging a word. Eugenie had seen in the
+furtive glance that she cast about the young man's room--that
+girlish glance which sees all in the twinkling of an eye--the
+pretty trifles of his dressing-case, his scissors, his razors
+embossed with gold. This gleam of luxury across her cousin's
+grief only made him the more interesting to her, possibly by way
+of contrast. Never before had so serious an event, so dramatic a
+sight, touched the imaginations of these two passive beings,
+hitherto sunk in the stillness and calm of solitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma," said Eugenie, "we must wear mourning for my
+uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father will decide that," answered Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>They relapsed into silence. Eugenie drew her stitches with a
+uniform motion which revealed to an observer the teeming thoughts
+of her meditation. The first desire of the girl's heart was to
+share her cousin's mourning.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>About four o'clock an abrupt knock at the door struck sharply
+on the heart of Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"What can have happened to your father?" she said to her
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet entered joyously. After taking off his gloves, he
+rubbed his hands hard enough to take off their skin as well, if
+his epidermis had not been tanned and cured like Russia
+leather,--saving, of course, the perfume of larch-trees and
+incense. Presently his secret escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wife," he said, without stuttering, "I've trapped them all!
+Our wine is sold! The Dutch and the Belgians have gone. I walked
+about the market-place in front of their inn, pretending to be
+doing nothing. That Belgian fellow--you know who I mean--came up
+to me. The owners of all the good vineyards have kept back their
+vintages, intending to wait; well, I didn't hinder them. The
+Belgian was in despair; I saw that. In a minute the bargain was
+made. He takes my vintage at two hundred francs the puncheon,
+half down. He paid me in gold; the notes are drawn. Here are six
+louis for you. In three months wines will have fallen."</p>
+
+<p>These words, uttered in a quiet tone of voice, were
+nevertheless so bitterly sarcastic that the inhabitants of
+Saumur, grouped at this moment in the market-place and
+overwhelmed by the news of the sale Grandet had just effected,
+would have shuddered had they heard them. Their panic would have
+brought the price of wines down fifty per cent at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, little one."</p>
+
+<p>That term applied to his daughter was the superlative
+expression of the old miser's joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of twenty sous
+each?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, father, you can easily help Charles."</p>
+
+<p>The amazement, the anger, the stupefaction of Belshazzar when
+he saw the <i>Mene-Tekel-Upharsin</i> before his eyes is not to
+be compared with the cold rage of Grandet, who, having forgotten
+his nephew, now found him enshrined in the heart and calculations
+of his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this? Ever since that dandy put foot in MY house
+everything goes wrong! You behave as if you had the right to buy
+sugar-plums and make feasts and weddings. I won't have that sort
+of thing. I hope I know my duty at my time of life! I certainly
+sha'n't take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. I
+shall do for my nephew what it is proper to do, and you have no
+need to poke your nose into it. As for you, Eugenie," he added,
+facing her, "don't speak of this again, or I'll send you to the
+Abbaye des Noyers with Nanon, see if I don't; and no later than
+to-morrow either, if you disobey me! Where is that fellow, has he
+come down yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend," answered Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"What is he doing then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is weeping for his father," said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet looked at his daughter without finding a word to say;
+after all, he was a father. He made a couple of turns up and down
+the room, and then went hurriedly to his secret den to think over
+an investment he was meditating in the public Funds. The thinning
+out of his two thousand acres of forest land had yielded him six
+hundred thousand francs: putting this sum to that derived from
+the sale of his poplars and to his other gains for the last year
+and for the current year, he had amassed a total of nine hundred
+thousand francs, without counting the two hundred thousand he had
+got by the sale just concluded. The twenty per cent which Cruchot
+assured him would gain in a short time from the Funds, then
+quoted at seventy, tempted him. He figured out his calculation on
+the margin of the newspaper which gave the account of his
+brother's death, all the while hearing the moans of his nephew,
+but without listening to them. Nanon came and knocked on the wall
+to summon him to dinner. On the last step of the staircase he was
+saying to himself as he came down,--</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it; I shall get eight per cent interest. In two years
+I shall have fifteen hundred thousand francs, which I will then
+draw out in good gold,--Well, where's my nephew?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says he doesn't want anything to eat," answered Nanon;
+"that's not good for him."</p>
+
+<p>"So much saved," retorted her master.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! he won't cry long. Hunger drives the wolves out of the
+woods."</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was eaten in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"My good friend," said Madame Grandet, when the cloth was
+removed, "we must put on mourning."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Madame Grandet! what will you invent next to
+spend money on? Mourning is in the heart, and not in the
+clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"But mourning for a brother is indispensable; and the Church
+commands us to--"</p>
+
+<p>"Buy your mourning out of your six louis. Give me a hat-band;
+that's enough for me."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven without uttering a word. Her
+generous instincts, slumbering and long repressed but now
+suddenly and for the first time awakened, were galled at every
+turn. The evening passed to all appearance like a thousand other
+evenings of their monotonous life, yet it was certainly the most
+horrible. Eugenie sewed without raising her head, and did not use
+the workbox which Charles had despised the night before. Madame
+Grandet knitted her sleeves. Grandet twirled his thumbs for four
+hours, absorbed in calculations whose results were on the morrow
+to astonish Saumur. No one came to visit the family that day. The
+whole town was ringing with the news of the business trick just
+played by Grandet, the failure of his brother, and the arrival of
+his nephew. Obeying the desire to gossip over their mutual
+interests, all the upper and middle-class wine-growers in Saumur
+met at Monsieur des Grassins, where terrible imprecations were
+being fulminated against the ex-mayor. Nanon was spinning, and
+the whirr of her wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray
+rafters of that silent hall.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't waste our tongues," she said, showing her teeth, as
+large and white as peeled almonds.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing should be wasted," answered Grandet, rousing himself
+from his reverie. He saw a perspective of eight millions in three
+years, and he was sailing along that sheet of gold. "Let us go to
+bed. I will bid my nephew good-night for the rest of you, and see
+if he will take anything."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet remained on the landing of the first storey to
+hear the conversation that was about to take place between the
+goodman and his nephew. Eugenie, bolder than her mother, went up
+two stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, nephew, you are in trouble. Yes, weep, that's natural.
+A father is a father; but we must bear our troubles patiently. I
+am a good uncle to you, remember that. Come, take courage! Will
+you have a little glass of wine?" (Wine costs nothing in Saumur,
+and they offer it as tea is offered in China.) "Why!" added
+Grandet, "you have got no light! That's bad, very bad; you ought
+to see what you are about," and he walked to the chimney-piece.
+"What's this?" he cried. "A wax candle! How the devil did they
+filch a wax candle? The spendthrifts would tear down the ceilings
+of my house to boil the fellow's eggs."</p>
+
+<p>Hearing these words, mother and daughter slipped back into
+their rooms and burrowed in their beds, with the celerity of
+frightened mice getting back to their holes.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Grandet, have you found a mine?" said the man, coming
+into the chamber of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, wait; I am saying my prayers," said the poor
+mother in a trembling voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil take your good God!" growled Grandet in reply.</p>
+
+<p>Misers have no belief in a future life; the present is their
+all in all. This thought casts a terrible light upon our present
+epoch, in which, far more than at any former period, money sways
+the laws and politics and morals. Institutions, books, men, and
+dogmas, all conspire to undermine belief in a future life,--a
+belief upon which the social edifice has rested for eighteen
+hundred years. The grave, as a means of transition, is little
+feared in our day. The future, which once opened to us beyond the
+requiems, has now been imported into the present. To obtain
+<i>per fas et nefas</i> a terrestrial paradise of luxury and
+earthly enjoyment, to harden the heart and macerate the body for
+the sake of fleeting possessions, as the martyrs once suffered
+all things to reach eternal joys, this is now the universal
+thought--a thought written everywhere, even in the very laws
+which ask of the legislator, "What do you pay?" instead of asking
+him, "What do you think?" When this doctrine has passed down from
+the bourgeoisie to the populace, where will this country be?</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Grandet, have you done?" asked the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, I am praying for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good! Good-night; to-morrow morning we will have a
+talk."</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman went to sleep like a schoolboy who, not having
+learned his lessons, knows he will see his master's angry face on
+the morrow. At the moment when, filled with fear, she was drawing
+the sheet above her head that she might stifle hearing, Eugenie,
+in her night-gown and with naked feet, ran to her side and kissed
+her brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! my good mother," she said, "to-morrow I will tell him it
+was I."</p>
+
+<p>"No; he would send you to Noyers. Leave me to manage it; he
+cannot eat me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear, mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> is weeping still."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to bed, my daughter; you will take cold in your feet: the
+floor is damp."</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>Thus passed the solemn day which was destined to weight upon
+the whole life of the rich and poor heiress, whose sleep was
+never again to be so calm, nor yet so pure, as it had been up to
+this moment. It often happens that certain actions of human life
+seem, literally speaking, improbable, though actual. Is not this
+because we constantly omit to turn the stream of psychological
+light upon our impulsive determinations, and fail to explain the
+subtile reasons, mysteriously conceived in our minds, which
+impelled them? Perhaps Eugenie's deep passion should be analyzed
+in its most delicate fibres; for it became, scoffers might say, a
+malady which influenced her whole existence. Many people prefer
+to deny results rather than estimate the force of ties and links
+and bonds, which secretly join one fact to another in the moral
+order. Here, therefore, Eugenie's past life will offer to
+observers of human nature an explanation of her naive want of
+reflection and the suddenness of the emotions which overflowed
+her soul. The more tranquil her life had been, the more vivid was
+her womanly pity, the more simple-minded were the sentiments now
+developed in her soul.</p>
+
+<p>Made restless by the events of the day, she woke at intervals
+to listen to her cousin, thinking she heard the sighs which still
+echoed in her heart. Sometimes she saw him dying of his trouble,
+sometimes she dreamed that he fainted from hunger. Towards
+morning she was certain that she heard a startling cry. She
+dressed at once and ran, in the dawning light, with a swift foot
+to her cousin's chamber, the door of which he had left open. The
+candle had burned down to the socket. Charles, overcome by
+nature, was sleeping, dressed and sitting in an armchair beside
+the bed, on which his head rested; he dreamed as men dream on an
+empty stomach. Eugenie might weep at her ease; she might admire
+the young and handsome face blotted with grief, the eyes swollen
+with weeping, that seemed, sleeping as they were, to well forth
+tears. Charles felt sympathetically the young girl's presence; he
+opened his eyes and saw her pitying him.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, my cousin," he said, evidently not knowing the
+hour nor the place in which he found himself.</p>
+
+<p>"There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and <i>we</i> thought
+you might need something. You should go to bed; you tire yourself
+by sitting thus."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, adieu!"</p>
+
+<p>She escaped, ashamed and happy at having gone there. Innocence
+alone can dare to be so bold. Once enlightened, virtue makes her
+calculations as well as vice. Eugenie, who had not trembled
+beside her cousin, could scarcely stand upon her legs when she
+regained her chamber. Her ignorant life had suddenly come to an
+end; she reasoned, she rebuked herself with many reproaches.</p>
+
+<p>"What will he think of me? He will think that I love him!"</p>
+
+<p>That was what she most wished him to think. An honest love has
+its own prescience, and knows that love begets love. What an
+event for this poor solitary girl thus to have entered the
+chamber of a young man! Are there not thoughts and actions in the
+life of love which to certain souls bear the full meaning of the
+holiest espousals? An hour later she went to her mother and
+dressed her as usual. Then they both came down and sat in their
+places before the window waiting for Grandet, with that cruel
+anxiety which, according to the individual character, freezes the
+heart or warms it, shrivels or dilates it, when a scene is
+feared, a punishment expected,--a feeling so natural that even
+domestic animals possess it, and whine at the slightest pain of
+punishment, though they make no outcry when they inadvertently
+hurt themselves. The goodman came down; but he spoke to his wife
+with an absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table
+without appearing to remember his threats of the night
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better; he won't want a wax candle," said Grandet
+in a jeering tone.</p>
+
+<p>This unusual clemency, this bitter gaiety, struck Madame
+Grandet with amazement, and she looked at her husband
+attentively. The goodman-- here it may be well to explain that in
+Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and Bretagne the word "goodman," already
+used to designate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and
+cruel men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either have
+reached a certain age; the title means nothing on the score of
+individual gentleness--the goodman took his hat and gloves,
+saying as he went out,--</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to loiter about the market-place and find
+Cruchot."</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet, who was a poor sleeper, employed half his nights in
+the preliminary calculations which gave such astonishing accuracy
+to his views and observations and schemes, and secured to them
+the unfailing success at sight of which his townsmen stood
+amazed. All human power is a compound of time and patience.
+Powerful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the
+constant exercise of human power put to the service of self. It
+rests on two sentiments only,--self-love and self- interest; but
+self-interest being to a certain extent compact and intelligent
+self-love, the visible sign of real superiority, it follows that
+self-love and self-interest are two parts of the same
+whole,--egotism. From this arises, perhaps, the excessive
+curiosity shown in the habits of a miser's life whenever they are
+put before the world. Every nature holds by a thread to those
+beings who challenge all human sentiments by concentrating all in
+one passion. Where is the man without desire? and what social
+desire can be satisfied without money?</p>
+
+<p>Grandet unquestionably "had something on his mind," to use his
+wife's expression. There was in him, as in all misers, a
+persistent craving to play a commercial game with other men and
+win their money legally. To impose upon other people was to him a
+sign of power, a perpetual proof that he had won the right to
+despise those feeble beings who suffer themselves to be preyed
+upon in this world. Oh! who has ever truly understood the lamb
+lying peacefully at the feet of God?-- touching emblem of all
+terrestrial victims, myth of their future, suffering and weakness
+glorified! This lamb it is which the miser fattens, puts in his
+fold, slaughters, cooks, eats, and then despises. The pasture of
+misers is compounded of money and disdain. During the night
+Grandet's ideas had taken another course, which was the reason of
+his sudden clemency. He had hatched a plot by which to trick the
+Parisians, to decoy and dupe and snare them, to drive them into a
+trap, and make them go and come and sweat and hope and turn
+pale,--a plot by which to amuse himself, the old provincial
+cooper, sitting there beneath his gloomy rafters, or passing up
+and down the rotten staircase of his house in Saumur. His nephew
+filled his mind. He wished to save the honor of his dead brother
+without the cost of a penny to the son or to himself. His own
+funds he was about to invest for three years; he had therefore
+nothing further to do than to manage his property in Saumur. He
+needed some nutriment for his malicious activity, and he found it
+suddenly in his brother's failure. Feeling nothing to squeeze
+between his own paws, he resolved to crush the Parisians in
+behalf of Charles, and to play the part of a good brother on the
+cheapest terms. The honor of the family counted for so little in
+this scheme that his good intentions might be likened to the
+interest a gambler takes in seeing a game well played in which he
+has no stake. The Cruchots were a necessary part of his plan; but
+he would not seek them,--he resolved to make them come to him,
+and to lead up that very evening to a comedy whose plot he had
+just conceived, which should make him on the morrow an object of
+admiration to the whole town without its costing him a single
+penny.</p>
+
+<p>In her father's absence Eugenie had the happiness of busying
+herself openly with her much-loved cousin, of spending upon him
+fearlessly the treasures of her pity,--woman's sublime
+superiority, the sole she desires to have recognized, the sole
+she pardons man for letting her assume. Three or four times the
+young girl went to listen to her cousin's breathing, to know if
+he were sleeping or awake; then, when he had risen, she turned
+her thoughts to the cream, the eggs, the fruits, the plates, the
+glasses,--all that was a part of his breakfast became the object
+of some special care. At length she ran lightly up the old
+staircase to listen to the noise her cousin made. Was he
+dressing? Did he still weep? She reached the door.</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where you like."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you feel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation, held through the closed door, was like an
+episode in a poem to Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so
+as not to annoy my father."</p>
+
+<p>She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a
+bird.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, go and do his room!"</p>
+
+<p>That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to the
+slightest noise, now lost its decaying aspect in the eyes of
+Eugenie. It grew luminous; it had a voice and spoke to her; it
+was young like herself, --young like the love it was now serving.
+Her mother, her kind, indulgent mother, lent herself to the
+caprices of the child's love, and after the room was put in
+order, both went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him
+company. Does not Christian charity make consolation a duty? The
+two women drew a goodly number of little sophistries from their
+religion wherewith to justify their conduct. Charles was made the
+object of the tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart
+felt the sweetness of the gentle friendship, the exquisite
+sympathy which these two souls, crushed under perpetual
+restraint, knew so well how to display when, for an instant, they
+were left unfettered in the regions of suffering, their natural
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p>Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to fold the
+linen and put in order the toilet articles which Charles had
+brought; thus she could marvel at her ease over each luxurious
+bauble and the various knick-knacks of silver or chased gold,
+which she held long in her hand under a pretext of examining
+them. Charles could not see without emotion the generous interest
+his aunt and cousin felt in him; he knew society in Paris well
+enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, he would find
+all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie thus appeared to him in
+the splendor of a special beauty, and from thenceforth he admired
+the innocence of life and manners which the previous evening he
+had been inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took from Nanon
+the bowl of coffee and cream, and began to pour it out for her
+cousin with the simplicity of real feeling, giving him a kindly
+glance, the eyes of the Parisian filled with tears; he took her
+hand and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"What troubles you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! these are tears of gratitude," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the
+candlesticks.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Nanon, carry them away!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>When she looked again towards her cousin she was still
+blushing, but her looks could at least deceive, and did not
+betray the excess of joy which innundated her heart; yet the eyes
+of both expressed the same sentiment as their souls flowed
+together in one thought,--the future was theirs. This soft
+emotion was all the more precious to Charles in the midst of his
+heavy grief because it was wholly unexpected. The sound of the
+knocker recalled the women to their usual station. Happily they
+were able to run downstairs with sufficient rapidity to be seated
+at their work when Grandet entered; had he met them under the
+archway it would have been enough to rouse his suspicions. After
+breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the keeper from
+Froidfond, to whom the promised indemnity had never yet been
+paid, made his appearance, bearing a hare and some partridges
+shot in the park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the
+millers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is
+all that fit to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed two
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nanon, bestir yourself," said Grandet; "take these
+things, they'll do for dinner. I have invited the two
+Cruchots."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and looked at
+everybody in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" she said, "and how am I to get the lard and the
+spices?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wife," said Grandet, "give Nanon six francs, and remind me to
+get some of the good wine out of the cellar."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, Monsieur Grandet," said the keeper, who had come
+prepared with an harangue for the purpose of settling the
+question of the indemnity, "Monsieur Grandet--"</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet; "I know what you want to say.
+You are a good fellow; we will see about it to-morrow, I'm too
+busy to-day. Wife, give him five francs," he added to Madame
+Grandet as he decamped.</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman was only too happy to buy peace at the cost of
+eleven francs. She knew that Grandet would let her alone for a
+fortnight after he had thus taken back, franc by franc, the money
+he had given her.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Cornoiller," she said, slipping ten francs into the
+man's hand, "some day we will reward your services."</p>
+
+<p>Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," said Nanon, who had put on her black coif and taken
+her basket, "I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it'll
+go fast enough somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down," said
+Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Something very extraordinary is going on, I am certain of
+it," said Madame Grandet. "This is only the third time since our
+marriage that your father has given a dinner."</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>About four o'clock, just as Eugenie and her mother had
+finished setting the table for six persons, and after the master
+of the house had brought up a few bottles of the exquisite wine
+which provincials cherish with true affection, Charles came down
+into the hall. The young fellow was pale; his gestures, the
+expression of his face, his glance, and the tones of his voice,
+all had a sadness which was full of grace. He was not pretending
+grief, he truly suffered; and the veil of pain cast over his
+features gave him an interesting air dear to the heart of women.
+Eugenie loved him the more for it. Perhaps she felt that sorrow
+drew him nearer to her. Charles was no longer the rich and
+distinguished young man placed in a sphere far above her, but a
+relation plunged into frightful misery. Misery begets equality.
+Women have this in common with the angels,--suffering humanity
+belongs to them. Charles and Eugenie understood each other and
+spoke only with their eyes; for the poor fallen dandy, orphaned
+and impoverished, sat apart in a corner of the room, and was
+proudly calm and silent. Yet, from time to time, the gentle and
+caressing glance of the young girl shone upon him and constrained
+him away from his sad thoughts, drawing him with her into the
+fields of hope and of futurity, where she loved to hold him at
+her side.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>At this moment the town of Saumur was more excited about the
+dinner given by Grandet to the Cruchots than it had been the
+night before at the sale of his vintage, though that constituted
+a crime of high- treason against the whole wine-growing
+community. If the politic old miser had given his dinner from the
+same idea that cost the dog of Alcibiades his tail, he might
+perhaps have been called a great man; but the fact is,
+considering himself superior to a community which he could trick
+on all occasions, he paid very little heed to what Saumur might
+say.</p>
+
+<p>The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure and the
+violent death of Guillaume Grandet, and they determined to go to
+their client's house that very evening to commiserate his
+misfortune and show him some marks of friendship, with a view of
+ascertaining the motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots
+to dinner. At precisely five o'clock Monsieur C. de Bonfons and
+his uncle the notary arrived in their Sunday clothes. The party
+sat down to table and began to dine with good appetites. Grandet
+was grave, Charles silent, Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did
+not say more than usual; so that the dinner was, very properly, a
+repast of condolence. When they rose from table Charles said to
+his aunt and uncle,--</p>
+
+<p>"Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a
+long and painful correspondence."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, nephew."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles could hear
+nothing and was probably deep in his letter-writing, he said,
+with a dissimulating glance at his wife,--</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will be Latin to
+you; it is half-past seven; you can go and attend to your
+household accounts. Good-night, my daughter."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. A scene now
+took place in which Pere Grandet brought to bear, more than at
+any other moment of his life, the shrewd dexterity he had
+acquired in his intercourse with men, and which had won him from
+those whose flesh he sometimes bit too sharply the nickname of
+"the old dog." If the mayor of Saumur had carried his ambition
+higher still, if fortunate circumstances, drawing him towards the
+higher social spheres, had sent him into congresses where the
+affairs of nations were discussed, and had he there employed the
+genius with which his personal interests had endowed him, he
+would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his native land.
+Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside of Saumur the
+goodman would have cut a very sorry figure. Possibly there are
+minds like certain animals which cease to breed when transplanted
+from the climates in which they are born.</p>
+
+<p>"M-m-mon-sieur le p-p-president, you said t-t-that
+b-b-bankruptcy--"</p>
+
+<p>The stutter which for years the old miser had assumed when it
+suited him, and which, together with the deafness of which he
+sometimes complained in rainy weather, was thought in Saumur to
+be a natural defect, became at this crisis so wearisome to the
+two Cruchots that while they listened they unconsciously made
+faces and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over
+which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here it may be
+well to give the history of this impediment of the speech and
+hearing of Monsieur Grandet. No one in Anjou heard better, or
+could pronounce more crisply the French language (with an Angevin
+accent) than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite of
+his shrewdness, he had been taken in by an Israelite, who in the
+course of the discussion held his hand behind his ear to catch
+sounds, and mangled his meaning so thoroughly in trying to utter
+his words that Grandet fell a victim to his humanity and was
+compelled to prompt the wily Jew with the words and ideas he
+seemed to seek, to complete himself the arguments of the said
+Jew, to say what that cursed Jew ought to have said for himself;
+in short, to be the Jew instead of being Grandet. When the cooper
+came out of this curious encounter he had concluded the only
+bargain of which in the course of a long commercial life he ever
+had occasion to complain. But if he lost at the time pecuniarily,
+he gained morally a valuable lesson; later, he gathered its
+fruits. Indeed, the goodman ended by blessing that Jew for having
+taught him the art of irritating his commercial antagonist and
+leading him to forget his own thoughts in his impatience to
+suggest those over which his tormentor was stuttering. No affair
+had ever needed the assistance of deafness, impediments of
+speech, and all the incomprehensible circumlocutions with which
+Grandet enveloped his ideas, as much as the affair now in hand.
+In the first place, he did not mean to shoulder the
+responsibility of his own scheme; in the next, he was determined
+to remain master of the conversation and to leave his real
+intentions in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"M-m-monsieur de B-B-Bonfons,"--for the second time in three
+years Grandet called the Cruchot nephew Monsieur de Bonfons; the
+president felt he might consider himself the artful old fellow's
+son-in-law,-- "you-ou said th-th-that b-b-bankruptcy c-c-could,
+in some c-c-cases, b-b-be p-p-prevented b-b-by--"</p>
+
+<p>"By the courts of commerce themselves. It is done constantly,"
+said Monsieur C. de Bonfons, bestriding Grandet's meaning, or
+thinking he guessed it, and kindly wishing to help him out with
+it. "Listen."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes," said Grandet humbly, with the mischievous expression
+of a boy who is inwardly laughing at his teacher while he pays
+him the greatest attention.</p>
+
+<p>"When a man so respected and important as, for example, your
+late brother--"</p>
+
+<p>"M-my b-b-brother, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"--is threatened with insolvency--"</p>
+
+<p>"They c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; when his failure is imminent, the court of commerce, to
+which he is amenable (please follow me attentively), has the
+power, by a decree, to appoint a receiver. Liquidation, you
+understand, is not the same as failure. When a man fails, he is
+dishonored; but when he merely liquidates, he remains an honest
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"T-t-that's very d-d-different, if it d-d-doesn't c-c-cost
+m-m-more," said Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"But a liquidation can be managed without having recourse to
+the courts at all. For," said the president, sniffing a pinch of
+snuff, "don't you know how failures are declared?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought," answered Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," resumed the magistrate, "by filing the
+schedule in the record office of the court, which the merchant
+may do himself, or his representative for him with a power of
+attorney duly certified. In the second place, the failure may be
+declared under compulsion from the creditors. Now if the merchant
+does not file his schedule, and if no creditor appears before the
+courts to obtain a decree of insolvency against the merchant,
+what happens?"</p>
+
+<p>"W-w-what h-h-happens?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the family of the deceased, his representatives, his
+heirs, or the merchant himself, if he is not dead, or his friends
+if he is only hiding, liquidate his business. Perhaps you would
+like to liquidate your brother's affairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Grandet," said the notary, "that would be the right thing
+to do. There is honor down here in the provinces. If you save
+your name--for it is your name--you will be a man--"</p>
+
+<p>"A noble man!" cried the president, interrupting his
+uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered the old man, "my b-b-brother's name was
+G-G-Grandet, like m-m-mine. Th-that's c-c-certain; I d-d-don't
+d-d-deny it. And th-th-this l-l-liquidation might be, in m-m-many
+ways, v-v-very advan-t-t-tageous t-t-to the interests of m-m-my
+n-n-nephew, whom I l-l-love. But I must consider. I don't
+k-k-know the t-t-tricks of P-P-Paris. I b-b-belong to Sau-m-mur,
+d-d-don't you see? M-m-my vines, my d-d-drains--in short, I've my
+own b-b-business. I never g-g-give n-n-notes. What are n-n-notes?
+I t-t-take a good m-m-many, but I have never s-s-signed one. I
+d-d-don't understand such things. I have h-h-heard say that
+n-n-notes c-c-can be b-b-bought up."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said the president. "Notes can be bought in the
+market, less so much per cent. Don't you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Grandet made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and the president
+repeated his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," replied the man, "there's s-s-something to be
+g-g-got out of it? I k-know n-nothing at my age about such
+th-th-things. I l-l-live here and l-l-look after the v-v-vines.
+The vines g-g-grow, and it's the w-w-wine that p-p-pays. L-l-look
+after the v-v-vintage, t-t-that's my r-r-rule. My c-c-chief
+interests are at Froidfond. I c-c-can't l-l-leave my h-h-house to
+m-m-muddle myself with a d-d-devilish b-b-business I kn-know
+n-n-nothing about. You say I ought to l-l-liquidate my
+b-b-brother's af-f-fairs, to p-p-prevent the f-f-failure. I
+c-c-can't be in two p-p-places at once, unless I were a little
+b-b-bird, and--"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," cried the notary. "Well, my old friend, you
+have friends, old friends, capable of devoting themselves to your
+interests."</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" thought Grandet, "make haste and come to the
+point!"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your brother
+Guillaume's chief creditor and said to him--"</p>
+
+<p>"One m-m-moment," interrupted the goodman, "said wh-wh-what?
+Something l-l-like this. Monsieur Gr-Grandet of Saumur this,
+Monsieur Grandet of Saumur that. He l-loves his b-b-brother, he
+loves his n-nephew. Grandet is a g-g-good uncle; he m-m-means
+well. He has sold his v-v-vintage. D-d-don't declare a
+f-f-failure; c-c-call a meeting; l-l-liquidate; and then
+Gr-Gr-Grandet will see what he c-c-can do. B-b-better liquidate
+than l-let the l-l-law st-st-stick its n-n-nose in. Hein? isn't
+it so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so," said the president.</p>
+
+<p>"B-because, don't you see, Monsieur de B-Bonfons, a man must
+l-l-look b-b-before he l-leaps. If you c-c-can't, you c-c-can't.
+M-m-must know all about the m-m-matter, all the resources and the
+debts, if you d-d-don't want to be r-r-ruined. Hein? isn't it
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said the president. "I'm of opinion that in a few
+months the debts might be bought up for a certain sum, and then
+paid in full by an agreement. Ha! ha! you can coax a dog a long
+way if you show him a bit of lard. If there has been no
+declaration of failure, and you hold a lien on the debts, you
+come out of the business as white as the driven snow."</p>
+
+<p>"Sn-n-now," said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear,
+"wh-wh-what about s-now?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried the president, "do pray attend to what I am
+saying."</p>
+
+<p>"I am at-t-tending."</p>
+
+<p>"A note is merchandise,--an article of barter which rises and
+falls in prices. That is a deduction from Jeremy Bentham's theory
+about usury. That writer has proved that the prejudice which
+condemned usurers to reprobation was mere folly."</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" ejaculated the goodman.</p>
+
+<p>"Allowing that money, according to Bentham, is an article of
+merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally
+merchandise," resumed the president; "allowing also that it is
+notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that
+signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values,
+rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth
+nothing at another, the courts decide--ah! how stupid I am, I beg
+your pardon--I am inclined to think you could buy up your
+brother's debts for twenty- five per cent."</p>
+
+<p>"D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jeremy B-Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bentham, an Englishman.'</p>
+
+<p>"That's a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamentations in
+business," said the notary, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Those Englishmen s-sometimes t-t-talk sense," said Grandet.
+"So, ac-c-cording to Ben-Bentham, if my b-b-brother's n-notes are
+worth n-n-nothing; if Je-Je--I'm c-c-correct, am I not? That
+seems c-c-clear to my m-m-mind--the c-c-creditors would be--No,
+would not be; I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me explain it all," said the president. "Legally, if you
+acquire a title to all the debts of the Maison Grandet, your
+brother or his heirs will owe nothing to any one. Very good."</p>
+
+<p>"Very g-good," repeated Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"In equity, if your brother's notes are
+negotiated--negotiated, do you clearly understand the
+term?--negotiated in the market at a reduction of so much per
+cent in value, and if one of your friends happening to be present
+should buy them in, the creditors having sold them of their own
+free-will without constraint, the estate of the late Grandet is
+honorably released."</p>
+
+<p>"That's t-true; b-b-business is b-business," said the cooper.
+"B-b-but, st-still, you know, it is d-d-difficult. I h-have n-no
+m-m-money and n-no t-t-time."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you need not undertake it. I am quite ready to go to
+Paris (you may pay my expenses, they will only be a trifle). I
+will see the creditors and talk with them and get an extension of
+time, and everything can be arranged if you will add something to
+the assets so as to buy up all title to the debts."</p>
+
+<p>"We-we'll see about th-that. I c-c-can't and I w-w-won't bind
+myself without--He who c-c-can't, can't; don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's very true."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all p-p-put ab-b-bout by what you've t-t-told me. This is
+the f-first t-t-time in my life I have b-been obliged to
+th-th-think--"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are not a lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only a p-p-poor wine-g-grower, and know n-nothing about
+wh-what you have just t-told me; I m-m-must th-think about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said the president, preparing to resume his
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>"Nephew!" said the notary, interrupting him in a warning
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what, uncle?" answered the president.</p>
+
+<p>"Let Monsieur Grandet explain his own intentions. The matter
+in question is of the first importance. Our good friend ought to
+define his meaning clearly, and--"</p>
+
+<p>A loud knock, which announced the arrival of the des Grassins
+family, succeeded by their entrance and salutations, hindered
+Cruchot from concluding his sentence. The notary was glad of the
+interruption, for Grandet was beginning to look suspiciously at
+him, and the wen gave signs of a brewing storm. In the first
+place, the notary did not think it becoming in a president of the
+Civil courts to go to Paris and manipulate creditors and lend
+himself to an underhand job which clashed with the laws of strict
+integrity; moreover, never having known old Grandet to express
+the slightest desire to pay anything, no matter what, he
+instinctively feared to see his nephew taking part in the affair.
+He therefore profited by the entrance of the des Grassins to take
+the nephew by the arm and lead him into the embrasure of the
+window,--</p>
+
+<p>"You have said enough, nephew; you've shown enough devotion.
+Your desire to win the girl blinds you. The devil! you mustn't go
+at it tooth and nail. Let me sail the ship now; you can haul on
+the braces. Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as a
+magistrate in such a--"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins saying to the
+old cooper as they shook hands,--</p>
+
+<p>"Grandet, we have heard of the frightful misfortunes which
+have just befallen your family,--the failure of the house of
+Guillaume Grandet and the death of your brother. We have come to
+express our grief at these sad events."</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one sad event," said the notary, interrupting
+the banker,--"the death of Monsieur Grandet, junior; and he would
+never have killed himself had he thought in time of applying to
+his brother for help. Our old friend, who is honorable to his
+finger-nails, intends to liquidate the debts of the Maison
+Grandet of Paris. To save him the worry of legal proceedings, my
+nephew, the president, has just offered to go to Paris and
+negotiate with the creditors for a satisfactory settlement."</p>
+
+<p>These words, corroborated by Grandet's attitude as he stood
+silently nursing his chin, astonished the three des Grassins, who
+had been leisurely discussing the old man's avarice as they came
+along, very nearly accusing him of fratricide.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I was sure of it," cried the banker, looking at his wife.
+"What did I tell you just now, Madame des Grassins? Grandet is
+honorable to the backbone, and would never allow his name to
+remain under the slightest cloud! Money without honor is a
+disease. There is honor in the provinces! Right, very right,
+Grandet. I'm an old soldier, and I can't disguise my thoughts; I
+speak roughly. Thunder! it is sublime!"</p>
+
+<p>"Th-then s-s-sublime th-things c-c-cost d-dear," answered the
+goodman, as the banker warmly wrung his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"But this, my dear Grandet,--if the president will excuse
+me,--is a purely commercial matter, and needs a consummate
+business man. Your agent must be some one fully acquainted with
+the markets,--with disbursements, rebates, interest calculations,
+and so forth. I am going to Paris on business of my own, and I
+can take charge of--"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see about t-t-trying to m-m-manage it b-b-between us,
+under the p-p-peculiar c-c-circumstances, b-b-but without
+b-b-binding m-m-myself to anything th-that I c-c-could not do,"
+said Grandet, stuttering; "because, you see, monsieur le
+president naturally expects me to pay the expenses of his
+journey."</p>
+
+<p>The goodman did not stammer over the last words.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" cried Madame des Grassins, "why it is a pleasure to go
+to Paris. I would willingly pay to go myself."</p>
+
+<p>She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage him in
+cutting the enemy out of the commission, <i>coute que coute</i>;
+then she glanced ironically at the two Cruchots, who looked
+chap-fallen. Grandet seized the banker by a button and drew him
+into a corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a great deal more confidence in you than in the
+president," he said; "besides, I've other fish to fry," he added,
+wriggling his wen. "I want to buy a few thousand francs in the
+Funds while they are at eighty. They fall, I'm told, at the end
+of each month. You know all about these things, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me! then, am I to invest enough to give you a few
+thousand francs a year?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's not much to begin with. Hush! I don't want any one to
+know I am going to play that game. You can make the investment by
+the end of the month. Say nothing to the Cruchots; that'll annoy
+them. If you are really going to Paris, we will see if there is
+anything to be done for my poor nephew."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's all settled. I'll start to-morrow by the
+mail-post," said des Grassins aloud, "and I will come and take
+your last directions at --what hour will suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five o'clock, just before dinner," said Grandet, rubbing his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said,
+after a pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder,--</p>
+
+<p>"It is a good thing to have a relation like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; without making a show," said Grandet, "I am a
+g-good relation. I loved my brother, and I will prove it, unless
+it c-c-costs--"</p>
+
+<p>"We must leave you, Grandet," said the banker, interrupting
+him fortunately before he got to the end of his sentence. "If I
+hurry my departure, I must attend to some matters at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, very good! I myself--in c-consequence of what I
+t-told you --I must retire to my own room and 'd-d-deliberate,'
+as President Cruchot says."</p>
+
+<p>"Plague take him! I am no longer Monsieur de Bonfons," thought
+the magistrate ruefully, his face assuming the expression of a
+judge bored by an argument.</p>
+
+<p>The heads of the two factions walked off together. Neither
+gave any further thought to the treachery Grandet had been guilty
+of in the morning against the whole wine-growing community; each
+tried to fathom what the other was thinking about the real
+intentions of the wily old man in this new affair, but in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval's?" said des Grassins
+to the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"We will go there later," answered the president. "I have
+promised to say good-evening to Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt, and
+we will go there first, if my uncle is willing."</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell for the present!" said Madame des Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to
+his father,--</p>
+
+<p>"Are not they fuming, hein?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue, my son!" said his mother; "they might hear
+you. Besides, what you say is not in good taste,--law-school
+language."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, uncle," cried the president when he saw the des
+Grassins disappearing, "I began by being de Bonfons, and I have
+ended as nothing but Cruchot."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw that that annoyed you; but the wind has set fair for
+the des Grassins. What a fool you are, with all your cleverness!
+Let them sail off on Grandet's 'We'll see about it,' and keep
+yourself quiet, young man. Eugenie will none the less be your
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the news of Grandet's magnanimous resolve was
+disseminated in three houses at the same moment, and the whole
+town began to talk of his fraternal devotion. Every one forgave
+Grandet for the sale made in defiance of the good faith pledged
+to the community; they admired his sense of honor, and began to
+laud a generosity of which they had never thought him capable. It
+is part of the French nature to grow enthusiastic, or angry, or
+fervent about some meteor of the moment. Can it be that
+collective beings, nationalities, peoples, are devoid of
+memory?</p>
+
+<p>When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let the dog loose, and don't go to bed; we have work to
+do together. At eleven o'clock Cornoiller will be at the door
+with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his
+knocking; tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don't
+allow nocturnal racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not
+know that I am starting on a journey."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Grandet returned to his private room, where Nanon
+heard him moving about, rummaging, and walking to and fro, though
+with much precaution, for he evidently did not wish to wake his
+wife and daughter, and above all not to rouse the attention of
+his nephew, whom he had begun to anathematize when he saw a
+thread of light under his door. About the middle of the night
+Eugenie, intent on her cousin, fancied she heard a cry like that
+of a dying person. It must be Charles, she thought; he was so
+pale, so full of despair when she had seen him last,--could he
+have killed himself? She wrapped herself quickly in a loose
+garment,--a sort of pelisse with a hood,--and was about to leave
+the room when a bright light coming through the chinks of her
+door made her think of fire. But she recovered herself as she
+heard Nanon's heavy steps and gruff voice mingling with the
+snorting of several horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Can my father be carrying off my cousin?" she said to
+herself, opening her door with great precaution lest it should
+creak, and yet enough to let her see into the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly her eye encountered that of her father; and his
+glance, vague and unnoticing as it was, terrified her. The
+goodman and Nanon were yoked together by a stout stick, each end
+of which rested on their shoulders; a stout rope was passed over
+it, on which was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere
+Grandet still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his
+leisure hours.</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!" said the voice of Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity that it is only copper sous!" answered Grandet.
+"Take care you don't knock over the candlestick."</p>
+
+<p>The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two
+rails of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Cornoiller," said Grandet to his keeper <i>in partibus</i>,
+"have you brought your pistols?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, monsieur. Mercy! what's there to fear for your copper
+sous?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, we shall go fast," added the man; "your farmers have
+picked out their best horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know where."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Is the carriage strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand
+weight. How much does that old keg weigh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!" exclaimed Nanon. "I ought to know! There's pretty
+nigh eighteen hundred--"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I
+have gone into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive
+fast, Cornoiller; I must get to Angers before nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose
+the dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in
+the neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or
+the object of his journey. The precautions of the old miser and
+his reticence were never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in
+that house, filled as it was with gold. Hearing in the morning,
+through the gossip of the port, that exchange on gold had doubled
+in price in consequence of certain military preparations
+undertaken at Nantes, and that speculators had arrived at Angers
+to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by the simple process of
+borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling
+his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury notes the
+sum he intended to put into the Funds, having swelled it
+considerably by the exchange.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>"My father has gone," thought Eugenie, who heard all that took
+place from the head of the stairs. Silence was restored in the
+house, and the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by
+degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this
+moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her
+ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her
+cousin's chamber. A line of light, thin as the blade of a sabre,
+shone through a chink in the door and fell horizontally on the
+balusters of the rotten staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"He suffers!" she said, springing up the stairs. A second moan
+brought her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she
+pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side
+of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen,
+nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the
+strained posture suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the
+room hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be very tired," she said to herself, glancing at a
+dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their
+addresses: "To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, &amp; Co.,
+carriage-makers"; "To Monsieur Buisson, tailor," etc.</p>
+
+<p>"He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France
+at once," she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The
+words, "My dear Annette," at the head of one of them, blinded her
+for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does
+he say to her?"</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the
+words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I
+ought to go away--What if I do read it?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and
+placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a
+child which, though asleep, knows its mother's touch and
+receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful care. Like a
+mother Eugenie raised the drooping hand, and like a mother she
+gently kissed the chestnut hair-- "Dear Annette!" a demon
+shrieked the words in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter," she said.
+She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached
+her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled
+together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to
+blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she
+read each sentence her heart swelled more and more, and the keen
+glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of
+first love still more precious.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Annette,--Nothing could ever have separated us but the
+great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human
+foresight could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his
+fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age
+when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and
+yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am
+plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my position.
+If I wish to leave France an honest man,--and there is no doubt
+of that,--I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try
+my fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must
+seek my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they
+tell me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I
+cannot do so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the
+affronts, the neglect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son
+of a bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be
+killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return
+there. Your love--the most tender and devoted love which ever
+ennobled the heart of man--cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved,
+I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a
+last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I
+will give it to him," thought Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.</p>
+
+<p>I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have the
+hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, I have
+not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hundred louis,
+not even one louis. I don't know that anything will be left after
+I have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go
+quietly to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin
+in the new world like other men who have started young without a
+sou and brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long
+day I have faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me
+than for another, because I have been so petted by a mother who
+adored me, so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by
+meeting, on my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The
+flowers of life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could
+not last. Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than
+a careless young man is supposed to feel,--above all a young man
+used to the caressing ways of the dearest woman in all Paris,
+cradled in family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home,
+whose wishes were a law to his father--oh, my father! Annette, he
+is dead!</p>
+
+<p>Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I
+have grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to
+keep me with you in Paris you were to sacrifice your luxury, your
+dress, your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for
+the expenses of my extravagant ways of living. Besides, I would
+never accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and
+forever--</p>
+
+<p>"He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a
+chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, he did not wake,
+and she resumed her reading.</p>
+
+<p>When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West
+Indies ages a European, so they say; especially a European who
+works hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten
+years your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion,
+your spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps
+more cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment
+and ingratitude of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep
+in the depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of
+four years of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the
+memory of your poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness,
+because, do you see, dear Annette, I must conform to the
+exigencies of my new life; I must take a commonplace view of them
+and do the best I can. Therefore I must think of marriage, which
+becomes one of the necessities of my future existence; and I will
+admit to you that I have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle's
+house, a cousin whose face, manners, mind, and heart would please
+you, and who, besides, seems to me--</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her,"
+thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped
+abruptly in the middle of the last sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent
+girl should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter?
+To young girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant
+and pure, all is love from the moment they set their feet within
+the enchanted regions of that passion. They walk there bathed in
+a celestial light shed from their own souls, which reflects its
+rays upon their lover; they color all with the flame of their own
+emotion and attribute to him their highest thoughts. A woman's
+errors come almost always from her belief in good or her
+confidence in truth. In Eugenie's simple heart the words, "My
+dear Annette, my loved one," echoed like the sweetest language of
+love; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes
+of the <i>Venite adoremus</i>, repeated by the organ, caressed
+her ear. Moreover, the tears which still lingered on the young
+man's lashes gave signs of that nobility of heart by which young
+girls are rightly won. How could she know that Charles, though he
+loved his father and mourned him truly, was moved far more by
+paternal goodness than by the goodness of his own heart? Monsieur
+and Madame Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their
+son, and lavishing upon him the pleasures of a large fortune, had
+kept him from making the horrible calculations of which so many
+sons in Paris become more or less guilty when, face to face with
+the enjoyments of the world, they form desires and conceive
+schemes which they see with bitterness must be put off or laid
+aside during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of the
+father in this instance had shed into the heart of the son a real
+love, in which there was no afterthought of self-interest.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Charles was a true child of Paris, taught by the
+customs of society and by Annette herself to calculate
+everything; already an old man under the mask of youth. He had
+gone through the frightful education of social life, of that
+world where in one evening more crimes are committed in thought
+and speech than justice ever punishes at the assizes; where jests
+and clever sayings assassinate the noblest ideas; where no one is
+counted strong unless his mind sees clear: and to see clear in
+that world is to believe in nothing, neither in feelings, nor in
+men, nor even in events,--for events are falsified. There, to
+"see clear" we must weigh a friend's purse daily, learn how to
+keep ourselves adroitly on the top of the wave, cautiously admire
+nothing, neither works of art nor glorious actions, and remember
+that self-interest is the mainspring of all things here below.
+After committing many follies, the great lady--the beautiful
+Annette-- compelled Charles to think seriously; with her perfumed
+hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future position;
+as she rearranged his locks, she taught him lessons of worldly
+prudence; she made him effeminate and materialized him,--a double
+corruption, but a delicate and elegant corruption, in the best
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very foolish, Charles," she would say to him. "I
+shall have a great deal of trouble in teaching you to understand
+the world. You behaved extremely ill to Monsieur des Lupeaulx. I
+know very well he is not an honorable man; but wait till he is no
+longer in power, then you may despise him as much as you like. Do
+you know what Madame Campan used to tell us?--'My dears, as long
+as a man is a minister, adore him; when he falls, help to drag
+him in the gutter. Powerful, he is a sort of god; fallen, he is
+lower than Marat in the sewer, because he is living, and Marat is
+dead. Life is a series of combinations, and you must study them
+and understand them if you want to keep yourselves always in good
+position.'"</p>
+
+<p>Charles was too much a man of the world, his parents had made
+him too happy, he had received too much adulation in society, to
+be possessed of noble sentiments. The grain of gold dropped by
+his mother into his heart was beaten thin in the smithy of
+Parisian society; he had spread it superficially, and it was worn
+away by the friction of life. Charles was only twenty-one years
+old. At that age the freshness of youth seems inseparable from
+candor and sincerity of soul. The voice, the glance, the face
+itself, seem in harmony with the feelings; and thus it happens
+that the sternest judge, the most sceptical lawyer, the least
+complying of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude of
+heart or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes are
+still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the brow. Charles, so
+far, had had no occasion to apply the maxims of Parisian
+morality; up to this time he was still endowed with the beauty of
+inexperience. And yet, unknown to himself, he had been inoculated
+with selfishness. The germs of Parisian political economy, latent
+in his heart, would assuredly burst forth, sooner or later,
+whenever the careless spectator became an actor in the drama of
+real life.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all young girls succumb to the tender promises such an
+outward appearance seems to offer: even if Eugenie had been as
+prudent and observing as provincial girls are often found to be,
+she was not likely to distrust her cousin when his manners,
+words, and actions were still in unison with the aspirations of a
+youthful heart. A mere chance--a fatal chance--threw in her way
+the last effusions of real feeling which stirred the young man's
+soul; she heard as it were the last breathings of his conscience.
+She laid down the letter--to her so full of love--and began
+smilingly to watch her sleeping cousin; the fresh illusions of
+life were still, for her at least, upon his face; she vowed to
+herself to love him always. Then she cast her eyes on the other
+letter, without attaching much importance to this second
+indiscretion; and though she read it, it was only to obtain new
+proofs of the noble qualities which, like all women, she
+attributed to the man her heart had chosen.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Alphonse,--When you receive this letter I shall be
+without friends; but let me assure you that while I doubt the
+friendship of the world, I have never doubted yours. I beg you
+therefore to settle all my affairs, and I trust to you to get as
+much as you can out of my possessions. By this time you know my
+situation. I have nothing left, and I intend to go at once to the
+Indies. I have just written to all the people to whom I think I
+owe money, and you will find enclosed a list of their names, as
+correct as I can make it from memory. My books, my furniture, my
+pictures, my horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do
+not wish to keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles which
+might serve as the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. My
+dear Alphonse, I will send you a proper power of attorney under
+which you can make these sales. Send me all my weapons. Keep
+Briton for yourself; nobody would pay the value of that noble
+beast, and I would rather give him to you--like a mourning-ring
+bequeathed by a dying man to his executor. Farry, Breilmann,
+&amp; Co. built me a very comfortable travelling-carriage, which
+they have not yet delivered; persuade them to keep it and not ask
+for any payment on it. If they refuse, do what you can in the
+matter, and avoid everything that might seem dishonorable in me
+under my present circumstances. I owe the British Islander six
+louis, which I lost at cards; don't fail to pay him--</p>
+
+<p>"Dear cousin!" whispered Eugenie, throwing down the letter and
+running softly back to her room, carrying one of the lighted
+candles. A thrill of pleasure passed over her as she opened the
+drawer of an old oak cabinet, a fine specimen of the period
+called the Renaissance, on which could still be seen, partly
+effaced, the famous royal salamander. She took from the drawer a
+large purse of red velvet with gold tassels, edged with a
+tarnished fringe of gold wire,--a relic inherited from her
+grandmother. She weighed it proudly in her hand, and began with
+delight to count over the forgotten items of her little hoard.
+First she took out twenty <i>portugaises</i>, still new, struck
+in the reign of John V., 1725, worth by exchange, as her father
+told her, five <i>lisbonnines</i>, or a hundred and sixty-eight
+francs, sixty-four centimes each; their conventional value,
+however, was a hundred and eighty francs apiece, on account of
+the rarity and beauty of the coins, which shone like little suns.
+Item, five <i>genovines</i>, or five hundred-franc pieces of
+Genoa; another very rare coin worth eighty- seven francs on
+exchange, but a hundred francs to collectors. These had formerly
+belonged to old Monsieur de la Bertelliere. Item, three gold
+<i>quadruples</i>, Spanish, of Philip V., struck in 1729, given
+to her one by one by Madame Gentillet, who never failed to say,
+using the same words, when she made the gift, "This dear little
+canary, this little yellow-boy, is worth ninety-eight francs!
+Keep it, my pretty one, it will be the flower of your treasure."
+Item (that which her father valued most of all, the gold of these
+coins being twenty-three carats and a fraction), a hundred Dutch
+ducats, made in the year 1756, and worth thirteen francs apiece.
+Item, a great curiosity, a species of medal precious to the soul
+of misers,--three rupees with the sign of the Scales, and five
+rupees with the sign of the Virgin, all in pure gold of
+twenty-four carats; the magnificent money of the Great Mogul,
+each of which was worth by mere weight thirty-seven francs, forty
+centimes, but at least fifty francs to those connoisseurs who
+love to handle gold. Item, the napoleon of forty francs received
+the day before, which she had forgotten to put away in the velvet
+purse. This treasure was all in virgin coins, true works of art,
+which Grandet from time to time inquired after and asked to see,
+pointing out to his daughter their intrinsic merits,--such as the
+beauty of the milled edge, the clearness of the flat surface, the
+richness of the lettering, whose angles were not yet rubbed
+off.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie gave no thought to these rarities, nor to her father's
+mania for them, nor to the danger she incurred in depriving
+herself of a treasure so dear to him; no, she thought only of her
+cousin, and soon made out, after a few mistakes of calculation,
+that she possessed about five thousand eight hundred francs in
+actual value, which might be sold for their additional value to
+collectors for nearly six thousand. She looked at her wealth and
+clapped her hands like a happy child forced to spend its
+overflowing joy in artless movements of the body. Father and
+daughter had each counted up their fortune this night,--he, to
+sell his gold; Eugenie to fling hers into the ocean of affection.
+She put the pieces back into the old purse, took it in her hand,
+and ran upstairs without hesitation. The secret misery of her
+cousin made her forget the hour and conventional propriety; she
+was strong in her conscience, in her devotion, in her
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>As she stood upon the threshold of the door, holding the
+candle in one hand and the purse in the other, Charles woke,
+caught sight of her, and remained speechless with surprise.
+Eugenie came forward, put the candle on the table, and said in a
+quivering voice:</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, I must beg pardon for a wrong I have done you; but
+God will pardon me--if you--will help me to wipe it out."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I have read those letters."</p>
+
+<p>Charles colored.</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen?" she continued; "how came I here? Truly, I
+do not know. I am tempted not to regret too much that I have read
+them; they have made me know your heart, your soul, and--"</p>
+
+<p>"And what?" asked Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Your plans, your need of a sum--"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear cousin--"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush! my cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others.
+See," she said, opening her purse, "here are the savings of a
+poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I
+was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It
+is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can
+surely borrow the purse of your sister."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie, as much a woman as a young girl, never dreamed of
+refusal; but her cousin remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you will not refuse?" cried Eugenie, the beatings of
+whose heart could be heard in the deep silence.</p>
+
+<p>Her cousin's hesitation mortified her; but the sore need of
+his position came clearer still to her mind, and she knelt
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"I will never rise till you have taken that gold!" she said.
+"My cousin, I implore you, answer me! let me know if you respect
+me, if you are generous, if--"</p>
+
+<p>As he heard this cry of noble distress the young man's tears
+fell upon his cousin's hands, which he had caught in his own to
+keep her from kneeling. As the warm tears touched her, Eugenie
+sprang to the purse and poured its contents upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! yes, yes, you consent?" she said, weeping with joy. "Fear
+nothing, my cousin, you will be rich. This gold will bring you
+happiness; some day you shall bring it back to me,--are we not
+partners? I will obey all conditions. But you should not attach
+such value to the gift."</p>
+
+<p>Charles was at last able to express his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Eugenie; my soul would be small indeed if I did not
+accept. And yet,--gift for gift, confidence for confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she said, frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, dear cousin; I have here--" He interrupted himself to
+point out a square box covered with an outer case of leather
+which was on the drawers. "There," he continued, "is something as
+precious to me as life itself. This box was a present from my
+mother. All day I have been thinking that if she could rise from
+her grave, she would herself sell the gold which her love for me
+lavished on this dressing-case; but were I to do so, the act
+would seem to me a sacrilege." Eugenie pressed his hand as she
+heard these last words. "No," he added, after a slight pause,
+during which a liquid glance of tenderness passed between them,
+"no, I will neither sell it nor risk its safety on my journey.
+Dear Eugenie, you shall be its guardian. Never did friend commit
+anything more sacred to another. Let me show it to you."</p>
+
+<p>He went to the box, took it from its outer coverings, opened
+it, and showed his delighted cousin a dressing-case where the
+rich workmanship gave to the gold ornaments a value far above
+their weight.</p>
+
+<p>"What you admire there is nothing," he said, pushing a secret
+spring which opened a hidden drawer. "Here is something which to
+me is worth the whole world." He drew out two portraits,
+masterpieces of Madame Mirbel, richly set with pearls.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote
+that--"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, smiling; "this is my mother, and here is my
+father, your aunt and uncle. Eugenie, I beg you on my knees, keep
+my treasure safely. If I die and your little fortune is lost,
+this gold and these pearls will repay you. To you alone could I
+leave these portraits; you are worthy to keep them. But destroy
+them at last, so that they may pass into no other hands." Eugenie
+was silent. "Ah, yes, say yes! You consent?" he added with
+winning grace.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing the very words she had just used to her cousin now
+addressed to herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her
+first look of loving womanhood,--a glance in which there is
+nearly as much of coquetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand
+and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Angel of purity! between us two money is nothing, never can
+be anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be all henceforth."</p>
+
+<p>"You are like your mother,--was her voice as soft as
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! much softer--"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for you," she said, dropping her eyelids. "Come,
+Charles, go to bed; I wish it; you must be tired. Good-night."
+She gently disengaged her hand from those of her cousin, who
+followed her to her room, lighting the way. When they were both
+upon the threshold,--</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said, "why am I ruined?"</p>
+
+<p>"What matter?--my father is rich; I think so," she
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child!" said Charles, making a step into her room and
+leaning his back against the wall, "if that were so, he would
+never have let my father die; he would not let you live in this
+poor way; he would live otherwise himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But he owns Froidfond."</p>
+
+<p>"What is Froidfond worth?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; but he has Noyers."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but a poor farm!"</p>
+
+<p>"He has vineyards and fields."</p>
+
+<p>"Mere nothing," said Charles disdainfully. "If your father had
+only twenty-four thousand francs a year do you suppose you would
+live in this cold, barren room?" he added, making a step in
+advance. "Ah! there you will keep my treasures," he said,
+glancing at the old cabinet, as if to hide his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and sleep," she said, hindering his entrance into the
+disordered room.</p>
+
+<p>Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good-night with
+a mutual smile.</p>
+
+<p>Both fell asleep in the same dream; and from that moment the
+youth began to wear roses with his mourning. The next day, before
+breakfast, Madame Grandet found her daughter in the garden in
+company with Charles. The young man was still sad, as became a
+poor fellow who, plunged in misfortune, measures the depths of
+the abyss into which he has fallen, and sees the terrible burden
+of his whole future life.</p>
+
+<p>"My father will not be home till dinner-time," said Eugenie,
+perceiving the anxious look on her mother's face.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to trace in the face and manners of the young girl
+and in the singular sweetness of her voice a unison of thought
+between her and her cousin. Their souls had espoused each other,
+perhaps before they even felt the force of the feelings which
+bound them together. Charles spent the morning in the hall, and
+his sadness was respected. Each of the three women had
+occupations of her own. Grandet had left all his affairs
+unattended to, and a number of persons came on business,--the
+plumber, the mason, the slater, the carpenter, the diggers, the
+dressers, the farmers; some to drive a bargain about repairs,
+others to pay their rent or to be paid themselves for services.
+Madame Grandet and Eugenie were obliged to go and come and listen
+to the interminable talk of all these workmen and country folk.
+Nanon put away in her kitchen the produce which they brought as
+tribute. She always waited for her master's orders before she
+knew what portion was to be used in the house and what was to be
+sold in the market. It was the goodman's custom, like that of a
+great many country gentlemen, to drink his bad wine and eat his
+spoiled fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Towards five in the afternoon Grandet returned from Angers,
+having made fourteen thousand francs by the exchange on his gold,
+bringing home in his wallet good treasury-notes which bore
+interest until the day he should invest them in the Funds. He had
+left Cornoiller at Angers to look after the horses, which were
+well-nigh foundered, with orders to bring them home slowly after
+they were rested.</p>
+
+<p>"I have got back from Angers, wife," he said; "I am
+hungry."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: "Haven't you eaten
+anything since yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," answered the old man.</p>
+
+<p>Nanon brought in the soup. Des Grassins came to take his
+client's orders just as the family sat down to dinner. Grandet
+had not even observed his nephew.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on eating, Grandet," said the banker; "we can talk. Do you
+know what gold is worth in Angers? They have come from Nantes
+after it? I shall send some of ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't send any," said Grandet; "they have got enough. We are
+such old friends, I ought to save you from such a loss of
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Say <i>was</i> worth--"</p>
+
+<p>"Where the devil have they got any?"</p>
+
+<p>"I went to Angers last night," answered Grandet in a low
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>The banker shook with surprise. Then a whispered conversation
+began between the two, during which Grandet and des Grassins
+frequently looked at Charles. Presently des Grassins gave a start
+of astonishment; probably Grandet was then instructing him to
+invest the sum which was to give him a hundred thousand francs a
+year in the Funds.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Grandet," said the banker to Charles, "I am starting
+for Paris; if you have any commissions--"</p>
+
+<p>"None, monsieur, I thank you," answered Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur is going to
+settle the affairs of the house of Guillaume Grandet."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any hope?" said Charles eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, "are you
+not my nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not your name Grandet?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned pale,
+and left the room. Eugenie looked at her father with
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-by, des Grassins; it is all in your hands. Decoy
+those people as best you can; lead 'em by the nose."</p>
+
+<p>The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper accompanied
+the banker to the front door. Then, after closing it, he came
+back and plunged into his armchair, saying to Nanon,--</p>
+
+<p>"Get me some black-currant ratafia."</p>
+
+<p>Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, he got up,
+looked at the portrait of Monsieur de la Bertelliere, and began
+to sing, doing what Nanon called his dancing steps,--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Dans les gardes francaises</p>
+
+<p>J'avais un bon papa."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at each other in
+silence. The hilarity of the master always frightened them when
+it reached its climax. The evening was soon over. Pere Grandet
+chose to go to bed early, and when he went to bed, everybody else
+was expected to go too; like as when Augustus drank, Poland was
+drunk. On this occasion Nanon, Charles, and Eugenie were not less
+tired than the master. As for Madame Grandet, she slept, ate,
+drank, and walked according to the will of her husband. However,
+during the two hours consecrated to digestion, the cooper, more
+facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered a number of
+his own particular apothegms,--a single one of which will give
+the measure of his mind. When he had drunk his ratafia, he looked
+at his glass and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than it is empty!
+Such is life. You can't have and hold. Gold won't circulate and
+stay in your purse. If it were not for that, life would be too
+fine."</p>
+
+<p>He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came with her
+spinning-wheel, "You must be tired," he said; "put away your
+hemp."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, bah! then I shall get sleepy," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't refuse a good offer; madame makes it a deal better
+than the apothecaries. What they sell is all drugs."</p>
+
+<p>"They put too much sugar," said the master; "you can't taste
+anything else."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+<p>The following day the family, meeting at eight o'clock for the
+early breakfast, made a picture of genuine domestic intimacy.
+Grief had drawn Madame Grandet, Eugenie, and Charles <i>en
+rapport</i>; even Nanon sympathized, without knowing why. The
+four now made one family. As to the old man, his satisfied
+avarice and the certainty of soon getting rid of the dandy
+without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, made him
+nearly indifferent to his presence in the house. He left the two
+children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to conduct
+themselves as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet, in
+whom he had implicit confidence as to all that concerned public
+and religious morality. He busied himself in straightening the
+boundaries of his fields and ditches along the high-road, in his
+poplar- plantations beside the Loire, in the winter work of his
+vineyards, and at Froidfond. All these things occupied his whole
+time.</p>
+
+<p>For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene
+at night when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her
+heart had followed the treasure. Confederates in the same secret,
+they looked at each other with a mutual intelligence which sank
+to the depth of their consciousness, giving a closer communion, a
+more intimate relation to their feelings, and putting them, so to
+speak, beyond the pale of ordinary life. Did not their near
+relationship warrant the gentleness in their tones, the
+tenderness in their glances? Eugenie took delight in lulling her
+cousin's pain with the pretty childish joys of a new- born love.
+Are there no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the
+birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle songs and
+softest glances? Do we not tell it marvellous tales of the golden
+future? Hope herself, does she not spread her radiant wings above
+its head? Does it not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of
+sorrow and its tears of joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry
+for the pretty pebbles with which to build its shifting palaces,
+for the flowers forgotten as soon as plucked? Is it not eager to
+grasp the coming time, to spring forward into life? Love is our
+second transformation. Childhood and love were one and the same
+thing to Eugenie and to Charles; it was a first passion, with all
+its child-like play,--the more caressing to their hearts because
+they now were wrapped in sadness. Struggling at birth against the
+gloom of mourning, their love was only the more in harmony with
+the provincial plainness of that gray and ruined house. As they
+exchanged a few words beside the well in the silent court, or
+lingered in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy
+seat saying to each other the infinite nothings of love, or mused
+in the silent calm which reigned between the house and the
+ramparts like that beneath the arches of a church, Charles
+comprehended the sanctity of love; for his great lady, his dear
+Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles. At this moment
+he left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy as it
+was, and turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house,
+whose customs no longer seemed to him ridiculous. He got up early
+in the mornings that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment
+before her father came to dole out the provisions; when the steps
+of the old man sounded on the staircase he escaped into the
+garden. The small criminality of this morning <i>tete-a-tete</i>
+which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to their innocent love the
+lively charm of a forbidden joy.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his
+other occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter,
+finding an unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching
+them at work, in listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity
+of this half-monastic life, which revealed to him the beauty of
+these souls, unknown and unknowing of the world, touched him
+keenly. He had believed such morals impossible in France, and
+admitted their existence nowhere but in Germany; even so, they
+seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels of Auguste
+Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of
+Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks
+enraptured the poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious
+non-resistance to the current of love; she caught her happiness
+as a swimmer seizes the overhanging branch of a willow to draw
+himself from the river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no
+dread of a coming absence sadden the happy hours of those
+fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded them of
+the parting that was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took
+his nephew to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country
+people attach to all legal acts, that he might sign a deed
+surrendering his rights in his father's estate. Terrible
+renunciation! species of domestic apostasy! Charles also went
+before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of attorney,--one for
+des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had charged with
+the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all the
+formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries;
+and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from
+Paris, he sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his
+useless wardrobe. This last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your
+fortune," he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain
+black cloth. "Good! very good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will believe, monsieur," answered his nephew,
+"that I shall always try to conform to my situation."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a
+handful of gold which Charles was carrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings and other
+superfluities which may have some value; but not knowing any one
+in Saumur, I wanted to ask you to--"</p>
+
+<p>"To buy them?" said Grandet, interrupting him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who--"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me those things, I will go upstairs and estimate their
+value; I will come back and tell you what it is to a fraction.
+Jeweller's gold," examining a long chain, "eighteen or nineteen
+carats."</p>
+
+<p>The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of
+gold, which he carried away.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," said Grandet, "may I offer you these two buttons?
+They can fasten ribbons round your wrists; that sort of bracelet
+is much the fashion just now."</p>
+
+<p>"I accept without hesitation," she answered, giving him an
+understanding look.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt, here is my mother's thimble; I have always kept it
+carefully in my dressing-case," said Charles, presenting a pretty
+gold thimble to Madame Grandet, who for many years had longed for
+one.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot thank you; no words are possible, my nephew," said
+the poor mother, whose eyes filled with tears. "Night and morning
+in my prayers I shall add one for you, the most earnest of
+all--for those who travel. If I die, Eugenie will keep this
+treasure for you."</p>
+
+<p>"They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine francs,
+seventy-five centimes," said Grandet, opening the door. "To save
+you the pain of selling them, I will advance the money--in
+<i>livres</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The word <i>livres</i> on the littoral of the Loire signifies
+that crown prices of six <i>livres</i> are to be accepted as six
+francs without deduction.</p>
+
+<p>"I dared not propose it to you," answered Charles; "but it was
+most repugnant to me to sell my jewels to some second-hand dealer
+in your own town. People should wash their dirty linen at home,
+as Napoleon said. I thank you for your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment's
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear uncle," resumed Charles, looking at him with an
+uneasy air, as if he feared to wound his feelings, "my aunt and
+cousin have been kind enough to accept a trifling remembrance of
+me. Will you allow me to give you these sleeve-buttons, which are
+useless to me now? They will remind you of a poor fellow who, far
+away, will always think of those who are henceforth all his
+family."</p>
+
+<p>"My lad, my lad, you mustn't rob yourself this way! Let me
+see, wife, what have you got?" he added, turning eagerly to her.
+"Ah! a gold thimble. And you, little girl? What! diamond buttons?
+Yes, I'll accept your present, nephew," he answered, shaking
+Charles by the hand. "But --you must let me--pay--your--yes, your
+passage to the Indies. Yes, I wish to pay your passage
+because--d'ye see, my boy?--in valuing your jewels I estimated
+only the weight of the gold; very likely the workmanship is worth
+something. So let us settle it that I am to give you fifteen
+hundred francs--in <i>livres</i>; Cruchot will lend them to me. I
+haven't got a copper farthing here,--unless Perrotet, who is
+behindhand with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I'll go and
+see him."</p>
+
+<p>He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are really going?" said Eugenie to her cousin, with
+a sad look, mingled with admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"I must," he said, bowing his head.</p>
+
+<p>For some days past, Charles's whole bearing, manners, and
+speech had become those of a man who, in spite of his profound
+affliction, feels the weight of immense obligations and has the
+strength to gather courage from misfortune. He no longer repined,
+he became a man. Eugenie never augured better of her cousin's
+character than when she saw him come down in the plain black
+clothes which suited well with his pale face and sombre
+countenance. On that day the two women put on their own mourning,
+and all three assisted at a Requiem celebrated in the parish
+church for the soul of the late Guillaume Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris
+and began to read them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your
+affairs?" said Eugenie in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Never ask such questions, my daughter," said Grandet. "What
+the devil! do I tell you my affairs? Why do you poke your nose
+into your cousin's? Let the lad alone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I haven't any secrets," said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you'll soon find out that you must
+hold your tongue in business."</p>
+
+<p>When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to
+Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the
+walnut-tree,--</p>
+
+<p>"I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has
+managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe
+nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me
+that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent
+three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European
+curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He
+has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San
+Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other
+farewell--perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten
+thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very
+small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear
+cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may
+perish; some good marriage may be offered to you--"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love me?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! indeed, yes!" he answered, with a depth of tone that
+revealed an equal depth of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at
+his window," she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward
+to kiss her.</p>
+
+<p>She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When
+she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and
+opened the swing- door; then, scarcely knowing where she was
+going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon's den, in the
+darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and
+drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made
+her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she
+received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the
+most unreserved of kisses.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can
+marry you," said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.</p>
+
+<p>The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie
+took up her work and Charles began to read the litanies of the
+Virgin in Madame Grandet's prayer-book.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet
+bestirred himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He
+became very liberal of all that cost him nothing; took pains to
+find a packer; declared the man asked too much for his cases;
+insisted on making them himself out of old planks; got up early
+in the morning to fit and plane and nail together the strips, out
+of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some strong cases, in
+which he packed all Charles's effects; he also took upon himself
+to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and get them
+to Nantes in proper time.</p>
+
+<p>After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for
+Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of
+following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of
+all passions,--the one whose duration is each day shortened by
+time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and
+fatalities,--they will understand the poor girl's tortures. She
+wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed
+the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in
+thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to
+traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in
+the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which
+contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only
+drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now
+empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a
+goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key
+within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which
+Charles sealed the act.</p>
+
+<p>"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then my heart will be always there."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the
+words twice over.</p>
+
+<p>No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent
+sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's
+love.</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite
+of the gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by
+Charles, had tears in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God
+guide him!"</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to
+the diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the
+door, and insisted on carrying the young man's carpet-bag. All
+the tradesmen in the tortuous old street were on the sill of
+their shop-doors to watch the procession, which was joined in the
+market-place by Maitre Cruchot.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie, be sure you don't cry," said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Nephew," said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which
+the coach started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, "depart poor,
+return rich; you will find the honor of your father safe. I
+answer for that myself, I--Grandet; for it will only depend on
+you to--"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is
+it not the best gift that you could make me?"</p>
+
+<p>Not understanding his uncle's words which he had thus
+interrupted, Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned
+cheeks of the old miser, while Eugenie pressed the hand of her
+cousin and that of her father with all her strength. The notary
+smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old man, which he alone
+had understood. The family stood about the coach until it
+started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble
+grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation.
+Eugenie and her mother had gone to a corner of the quay from
+which they could still see the diligence and wave their white
+handkerchiefs, to which Charles made answer by displaying
+his.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single
+moment," said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover's
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take
+place in the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast
+a forestalling eye upon the various operations which the goodman
+carried on in Paris by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month
+after the latter's departure from Saumur, Grandet, became
+possessed of a certificate of a hundred thousand francs a year
+from his investment in the Funds, bought at eighty francs net.
+The particulars revealed at his death by the inventory of his
+property threw no light upon the means which his suspicious
+nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive the
+certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon,
+unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money
+was transported; for about this time she was absent five days,
+under a pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond,-- as if
+the goodman were capable of leaving anything lying about or out
+of order!</p>
+
+<p>In all that concerned the business of the house of Guillaume
+Grandet the old cooper's intentions were fulfilled to the letter.
+The Bank of France, as everybody knows, affords exact information
+about all the large fortunes in Paris and the provinces. The
+names of des Grassins and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well known
+there, and they enjoyed the esteem bestowed on financial
+celebrities whose wealth comes from immense and unencumbered
+territorial possessions. The arrival of the Saumur banker for the
+purpose, it was said, of honorably liquidating the affairs of
+Grandet of Paris, was enough to avert the shame of protested
+notes from the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the
+property were taken off in presence of the creditors, and the
+notary employed by Grandet went to work at once on the inventory
+of the assets. Soon after this, des Grassins called a meeting of
+the creditors, who unanimously elected him, conjointly with
+Francois Keller, the head of a rich banking-house and one of
+those principally interested in the affair, as liquidators, with
+full power to protect both the honor of the family and the
+interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet of Saumur, the
+hopes he diffused by means of des Grassins in the minds of all
+concerned, facilitated the transactions. Not a single creditor
+proved recalcitrant; no one thought of passing his claim to his
+profit-and-loss account; each and all said confidently, "Grandet
+of Saumur will pay."</p>
+
+<p>Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed the notes in
+circulation as they fell due, and held them under lock and key in
+their desks. First result aimed at by the old cooper! Nine months
+after this preliminary meeting, the two liquidators distributed
+forty- seven per cent to each creditor on his claim. This amount
+was obtained by the sale of the securities, property, and
+possessions of all kinds belonging to the late Guillaume Grandet,
+and was paid over with scrupulous fidelity. Unimpeachable
+integrity was shown in the transaction. The creditors gratefully
+acknowledged the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed by
+the Grandets. When these praises had circulated for a certain
+length of time, the creditors asked for the rest of their money.
+It became necessary to write a collective letter to Grandet of
+Saumur.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it comes!" said the old man as he threw the letter into
+the fire. "Patience, my good friends!"</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, Grandet of
+Saumur demanded that all vouchers for claims against the estate
+of his brother should be deposited with a notary, together with
+aquittances for the forty-seven per cent already paid; he made
+this demand under pretence of sifting the accounts and finding
+out the exact condition of the estate. It roused at once a
+variety of difficulties. Generally speaking, the creditor is a
+species of maniac, ready to agree to anything one day, on the
+next breathing fire and slaughter; later on, he grows amicable
+and easy-going. To-day his wife is good-humored, his last baby
+has cut its first tooth, all is well at home, and he is
+determined not to lose a sou; on the morrow it rains, he can't go
+out, he is gloomy, he says yes to any proposal that is made to
+him, so long as it will put an end to the affair; on the third
+day he declares he must have guarantees; by the end of the month
+he wants his debtor's head, and becomes at heart an executioner.
+The creditor is a good deal like the sparrow on whose tail
+confiding children are invited to put salt,--with this
+difference, that he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds
+of which he is never able to lay hold of. Grandet had studied the
+atmospheric variations of creditors, and the creditors of his
+brother justified all his calculations. Some were angry, and
+flatly refused to give in their vouchers.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good; so much the better," said Grandet, rubbing his
+hands over the letter in which des Grassins announced the
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Others agreed to the demand, but only on condition that their
+rights should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even
+reserved the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this
+began a long correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur
+agreeing to all conditions. By means of this concession the
+placable creditors were able to bring the dissatisfied creditors
+to reason. The deposit was then made, but not without sundry
+complaints.</p>
+
+<p>"Your goodman," they said to des Grassins, "is tricking
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume Grandet many
+of the creditors, carried away by more pressing business in the
+markets of Paris, had forgotten their Grandet claims, or only
+thought of them to say:</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall
+ever get out of that affair."</p>
+
+<p>The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, which, as
+he used to say, is a pretty good devil after all. By the end of
+the third year des Grassins wrote to Grandet that he had brought
+the creditors to agree to give up their claims for ten per cent
+on the two million four hundred thousand francs still due by the
+house of Grandet. Grandet answered that the notary and the broker
+whose shameful failures had caused the death of his brother were
+still living, that they might now have recovered their credit,
+and that they ought to be sued, so as to get something out of
+them towards lessening the total of the deficit.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the fourth year the liabilities were definitely
+estimated at a sum of twelve hundred thousand francs. Many
+negotiations, lasting over six months, took place between the
+creditors and the liquidators, and between the liquidators and
+Grandet. To make a long story short, Grandet of Saumur, anxious
+by this time to get out of the affair, told the liquidators,
+about the ninth month of the fourth year, that his nephew had
+made a fortune in the Indies and was disposed to pay his father's
+debts in full; he therefore could not take upon himself to make
+any settlement without previously consulting him; he had written
+to him, and was expecting an answer. The creditors were held in
+check until the middle of the fifth year by the words, "payment
+in full," which the wily old miser threw out from time to time as
+he laughed in his beard, saying with a smile and an oath, "Those
+Parisians!"</p>
+
+<p>But the creditors were reserved for a fate unexampled in the
+annals of commerce. When the events of this history bring them
+once more into notice, they will be found still in the position
+Grandet had resolved to force them into from the first.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Funds reached a hundred and fifteen, Pere
+Grandet sold out his interests and withdrew two million four
+hundred thousand francs in gold, to which he added, in his
+coffers, the six hundred thousand francs compound interest which
+he had derived from the capital. Des Grassins now lived in Paris.
+In the first place he had been made a deputy; then he became
+infatuated (father of a family as he was, though horribly bored
+by the provincial life of Saumur) with a pretty actress at the
+Theatre de Madame, known as Florine, and he presently relapsed
+into the old habits of his army life. It is useless to speak of
+his conduct; Saumur considered it profoundly immoral. His wife
+was fortunate in the fact of her property being settled upon
+herself, and in having sufficient ability to keep up the
+banking-house in Saumur, which was managed in her name and
+repaired the breach in her fortune caused by the extravagance of
+her husband. The Cruchotines made so much talk about the false
+position of the quasi-widow that she married her daughter very
+badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between
+Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris
+and became, it was said, a worthless fellow. The Cruchots
+triumphed.</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband hasn't common sense," said Grandet as he lent
+Madame des Grassins some money on a note securely endorsed. "I am
+very sorry for you, for you are a good little woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur," said the poor lady, "who could have believed
+that when he left Saumur to go to Paris on your business he was
+going to his ruin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven is my witness, madame, that up to the last moment I
+did all I could to prevent him from going. Monsieur le president
+was most anxious to take his place; but he was determined to go,
+and now we all see why."</p>
+
+<p>In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no
+obligation to des Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>In all situations women have more cause for suffering than
+men, and they suffer more. Man has strength and the power of
+exercising it; he acts, moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks
+ahead, and sees consolation in the future. It was thus with
+Charles. But the woman stays at home; she is always face to face
+with the grief from which nothing distracts her; she goes down to
+the depths of the abyss which yawns before her, measures it, and
+often fills it with her tears and prayers. Thus did Eugenie. She
+initiated herself into her destiny. To feel, to love, to suffer,
+to devote herself,--is not this the sum of woman's life? Eugenie
+was to be in all things a woman, except in the one thing that
+consoles for all. Her happiness, picked up like nails scattered
+on a wall--to use the fine simile of Bossuet--would never so much
+as fill even the hollow of her hand. Sorrows are never long in
+coming; for her they came soon. The day after Charles's departure
+the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed its ordinary aspect in the
+eyes of all, except in those of Eugenie, to whom it grew suddenly
+empty. She wished, if it could be done unknown to her father,
+that Charles's room might be kept as he had left it. Madame
+Grandet and Nanon were willing accomplices in this <i>statu
+quo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?" she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't I wish I could see him back!" answered Nanon. "I
+took to him! He was such a dear, sweet young man,--pretty too,
+with his curly hair." Eugenie looked at Nanon. "Holy Virgin!
+don't look at me that way, mademoiselle; your eyes are like those
+of a lost soul."</p>
+
+<p>From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new
+character. The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her
+soul, and the dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features
+an illumination such as painters render by a halo. Before the
+coming of her cousin, Eugenie might be compared to the Virgin
+before the conception; after he had gone, she was like the Virgin
+Mother,--she had given birth to love. These two Marys so
+different, so well represented by Spanish art, embody one of
+those shining symbols with which Christianity abounds.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from Mass on the morning after Charles's
+departure,--having made a vow to hear it daily,--Eugenie bought a
+map of the world, which she nailed up beside her looking-glass,
+that she might follow her cousin on his westward way, that she
+might put herself, were it ever so little, day by day into the
+ship that bore him, and see him and ask him a thousand
+questions,--"Art thou well? Dost thou suffer? Dost thou think of
+me when the star, whose beauty and usefulness thou hast taught me
+to know, shines upon thee?" In the mornings she sat pensive
+beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with
+gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious
+things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles
+of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked
+upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered
+her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun
+crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept.
+Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides
+into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers
+might have said, the tissue of life. When the would-be friends of
+Pere Grandet came in the evening for their game at cards, she was
+gay and dissimulating; but all the morning she talked of Charles
+with her mother and Nanon. Nanon had brought herself to see that
+she could pity the sufferings of her young mistress without
+failing in her duty to the old master, and she would say to
+Eugenie,--</p>
+
+<p>"If I had a man for myself I'd--I'd follow him to hell, yes,
+I'd exterminate myself for him; but I've none. I shall die and
+never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz'elle, that old
+Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my
+petticoats for the sake of my money,--just for all the world like
+the rats who come smelling after the master's cheese and paying
+court to you? I see it all; I've got a shrewd eye, though I am as
+big as a steeple. Well, mamz'elle, it pleases me, but it isn't
+love."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+<p>Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous,
+was now quickened with the intense interest of a secret that
+bound these women intimately together. For them Charles lived and
+moved beneath the grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and
+morning Eugenie opened the dressing-case and gazed at the
+portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning her mother surprised her
+as she stood absorbed in finding her cousin's features in his
+mother's face. Madame Grandet was then for the first time
+admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made by Charles
+against her daughter's treasure.</p>
+
+<p>"You gave him all!" cried the poor mother, terrified. "What
+will you say to your father on New Year's Day when he asks to see
+your gold?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie's eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through
+mortal terror for more than half the morning. They were so
+troubled in mind that they missed high Mass, and only went to the
+military service. In three days the year 1819 would come to an
+end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois
+tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood;
+but--as regards the actors in it-- more cruel than all the fabled
+horrors in the family of the Atrides.</p>
+
+<p>"What will become of us?" said Madame Grandet to her daughter,
+letting her knitting fall upon her knees.</p>
+
+<p>The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for the past two
+months that the woollen sleeves which she needed for the coming
+winter were not yet finished. This domestic fact, insignificant
+as it seems, bore sad results. For want of those sleeves, a chill
+seized her in the midst of a sweat caused by a terrible explosion
+of anger on the part of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking, my poor child, that if you had confided
+your secret to me we should have had time to write to Monsieur
+des Grassins in Paris. He might have sent us gold pieces like
+yours; though Grandet knows them all, perhaps--"</p>
+
+<p>"Where could we have got the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des
+Grassins would have--"</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late," said Eugenie in a broken, hollow voice.
+"To-morrow morning we must go and wish him a happy New Year in
+his chamber."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; it would be delivering me up to them, and putting
+ourselves in their power. Besides, I have chosen my course. I
+have done right, I repent of nothing. God will protect me. His
+will be done! Ah! mother, if you had read his letter, you, too,
+would have thought only of him."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear to which
+mother and daughter were a prey suggested to their minds a
+natural excuse by which to escape the solemn entrance into
+Grandet's chamber. The winter of 1819-1820 was one of the coldest
+of that epoch. The snow encumbered the roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him
+stirring in his chamber, and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Grandet, will you let Nanon light a fire here for me? The
+cold is so sharp that I am freezing under the bedclothes. At my
+age I need some comforts. Besides," she added, after a slight
+pause, "Eugenie shall come and dress here; the poor child might
+get an illness from dressing in her cold room in such weather.
+Then we will go and wish you a happy New Year beside the fire in
+the hall."</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta, what a tongue! a pretty way to begin the new
+year, Madame Grandet! You never talked so much before; but you
+haven't been sopping your bread in wine, I know that."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," resumed the goodman, who no doubt had some reason of
+his own for agreeing to his wife's request, "I'll do what you
+ask, Madame Grandet. You are a good woman, and I don't want any
+harm to happen to you at your time of life,--though as a general
+thing the Bertellieres are as sound as a roach. Hein! isn't that
+so?" he added after a pause. "Well, I forgive them; we got their
+property in the end." And he coughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very gay this morning, monsieur," said the poor woman
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm always gay,--</p>
+
+<p>"'Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier, Raccommodez votre cuvier!'"</p>
+
+<p>he answered, entering his wife's room fully dressed. "Yes, on
+my word, it is cold enough to freeze you solid. We shall have a
+fine breakfast, wife. Des Grassins has sent me a
+pate-de-foie-gras truffled! I am going now to get it at the
+coach-office. There'll be a double napoleon for Eugenie in the
+package," he whispered in Madame Grandet's ear. "I have no gold
+left, wife. I had a few stray pieces--I don't mind telling you
+that--but I had to let them go in business."</p>
+
+<p>Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie," cried the mother, when Grandet was fairly gone, "I
+don't know which side of the bed your father got out of, but he
+is good- tempered this morning. Perhaps we shall come out safe
+after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened to the master?" said Nanon, entering her
+mistress's room to light the fire. "First place, he said,
+'Good-morning; happy New Year, you big fool! Go and light my
+wife's fire, she's cold'; and then, didn't I feel silly when he
+held out his hand and gave me a six- franc piece, which isn't
+worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind man! He is a
+good man, that's a fact. There are some people who the older they
+get the harder they grow; but he,--why he's getting soft and
+improving with time, like your ratafia! He is a good, good
+man--"</p>
+
+<p>The secret of Grandet's joy lay in the complete success of his
+speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after deducting the amount
+which the old cooper owed him for the discount on a hundred and
+fifty thousand francs in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which
+he had advanced to make up the sum required for the investment in
+the Funds which was to produce a hundred thousand francs a year,
+had now sent him, by the diligence, thirty thousand francs in
+silver coin, the remainder of his first half-year's interest,
+informing him at the same time that the Funds had already gone up
+in value. They were then quoted at eighty-nine; the shrewdest
+capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at
+ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months twelve per
+cent on his capital; he had simplified his accounts, and would in
+future receive fifty thousand francs interest every six months,
+without incurring any taxes or costs for repairs. He understood
+at last what it was to invest money in the public securities,--a
+system for which provincials have always shown a marked
+repugnance,--and at the end of five years he found himself master
+of a capital of six millions, which increased without much effort
+of his own, and which, joined to the value and proceeds of his
+territorial possessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely
+colossal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps the
+reward of some great service which the poor servant had rendered
+to her master unawares.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh! where's Pere Grandet going? He has been scurrying
+about since sunrise as if to a fire," said the tradespeople to
+each other as they opened their shops for the day.</p>
+
+<p>When they saw him coming back from the wharf, followed by a
+porter from the coach-office wheeling a barrow which was laden
+with sacks, they all had their comments to make:--</p>
+
+<p>"Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after
+his gold," said one.</p>
+
+<p>"He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland," said
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll end by buying up Saumur," cried a third.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't mind the cold, he's so wrapped up in his gains,"
+said a wife to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! hey! Monsieur Grandet, if that's too heavy for you,"
+said a cloth-dealer, his nearest neighbor, "I'll take it off your
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavy?" said the cooper, "I should think so; it's all
+sous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Silver sous," said the porter in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want me to take care of you, keep your tongue between
+your teeth," said the goodman to the porter as they reached the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"The old fox! I thought he was deaf; seems he can hear fast
+enough in frosty weather."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's twenty sous for your New Year, and <i>mum</i>!" said
+Grandet. "Be off with you! Nanon shall take back your barrow.
+Nanon, are the linnets at church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"Then lend a hand! go to work!" he cried, piling the sacks
+upon her. In a few moments all were carried up to his inner room,
+where he shut himself in with them. "When breakfast is ready,
+knock on the wall," he said as he disappeared. "Take the barrow
+back to the coach-office."</p>
+
+<p>The family did not breakfast that day until ten o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father will not ask to see your gold downstairs," said
+Madame Grandet as they got back from Mass. "You must pretend to
+be very chilly. We may have time to replace the treasure before
+your fete- day."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet came down the staircase thinking of his splendid
+speculation in government securities, and wondering how he could
+metamorphose his Parisian silver into solid gold; he was making
+up his mind to invest in this way everything he could lay hands
+on until the Funds should reach a par value. Fatal reverie for
+Eugenie! As soon as he came in, the two women wished him a happy
+New Year,--his daughter by putting her arms round his neck and
+caressing him; Madame Grandet gravely and with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! my child," he said, kissing his daughter on both
+cheeks. "I work for you, don't you see? I think of your
+happiness. Must have money to be happy. Without money there's not
+a particle of happiness. Here! there's a new napoleon for you. I
+sent to Paris for it. On my word of honor, it's all the gold I
+have; you are the only one that has got any gold. I want to see
+your gold, little one."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it is too cold; let us have breakfast," answered
+Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after breakfast, then; it will help the digestion. That
+fat des Grassins sent me the pate. Eat as much as you like, my
+children, it costs nothing. Des Grassins is getting along very
+well. I am satisfied with him. The old fish is doing Charles a
+good service, and gratis too. He is making a very good settlement
+of that poor deceased Grandet's business. Hoo! hoo!" he muttered,
+with his mouth full, after a pause, "how good it is! Eat some,
+wife; that will feed you for at least two days."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know that."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, bah! you can stuff yourself as full as you please without
+danger, you're a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit
+yellow, that's true; but I like yellow, myself."</p>
+
+<p>The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps
+less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of
+what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie.
+The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their
+hearts shrank within them. The daughter, however, had an inward
+prop at this crisis, --she gathered strength through love.</p>
+
+<p>"For him! for him!" she cried within her, "I would die a
+thousand deaths."</p>
+
+<p>At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed
+with courage.</p>
+
+<p>"Clear away," said Grandet to Nanon when, about eleven
+o'clock, breakfast was over, "but leave the table. We can spread
+your little treasure upon it," he said, looking at Eugenie.
+"Little? Faith! no; it isn't little. You possess, in actual
+value, five thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine francs and the
+forty I gave you just now. That makes six thousand francs, less
+one. Well, now see here, little one! I'll give you that one franc
+to make up the round number. Hey! what are you listening for,
+Nanon? Mind your own business; go and do your work."</p>
+
+<p>Nanon disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You
+won't refuse your father, my little girl, hein?"</p>
+
+<p>The two women were dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I'll
+give you in return six thousand francs in <i>livres</i>, and you
+are to put them just where I tell you. You mustn't think anything
+more about your 'dozen.' When I marry you (which will be soon) I
+shall get you a husband who can give you the finest 'dozen' ever
+seen in the provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. There's a
+fine chance for you; you can put your six thousand francs into
+government funds, and you will receive every six months nearly
+two hundred francs interest, without taxes, or repairs, or frost,
+or hail, or floods, or anything else to swallow up the money.
+Perhaps you don't like to part with your gold, hey, my girl?
+Never mind, bring it to me all the same. I'll get you some more
+like it,--like those Dutch coins and the <i>portugaises</i>, the
+rupees of Mogul, and the <i>genovines</i>,--I'll give you some
+more on your fete-days, and in three years you'll have got back
+half your little treasure. What's that you say? Look up, now.
+Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on
+the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries of the
+life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold live and swarm like
+men; they come, and go, and sweat, and multiply--"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie rose; but after making a few steps towards the door
+she turned abruptly, looked her father in the face, and
+said,--</p>
+
+<p>"I have not got <i>my</i> gold."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not got your gold!" cried Grandet, starting up
+erect, like a horse that hears a cannon fired beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have not got it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Eugenie."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"By the shears of my father!"</p>
+
+<p>Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale," cried Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandet, your anger will kill me," said the poor mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family!
+Eugenie, what have you done with your gold?" he cried, rushing
+upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet's
+knees, "my mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his
+wife's face, usually so yellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, help me to bed," said the poor woman in a feeble
+voice; "I am dying--"</p>
+
+<p>Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her another; but
+it was only with infinite difficulty that they could get her
+upstairs, she fell with exhaustion at every step. Grandet
+remained alone. However, in a few moments he went up six or eight
+stairs and called out,--</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, father."</p>
+
+<p>She soon came, after reassuring her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter," said Grandet, "you will now tell me what you
+have done with your gold."</p>
+
+<p>"My father, if you make me presents of which I am not the sole
+mistress, take them back," she answered coldly, picking up the
+napoleon from the chimney-piece and offering it to him.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches'
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly never give you anything again. Not so much
+as that!" he said, clicking his thumb-nail against a front tooth.
+"Do you dare to despise your father? have you no confidence in
+him? Don't you know what a father is? If he is nothing for you,
+he is nothing at all. Where is your gold?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your anger; but I
+humbly ask you to remember that I am twenty-three years old. You
+have told me often that I have attained my majority, and I do not
+forget it. I have used my money as I chose to use it, and you may
+be sure that it was put to a good use--"</p>
+
+<p>"What use?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is an inviolable secret," she answered. "Have you no
+secrets?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be something bad if you can't tell it to your father,
+Mademoiselle Grandet."</p>
+
+<p>"It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father."</p>
+
+<p>"At least you can tell me when you parted with your gold?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie made a negative motion with her head.</p>
+
+<p>"You had it on your birthday, hein?"</p>
+
+<p>She grew as crafty through love as her father was through
+avarice, and reiterated the negative sign.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there ever such obstinacy! It's a theft," cried Grandet,
+his voice going up in a crescendo which gradually echoed through
+the house. "What! here, in my own home, under my very eyes,
+somebody has taken your gold!--the only gold we have!--and I'm
+not to know who has got it! Gold is a precious thing. Virtuous
+girls go wrong sometimes, and give--I don't know what; they do it
+among the great people, and even among the bourgeoisie. But give
+their gold!--for you have given it to some one, hein?--"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie was silent and impassive.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there ever such a daughter? Is it possible that I am your
+father? If you have invested it anywhere, you must have a
+receipt--"</p>
+
+<p>"Was I free--yes or no--to do what I would with my own? Was it
+not mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a child."</p>
+
+<p>"Of age."</p>
+
+<p>Dumbfounded by his daughter's logic, Grandet turned pale and
+stamped and swore. When at last he found words, he cried:
+"Serpent! Cursed girl! Ah, deceitful creature! You know I love
+you, and you take advantage of it. She'd cut her father's throat!
+Good God! you've given our fortune to that ne'er-do-well,--that
+dandy with morocco boots! By the shears of my father! I can't
+disinherit you, but I curse you,--you and your cousin and your
+children! Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it was to
+Charles--but, no; it's impossible. What! has that wretched fellow
+robbed me?--"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.</p>
+
+<p>"She won't stir; she won't flinch! She's more Grandet than I'm
+Grandet! Ha! you have not given your gold for nothing? Come,
+speak the truth!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that
+stung him.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie, you are here, in my house,--in your father's house.
+If you wish to stay here, you must submit yourself to me. The
+priests tell you to obey me." Eugenie bowed her head. "You
+affront me in all I hold most dear. I will not see you again
+until you submit. Go to your chamber. You will stay there till I
+give you permission to leave it. Nanon will bring you bread and
+water. You hear me--go!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. Grandet,
+after marching two or three times round the garden in the snow
+without heeding the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter
+had gone to her mother; only too happy to find her disobedient to
+his orders, he climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and
+appeared in Madame Grandet's room just as she was stroking
+Eugenie's hair, while the girl's face was hidden in her motherly
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Be comforted, my poor child," she was saying; "your father
+will get over it."</p>
+
+<p>"She has no father!" said the old man. "Can it be you and I,
+Madame Grandet, who have given birth to such a disobedient child?
+A fine education,--religious, too! Well! why are you not in your
+chamber? Come, to prison, to prison, mademoiselle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?" said Madame
+Grandet, turning towards him a face that was now red with
+fever.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to keep her, carry her off! Clear out--out of my
+house, both of you! Thunder! where is the gold? what's become of
+the gold?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie rose, looked proudly at her father, and withdrew to
+her room. Grandet turned the key of the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon," he cried, "put out the fire in the hall."</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife's fire and
+said to her,--</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly she has given the gold to that miserable seducer,
+Charles, who only wanted our money."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew nothing about it," she answered, turning to the other
+side of the bed, that she might escape the savage glances of her
+husband. "I suffer so much from your violence that I shall never
+leave this room, if I trust my own presentiments, till I am
+carried out of it in my coffin. You ought to have spared me this
+suffering, monsieur,--you, to whom I have caused no pain; that
+is, I think so. Your daughter loves you. I believe her to be as
+innocent as the babe unborn. Do not make her wretched. Revoke
+your sentence. The cold is very severe; you may give her some
+serious illness."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. She shall
+stay in her room, on bread and water, until she submits to her
+father. What the devil! shouldn't a father know where the gold in
+his house has gone to? She owned the only rupees in France,
+perhaps, and the Dutch ducats and the <i>genovines</i>--"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had
+thrown them into the water--"</p>
+
+<p>"Into the water!" cried her husband; "into the water! You are
+crazy, Madame Grandet! What I have said is said; you know that
+well enough. If you want peace in this household, make your
+daughter confess, pump it out of her. Women understand how to do
+that better than we do. Whatever she has done, I sha'n't eat her.
+Is she afraid of me? Even if she has plastered Charles with gold
+from head to foot, he is on the high seas, and nobody can get at
+him, hein!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur--" Excited by the nervous crisis through which
+she had passed, and by the fate of her daughter, which brought
+forth all her tenderness and all her powers of mind, Madame
+Grandet suddenly observed a frightful movement of her husband's
+wen, and, in the very act of replying, she changed her speech
+without changing the tones of her voice,--"But, monsieur, I have
+not more influence over her than you have. She has said nothing
+to me; she takes after you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut! Your tongue is hung in the middle this morning. Ta,
+ta, ta, ta! You are setting me at defiance, I do believe. I
+daresay you are in league with her."</p>
+
+<p>He looked fixedly at his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, you have only to go
+on like this. I tell you, monsieur,--and if it were to cost me my
+life, I would say it,--you do wrong by your daughter; she is more
+in the right than you are. That money belonged to her; she is
+incapable of making any but a good use of it, and God alone has
+the right to know our good deeds. Monsieur, I implore you, take
+Eugenie back into favor; forgive her. If you will do this you
+will lessen the injury your anger has done me; perhaps you will
+save my life. My daughter! oh, monsieur, give me back my
+daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall decamp," he said; "the house is not habitable. A
+mother and daughter talking and arguing like that! Broooouh!
+Pouah! A fine New Year's present you've made me, Eugenie," he
+called out. "Yes, yes, cry away! What you've done will bring you
+remorse, do you hear? What's the good of taking the sacrament six
+times every three months, if you give away your father's gold
+secretly to an idle fellow who'll eat your heart out when you've
+nothing else to give him? You'll find out some day what your
+Charles is worth, with his morocco boots and supercilious airs.
+He has got neither heart nor soul if he dared to carry off a
+young girl's treasure without the consent of her parents."</p>
+
+<p>When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out of her room
+and went to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"What courage you have had for your daughter's sake!" she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may lead us. You
+forced me to tell a lie."</p>
+
+<p>"I will ask God to punish only me."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true," cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, "that
+mademoiselle is to be kept on bread and water for the rest of her
+life?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does that signify, Nanon?" said Eugenie tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! do you suppose I'll eat <i>frippe</i> when the
+daughter of the house is eating dry bread? No, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say a word about all this, Nanon," said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be as mute as a fish; but you'll see!"</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four
+years.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're a widower, monsieur," said Nanon; "it must be
+disagreeable to be a widower with two women in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not speak to you. Hold your jaw, or I'll turn you off!
+What is that I hear boiling in your saucepan on the stove?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is grease I'm trying out."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be some company to-night. Light the fire."</p>
+
+<p>The Cruchots, Madame des Grassins, and her son arrived at the
+usual hour of eight, and were surprised to see neither Madame
+Grandet nor her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife is not very well, and Eugenie is with her," said the
+old wine-grower, whose face betrayed no emotion.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of an hour spent in idle conversation, Madame des
+Grassins, who had gone up to see Madame Grandet, came down, and
+every one inquired,--</p>
+
+<p>"How is Madame Grandet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all well," she answered; "her condition seems to me
+really alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution,
+Papa Grandet."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see about it," said the old man in an absent way.</p>
+
+<p>They all wished him good-night. When the Cruchots got into the
+street Madame des Grassins said to them,--</p>
+
+<p>"There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is
+very ill without her knowing it. The girl's eyes are red, as if
+she had been crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her
+against her will?"</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie's
+room in her stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a
+saucepan.</p>
+
+<p>"See, mademoiselle," said the good soul, "Cornoiller gave me a
+hare. You eat so little that this pate will last you full a week;
+in such frosty weather it won't spoil. You sha'n't live on dry
+bread, I'm determined; it isn't wholesome."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Nanon!" said Eugenie, pressing her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I've made it downright good and dainty, and <i>he</i> never
+found it out. I bought the lard and the spices out of my six
+francs: I'm the mistress of my own money"; and she disappeared
+rapidly, fancying she</p>
+
+<p>heard Grandet.</p>
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+<p>For several months the old wine-grower came constantly to his
+wife's room at all hours of the day, without ever uttering his
+daughter's name, or seeing her, or making the smallest allusion
+to her. Madame Grandet did not leave her chamber, and daily grew
+worse. Nothing softened the old man; he remained unmoved, harsh,
+and cold as a granite rock. He continued to go and come about his
+business as usual; but ceased to stutter, talked less, and was
+more obdurate in business transactions than ever before. Often he
+made mistakes in adding up his figures.</p>
+
+<p>"Something is going on at the Grandets," said the Grassinists
+and the Cruchotines.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened in the Grandet family?" became a fixed
+question which everybody asked everybody else at the little
+evening-parties of Saumur. Eugenie went to Mass escorted by
+Nanon. If Madame des Grassins said a few words to her on coming
+out of church, she answered in an evasive manner, without
+satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end of two months, it
+became impossible to hide, either from the three Cruchots or from
+Madame des Grassins, the fact that Eugenie was in confinement.
+There came a moment when all pretexts failed to explain her
+perpetual absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover by
+whom the secret had been betrayed, all the town became aware that
+ever since New Year's day Mademoiselle Grandet had been kept in
+her room without fire, on bread and water, by her father's
+orders, and that Nanon cooked little dainties and took them to
+her secretly at night. It was even known that the young woman was
+not able to see or take care of her mother, except at certain
+times when her father was out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet's conduct was severely condemned. The whole town
+outlawed him, so to speak; they remembered his treachery, his
+hard-heartedness, and they excommunicated him. When he passed
+along the streets, people pointed him out and muttered at him.
+When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by
+Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the
+windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the
+rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of
+angelic gentleness and melancholy. Her imprisonment and the
+condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a
+map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the
+wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love's
+kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town
+talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it.
+Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love
+helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>One deep grief silenced all others. Her mother, that gentle,
+tender creature, made beautiful by the light which shone from the
+inner to the outer as she approached the tomb,--her mother was
+perishing from day to day. Eugenie often reproached herself as
+the innocent cause of the slow, cruel malady that was wasting her
+away. This remorse, though her mother soothed it, bound her still
+closer to her love. Every morning, as soon as her father left the
+house, she went to the bedside of her mother, and there Nanon
+brought her breakfast. The poor girl, sad, and suffering through
+the sufferings of her mother, would turn her face to the old
+servant with a mute gesture, weeping, and yet not daring to speak
+of her cousin. It was Madame Grandet who first found courage to
+say,--</p>
+
+<p>"Where is <i>he</i>? Why does <i>he</i> not write?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us think about him, mother, but not speak of him. You are
+ill-- you, before all."</p>
+
+<p>"All" meant "him."</p>
+
+<p>"My child," said Madame Grandet, "I do not wish to live. God
+protects me and enables me to look with joy to the end of my
+misery."</p>
+
+<p>Every utterance of this woman was unfalteringly pious and
+Christian. Sometimes, during the first months of the year, when
+her husband came to breakfast with her and tramped up and down
+the room, she would say to him a few religious words, always
+spoken with angelic sweetness, yet with the firmness of a woman
+to whom approaching death lends a courage she had lacked in
+life.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, I thank you for the interest you take in my
+health," she would answer when he made some commonplace inquiry;
+"but if you really desire to render my last moments less bitter
+and to ease my grief, take back your daughter: be a Christian, a
+husband, and a father."</p>
+
+<p>When he heard these words, Grandet would sit down by the bed
+with the air of a man who sees the rain coming and quietly gets
+under the shelter of a gateway till it is over. When these
+touching, tender, and religious supplications had all been made,
+he would say,--</p>
+
+<p>"You are rather pale to-day, my poor wife."</p>
+
+<p>Absolute forgetfulness of his daughter seemed graven on his
+stony brow, on his closed lips. He was unmoved by the tears which
+flowed down the white cheeks of his unhappy wife as she listened
+to his meaningless answers.</p>
+
+<p>"May God pardon you," she said, "even as I pardon you! You
+will some day stand in need of mercy."</p>
+
+<p>Since Madame Grandet's illness he had not dared to make use of
+his terrible "Ta, ta, ta, ta!" Yet, for all that, his despotic
+nature was not disarmed by this angel of gentleness, whose
+ugliness day by day decreased, driven out by the ineffable
+expression of moral qualities which shone upon her face. She was
+all soul. The spirit of prayer seemed to purify her and refine
+those homely features and make them luminous. Who has not seen
+the phenomenon of a like transfiguration on sacred faces where
+the habits of the soul have triumphed over the plainest features,
+giving them that spiritual illumination whose light comes from
+the purity and nobility of the inward thought? The spectacle of
+this transformation wrought by the struggle which consumed the
+last shreds of the human life of this woman, did somewhat affect
+the old cooper, though feebly, for his nature was of iron; if his
+language ceased to be contemptuous, an imperturbable silence,
+which saved his dignity as master of the household, took its
+place and ruled his conduct.</p>
+
+<p>When the faithful Nanon appeared in the market, many quips and
+quirks and complaints about the master whistled in her ears; but
+however loudly public opinion condemned Monsieur Grandet, the old
+servant defended him, for the honor of the family.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" she would say to his detractors, "don't we all get
+hard as we grow old? Why shouldn't he get horny too? Stop telling
+lies. Mademoiselle lives like a queen. She's alone, that's true;
+but she likes it. Besides, my masters have good reasons."</p>
+
+<p>At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Grandet, worn out
+by grief even more than by illness, having failed, in spite of
+her prayers, to reconcile the father and daughter, confided her
+secret troubles to the Cruchots.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep a girl of twenty-three on bread and water!" cried
+Monsieur de Bonfons; "without any reason, too! Why, that
+constitutes wrongful cruelty; she can contest, as much in as
+upon--"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, nephew, spare us your legal jargon," said the notary.
+"Set your mind at ease, madame; I will put a stop to such
+treatment to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her room.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," she said, coming forward with a proud step, "I
+beg you not to interfere in this matter. My father is master in
+his own house. As long as I live under his roof I am bound to
+obey him. His conduct is not subject to the approbation or the
+disapprobation of the world; he is accountable to God only. I
+appeal to your friendship to keep total silence in this affair.
+To blame my father is to attack our family honor. I am much
+obliged to you for the interest you have shown in me; you will do
+me an additional service if you will put a stop to the offensive
+rumors which are current in the town, of which I am accidentally
+informed."</p>
+
+<p>"She is right," said Madame Grandet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure
+your liberty," answered the old notary respectfully, struck with
+the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my daughter, let Monsieur Cruchot manage the matter if
+he is so sure of success. He understands your father, and how to
+manage him. If you wish to see me happy for my few remaining
+days, you must, at any cost, be reconciled to your father."</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun
+since Eugenie's imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up
+and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie
+brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the
+walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few
+moments watching his daughter's movements, hesitating, perhaps,
+between the course to which the obstinacy of his character
+impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child.
+Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and
+Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her
+father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose
+and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and
+looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung,
+where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and
+the sedum,--a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the
+vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and
+found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the
+little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden,
+engaged in watching his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?" he said, perceiving the
+notary.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to speak to you on business."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! ah! have you brought some gold in exchange for my
+silver?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I have not come about money; it is about your
+daughter Eugenie. All the town is talking of her and you."</p>
+
+<p>"What does the town meddle for? A man's house is his
+castle."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true; and a man may kill himself if he likes, or, what
+is worse, he may fling his money into the gutter."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, your wife is very ill, my friend. You ought to consult
+Monsieur Bergerin; she is likely to die. If she does die without
+receiving proper care, you will not be very easy in mind, I take
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! you know a deal about my wife! These doctors,
+if they once get their foot in your house, will come five and six
+times a day."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will do as you think best. We are old friends;
+there is no one in all Saumur who takes more interest than I in
+what concerns you. Therefore, I was bound to tell you this.
+However, happen what may, you have the right to do as you please;
+you can choose your own course. Besides, that is not what brings
+me here. There is another thing which may have serious results
+for you. After all, you can't wish to kill your wife; her life is
+too important to you. Think of your situation in connection with
+your daughter if Madame Grandet dies. You must render an account
+to Eugenie, because you enjoy your wife's estate only during her
+lifetime. At her death your daughter can claim a division of
+property, and she may force you to sell Froidfond. In short, she
+is her mother's heir, and you are not."</p>
+
+<p>These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, who was
+not as wise about law as he was about business. He had never
+thought of a legal division of the estate.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly," added Cruchot,
+in conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"But do you know what she has done, Cruchot?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked the notary, curious to hear the truth and find
+out the cause of the quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>"She has given away her gold!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wasn't it hers?" said the notary.</p>
+
+<p>"They all tell me that!" exclaimed the old man, letting his
+arms fall to his sides with a movement that was truly tragic.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going--for a mere nothing,"--resumed Cruchot, "to put
+obstacles in the way of the concessions which you will be obliged
+to ask from your daughter as soon as her mother dies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call six thousand francs a mere nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! my old friend, do you know what the inventory of your
+wife's property will cost, if Eugenie demands the division?"</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two, three, four thousand francs, perhaps! The property would
+have to be put up at auction and sold, to get at its actual
+value. Instead of that, if you are on good terms with--"</p>
+
+<p>"By the shears of my father!" cried Grandet, turning pale as
+he suddenly sat down, "we will see about it, Cruchot."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence, full of anguish perhaps, the old man
+looked at the notary and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Life is very hard! It has many griefs! Cruchot," he continued
+solemnly, "you would not deceive me? Swear to me upon your honor
+that all you've told me is legally true. Show me the law; I must
+see the law!"</p>
+
+<p>"My poor friend," said the notary, "don't I know my own
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is true! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, destroyed by
+my own daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true that your daughter is her mother's heir."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do we have children? Ah! my wife, I love her! Luckily
+she's sound and healthy; she's a Bertelliere."</p>
+
+<p>"She has not a month to live."</p>
+
+<p>Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came back, cast
+a dreadful look on Cruchot, and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"What can be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eugenie can relinquish her claim to her mother's property.
+Should she do this you would not disinherit her, I presume?--but
+if you want to come to such a settlement, you must not treat her
+harshly. What I am telling you, old man, is against my own
+interests. What do I live by, if it isn't liquidations,
+inventories, conveyances, divisions of property?--"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see, we'll see! Don't let's talk any more about it,
+Cruchot; it wrings my vitals. Have you received any gold?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but I have a few old louis, a dozen or so, which you may
+have. My good friend, make it up with Eugenie. Don't you know all
+Saumur is pelting you with stones?"</p>
+
+<p>"The scoundrels!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satisfied for once
+in your life."</p>
+
+<p>"At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, hey! Ninety-nine!" repeated the old man, accompanying
+the notary to the street-door. Then, too agitated by what he had
+just heard to stay in the house, he went up to his wife's room
+and said,--</p>
+
+<p>"Come, mother, you may have your daughter to spend the day
+with you. I'm going to Froidfond. Enjoy yourselves, both of you.
+This is our wedding-day, wife. See! here are sixty francs for
+your altar at the Fete-Dieu; you've wanted one for a long time.
+Come, cheer up, enjoy yourself, and get well! Hurrah for
+happiness!"</p>
+
+<p>He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon the bed,
+and took his wife's head between his hands and kissed her
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house
+when you refuse to forgive your daughter?" she said with
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet in a coaxing voice. "We'll see
+about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Merciful heaven! Eugenie," cried the mother, flushing with
+joy, "come and kiss your father; he forgives you!"</p>
+
+<p>But the old man had disappeared. He was going as fast as his
+legs could carry him towards his vineyards, trying to get his
+confused ideas into order. Grandet had entered his seventy-sixth
+year. During the last two years his avarice had increased upon
+him, as all the persistent passions of men increase at a certain
+age. As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to
+misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by
+any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special
+symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold,
+had become a monomania. His despotic spirit had grown in
+proportion to his avarice, and to part with the control of the
+smallest fraction of his property at the death of his wife seemed
+to him a thing "against nature." To declare his fortune to his
+daughter, to give an inventory of his property, landed and
+personal, for the purposes of division--</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he cried aloud in the midst of a field where he was
+pretending to examine a vine, "it would be cutting my
+throat!"</p>
+
+<p>He came at last to a decision, and returned to Saumur in time
+for dinner, resolved to unbend to Eugenie, and pet and coax her,
+that he might die regally, holding the reins of his millions in
+his own hands so long as the breath was in his body. At the
+moment when the old man, who chanced to have his pass-key in his
+pocket, opened the door and climbed with a stealthy step up the
+stairway to go into his wife's room, Eugenie had brought the
+beautiful dressing-case from the oak cabinet and placed it on her
+mother's bed. Mother and daughter, in Grandet's absence, allowed
+themselves the pleasure of looking for a likeness to Charles in
+the portrait of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"It is exactly his forehead and his mouth," Eugenie was saying
+as the old man opened the door. At the look which her husband
+cast upon the gold, Madame Grandet cried out,--</p>
+
+<p>"O God, have pity upon us!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger might
+spring upon a sleeping child.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" he said, snatching the treasure and carrying it
+to the window. "Gold, good gold!" he cried. "All gold,--it weighs
+two pounds! Ha, ha! Charles gave you that for your money, did he?
+Hein! Why didn't you tell me so? It was a good bargain, little
+one! Yes, you are my daughter, I see that--" Eugenie trembled in
+every limb. "This came from Charles, of course, didn't it?"
+continued the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust."</p>
+
+<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"Father!"</p>
+
+<p>Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do
+this, he placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang
+forward to recover it; but her father, who had his eye on her and
+on the treasure too, pushed her back so violently with a thrust
+of his arm that she fell upon her mother's bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the mother, lifting herself
+up.</p>
+
+<p>Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging
+herself close to him with clasped hands, "father, in the name of
+all the saints and the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died
+upon the cross! in the name of your eternal salvation, father!
+for my life's sake, father!--do not touch that! It is neither
+yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an unhappy
+relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!"</p>
+
+<p>"If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it
+is as bad as touching it."</p>
+
+<p>"Father, don't destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do
+you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have pity!" said the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran
+upstairs terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what now?" said Grandet coldly, with a callous
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are killing me!" said the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that
+gold, I will stab myself with this one! You have already driven
+my mother to her death; you will now kill your child! Do as you
+choose! Wound for wound!"</p>
+
+<p>Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as
+he looked at his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" said the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll do it if she says so!" cried Nanon. "Be reasonable,
+monsieur, for once in your life."</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter
+alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.</p>
+
+<p>"There! don't you see, monsieur, that madame is dying?" cried
+Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, my daughter, we won't quarrel for a box! Here,
+take it!" he cried hastily, flinging the case upon the bed.
+"Nanon, go and fetch Monsieur Bergerin! Come, mother," said he,
+kissing his wife's hand, "it's all over! There! we've made
+up--haven't we, little one? No more dry bread; you shall have all
+you want--Ah, she opens her eyes! Well, mother, little mother,
+come! See, I'm kissing Eugenie! She loves her cousin, and she may
+marry him if she wants to; she may keep his case. But don't die,
+mother; live a long time yet, my poor wife! Come, try to move!
+Listen! you shall have the finest altar that ever was made in
+Saumur."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how can you treat your wife and daughter so!" said Madame
+Grandet in a feeble voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't do so again, never again," cried her husband; "you
+shall see, my poor wife!" He went to his inner room and returned
+with a handful of louis, which he scattered on the bed. "Here,
+Eugenie! see, wife! all these are for you," he said, fingering
+the coins. "Come, be happy, wife! feel better, get well; you
+sha'n't want for anything, nor Eugenie either. Here's a hundred
+<i>louis d'or</i> for her. You won't give these away, will you,
+Eugenie, hein?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each other in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Take back your money, father; we ask for nothing but your
+affection."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, that's right!" he said, pocketing the coins;
+"let's be good friends! We will all go down to dinner to-day, and
+we'll play loto every evening for two sous. You shall both be
+happy. Hey, wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure," said
+the dying woman; "but I cannot rise from my bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor mother," said Grandet, "you don't know how I love you!
+and you too, my daughter!" He took her in his arms and kissed
+her. "Oh, how good it is to kiss a daughter when we have been
+angry with her! There, mother, don't you see it's all over now?
+Go and put that away, Eugenie," he added, pointing to the case.
+"Go, don't be afraid! I shall never speak of it again,
+never!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, presently
+arrived. After an examination, he told Grandet positively that
+his wife was very ill; but that perfect peace of mind, a generous
+diet, and great care might prolong her life until the autumn.</p>
+
+<p>"Will all that cost much?" said the old man. "Will she need
+medicines?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much medicine, but a great deal of care," answered the
+doctor, who could scarcely restrain a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Monsieur Bergerin," said Grandet, "you are a man of
+honor, are not you? I trust to you! Come and see my wife how and
+when you think necessary. Save my good wife! I love her,--don't
+you see?--though I never talk about it; I keep things to myself.
+I'm full of trouble. Troubles began when my brother died; I have
+to spend enormous sums on his affairs in Paris. Why, I'm paying
+through my nose; there's no end to it. Adieu, monsieur! If you
+can save my wife, save her. I'll spare no expense, not even if it
+costs me a hundred or two hundred francs."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of Grandet's fervent wishes for the health of his
+wife, whose death threatened more than death to him; in spite of
+the consideration he now showed on all occasions for the least
+wish of his astonished wife and daughter; in spite of the tender
+care which Eugenie lavished upon her mother,--Madame Grandet
+rapidly approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and wasted
+visibly, as women of her age when attacked by serious illness are
+wont to do. She was fragile as the foliage in autumn; the
+radiance of heaven shone through her as the sun strikes athwart
+the withering leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her
+life,--a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month
+of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for
+her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she
+passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to
+heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and
+dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a
+destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white
+as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to
+strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.</p>
+
+<p>"My child," she said as she expired, "there is no happiness
+except in heaven; you will know it some day."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+<p>On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new motive for
+attachment to the house in which she was born, where she had
+suffered so much, where her mother had just died. She could not
+see the window and the chair on its castors without weeping. She
+thought she had mistaken the heart of her old father when she
+found herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in the
+morning and gave her his arm to take her to breakfast; he looked
+at her for hours together with an eye that was almost kind; he
+brooded over her as though she had been gold. The old man was so
+unlike himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that
+Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weakness, attributed
+it to his great age, and feared that his faculties were giving
+away. But the day on which the family put on their mourning, and
+after dinner, to which meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who
+knew his secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser
+was explained.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," he said to Eugenie when the table had been
+cleared and the doors carefully shut, "you are now your mother's
+heiress, and we have a few little matters to settle between us.
+Isn't that so, Cruchot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, little one; I can't bear the uncertainty in which
+I'm placed. I think you don't want to give me pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! father--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then! let us settle it all to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you wish me to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her,
+Cruchot."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide the
+property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous taxes on the
+ready money which he may possess. Therefore, to avoid all this,
+he must be released from making the inventory of his whole
+fortune, part of which you inherit from your mother, and which is
+now undivided between you and your father--"</p>
+
+<p>"Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you
+tell it to a mere child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell it my own way, Grandet."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob
+me,--do you, little one?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?" said Eugenie
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the notary, "it is necessary to sign this deed,
+by which you renounce your rights to your mother's estate and
+leave your father the use and disposition, during his lifetime,
+of all the property undivided between you, of which he guarantees
+you the capital."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand a word of what you are saying," returned
+Eugenie; "give me the deed, and show me where I am to sign
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his
+daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did
+so such violent emotion that he wiped the sweat from his
+brow.</p>
+
+<p>"My little girl," he said, "if, instead of signing this deed,
+which will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to
+renounce your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother's
+property, and would trust to me for the future, I should like it
+better. In that case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of
+a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for as many masses as
+you want for anybody-- Hein! a hundred francs a month--in
+<i>livres</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will do all you wish, father."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," said the notary, "it is my duty to point out
+to you that you are despoiling yourself without guarantee--"</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! what is all that to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue, Cruchot! It's settled, all settled," cried
+Grandet, taking his daughter's hand and striking it with his own.
+"Eugenie, you won't go back on your word?--you are an honest
+girl, hein?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! father!--"</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms till he
+almost choked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, my good child, you restore your father's life; but you
+only return to him that which he gave you: we are quits. This is
+how business should be done. Life is a business. I bless you! you
+are a virtuous girl, and you love your father. Do just what you
+like in future. To-morrow, Cruchot," he added, looking at the
+horrified notary, "you will see about preparing the deed of
+relinquishment, and then enter it on the records of the
+court."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by which she
+herself completed her spoliation. At the end of the first year,
+however, in spite of his bargain, the old man had not given his
+daughter one sou of the hundred francs he had so solemnly pledged
+to her. When Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could
+not help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding-place,
+from whence he brought down about a third of the jewels he had
+taken from his nephew, and gave them to her.</p>
+
+<p>"There, little one," he said in a sarcastic tone, "do you want
+those for your twelve hundred francs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you as many more next year," he said, throwing them
+into her apron. "So before long you'll get all his gewgaws," he
+added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on
+his daughter's feelings.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust, felt the
+importance of initiating his daughter into the secrets of his
+thrift and its management. For two consecutive years he made her
+order the household meals in his presence and receive the rents,
+and he taught her slowly and successively the names and
+remunerative capacity of his vineyards and his farms. About the
+third year he had so thoroughly accustomed her to his avaricious
+methods that they had turned into the settled habits of her own
+life, and he was able to leave the household keys in her charge
+without anxiety, and to install her as mistress of the house.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>Five years passed away without a single event to relieve the
+monotonous existence of Eugenie and her father. The same actions
+were performed daily with the automatic regularity of clockwork.
+The deep sadness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every one;
+but if others surmised the cause, she herself never uttered a
+word that justified the suspicions which all Saumur entertained
+about the state of the rich heiress's heart. Her only society was
+made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular
+friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the
+Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they
+came every night for their game. During the year 1827 her father,
+feeling the weight of his infirmities, was obliged to initiate
+her still further into the secrets of his landed property, and
+told her that in case of difficulty she was to have recourse to
+Maitre Cruchot, whose integrity was well known to him.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of this year the old man, then eighty-two, was
+seized by paralysis, which made rapid progress. Dr. Bergerin gave
+him up. Eugenie, feeling that she was about to be left alone in
+the world, came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped
+more tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, as
+in that of all loving women, love was the whole of life. Charles
+was not there, and she devoted all her care and attention to the
+old father, whose faculties had begun to weaken, though his
+avarice remained instinctively acute. The death of this man
+offered no contrast to his life. In the morning he made them roll
+him to a spot between the chimney of his chamber and the door of
+the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, with gold. He asked
+for an explanation of every noise he heard, even the slightest;
+to the great astonishment of the notary, he even heard the
+watch-dog yawning in the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent
+stupor at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when
+accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers, and receipts
+given. At such times he worked his chair forward on its castors
+until he faced the door of the inner room. He made his daughter
+open it, and watched while she placed the bags of money one upon
+another in his secret receptacles and relocked the door. Then she
+returned silently to her seat, after giving him the key, which he
+replaced in his waistcoat pocket and fingered from time to time.
+His old friend the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress
+would inevitably marry his nephew the president, if Charles
+Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions; he came
+every day to take Grandet's orders, went on his errands to
+Froidfond, to the farms and the fields and the vineyards, sold
+the vintages, and turned everything into gold and silver, which
+found their way in sacks to the secret hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p>At length the last struggle came, in which the strong frame of
+the old man slowly yielded to destruction. He was determined to
+sit at the chimney-corner facing the door of the secret room. He
+drew off and rolled up all the coverings which were laid over
+him, saying to Nanon, "Put them away, lock them up, for fear they
+should be stolen."</p>
+
+<p>So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole being
+had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door behind which lay
+his treasures, saying to his daughter, "Are they there? are they
+there?" in a tone of voice which revealed a sort of panic
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my father," she would answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of the gold--put gold before me."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before him, and he
+would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed upon them, like
+a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in
+stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a
+distressful smile would flicker upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"It warms me!" he would sometimes say, as an expression of
+beatitude stole across his features.</p>
+
+<p>When the cure of the parish came to administer the last
+sacraments, the old man's eyes, sightless, apparently, for some
+hours, kindled at the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and
+the holy-water vessel of silver; he gazed at them fixedly, and
+his wen moved for the last time. When the priest put the crucifix
+of silver-gilt to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he
+made a frightful gesture, as if to seize it; and that last effort
+cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not see, though
+she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his stiffening
+hand, which was already cold.</p>
+
+<p>"My father, bless me!" she entreated.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of it all. You will render me an account yonder!"
+he said, proving by these last words that Christianity must
+always be the religion of misers.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house,
+with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of
+being heard and understood,--Nanon the sole being who loved her
+for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La
+Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant,
+but a humble friend. After her father's death Eugenie learned
+from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed an income of three hundred
+thousand francs from landed and personal property in the
+arrondissement of Saumur; also six millions invested at three per
+cent in the Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six
+francs); also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred thousand
+francs in silver crown-pieces, besides all the interest which was
+still to be collected. The sum total of her property reached
+seventeen millions.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my cousin?" was her one thought.</p>
+
+<p>The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a
+clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie
+remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the
+vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on
+castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her
+cousin drank.</p>
+
+<p>"Nanon, we are alone--"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling,
+I'd go on foot to find him."</p>
+
+<p>"The ocean is between us," she said.</p>
+
+<p>While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in
+that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole
+province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen
+millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had
+settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who,
+already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable
+match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to
+wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was
+appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet's estates. Madame
+Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her
+contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did
+not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the
+ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her
+semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the
+vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps
+she never looked as well in her life as she did on her
+marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was
+big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her
+indestructible features which made a good many people envy
+Cornoiller.</p>
+
+<p>"Fast colors!" said the draper.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite likely to have children," said the salt merchant.
+"She's pickled in brine, saving your presence."</p>
+
+<p>"She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing
+for himself," said a third man.</p>
+
+<p>When she came forth from the old house on her way to the
+parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood,
+received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street.
+Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a
+wedding present. Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, spoke
+of his mistress with tears in his eyes; he would willingly have
+been hacked in pieces in her behalf. Madame Cornoiller, appointed
+housekeeper to Mademoiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of
+her new position as she did from the possession of a husband. She
+took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions
+and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master;
+she ruled over two servants,--a cook, and a maid whose business
+it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle's dresses.
+Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff. It is
+unnecessary to say that the women-servants selected by Nanon were
+"perfect treasures." Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants,
+whose devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no change
+after Monsieur Grandet's death; the usages and customs he had
+sternly established were scrupulously carried out by Monsieur and
+Madame Cornoiller.</p>
+
+<p>At thirty years of age Eugenie knew none of the joys of life.
+Her pale, sad childhood had glided on beside a mother whose
+heart, always misunderstood and wounded, had known only
+suffering. Leaving this life joyfully, the mother pitied the
+daughter because she still must live; and she left in her child's
+soul some fugitive remorse and many lasting regrets. Eugenie's
+first and only love was a wellspring of sadness within her.
+Meeting her lover for a few brief days, she had given him her
+heart between two kisses furtively exchanged; then he had left
+her, and a whole world lay between them. This love, cursed by her
+father, had cost the life of her mother and brought her only
+sorrow, mingled with a few frail hopes. Thus her upward spring
+towards happiness had wasted her strength and given her nothing
+in exchange for it. In the life of the soul, as in the physical
+life, there is an inspiration and a respiration; the soul needs
+to absorb the sentiments of another soul and assimilate them,
+that it may render them back enriched. Were it not for this
+glorious human phenomenon, there would be no life for the heart;
+air would be wanting; it would suffer, and then perish. Eugenie
+had begun to suffer. For her, wealth was neither a power nor a
+consolation; she could not live except through love, through
+religion, through faith in the future. Love explained to her the
+mysteries of eternity. Her heart and the Gospel taught her to
+know two worlds; she bathed, night and day, in the depths of two
+infinite thoughts, which for her may have had but one meaning.
+She drew back within herself, loving, and believing herself
+beloved. For seven years her passion had invaded everything. Her
+treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up;
+they were Charles's dressing- case, the portraits hanging above
+her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread
+upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble
+of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore
+religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,--a Penelope's
+web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that
+gold so rich in memories.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry
+during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well
+known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided
+by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with
+surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most
+affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a
+party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its
+mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand
+almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime
+minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain
+have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a
+train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a
+queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble
+souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further
+belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the
+persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So
+the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle
+Grandet's house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond)
+outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of
+praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under
+its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the
+sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was
+so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had
+seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far
+more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at
+last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet
+of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a
+sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where
+his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were
+perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven
+years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought
+in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like
+the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the
+heiress.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, mademoiselle," said an habitual visitor, "that
+the Cruchots have an income of forty thousand francs among
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>"And then, their savings!" exclaimed an elderly female
+Cruchotine, Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman from Paris has lately offered Monsieur Cruchot
+two hundred thousand francs for his practice," said another. "He
+will sell it if he is appointed <i>juge de paix."</i></p>
+
+<p>"He wants to succeed Monsieur de Bonfons as president of the
+Civil courts, and is taking measures," replied Madame d'Orsonval.
+"Monsieur le president will certainly be made councillor."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is a very distinguished man," said another,--"don't
+you think so, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur de Bonfons endeavored to put himself in keeping with
+the role he sought to play. In spite of his forty years, in spite
+of his dusky and crabbed features, withered like most judicial
+faces, he dressed in youthful fashions, toyed with a bamboo cane,
+never took snuff in Mademoiselle de Froidfond's house, and came
+in a white cravat and a shirt whose pleated frill gave him a
+family resemblance to the race of turkeys. He addressed the
+beautiful heiress familiarly, and spoke of her as "Our dear
+Eugenie." In short, except for the number of visitors, the change
+from loto to whist, and the disappearance of Monsieur and Madame
+Grandet, the scene was about the same as the one with which this
+history opened. The pack were still pursuing Eugenie and her
+millions; but the hounds, more in number, lay better on the
+scent, and beset the prey more unitedly. If Charles could have
+dropped from the Indian Isles, he would have found the same
+people and the same interests. Madame des Grassins, to whom
+Eugenie was full of kindness and courtesy, still persisted in
+tormenting the Cruchots. Eugenie, as in former days, was the
+central figure of the picture; and Charles, as heretofore, would
+still have been the sovereign of all. Yet there had been some
+progress. The flowers which the president formerly presented to
+Eugenie on her birthdays and fete-days had now become a daily
+institution. Every evening he brought the rich heiress a huge and
+magnificent bouquet, which Madame Cornoiller placed conspicuously
+in a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the court-yard
+when the visitors had departed.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the spring, Madame des Grassins attempted to trouble
+the peace of the Cruchotines by talking to Eugenie of the Marquis
+de Froidfond, whose ancient and ruined family might be restored
+if the heiress would give him back his estates through marriage.
+Madame des Grassins rang the changes on the peerage and the title
+of marquise, until, mistaking Eugenie's disdainful smile for
+acquiescence, she went about proclaiming that the marriage with
+"Monsieur Cruchot" was not nearly as certain as people
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Though Monsieur de Froidfond is fifty," she said, "he does
+not look older than Monsieur Cruchot. He is a widower, and he has
+children, that's true. But then he is a marquis; he will be peer
+of France; and in times like these where you will find a better
+match? I know it for a fact that Pere Grandet, when he put all
+his money into Froidfond, intended to graft himself upon that
+stock; he often told me so. He was a deep one, that old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Nanon," said Eugenie, one night as she was going to bed,
+"how is it that in seven years he has never once written to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+<p>While these events were happening in Saumur, Charles was
+making his fortune in the Indies. His commercial outfit had sold
+well. He began by realizing a sum of six thousand dollars.
+Crossing the line had brushed a good many cobwebs out of his
+brain; he perceived that the best means of attaining fortune in
+tropical regions, as well as in Europe, was to buy and sell men.
+He went to the coast of Africa and bought Negroes, combining his
+traffic in human flesh with that of other merchandise equally
+advantageous to his interests. He carried into this business an
+activity which left him not a moment of leisure. He was governed
+by the desire of reappearing in Paris with all the prestige of a
+large fortune, and by the hope of regaining a position even more
+brilliant than the one from which he had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>By dint of jostling with men, travelling through many lands,
+and studying a variety of conflicting customs, his ideas had been
+modified and had become sceptical. He ceased to have fixed
+principles of right and wrong, for he saw what was called a crime
+in one country lauded as a virtue in another. In the perpetual
+struggle of selfish interests his heart grew cold, then
+contracted, and then dried up. The blood of the Grandets did not
+fail of its destiny; Charles became hard, and eager for prey. He
+sold Chinamen, Negroes, birds' nests, children, artists; he
+practised usury on a large scale; the habit of defrauding
+custom-houses soon made him less scrupulous about the rights of
+his fellow men. He went to the Island of St. Thomas and bought,
+for a mere song, merchandise that had been captured by pirates,
+and took it to ports where he could sell it at a good price. If
+the pure and noble face of Eugenie went with him on his first
+voyage, like that image of the Virgin which Spanish mariners
+fastened to their masts, if he attributed his first success to
+the magic influence of the prayers and intercessions of his
+gentle love, later on women of other kinds,-- blacks, mulattoes,
+whites, and Indian dancing-girls,--orgies and adventures in many
+lands, completely effaced all recollection of his cousin, of
+Saumur, of the house, the bench, the kiss snatched in the dark
+passage. He remembered only the little garden shut in with
+crumbling walls, for it was there he learned the fate that had
+overtaken him; but he rejected all connection with his family.
+His uncle was an old dog who had filched his jewels; Eugenie had
+no place in his heart nor in his thoughts, though she did have a
+place in his accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet's silence.
+In the Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon,
+and in the United States the adventurer had taken the pseudonym
+of Shepherd, that he might not compromise his own name. Charles
+Shepherd could safely be indefatigable, bold, grasping, and
+greedy of gain, like a man who resolves to snatch his fortune
+<i>quibus cumque viis</i>, and makes haste to have done with
+villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as an honest
+man.</p>
+
+<p>With such methods, prosperity was rapid and brilliant; and in
+1827 Charles Grandet returned to Bordeaux on the "Marie
+Caroline," a fine brig belonging to a royalist house of business.
+He brought with him nineteen hundred thousand francs worth of
+gold-dust, from which he expected to derive seven or eight per
+cent more at the Paris mint. On the brig he met a
+gentleman-in-ordinary to His Majesty Charles X., Monsieur
+d'Aubrion, a worthy old man who had committed the folly of
+marrying a woman of fashion with a fortune derived from the West
+India Islands. To meet the costs of Madame d'Aubrion's
+extravagance, he had gone out to the Indies to sell the property,
+and was now returning with his family to France.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur and Madame d'Aubrion, of the house of d'Aubrion de
+Buch, a family of southern France, whose last <i>captal</i>, or
+chief, died before 1789, were now reduced to an income of about
+twenty thousand francs, and they possessed an ugly daughter whom
+the mother was resolved to marry without a <i>dot</i>,--the
+family fortune being scarcely sufficient for the demands of her
+own life in Paris. This was an enterprise whose success might
+have seemed problematical to most men of the world, in spite of
+the cleverness with which such men credit a fashionable woman; in
+fact, Madame d'Aubrion herself, when she looked at her daughter,
+almost despaired of getting rid of her to any one, even to a man
+craving connection with nobility. Mademoiselle d'Aubrion was a
+long, spare, spindling demoiselle, like her namesake the insect;
+her mouth was disdainful; over it hung a nose that was too long,
+thick at the end, sallow in its normal condition, but very red
+after a meal,--a sort of vegetable phenomenon which is
+particularly disagreeable when it appears in the middle of a
+pale, dull, and uninteresting face. In one sense she was all that
+a worldly mother, thirty-eight years of age and still a beauty
+with claims to admiration, could have wished. However, to
+counterbalance her personal defects, the marquise gave her
+daughter a distinguished air, subjected her to hygienic treatment
+which provisionally kept her nose at a reasonable flesh-tint,
+taught her the art of dressing well, endowed her with charming
+manners, showed her the trick of melancholy glances which
+interest a man and make him believe that he has found a
+long-sought angel, taught her the manoeuvre of the foot,--letting
+it peep beneath the petticoat, to show its tiny size, at the
+moment when the nose became aggressively red; in short, Madame
+d'Aubrion had cleverly made the very best of her offspring. By
+means of full sleeves, deceptive pads, puffed dresses amply
+trimmed, and high-pressure corsets, she had obtained such curious
+feminine developments that she ought, for the instruction of
+mothers, to have exhibited them in a museum.</p>
+
+<p>Charles became very intimate with Madame d'Aubrion precisely
+because she was desirous of becoming intimate with him. Persons
+who were on board the brig declared that the handsome Madame
+d'Aubrion neglected no means of capturing so rich a son-in-law.
+On landing at Bordeaux in June, 1827, Monsieur, Madame,
+Mademoiselle d'Aubrion, and Charles lodged at the same hotel and
+started together for Paris. The hotel d'Aubrion was hampered with
+mortgages; Charles was destined to free it. The mother told him
+how delighted she would be to give up the ground-floor to a
+son-in-law. Not sharing Monsieur d'Aubrion's prejudices on the
+score of nobility, she promised Charles Grandet to obtain a royal
+ordinance from Charles X. which would authorize him, Grandet, to
+take the name and arms of d'Aubrion and to succeed, by purchasing
+the entailed estate for thirty-six thousand francs a year, to the
+titles of Captal de Buch and Marquis d'Aubrion. By thus uniting
+their fortunes, living on good terms, and profiting by sinecures,
+the two families might occupy the hotel d'Aubrion with an income
+of over a hundred thousand francs.</p>
+
+<p>"And when a man has a hundred thousand francs a year, a name,
+a family, and a position at court,--for I will get you appointed
+as gentleman-of-the-bedchamber,--he can do what he likes," she
+said to Charles. "You can then become anything you
+choose,--master of the rolls in the council of State, prefect,
+secretary to an embassy, the ambassador himself, if you like.
+Charles X. is fond of d'Aubrion; they have known each other from
+childhood."</p>
+
+<p>Intoxicated with ambition, Charles toyed with the hopes thus
+cleverly presented to him in the guise of confidences poured from
+heart to heart. Believing his father's affairs to have been
+settled by his uncle, he imagined himself suddenly anchored in
+the Faubourg Saint- Germain,--that social object of all desire,
+where, under shelter of Mademoiselle Mathilde's purple nose, he
+was to reappear as the Comte d'Aubrion, very much as the Dreux
+reappeared in Breze. Dazzled by the prosperity of the
+Restoration, which was tottering when he left France, fascinated
+by the splendor of aristocratic ideas, his intoxication, which
+began on the brig, increased after he reached Paris, and he
+finally determined to take the course and reach the high position
+which the selfish hopes of his would-be mother-in-law pointed out
+to him. His cousin counted for no more than a speck in this
+brilliant perspective; but he went to see Annette. True woman of
+the world, Annette advised her old friend to make the marriage,
+and promised him her support in all his ambitious projects. In
+her heart she was enchanted to fasten an ugly and uninteresting
+girl on Charles, whose life in the West Indies had rendered him
+very attractive. His complexion had bronzed, his manners had
+grown decided and bold, like those of a man accustomed to make
+sharp decisions, to rule, and to succeed. Charles breathed more
+at his ease in Paris, conscious that he now had a part to
+play.</p>
+
+<p>Des Grassins, hearing of his return, of his approaching
+marriage and his large fortune, came to see him, and inquired
+about the three hundred thousand francs still required to settle
+his father's debts. He found Grandet in conference with a
+goldsmith, from whom he had ordered jewels for Mademoiselle
+d'Aubrion's <i>corbeille</i>, and who was then submitting the
+designs. Charles had brought back magnificent diamonds, and the
+value of their setting, together with the plate and jewelry of
+the new establishment, amounted to more than two hundred thousand
+francs. He received des Grassins, whom he did not recognize, with
+the impertinence of a young man of fashion conscious of having
+killed four men in as many duels in the Indies. Monsieur des
+Grassins had already called several times. Charles listened to
+him coldly, and then replied, without fully understanding what
+had been said to him,--</p>
+
+<p>"My father's affairs are not mine. I am much obliged,
+monsieur, for the trouble you have been good enough to take,--by
+which, however, I really cannot profit. I have not earned two
+millions by the sweat of my brow to fling them at the head of my
+father's creditors."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose that your father's estate were within a few days
+to be declared bankrupt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, in a few days I shall be called the Comte
+d'Aubrion; you will understand, therefore, that what you threaten
+is of no consequence to me. Besides, you know as well as I do
+that when a man has an income of a hundred thousand francs his
+father has <i>never failed</i>." So saying, he politely edged
+Monsieur des Grassins to the door.</p>
+
+<p>*****</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was
+sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to
+love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the
+weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in
+the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the
+great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes
+which had followed it. The sun had just reached the angle of the
+ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a caprice
+of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though Cornoiller often
+remarked to his wife that "it would fall and crush somebody one
+of these days." At this moment the postman knocked, and gave a
+letter to Madame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying
+out:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, a letter!" She gave it to her mistress, adding,
+"Is it the one you expected?"</p>
+
+<p>The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as they
+echoed in sound from wall to wall of the court and garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Paris--from him--he has returned!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie turned pale and held the letter for a moment. She
+trembled so violently that she could not break the seal. La
+Grande Nanon stood before her, both hands on her hips, her joy
+puffing as it were like smoke through the cracks of her brown
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, mademoiselle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went from
+Saumur."</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, and you'll find out."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie opened the letter with trembling fingers. A cheque on
+the house of "Madame des Grassins and Coret, of Saumur,"
+fluttered down. Nanon picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Cousin,--</p>
+
+<p>"No longer 'Eugenie,'" she thought, and her heart quailed.</p>
+
+<p>You--</p>
+
+<p>"He once said 'thou.'" She folded her arms and dared not read
+another word; great tears gathered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dead?" asked Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>"If he were, he could not write," said Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>She then read the whole letter, which was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>My dear Cousin,--You will, I am sure, hear with pleasure of
+the success of my enterprise. You brought me luck; I have come
+back rich, and I have followed the advice of my uncle, whose
+death, together with that of my aunt, I have just learned from
+Monsieur des Grassins. The death of parents is in the course of
+nature, and we must succeed them. I trust you are by this time
+consoled. Nothing can resist time, as I am well aware. Yes, my
+dear cousin, the day of illusions is, unfortunately, gone for me.
+How could it be otherwise? Travelling through many lands, I have
+reflected upon life. I was a child when I went away,--I have come
+back a man. To-day, I think of many I did not dream of then. You
+are free, my dear cousin, and I am free still. Nothing apparently
+hinders the realization of our early hopes; but my nature is too
+loyal to hide from you the situation in which I find myself. I
+have not forgotten our relations; I have always remembered,
+throughout my long wanderings, the little wooden seat--</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and went
+away and sat down on the stone steps of the court.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>--the little wooden seat where we vowed to love each other
+forever, the passage, the gray hall, my attic chamber, and the
+night when, by your delicate kindness, you made my future easier
+to me. Yes, these recollections sustained my courage; I said in
+my heart that you were thinking of me at the hour we had agreed
+upon. Have you always looked at the clouds at nine o'clock? Yes,
+I am sure of it. I cannot betray so true a friendship,--no, I
+must not deceive you. An alliance has been proposed to me which
+satisfies all my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a
+delusion. My present experience warns me that in marrying we are
+bound to obey all social laws and meet the conventional demands
+of the world. Now, between you and me there are differences which
+might affect your future, my dear cousin, even more than they
+would mine. I will not here speak of your customs and
+inclinations, your education, nor yet of your habits, none of
+which are in keeping with Parisian life, or with the future which
+I have marked out for myself. My intention is to keep my
+household on a stately footing, to receive much company,--in
+short, to live in the world; and I think I remember that you love
+a quiet and tranquil life. I will be frank, and make you the
+judge of my situation; you have the right to understand it and to
+judge it.</p>
+
+<p>I possess at the present moment an income of eighty thousand
+francs. This fortune enables me to marry into the family of
+Aubrion, whose heiress, a young girl nineteen years of age,
+brings me a title, a place of gentleman-of-the-bed-chamber to His
+Majesty, and a very brilliant position. I will admit to you, my
+dear cousin, that I do not love Mademoiselle d'Aubrion; but in
+marrying her I secure to my children a social rank whose
+advantages will one day be incalculable: monarchical principles
+are daily coming more and more into favor. Thus in course of time
+my son, when he becomes Marquis d'Aubrion, having, as he then
+will have, an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand
+francs a year, can obtain any position in the State which he may
+think proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children.</p>
+
+<p>You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state of my
+heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possibly, after seven
+years' separation, you have yourself forgotten our youthful
+loves; but I have never forgotten either your kindness or my own
+words. I remember all, even words that were lightly
+uttered,--words by which a man less conscientious than I, with a
+heart less youthful and less upright, would scarcely feel himself
+bound. In telling you that the marriage I propose to make is
+solely one of convenience, that I still remember our childish
+love, am I not putting myself entirely in your hands and making
+you the mistress of my fate? am I not telling you that if I must
+renounce my social ambitions, I shall willingly content myself
+with the pure and simple happiness of which you have shown me so
+sweet an image?</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Tan, ta, ta--tan, ta, ti," sang Charles Grandet to the air of
+<i>Non piu andrai,</i> as he signed himself,--</p>
+
+<p>Your devoted cousin, Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Thunder! that's doing it handsomely!" he said, as he looked
+about him for the cheque; having found it, he added the
+words:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>P.S.--I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank for eight
+thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which includes
+the capital and interest of the sum you were kind enough to lend
+me. I am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few
+things which you must allow me to offer you as a mark of my
+unceasing gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the
+diligence to the hotel d'Aubrion, rue Hillerin-Bertin.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"By the diligence!" said Eugenie. "A thing for which I would
+have laid down my life!"</p>
+
+<p>Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a
+spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they
+see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the
+arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the
+earth,--to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine;
+the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human
+justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they
+go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and
+recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is
+love,--true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives
+upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie's love after
+she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven,
+thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with
+the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear
+and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death,
+that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny.
+Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings,
+stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of
+her deliverance.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was right," she said, weeping. "Suffer--and
+die!"</p>
+
+<p>XIV</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie came slowly back from the garden to the house, and
+avoided passing, as was her custom, through the corridor. But the
+memory of her cousin was in the gray old hall and on the
+chimney-piece, where stood a certain saucer and the old Sevres
+sugar-bowl which she used every morning at her breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>This day was destined to be solemn throughout and full of
+events. Nanon announced the cure of the parish church. He was
+related to the Cruchots, and therefore in the interests of
+Monsieur de Bonfons. For some time past the old abbe had urged
+him to speak to Mademoiselle Grandet, from a purely religious
+point of view, about the duty of marriage for a woman in her
+position. When she saw her pastor, Eugenie supposed he had come
+for the thousand francs which she gave monthly to the poor, and
+she told Nanon to go and fetch them; but the cure only
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, mademoiselle," he said, "I have come to speak to you
+about a poor girl in whom the whole town of Saumur takes an
+interest, who, through lack of charity to herself, neglects her
+Christian duties."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le cure, you have come to me at a moment when I
+cannot think of my neighbor, I am filled with thoughts of myself.
+I am very unhappy; my only refuge is in the Church; her bosom is
+large enough to hold all human woe, her love so full that we may
+draw from its depths and never drain it dry."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, in speaking of this young girl we shall speak
+of you. Listen! If you wish to insure your salvation you have
+only two paths to take,--either leave the world or obey its laws.
+Obey either your earthly destiny or your heavenly destiny."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! your voice speaks to me when I need to hear a voice. Yes,
+God has sent you to me; I will bid farewell to the world and live
+for God alone, in silence and seclusion."</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, you must think long before you take so violent a
+step. Marriage is life, the veil is death."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, death,--a quick death!" she said, with dreadful
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Death? but you have great obligations to fulfil to society,
+mademoiselle. Are you not the mother of the poor, to whom you
+give clothes and wood in winter and work in summer? Your great
+fortune is a loan which you must return, and you have sacredly
+accepted it as such. To bury yourself in a convent would be
+selfishness; to remain an old maid is to fail in duty. In the
+first place, can you manage your vast property alone? May you not
+lose it? You will have law-suits, you will find yourself
+surrounded by inextricable difficulties. Believe your pastor: a
+husband is useful; you are bound to preserve what God has
+bestowed upon you. I speak to you as a precious lamb of my flock.
+You love God too truly not to find your salvation in the midst of
+his world, of which you are noble ornament and to which you owe
+your example."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Madame des Grassins was announced. She came
+incited by vengeance and the sense of a great despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," she said--"Ah! here is monsieur le cure; I am
+silent. I came to speak to you on business; but I see that you
+are conferring with--"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," said the cure, "I leave the field to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! monsieur le cure," said Eugenie, "come back later; your
+support is very necessary to me just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child!" said Madame des
+Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Eugenie and the cure together.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know about your cousin's return, and his marriage
+with Mademoiselle d'Aubrion? A woman doesn't carry her wits in
+her pocket."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie blushed, and remained silent for a moment. From this
+day forth she assumed the impassible countenance for which her
+father had been so remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madame," she presently said, ironically, "no doubt I
+carry my wits in my pocket, for I do not understand you. Speak,
+say what you mean, before monsieur le cure; you know he is my
+director."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins writes
+me. Read it."</p>
+
+<p>Eugenie read the following letter:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>My dear Wife,--Charles Grandet has returned from the Indies
+and has been in Paris about a month--</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"A month!" thought Eugenie, her hand falling to her side.
+After a pause she resumed the letter,--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I had to dance attendance before I was allowed to see the
+future Vicomte d'Aubrion. Though all Paris is talking of his
+marriage and the banns are published--</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"He wrote to me after that!" thought Eugenie. She did not
+conclude the thought; she did not cry out, as a Parisian woman
+would have done, "The villain!" but though she said it not,
+contempt was none the less present in her mind.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The marriage, however, will not come off. The Marquis
+d'Aubrion will never give his daughter to the son of a bankrupt.
+I went to tell Grandet of the steps his uncle and I took in his
+father's business, and the clever manoeuvres by which we had
+managed to keep the creditor's quiet until the present time. The
+insolent fellow had the face to say to me--to me, who for five
+years have devoted myself night and day to his interests and his
+honor!--that <i>his father's</i> <i>affairs were not his</i>! A
+solicitor would have had the right to demand fees amounting to
+thirty or forty thousand francs, one per cent on the total of the
+debts. But patience! there are twelve hundred thousand francs
+legitimately owing to the creditors, and I shall at once declare
+his father a bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>I went into this business on the word of that old crocodile
+Grandet, and I have made promises in the name of his family. If
+Monsieur de vicomte d'Aubrion does not care for his honor, I care
+for mine. I shall explain my position to the creditors. Still, I
+have too much respect for Mademoiselle Eugenie (to whom under
+happier circumstances we once hoped to be allied) to act in this
+matter before you have spoken to her about it--</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>There Eugenie paused, and coldly returned the letter without
+finishing it.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you," she said to Madame des Grassins.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you have the voice and manner of your deceased father,"
+Madame des Grassins replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay us," said
+Nanon, producing Charles's cheque.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true; have the kindness to come with me now, Madame
+Cornoiller."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le cure," said Eugenie with a noble composure,
+inspired by the thought she was about to express, "would it be a
+sin to remain a virgin after marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a case of conscience whose solution is not within my
+knowledge. If you wish to know what the celebrated Sanchez says
+of it in his treatise 'De Matrimonio,' I shall be able to tell
+you to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The cure went away; Mademoiselle Grandet went up to her
+father's secret room and spent the day there alone, without
+coming down to dinner, in spite of Nanon's entreaties. She
+appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began
+to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion.
+The news of Charles's return and his foolish treachery had spread
+through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the
+visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected
+scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul
+to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a
+smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their
+interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her
+misery behind a veil of courtesy. Towards nine o'clock the games
+ended and the players left the tables, paying their losses and
+discussing points of the game as they joined the rest of the
+company. At the moment when the whole party rose to take leave,
+an unexpected and striking event occurred, which resounded
+through the length and breadth of Saumur, from thence through the
+arrondissement, and even to the four surrounding prefectures.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay, monsieur le president," said Eugenie to Monsieur de
+Bonfons as she saw him take his cane.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a person in that numerous assembly who was
+unmoved by these words. The president turned pale, and was forced
+to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"The president gets the millions," said Mademoiselle de
+Gribeaucourt.</p>
+
+<p>"It is plain enough; the president marries Mademoiselle
+Grandet," cried Madame d'Orsonval.</p>
+
+<p>"All the trumps in one hand," said the abbe.</p>
+
+<p>"A love game," said the notary.</p>
+
+<p>Each and all said his say, made his pun, and looked at the
+heiress mounted on her millions as on a pedestal. The drama begun
+nine years before had reached its conclusion. To tell the
+president, in face of all Saumur, to "stay," was surely the same
+thing as proclaiming him her husband. In provincial towns social
+conventionalities are so rigidly enforced than an infraction like
+this constituted a solemn promise.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le president," said Eugenie in a voice of some
+emotion when they were left alone, "I know what pleases you in
+me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of
+the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is
+yours. Oh!" she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, "I
+have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish
+one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment
+which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor
+to violate the laws of my own heart. But you can possess my hand
+and my fortune only at the cost of doing me an inestimable
+service."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready for all things," said the president.</p>
+
+<p>"Here are fifteen hundred thousand francs," she said, drawing
+from her bosom a certificate of a hundred shares in the Bank of
+France. "Go to Paris,--not to-morrow, but instantly. Find
+Monsieur des Grassins, learn the names of my uncle's creditors,
+call them together, pay them in full all that was owing, with
+interest at five per cent from the day the debt was incurred to
+the present time. Be careful to obtain a full and legal receipt,
+in proper form, before a notary. You are a magistrate, and I can
+trust this matter in your hands. You are a man of honor; I will
+put faith in your word, and meet the dangers of life under
+shelter of your name. Let us have mutual indulgence. We have
+known each other so long that we are almost related; you would
+not wish to render me unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>The president fell at the feet of the rich heiress, his heart
+beating and wrung with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I will be your slave!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"When you obtain the receipts, monsieur," she resumed, with a
+cold glance, "you will take them with all the other papers to my
+cousin Grandet, and you will give him this letter. On your return
+I will keep my word."</p>
+
+<p>The president understood perfectly that he owed the
+acquiescence of Mademoiselle Grandet to some bitterness of love,
+and he made haste to obey her orders, lest time should effect a
+reconciliation between the pair.</p>
+
+<p>When Monsieur de Bonfons left her, Eugenie fell back in her
+chair and burst into tears. All was over.</p>
+
+<p>The president took the mail-post, and reached Paris the next
+evening. The morning after his arrival he went to see des
+Grassins, and together they summoned the creditors to meet at the
+notary's office where the vouchers had been deposited. Not a
+single creditor failed to be present. Creditors though they were,
+justice must be done to them, --they were all punctual. Monsieur
+de Bonfons, in the name of Mademoiselle Grandet, paid them the
+amount of their claims with interest. The payment of interest was
+a remarkable event in the Parisian commerce of that day. When the
+receipts were all legally registered, and des Grassins had
+received for his services the sum of fifty thousand francs
+allowed to him by Eugenie, the president made his way to the
+hotel d'Aubrion and found Charles just entering his own apartment
+after a serious encounter with his prospective father-in- law.
+The old marquis had told him plainly that he should not marry his
+daughter until all the creditors of Guillaume Grandet had been
+paid in full.</p>
+
+<p>The president gave Charles the following letter:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>My Cousin,--Monsieur le president de Bonfons has undertaken to
+place in your hands the aquittance for all claims upon my uncle,
+also a receipt by which I acknowledge having received from you
+the sum total of those claims. I have heard of a possible
+failure, and I think that the son of a bankrupt may not be able
+to marry Mademoiselle d'Aubrion. Yes, my cousin, you judged
+rightly of my mind and of my manners. I have, it is true, no part
+in the world; I understand neither its calculations nor its
+customs; and I could not give you the pleasures that you seek in
+it. Be happy, according to the social conventions to which you
+have sacrificed our love. To make your happiness complete I can
+only offer you your father's honor. Adieu! You will always have a
+faithful friend in your cousin</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Eugenie.</p>
+
+<p>The president smiled at the exclamation which the ambitious
+young man could not repress as he received the documents.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall announce our marriages at the same time," remarked
+Monsieur de Bonfons.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you marry Eugenie? Well, I am delighted; she is a good
+girl. But," added Charles, struck with a luminous idea, "she must
+be rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"She had," said the president, with a mischievous smile,
+"about nineteen millions four days ago; but she has only
+seventeen millions to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked at him thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"Seventeen mil--"</p>
+
+<p>"Seventeen millions; yes, monsieur. We shall muster,
+Mademoiselle Grandet and I, an income of seven hundred and fifty
+thousand francs when we marry."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear cousin," said Charles, recovering a little of his
+assurance, "we can push each other's fortunes."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed," said the president. "Here is also a little case
+which I am charged to give into your own hands," he added,
+placing on the table the leather box which contained the
+dressing-case.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear friend," said Madame d'Aubrion, entering the
+room without noticing the president, "don't pay any attention to
+what poor Monsieur d'Aubrion has just said to you; the Duchesse
+de Chaulieu has turned his head. I repeat, nothing shall
+interfere with the marriage--"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, madame. The three millions which my father owed
+were paid yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"In money?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in full, capital and interest; and I am about to do
+honor to his memory--"</p>
+
+<p>"What folly!" exclaimed his mother-in-law. "Who is this?" she
+whispered in Grandet's ear, perceiving the president.</p>
+
+<p>"My man of business," he answered in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>The marquise bowed superciliously to Monsieur de Bonfons.</p>
+
+<p>"We are pushing each other's fortunes already," said the
+president, taking up his hat. "Good-by, cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"He is laughing at me, the old cockatoo! I'd like to put six
+inches of iron into him!" muttered Charles.</p>
+
+<p>The president was out of hearing. Three days later Monsieur de
+Bonfons, on his return to Saumur, announced his marriage with
+Eugenie. Six months after the marriage he was appointed
+councillor in the Cour royale at Angers. Before leaving Saumur
+Madame de Bonfons had the gold of certain jewels, once so
+precious to her, melted up, and put, together with the eight
+thousand francs paid back by her cousin, into a golden pyx, which
+she gave to the parish church where she had so long prayed for
+<i>him</i>. She now spent her time between Angers and Saumur. Her
+husband, who had shown some public spirit on a certain occasion,
+became a judge in the superior courts, and finally, after a few
+years, president of them. He was anxiously awaiting a general
+election, in the hope of being returned to the Chamber of
+deputies. He hankered after a peerage; and then--</p>
+
+<p>"The king will be his cousin, won't he?" said Nanon, la Grande
+Nanon, Madame Cornoiller, bourgeoise of Saumur, as she listened
+to her mistress, who was recounting the honors to which she was
+called.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished
+his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious
+ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur.
+God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no
+doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with
+which, <i>accurante Cruchot</i>, he had drawn up his marriage
+contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, "in case
+they should have no children, their entire property of every
+kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation,
+dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that
+said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and
+assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc.,
+etc." This clause of the contract will explain the profound
+respect which monsieur le president always testified for the
+wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons.
+Women cited him as the most considerate and delicate of men,
+pitied him, and even went so far as to find fault with the
+passion and grief of Eugenie, blaming her, as women know so well
+how to blame, with cruel but discreet insinuation.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame de Bonfons must be very ill to leave her husband
+entirely alone. Poor woman! Is she likely to get well? What is
+it? Something gastric? A cancer?"--"She has grown perfectly
+yellow. She ought to consult some celebrated doctor in
+Paris."--"How can she be happy without a child? They say she
+loves her husband; then why not give him an heir?--in his
+position, too!"--"Do you know, it is really dreadful! If it is
+the result of mere caprice, it is unpardonable. Poor
+president!"</p>
+
+<p>Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul
+acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite
+clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on
+all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering
+and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the
+president desired her death that he might step into possession of
+their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the
+notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to
+call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president.
+Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference
+of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she
+spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life
+to a child would give death to his hopes,--the hopes of
+selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished
+as he looked into the future.</p>
+
+<p>God thus flung piles of gold upon this prisoner to whom gold
+was a matter of indifference, who longed for heaven, who lived,
+pious and good, in holy thoughts, succoring the unfortunate in
+secret, and never wearying of such deeds. Madame de Bonfons
+became a widow at thirty- six. She is still beautiful, but with
+the beauty of a woman who is nearly forty years of age. Her face
+is white and placid and calm; her voice gentle and
+self-possessed; her manners are simple. She has the noblest
+qualities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled
+her soul by contact with the world; but she has also the rigid
+bearing of an old maid and the petty habits inseparable from the
+narrow round of provincial life. In spite of her vast wealth, she
+lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never
+lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to
+be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the
+rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her
+mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth,
+always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She
+carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did
+she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth.
+Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age,
+Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed,
+bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons
+lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their
+embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically
+spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential
+respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest
+emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the
+calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid
+influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings
+to a woman who is all feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"I have none but you to love me," she says to Nanon.</p>
+
+<p>The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many
+families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of
+benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of
+her education and the petty habits of her early life.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world
+but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother,
+has neither husband nor children nor family. Lately there has
+been some question of her marrying again. The Saumur people talk
+of her and of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose family are
+beginning to beset the rich widow just as, in former days, the
+Cruchots laid siege to the rich heiress. Nanon and Cornoiller
+are, it is said, in the interests of the marquis. Nothing could
+be more false. Neither la Grande Nanon nor Cornoiller has
+sufficient mind to understand the corruptions of the world.</p>
+
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p><br>
+ ADDENDUM</p>
+
+<p>The following personages appear in other stories of the Human
+Comedy.</p>
+
+<p>Chaulieu, Eleonore, Duchesse de<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides</p>
+
+<p>Grandet, Victor-Ange-Guillaume<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen</p>
+
+<p>Grandet, Charles<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen</p>
+
+<p>Keller, Francois<br>
+ Domestic Peace<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Government Clerks<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ The Government Clerks<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet</p>
+
+<p>Nathan, Madame Raoul<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Government Clerks<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ A Prince of Bohemia<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists</p>
+
+<p>Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Melmoth Reconciled<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ Another Study of Woman<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Roguin<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Eugenie Grandet<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ The Vendetta</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore
+de Balzac</p>
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac
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+
author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:17:37 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:17:37 -0700
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