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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Eugenie Grandet
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: April, 1999  [Etext #1715]
+Posting Date: March 1, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENIE GRANDET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+EUGENIE GRANDET
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                              DEDICATION
+
+  To Maria.
+
+  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.
+
+          De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+EUGENIE GRANDET
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _en colombage_ 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 _noblesse de cloches_, symbols of his long-forgotten
+magisterial glory. The whole history of France is there.
+
+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 _ouvrouere_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _copieux_, which was applied to the
+inhabitants of Angers, who excelled in such urban sarcasms.
+
+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.
+
+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 _dot_, 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 _emigres_; 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"It will be a hard winter," said one; "Pere Grandet has put on his fur
+gloves."
+
+"Pere Grandet is buying quantities of staves; there will be plenty of
+wine this year."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_bonnet rouge_. 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.
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+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.
+
+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
+_jaquemart_, 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _gros de Tours_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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 _portugaises
+d'or_. 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.
+
+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."
+
+"Mademoiselle will be married this year, that's certain," said la
+Grande Nanon, carrying away the remains of the goose,--the pheasant of
+tradesmen.
+
+"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.
+
+Grandet looked at his daughter and exclaimed gaily,--
+
+"She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child; we must soon begin to
+think of it."
+
+Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance of intelligence.
+
+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.
+
+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?"
+
+"My friend," Madame Grandet would answer, moved by a sense of maternal
+dignity, "we will see about that later."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"You great stupid!" said her master; "are you going to tumble about like
+other people, hey?"
+
+"Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which has given way."
+
+"She is right," said Madame Grandet; "it ought to have been mended long
+ago. Yesterday Eugenie nearly twisted her ankle."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Poor Nanon!" said Grandet, filling a glass.
+
+"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Eugenie, looking kindly at her.
+
+"No, I didn't fall; I threw myself back on my haunches."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Can I help you?" cried Nanon, hearing him hammer on the stairs.
+
+"No, no! I'm an old hand at it," answered the former cooper.
+
+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.
+
+"Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?" asked Nanon, peeping through the little
+grating.
+
+"Yes," answered the president.
+
+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.
+
+"Ha! you've come a-greeting," said Nanon, smelling the flowers.
+
+"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."
+
+"Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man's house is his castle," said the
+president sententiously.
+
+Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting by the
+darkness, said to Eugenie:
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"Don't stand on ceremony," said Grandet, entering. "How well you do
+things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!"
+
+"When it concerns mademoiselle," said the abbe, armed with his own
+bouquet, "every day is a fete-day for my nephew."
+
+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."
+
+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,--
+
+"As this is Eugenie's birthday let us illuminate."
+
+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?"
+
+"Not yet," said Grandet.
+
+"But are they coming?" asked the old notary, twisting his face, which
+had as many holes as a collander, into a queer grimace.
+
+"I think so," answered Madame Grandet.
+
+"Are your vintages all finished?" said Monsieur de Bonfons to Grandet.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"But monsieur, you are to have the great people."
+
+"Are not you as good as they? They are descended from Adam, and so are
+you."
+
+Grandet came back to the president and said,--
+
+"Have you sold your vintage?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, but let us mind what we are about," said Grandet in a tone which
+made the president tremble.
+
+"Is he driving some bargain?" thought Cruchot.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately, pressed her
+hand, and said: "Adolphe wishes to make you my little offering."
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"What does that matter if it gets into my cellar?" retorted the old
+wine-grower.
+
+"If you want to give gilt scissors to your daughter, you have the
+means," said the abbe.
+
+"I give her something better than scissors," answered Grandet.
+
+"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?"
+
+"We will join you at cards, Madame Grandet," said Madame des Grassins.
+
+"We might have two tables, as we are all here."
+
+"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."
+
+"We will help you, Mademoiselle Nanon," said Madame des Grassins gaily,
+quite joyous at the joy she had given Eugenie.
+
+"I have never in my life been so pleased," the heiress said to her; "I
+have never seen anything so pretty."
+
+"Adolphe brought it from Paris, and he chose it," Madame des Grassins
+whispered in her ear.
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+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:--
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"There is no man in Saumur who would knock like that," said the notary.
+
+"How can they bang in that way!" exclaimed Nanon; "do they want to break
+in the door?"
+
+"Who the devil is it?" cried Grandet.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door, followed by her
+master.
+
+"Grandet! Grandet!" cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse of fear,
+and running to the door of the room.
+
+All the players looked at each other.
+
+"Suppose we all go?" said Monsieur des Grassins; "that knock strikes me
+as evil-intentioned."
+
+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,--
+
+"Madame Grandet, go back to your loto; leave me to speak with monsieur."
+
+Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited players returned to
+their seats, but did not continue the game.
+
+"Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des Grassins?" asked his
+wife.
+
+"No, it is a traveller."
+
+"He must have come from Paris."
+
+"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."
+
+"Is the gentleman young?" inquired the Abbe Cruchot.
+
+"Yes," answered Monsieur des Grassins, "and he has brought luggage which
+must weigh nearly three tons."
+
+"Nanon does not come back," said Eugenie.
+
+"It must be one of your relations," remarked the president.
+
+"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."
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"Sit down near the fire," said Grandet.
+
+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.
+
+"You are cold, no doubt, monsieur," said Madame Grandet; "you have,
+perhaps, travelled from--"
+
+"Just like all women!" said the old wine-grower, looking up from a
+letter he was reading. "Do let monsieur rest himself!"
+
+"But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take something," said
+Eugenie.
+
+"He has got a tongue," said the old man sternly.
+
+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,--
+
+"Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. And," he added, looking at
+Grandet, "I need nothing; I am not even tired."
+
+"Monsieur has come from the capital?" asked Madame des Grassins.
+
+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,--
+
+"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."
+
+"I was certain it was the cousin," thought Madame des Grassins, casting
+repeated glances at him.
+
+"Forty-seven!" cried the old abbe. "Mark it down, Madame des Grassins.
+Isn't that your number?"
+
+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
+heiress glanced furtively at her cousin, and the banker's wife easily
+detected a _crescendo_ of surprise and curiosity in her mind.
+
+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.
+
+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 _chined_; 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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,--
+
+"That is what you see in Paris!"
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Have you finished your game?" said Grandet, without looking up from his
+letter.
+
+"Yes, yes!" replied Madame des Grassins, taking a seat near Charles.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Mamma, Nanon can buy some sugar as well as the candle."
+
+"But your father?"
+
+"Surely his nephew ought not to go without a glass of _eau sucree_?
+Besides, he will not notice it."
+
+"Your father sees everything," said Madame Grandet, shaking her head.
+
+Nanon hesitated; she knew her master.
+
+"Come, Nanon, go,--because it is my birthday."
+
+Nanon gave a loud laugh as she heard the first little jest her young
+mistress had ever made, and then obeyed her.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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,--
+
+"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."
+
+"She is really very nice, this woman," thought Charles Grandet as he
+duly responded to Madame des Grassins' coquetries.
+
+"It seems to me, wife, that you are taking possession of monsieur," said
+the stout banker, laughing.
+
+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?"
+
+"Ah! what do you mean by that, monsieur l'abbe?" demanded Monsieur des
+Grassins.
+
+"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.
+
+The Abbe Cruchot had guessed the conversation between Charles and Madame
+des Grassins without seeming to pay attention to it.
+
+"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 _vis-a-vis_ at a ball given by the Baron de
+Nucingen, and--"
+
+"Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur," answered Charles, pleased
+to find himself the object of general attention.
+
+"Monsieur is your son?" he said to Madame des Grassins.
+
+The abbe looked at her maliciously.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," she answered.
+
+"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said Charles,
+addressing Adolphe.
+
+"You must know, monsieur," said the abbe, "that we send them to Babylon
+as soon as they are weaned."
+
+Madame des Grassins examined the abbe with a glance of extreme
+penetration.
+
+"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--"
+
+"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed my
+intentions?"
+
+"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.
+
+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:--
+
+  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.
+
+  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.
+
+  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!
+
+  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.
+
+  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.
+
+Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet.
+
+
+"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.
+
+"Thoroughly, my dear uncle."
+
+"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.
+
+"Is the room all ready?" said Grandet, recovering his composure.
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Will you do me the honor to take my arm, madame?" said the abbe.
+
+"Thank you, monsieur l'abbe, but I have my son," she answered dryly.
+
+"Ladies cannot compromise themselves with me," said the abbe.
+
+"Take Monsieur Cruchot's arm," said her husband.
+
+The abbe walked off with the pretty lady so quickly that they were soon
+some distance in advance of the caravan.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"Perhaps you made the cousin notice it?"
+
+"I did not take the trouble--"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Well, he has promised to dine with me the day after to-morrow."
+
+"Ah! if you only _would_, madame--" said the abbe.
+
+"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!"
+
+"You have read Faublas?"
+
+"No, monsieur l'abbe; I meant to say the _Liaisons dangereuses_."
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"And," she continued, "I do not want, and Adolphe himself would not
+want, a hundred millions brought at such a price."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"But in that case the cousin wouldn't have fallen among us like a
+cannon-ball," answered the notary.
+
+"That doesn't prove anything," said Monsieur des Grassins; "the old
+miser is always making mysteries."
+
+"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.
+
+"Here you are at home, madame," said the notary.
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+When the four relations were left alone, Monsieur Grandet said to his
+nephew,--
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"I will show you the way," he said.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Why the devil did my father send me to such a place?" he said to
+himself.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+At this moment Nanon appeared with the warming pan.
+
+"Here's something more!" said Monsieur Grandet. "Do you take my nephew
+for a lying-in woman? Carry off your brazier, Nanon!"
+
+"But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gentleman is as delicate
+as a woman."
+
+"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.
+
+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,--
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur; and a very good, a very kind, a very perfect gentleman.
+Shall I help you to unpack your trunks?"
+
+"Faith! yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn't you serve in the
+marines of the Imperial Guard?"
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Nanon. "What's that,--the marines of the guard? Is
+it salt? Does it go in the water?"
+
+"Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise; there's the key."
+
+Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing-gown made of green
+silk, brocaded with gold flowers of an antique design.
+
+"Are you going to put that on to go to bed with?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+Nanon stood rooted to the ground, gazing at Charles and unable to put
+faith into his words.
+
+"Good night, Nanon."
+
+"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."
+
+"Blessed Virgin! how charming he is, my cousin!" Eugenie was saying,
+interrupting her prayers, which that night at least were never finished.
+
+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."
+
+Grandet gazed at the door lined with sheet-iron which he lately put to
+his sanctum, and said to himself,--
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for my cousin's breakfast."
+
+"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."
+
+"Nanon, please make us a _galette_."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Is there any bread left from yesterday?" he said to Nanon.
+
+"Not a crumb, monsieur."
+
+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,--
+
+"We are five, to-day, monsieur."
+
+"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."
+
+"Then they must eat _frippe_?" said Nanon.
+
+_Frippe_ 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 _frippe_, to peach preserve, the most distinguished of
+all the _frippes_; those who in their childhood have licked the _frippe_
+and left the bread, will comprehend the meaning of Nanon's speech.
+
+"No," answered Grandet, "they eat neither bread nor _frippe_; they are
+something like marriageable girls."
+
+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,--
+
+"Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, and I'll make a
+_galette_ for the young ones."
+
+"Are you going to pillage the house on account of my nephew?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Well, then, how is your nephew to sweeten his coffee?"
+
+"With two pieces; I'll go without myself."
+
+"Go without sugar at your age! I'd rather buy you some out of my own
+pocket."
+
+"Mind your own business."
+
+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 _galette_.
+
+"Mademoiselle!" she called through the window, "do you want some
+_galette_?"
+
+"No, no," answered Eugenie.
+
+"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.
+
+"I shall want wood for the oven," said the implacable Nanon.
+
+"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."
+
+"Goodness!" cried Nanon, "you needn't tell me that."
+
+Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his faithful
+deputy.
+
+"Mademoiselle," she cried, when his back was turned, "we shall have the
+_galette_."
+
+Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and arranged a
+plateful on the kitchen-table.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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!"
+
+"Funny!" said her master. "Do you call it funny to put more money into
+boots than the man who stands in them is worth?"
+
+"Monsieur," she said, when Grandet returned the second time, after
+locking the fruit-garden, "won't you have the _pot-au-feu_ put on once
+or twice a week on account of your nephew?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Am I to go to the butcher's?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Isn't it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?"
+
+"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?"
+
+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:
+
+"Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, down by the Loire? I have
+something to do there."
+
+Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink taffeta; then the
+father and daughter went down the winding street to the shore.
+
+"Where are you going at this early hour?" said Cruchot, the notary,
+meeting them.
+
+"To see something," answered Grandet, not duped by the matutinal
+appearance of his friend.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Four times eight feet," said the man.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Very good," said Cruchot, to help out his friend; "a thousand bales are
+worth about six hundred francs."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Say sixty thousand francs," said the notary.
+
+"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.
+
+"True enough; poplars should only be planted on poor soil," said
+Cruchot, amazed at Grandet's calculations.
+
+"Y-y-yes, monsieur," answered the old man satirically.
+
+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,--
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+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,--
+
+"How are the Funds?"
+
+"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."
+
+"We'll see about that," answered Grandet, rubbing his chin.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed the notary.
+
+"Well, what?" cried Grandet; and at the same moment Cruchot put the
+newspaper under his eyes and said:
+
+"Read that!"
+
+  "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.
+
+"I knew it," said the old wine-grower to the notary.
+
+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.
+
+"And his son, so joyous yesterday--"
+
+"He knows nothing as yet," answered Grandet, with the same composure.
+
+"Adieu! Monsieur Grandet," said Cruchot, who now understood the state of
+the case, and went off to reassure Monsieur de Bonfons.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Let him sleep," said Grandet; "he'll wake soon enough to hear
+ill-tidings."
+
+"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.
+
+"His father has blown his brains out."
+
+"My uncle?" said Eugenie.
+
+"Poor young man!" exclaimed Madame Grandet.
+
+"Poor indeed!" said Grandet; "he isn't worth a sou!"
+
+"Eh! poor boy, and he's sleeping like the king of the world!" said Nanon
+in a gentle voice.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"I didn't speak to you, Nanon. Hold your tongue!"
+
+Eugenie learned at that moment that the woman who loves must be able to
+hide her feelings. She did not answer.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Mamma, I am suffocating!" cried Eugenie when she was alone with her
+mother; "I have never suffered like this."
+
+Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened the window and let
+her breathe fresh air.
+
+"I feel better!" said Eugenie after a moment.
+
+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.
+
+"My poor child!" said Madame Grandet, taking Eugenie's head and laying
+it upon her bosom.
+
+At these words the young girl raised her head, questioned her mother by
+a look, and seemed to search out her inmost thought.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father has his reasons: we
+must respect them."
+
+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,--
+
+"How good you are, my kind mamma!"
+
+The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn and blighted
+as it was by many sorrows.
+
+"You like him?" asked Eugenie.
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"
+
+"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old servant.
+
+"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."
+
+"Where am I to get it?"
+
+"Buy some."
+
+"Suppose monsieur meets me?"
+
+"He has gone to his fields."
+
+"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."
+
+"If your father finds it out," said Madame Grandet, "he is capable of
+beating us."
+
+"Well, let him beat us; we will take his blows on our knees."
+
+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.
+
+"Sorrow is watching while he sleeps," she thought.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+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.
+
+"Don't be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes in, I will take it all
+upon myself," said Madame Grandet.
+
+Eugenie could not repress a tear.
+
+"Oh, my good mother!" she cried, "I have never loved you enough."
+
+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.
+
+"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?"
+
+"Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.
+
+"I? perfectly."
+
+"You must be hungry, cousin," said Eugenie; "will you take your seat?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Early?" said Madame Grandet.
+
+"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."
+
+"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.
+
+"A partridge!" whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly have given
+the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.
+
+"Come and sit down," said his aunt.
+
+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.
+
+"Do you always live here?" said Charles, thinking the room uglier by
+daylight than it had seemed the night before.
+
+"Always," answered Eugenie, looking at him, "except during the vintage.
+Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des Noyers."
+
+"Don't you ever take walks?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Have you a theatre?"
+
+"Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play! Why,
+monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?"
+
+"See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here are your
+chickens,--in the shell."
+
+"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."
+
+"Butter! then you can't have the _galette_."
+
+"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+The compliment went to Eugenie's heart and set it beating, though she
+did not understand its meaning.
+
+"Oh! cousin," she said, "you are laughing at a poor little country
+girl."
+
+"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."
+
+"My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart."
+
+"You have a very pretty ring," said Eugenie; "is there any harm in
+asking to see it?"
+
+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.
+
+"See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship."
+
+"My! there's a lot of gold!" said Nanon, bringing in the coffee.
+
+"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.
+
+"It is boiled coffee," said Nanon.
+
+"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."
+
+He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.
+
+"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?"
+
+"I will make it," said Eugenie.
+
+"Child!" said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.
+
+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.
+
+"Is anything the matter, my cousin?" he said.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Say Charles," said young Grandet.
+
+"Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!" cried Eugenie.
+
+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.
+
+"There's papa!" said Eugenie.
+
+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.
+
+"Why! what is the matter?" he asked.
+
+"My father has come," answered Eugenie.
+
+"Well, what of that?"
+
+Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen eye upon the table,
+upon Charles, and saw the whole thing.
+
+"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."
+
+"Feast!" thought Charles, incapable of suspecting or imagining the rules
+and customs of the household.
+
+"Give me my glass, Nanon," said the master
+
+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,--
+
+"Where did you get all that sugar?"
+
+"Nanon fetched it from Fessard's; there was none."
+
+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.
+
+"What do you want?" said his uncle.
+
+"The sugar."
+
+"Put in more milk," answered the master of the house; "your coffee will
+taste sweeter."
+
+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.
+
+"You are not eating your breakfast, wife."
+
+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,--
+
+"Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will eat some, will you not? I
+went to get these pretty grapes expressly for you."
+
+"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."
+
+Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning the young
+man could not mistake.
+
+"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."
+
+"My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to try us?"
+said his aunt.
+
+"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!"
+
+"What do you mean, uncle? I'll be hanged if I understand a single word
+of what you are saying."
+
+"Come!" said Grandet.
+
+The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the last of
+his wine, and opened the door.
+
+"My cousin, take courage!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"It is very fine weather, very warm," said Grandet, drawing a long
+breath.
+
+"Yes, uncle; but why--"
+
+"Well, my lad," answered his uncle, "I have some bad news to give you.
+Your father is ill--"
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"My father!"
+
+"Yes, but that's not the worst; the newspapers are all talking about it.
+Here, read that."
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!"
+
+"He has ruined you, you haven't a penny."
+
+"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Poor young man!" said Madame Grandet.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"My mother had nothing to do with it," said Eugenie; "it was I who--"
+
+"Is it because you are of age," said Grandet, interrupting his daughter,
+"that you choose to contradict me? Remember, Eugenie--"
+
+"Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from us--"
+
+"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."
+
+"What is 'failing,' father?" asked Eugenie.
+
+"To fail," answered her father, "is to commit the most dishonorable
+action that can disgrace a man."
+
+"It must be a great sin," said Madame Grandet, "and our brother may be
+damned."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Father, could you not have prevented such a misfortune?"
+
+"My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes four millions."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"He is going off to the West Indies by his father's request, and he will
+try to make his fortune there."
+
+"Has he got the money to go with?"
+
+"I shall pay for his journey as far as--yes, as far as Nantes."
+
+Eugenie sprang into his arms.
+
+"Oh, father, how good you are!"
+
+She kissed him with a warmth that almost made Grandet ashamed of
+himself, for his conscience galled him a little.
+
+"Will it take much time to amass a million?" she asked.
+
+"Look here!" said the old miser, "you know what a napoleon is? Well, it
+takes fifty thousand napoleons to make a million."
+
+"Mamma, we must say a great many _neuvaines_ for him."
+
+"I was thinking so," said Madame Grandet.
+
+"That's the way, always spending my money!" cried the father. "Do you
+think there are francs on every bush?"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?"
+
+"Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred and fifty francs,
+sometimes two hundred,--at least, so I've heard say."
+
+"Then papa must be rich?"
+
+"Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me he bought Froidfond two
+years ago; that may have pinched him."
+
+Eugenie, not being able to understand the question of her father's
+fortune, stopped short in her calculations.
+
+"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!"
+
+"Let us go and console him, mamma; if any one knocks, we can come down."
+
+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.
+
+"How he loves his father!" said Eugenie in a low voice.
+
+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,--
+
+"Take care, you will love him!"
+
+"Love him!" answered Eugenie. "Ah! if you did but know what my father
+said to Monsieur Cruchot."
+
+Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin.
+
+"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--"
+
+Sobs cut short the words.
+
+"We will pray for him," said Madame Grandet. "Resign yourself to the
+will of God."
+
+"Cousin," said Eugenie, "take courage! Your loss is irreparable;
+therefore think only of saving your honor."
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"Mamma," said Eugenie, "we must wear mourning for my uncle."
+
+"Your father will decide that," answered Madame Grandet.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+About four o'clock an abrupt knock at the door struck sharply on the
+heart of Madame Grandet.
+
+"What can have happened to your father?" she said to her daughter.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?"
+
+"Yes, little one."
+
+That term applied to his daughter was the superlative expression of the
+old miser's joy.
+
+"Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of twenty sous each?"
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet."
+
+"Then, father, you can easily help Charles."
+
+The amazement, the anger, the stupefaction of Belshazzar when he saw
+the _Mene-Tekel-Upharsin_ 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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"No, my friend," answered Madame Grandet.
+
+"What is he doing then?"
+
+"He is weeping for his father," said Eugenie.
+
+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,--
+
+"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?"
+
+"He says he doesn't want anything to eat," answered Nanon; "that's not
+good for him."
+
+"So much saved," retorted her master.
+
+"That's so," she said.
+
+"Bah! he won't cry long. Hunger drives the wolves out of the woods."
+
+The dinner was eaten in silence.
+
+"My good friend," said Madame Grandet, when the cloth was removed, "we
+must put on mourning."
+
+"Upon my word, Madame Grandet! what will you invent next to spend money
+on? Mourning is in the heart, and not in the clothes."
+
+"But mourning for a brother is indispensable; and the Church commands us
+to--"
+
+"Buy your mourning out of your six louis. Give me a hat-band; that's
+enough for me."
+
+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.
+
+"We don't waste our tongues," she said, showing her teeth, as large and
+white as peeled almonds.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Madame Grandet, have you found a mine?" said the man, coming into the
+chamber of his wife.
+
+"My friend, wait; I am saying my prayers," said the poor mother in a
+trembling voice.
+
+"The devil take your good God!" growled Grandet in reply.
+
+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 _per fas et nefas_ 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?
+
+"Madame Grandet, have you done?" asked the old man.
+
+"My friend, I am praying for you."
+
+"Very good! Good-night; to-morrow morning we will have a talk."
+
+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.
+
+"Oh! my good mother," she said, "to-morrow I will tell him it was I."
+
+"No; he would send you to Noyers. Leave me to manage it; he cannot eat
+me."
+
+"Do you hear, mamma?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"_He_ is weeping still."
+
+"Go to bed, my daughter; you will take cold in your feet: the floor is
+damp."
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Pardon me, my cousin," he said, evidently not knowing the hour nor the
+place in which he found himself.
+
+"There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and _we_ thought you might need
+something. You should go to bed; you tire yourself by sitting thus."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Well, then, adieu!"
+
+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.
+
+"What will he think of me? He will think that I love him!"
+
+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.
+
+"What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble."
+
+"Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon.
+
+"So much the better; he won't want a wax candle," said Grandet in a
+jeering tone.
+
+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,--
+
+"I am going to loiter about the market-place and find Cruchot."
+
+"Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his mind."
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"My cousin!"
+
+"Yes, cousin."
+
+"Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room?"
+
+"Where you like."
+
+"How do you feel?"
+
+"Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry."
+
+This conversation, held through the closed door, was like an episode in
+a poem to Eugenie.
+
+"Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so as not to
+annoy my father."
+
+She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a bird.
+
+"Nanon, go and do his room!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"What troubles you?" she said.
+
+"Oh! these are tears of gratitude," he answered.
+
+Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the candlesticks.
+
+"Here, Nanon, carry them away!" she said.
+
+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.
+
+"Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is all that
+fit to eat?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed two days."
+
+"Come, Nanon, bestir yourself," said Grandet; "take these things,
+they'll do for dinner. I have invited the two Cruchots."
+
+Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and looked at everybody in
+the room.
+
+"Well!" she said, "and how am I to get the lard and the spices?"
+
+"Wife," said Grandet, "give Nanon six francs, and remind me to get some
+of the good wine out of the cellar."
+
+"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--"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"Here, Cornoiller," she said, slipping ten francs into the man's hand,
+"some day we will reward your services."
+
+Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.
+
+"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."
+
+"Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down," said Eugenie.
+
+"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."
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+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.
+
+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,--
+
+"Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a long and
+painful correspondence."
+
+"Certainly, nephew."
+
+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,--
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"M-m-mon-sieur le p-p-president, you said t-t-that b-b-bankruptcy--"
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"When a man so respected and important as, for example, your late
+brother--"
+
+"M-my b-b-brother, yes."
+
+"--is threatened with insolvency--"
+
+"They c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency?"
+
+"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."
+
+"T-t-that's very d-d-different, if it d-d-doesn't c-c-cost m-m-more,"
+said Grandet.
+
+"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?"
+
+"N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought," answered Grandet.
+
+"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?"
+
+"W-w-what h-h-happens?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"A noble man!" cried the president, interrupting his uncle.
+
+"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."
+
+"Of course," said the president. "Notes can be bought in the market,
+less so much per cent. Don't you understand?"
+
+Grandet made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and the president repeated his
+words.
+
+"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--"
+
+"I understand," cried the notary. "Well, my old friend, you have
+friends, old friends, capable of devoting themselves to your interests."
+
+"All right!" thought Grandet, "make haste and come to the point!"
+
+"Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your brother Guillaume's
+chief creditor and said to him--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Exactly so," said the president.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Sn-n-now," said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear, "wh-wh-what about
+s-now?"
+
+"But," cried the president, "do pray attend to what I am saying."
+
+"I am at-t-tending."
+
+"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."
+
+"Whew!" ejaculated the goodman.
+
+"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."
+
+"D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jeremy B-Ben?"
+
+"Bentham, an Englishman.'
+
+"That's a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamentations in business,"
+said the notary, laughing.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Very g-good," repeated Grandet.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"That's very true."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Yes, you are not a lawyer."
+
+"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."
+
+"Very good," said the president, preparing to resume his argument.
+
+"Nephew!" said the notary, interrupting him in a warning tone.
+
+"Well, what, uncle?" answered the president.
+
+"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--"
+
+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,--
+
+"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--"
+
+He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins saying to the old cooper
+as they shook hands,--
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"Th-then s-s-sublime th-things c-c-cost d-dear," answered the goodman,
+as the banker warmly wrung his hand.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+The goodman did not stammer over the last words.
+
+"Eh!" cried Madame des Grassins, "why it is a pleasure to go to Paris. I
+would willingly pay to go myself."
+
+She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage him in cutting
+the enemy out of the commission, _coute que coute_; 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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Bless me! then, am I to invest enough to give you a few thousand francs
+a year?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"Five o'clock, just before dinner," said Grandet, rubbing his hands.
+
+The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said, after a
+pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder,--
+
+"It is a good thing to have a relation like him."
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval's?" said des Grassins to the
+notary.
+
+"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."
+
+"Farewell for the present!" said Madame des Grassins.
+
+When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to his
+father,--
+
+"Are not they fuming, hein?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, my son!" said his mother; "they might hear you.
+Besides, what you say is not in good taste,--law-school language."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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?
+
+When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!" said the voice of Nanon.
+
+"What a pity that it is only copper sous!" answered Grandet. "Take care
+you don't knock over the candlestick."
+
+The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two rails of the
+staircase.
+
+"Cornoiller," said Grandet to his keeper _in partibus_, "have you
+brought your pistols?"
+
+"No, monsieur. Mercy! what's there to fear for your copper sous?"
+
+"Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.
+
+"Besides, we shall go fast," added the man; "your farmers have picked
+out their best horses."
+
+"Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?"
+
+"I didn't know where."
+
+"Very good. Is the carriage strong?"
+
+"Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand weight. How
+much does that old keg weigh?"
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Nanon. "I ought to know! There's pretty nigh
+eighteen hundred--"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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, & Co., carriage-makers"; "To Monsieur Buisson,
+tailor," etc.
+
+"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.
+
+"His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does he say to
+her?"
+
+These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the words
+everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of fire.
+
+"Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I ought to go
+away--What if I do read it?"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+  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.
+
+"Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I will give
+it to him," thought Eugenie.
+
+She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.
+
+  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!
+
+  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--
+
+"He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!"
+
+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.
+
+  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--
+
+"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.
+
+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
+_Venite adoremus_, 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.'"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+  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, & 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--
+
+
+"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 _portugaises_, still new, struck in the reign of John V.,
+1725, worth by exchange, as her father told her, five _lisbonnines_,
+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 _genovines_, 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 _quadruples_, 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.
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+"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."
+
+"What is it?" asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.
+
+"I have read those letters."
+
+Charles colored.
+
+"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--"
+
+"And what?" asked Charles.
+
+"Your plans, your need of a sum--"
+
+"My dear cousin--"
+
+"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."
+
+Eugenie, as much a woman as a young girl, never dreamed of refusal; but
+her cousin remained silent.
+
+"Oh! you will not refuse?" cried Eugenie, the beatings of whose heart
+could be heard in the deep silence.
+
+Her cousin's hesitation mortified her; but the sore need of his position
+came clearer still to her mind, and she knelt down.
+
+"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--"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Charles was at last able to express his feelings.
+
+"Yes, Eugenie; my soul would be small indeed if I did not accept. And
+yet,--gift for gift, confidence for confidence."
+
+"What do you mean?" she said, frightened.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote that--"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"Angel of purity! between us two money is nothing, never can be
+anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be all henceforth."
+
+"You are like your mother,--was her voice as soft as yours?"
+
+"Oh! much softer--"
+
+"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,--
+
+"Ah!" he said, "why am I ruined?"
+
+"What matter?--my father is rich; I think so," she answered.
+
+"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."
+
+"But he owns Froidfond."
+
+"What is Froidfond worth?"
+
+"I don't know; but he has Noyers."
+
+"Nothing but a poor farm!"
+
+"He has vineyards and fields."
+
+"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.
+
+"Go and sleep," she said, hindering his entrance into the disordered
+room.
+
+Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good-night with a mutual
+smile.
+
+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.
+
+"My father will not be home till dinner-time," said Eugenie, perceiving
+the anxious look on her mother's face.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"I have got back from Angers, wife," he said; "I am hungry."
+
+Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: "Haven't you eaten anything
+since yesterday?"
+
+"Nothing," answered the old man.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes."
+
+"Say _was_ worth--"
+
+"Where the devil have they got any?"
+
+"I went to Angers last night," answered Grandet in a low voice.
+
+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.
+
+"Monsieur Grandet," said the banker to Charles, "I am starting for
+Paris; if you have any commissions--"
+
+"None, monsieur, I thank you," answered Charles.
+
+"Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur is going to settle the
+affairs of the house of Guillaume Grandet."
+
+"Is there any hope?" said Charles eagerly.
+
+"What!" exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, "are you not my
+nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not your name Grandet?"
+
+Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned pale, and left the
+room. Eugenie looked at her father with admiration.
+
+"Well, good-by, des Grassins; it is all in your hands. Decoy those
+people as best you can; lead 'em by the nose."
+
+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,--
+
+"Get me some black-currant ratafia."
+
+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,--
+
+  "Dans les gardes francaises
+  J'avais un bon papa."
+
+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,--
+
+"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."
+
+He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came with her spinning-wheel,
+"You must be tired," he said; "put away your hemp."
+
+"Ah, bah! then I shall get sleepy," she answered.
+
+"Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?"
+
+"I won't refuse a good offer; madame makes it a deal better than the
+apothecaries. What they sell is all drugs."
+
+"They put too much sugar," said the master; "you can't taste anything
+else."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+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 _en rapport_; 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.
+
+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 _tete-a-tete_ which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to
+their innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"I hope you will believe, monsieur," answered his nephew, "that I shall
+always try to conform to my situation."
+
+"What's that?" said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a handful of gold
+which Charles was carrying.
+
+"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--"
+
+"To buy them?" said Grandet, interrupting him.
+
+"No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who--"
+
+"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."
+
+The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of gold, which
+he carried away.
+
+"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."
+
+"I accept without hesitation," she answered, giving him an understanding
+look.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _livres_."
+
+The word _livres_ on the littoral of the Loire signifies that crown
+prices of six _livres_ are to be accepted as six francs without
+deduction.
+
+"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."
+
+Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment's silence.
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _livres_; 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."
+
+He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.
+
+"Then you are really going?" said Eugenie to her cousin, with a sad
+look, mingled with admiration.
+
+"I must," he said, bowing his head.
+
+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.
+
+At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris and began to
+read them.
+
+"Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your affairs?"
+said Eugenie in a low voice.
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh! I haven't any secrets," said Charles.
+
+"Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you'll soon find out that you must hold your
+tongue in business."
+
+When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie,
+drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,--
+
+"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--"
+
+"Do you love me?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes! indeed, yes!" he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed
+an equal depth of feeling.
+
+"I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at his window,"
+she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.
+
+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.
+
+"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,"
+said Charles.
+
+"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.
+
+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.
+
+"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.
+
+"Then my heart will be always there."
+
+"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed him.
+
+"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take mine."
+
+"Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the words twice
+over.
+
+No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity
+of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's love.
+
+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.
+
+"The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God guide
+him!"
+
+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.
+
+"Eugenie, be sure you don't cry," said her mother.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is it not the
+best gift that you could make me?"
+
+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:
+
+"Good-by to you!"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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!
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Here it comes!" said the old man as he threw the letter into the fire.
+"Patience, my good friends!"
+
+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 acquittances 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.
+
+"Very good; so much the better," said Grandet, rubbing his hands over
+the letter in which des Grassins announced the fact.
+
+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.
+
+"Your goodman," they said to des Grassins, "is tricking us."
+
+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:
+
+"I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall ever get
+out of that affair."
+
+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.
+
+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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no obligation
+to des Grassins.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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 _statu quo_.
+
+"Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?" she said.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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,--
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"What will become of us?" said Madame Grandet to her daughter, letting
+her knitting fall upon her knees.
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Where could we have got the money?"
+
+"I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des Grassins
+would have--"
+
+"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."
+
+"But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him stirring
+in his chamber, and said,--
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"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.
+
+"You are very gay this morning, monsieur," said the poor woman gravely.
+
+"I'm always gay,--
+
+  "'Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier,
+  Raccommodez votre cuvier!'"
+
+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."
+
+Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the forehead.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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--"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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:--
+
+"Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after his gold,"
+said one.
+
+"He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland," said another.
+
+"He'll end by buying up Saumur," cried a third.
+
+"He doesn't mind the cold, he's so wrapped up in his gains," said a wife
+to her husband.
+
+"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."
+
+"Heavy?" said the cooper, "I should think so; it's all sous!"
+
+"Silver sous," said the porter in a low voice.
+
+"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.
+
+"The old fox! I thought he was deaf; seems he can hear fast enough in
+frosty weather."
+
+"Here's twenty sous for your New Year, and _mum_!" said Grandet. "Be off
+with you! Nanon shall take back your barrow. Nanon, are the linnets at
+church?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"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."
+
+The family did not breakfast that day until ten o'clock.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh! it is too cold; let us have breakfast," answered Eugenie.
+
+"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."
+
+"I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know that."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"For him! for him!" she cried within her, "I would die a thousand
+deaths."
+
+At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed with
+courage.
+
+"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."
+
+Nanon disappeared.
+
+"Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You won't refuse
+your father, my little girl, hein?"
+
+The two women were dumb.
+
+"I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I'll give you
+in return six thousand francs in _livres_, 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 _portugaises_, the rupees of Mogul, and the
+_genovines_,--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--"
+
+Eugenie rose; but after making a few steps towards the door she turned
+abruptly, looked her father in the face, and said,--
+
+"I have not got _my_ gold."
+
+"You have not got your gold!" cried Grandet, starting up erect, like a
+horse that hears a cannon fired beside him.
+
+"No, I have not got it."
+
+"You are mistaken, Eugenie."
+
+"No."
+
+"By the shears of my father!"
+
+Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.
+
+"Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale," cried Nanon.
+
+"Grandet, your anger will kill me," said the poor mother.
+
+"Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family! Eugenie, what
+have you done with your gold?" he cried, rushing upon her.
+
+"Monsieur," said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet's knees, "my
+mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her."
+
+Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his wife's face,
+usually so yellow.
+
+"Nanon, help me to bed," said the poor woman in a feeble voice; "I am
+dying--"
+
+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,--
+
+"Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+She soon came, after reassuring her mother.
+
+"My daughter," said Grandet, "you will now tell me what you have done
+with your gold."
+
+"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.
+
+Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches' pocket.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"What use?"
+
+"That is an inviolable secret," she answered. "Have you no secrets?"
+
+"I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs."
+
+"And this is mine."
+
+"It must be something bad if you can't tell it to your father,
+Mademoiselle Grandet."
+
+"It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father."
+
+"At least you can tell me when you parted with your gold?"
+
+Eugenie made a negative motion with her head.
+
+"You had it on your birthday, hein?"
+
+She grew as crafty through love as her father was through avarice, and
+reiterated the negative sign.
+
+"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?--"
+
+Eugenie was silent and impassive.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Was I free--yes or no--to do what I would with my own? Was it not
+mine?"
+
+"You are a child."
+
+"Of age."
+
+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?--"
+
+He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.
+
+"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!"
+
+Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that stung him.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"Be comforted, my poor child," she was saying; "your father will get
+over it."
+
+"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!"
+
+"Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?" said Madame Grandet,
+turning towards him a face that was now red with fever.
+
+"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?"
+
+Eugenie rose, looked proudly at her father, and withdrew to her room.
+Grandet turned the key of the door.
+
+"Nanon," he cried, "put out the fire in the hall."
+
+Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife's fire and said to
+her,--
+
+"Undoubtedly she has given the gold to that miserable seducer, Charles,
+who only wanted our money."
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _genovines_--"
+
+"Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had thrown them
+into the water--"
+
+"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!"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+He looked fixedly at his wife.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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."
+
+When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out of her room and went to
+her mother.
+
+"What courage you have had for your daughter's sake!" she said.
+
+"Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may lead us. You forced me to
+tell a lie."
+
+"I will ask God to punish only me."
+
+"Is it true," cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, "that mademoiselle is to
+be kept on bread and water for the rest of her life?"
+
+"What does that signify, Nanon?" said Eugenie tranquilly.
+
+"Goodness! do you suppose I'll eat _frippe_ when the daughter of the
+house is eating dry bread? No, no!"
+
+"Don't say a word about all this, Nanon," said Eugenie.
+
+"I'll be as mute as a fish; but you'll see!"
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four years.
+
+"So you're a widower, monsieur," said Nanon; "it must be disagreeable to
+be a widower with two women in the house."
+
+"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?"
+
+"It is grease I'm trying out."
+
+"There will be some company to-night. Light the fire."
+
+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.
+
+"My wife is not very well, and Eugenie is with her," said the old
+wine-grower, whose face betrayed no emotion.
+
+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,--
+
+"How is Madame Grandet?"
+
+"Not at all well," she answered; "her condition seems to me really
+alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution, Papa Grandet."
+
+"We'll see about it," said the old man in an absent way.
+
+They all wished him good-night. When the Cruchots got into the street
+Madame des Grassins said to them,--
+
+"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?"
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Poor Nanon!" said Eugenie, pressing her hand.
+
+"I've made it downright good and dainty, and _he_ 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 heard Grandet.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+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.
+
+"Something is going on at the Grandets," said the Grassinists and the
+Cruchotines.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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,--
+
+"Where is _he_? Why does _he_ not write?"
+
+"Let us think about him, mother, but not speak of him. You are ill--you,
+before all."
+
+"All" meant "him."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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,--
+
+"You are rather pale to-day, my poor wife."
+
+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.
+
+"May God pardon you," she said, "even as I pardon you! You will some day
+stand in need of mercy."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her room.
+
+"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."
+
+"She is right," said Madame Grandet.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?" he said, perceiving the notary.
+
+"I came to speak to you on business."
+
+"Ah! ah! have you brought some gold in exchange for my silver?"
+
+"No, no, I have not come about money; it is about your daughter Eugenie.
+All the town is talking of her and you."
+
+"What does the town meddle for? A man's house is his castle."
+
+"Very true; and a man may kill himself if he likes, or, what is worse,
+he may fling his money into the gutter."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly," added Cruchot, in
+conclusion.
+
+"But do you know what she has done, Cruchot?"
+
+"What?" asked the notary, curious to hear the truth and find out the
+cause of the quarrel.
+
+"She has given away her gold!"
+
+"Well, wasn't it hers?" said the notary.
+
+"They all tell me that!" exclaimed the old man, letting his arms fall to
+his sides with a movement that was truly tragic.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Do you call six thousand francs a mere nothing?"
+
+"Hey! my old friend, do you know what the inventory of your wife's
+property will cost, if Eugenie demands the division?"
+
+"How much?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"By the shears of my father!" cried Grandet, turning pale as he suddenly
+sat down, "we will see about it, Cruchot."
+
+After a moment's silence, full of anguish perhaps, the old man looked at
+the notary and said,--
+
+"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!"
+
+"My poor friend," said the notary, "don't I know my own business?"
+
+"Then it is true! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, destroyed by my own
+daughter!"
+
+"It is true that your daughter is her mother's heir."
+
+"Why do we have children? Ah! my wife, I love her! Luckily she's sound
+and healthy; she's a Bertelliere."
+
+"She has not a month to live."
+
+Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came back, cast a
+dreadful look on Cruchot, and said,--
+
+"What can be done?"
+
+"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?--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"The scoundrels!"
+
+"Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satisfied for once in your
+life."
+
+"At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"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,--
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?"
+
+"How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house when you
+refuse to forgive your daughter?" she said with emotion.
+
+"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet in a coaxing voice. "We'll see about
+that."
+
+"Merciful heaven! Eugenie," cried the mother, flushing with joy, "come
+and kiss your father; he forgives you!"
+
+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--
+
+"Why," he cried aloud in the midst of a field where he was pretending to
+examine a vine, "it would be cutting my throat!"
+
+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.
+
+"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,--
+
+"O God, have pity upon us!"
+
+The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger might spring upon a
+sleeping child.
+
+"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.
+
+"Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust."
+
+"Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it back."
+
+"Father!"
+
+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.
+
+"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the mother, lifting herself up.
+
+Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.
+
+"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!"
+
+"If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it is as bad
+as touching it."
+
+"Father, don't destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do you
+hear?"
+
+"Oh, have pity!" said the mother.
+
+"Father!" cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran upstairs
+terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at hand.
+
+"Well, what now?" said Grandet coldly, with a callous smile.
+
+"Oh, you are killing me!" said the mother.
+
+"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!"
+
+Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as he looked
+at his daughter.
+
+"Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the mother.
+
+"She'll do it if she says so!" cried Nanon. "Be reasonable, monsieur,
+for once in your life."
+
+The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter alternately for
+an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.
+
+"There! don't you see, monsieur, that madame is dying?" cried Nanon.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh, how can you treat your wife and daughter so!" said Madame Grandet
+in a feeble voice.
+
+"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 _louis d'or_ for her. You won't give these
+away, will you, Eugenie, hein?"
+
+Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each other in astonishment.
+
+"Take back your money, father; we ask for nothing but your affection."
+
+"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?"
+
+"Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure," said the dying
+woman; "but I cannot rise from my bed."
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"Will all that cost much?" said the old man. "Will she need medicines?"
+
+"Not much medicine, but a great deal of care," answered the doctor, who
+could scarcely restrain a smile.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"My child," she said as she expired, "there is no happiness except in
+heaven; you will know it some day."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh! father--"
+
+"Well, then! let us settle it all to-night."
+
+"What is it you wish me to do?"
+
+"My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her, Cruchot."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you tell it
+to a mere child?"
+
+"Let me tell it my own way, Grandet."
+
+"Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob me,--do
+you, little one?"
+
+"But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?" said Eugenie impatiently.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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 _livres_?"
+
+"I will do all you wish, father."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said the notary, "it is my duty to point out to you that
+you are despoiling yourself without guarantee--"
+
+"Good heavens! what is all that to me?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh! father!--"
+
+He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms till he almost
+choked her.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"There, little one," he said in a sarcastic tone, "do you want those for
+your twelve hundred francs?"
+
+"Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to me?"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Yes, my father," she would answer.
+
+"Take care of the gold--put gold before me."
+
+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.
+
+"It warms me!" he would sometimes say, as an expression of beatitude
+stole across his features.
+
+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.
+
+"My father, bless me!" she entreated.
+
+"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.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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.
+
+"Where is my cousin?" was her one thought.
+
+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.
+
+"Nanon, we are alone--"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I'd go on
+foot to find him."
+
+"The ocean is between us," she said.
+
+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.
+
+"Fast colors!" said the draper.
+
+"Quite likely to have children," said the salt merchant. "She's pickled
+in brine, saving your presence."
+
+"She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing for
+himself," said a third man.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Do you know, mademoiselle," said an habitual visitor, "that the
+Cruchots have an income of forty thousand francs among them!"
+
+"And then, their savings!" exclaimed an elderly female Cruchotine,
+Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.
+
+"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 _juge de paix_."
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, he is a very distinguished man," said another,--"don't you think
+so, mademoiselle?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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?"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _quibus cumque viis_, and makes haste
+to have done with villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as an
+honest man.
+
+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.
+
+Monsieur and Madame d'Aubrion, of the house of d'Aubrion de Buch, a
+family of southern France, whose last _captal_, 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 _dot_,--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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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 _corbeille_, 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,--
+
+"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."
+
+"But suppose that your father's estate were within a few days to be
+declared bankrupt?"
+
+"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 _never failed_." So saying, he
+politely edged Monsieur des Grassins to the door.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+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:
+
+"Mademoiselle, a letter!" She gave it to her mistress, adding, "Is it
+the one you expected?"
+
+The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as they echoed in sound
+from wall to wall of the court and garden.
+
+"Paris--from him--he has returned!"
+
+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.
+
+"Read it, mademoiselle!"
+
+"Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went from Saumur."
+
+"Read it, and you'll find out."
+
+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.
+
+  My dear Cousin,--
+
+"No longer 'Eugenie,'" she thought, and her heart quailed.
+
+  You--
+
+"He once said 'thou.'" She folded her arms and dared not read another
+word; great tears gathered in her eyes.
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Nanon.
+
+"If he were, he could not write," said Eugenie.
+
+She then read the whole letter, which was as follows:
+
+  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--
+
+Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and went away and sat
+down on the stone steps of the court.
+
+  --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.
+
+  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.
+
+  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?
+
+"Tan, ta, ta--tan, ta, ti," sang Charles Grandet to the air of _Non piu
+andrai_, as he signed himself,--
+
+Your devoted cousin, Charles.
+
+
+"Thunder! that's doing it handsomely!" he said, as he looked about him
+for the cheque; having found it, he added the words:--
+
+  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.
+
+"By the diligence!" said Eugenie. "A thing for which I would have laid
+down my life!"
+
+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.
+
+"My mother was right," she said, weeping. "Suffer--and die!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"My daughter, you must think long before you take so violent a step.
+Marriage is life, the veil is death."
+
+"Yes, death,--a quick death!" she said, with dreadful eagerness.
+
+"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."
+
+At this moment Madame des Grassins was announced. She came incited by
+vengeance and the sense of a great despair.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Madame," said the cure, "I leave the field to you."
+
+"Oh! monsieur le cure," said Eugenie, "come back later; your support is
+very necessary to me just now."
+
+"Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child!" said Madame des Grassins.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Eugenie and the cure together.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins writes me. Read
+it."
+
+Eugenie read the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Wife,--Charles Grandet has returned from the Indies and
+  has been in Paris about a month--
+
+"A month!" thought Eugenie, her hand falling to her side. After a pause
+she resumed the letter,--
+
+  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--
+
+"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.
+
+  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
+  _his father's affairs were not his_! 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.
+
+  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--
+
+There Eugenie paused, and coldly returned the letter without finishing
+it.
+
+"I thank you," she said to Madame des Grassins.
+
+"Ah! you have the voice and manner of your deceased father," Madame des
+Grassins replied.
+
+"Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay us," said Nanon,
+producing Charles's cheque.
+
+"That's true; have the kindness to come with me now, Madame Cornoiller."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Stay, monsieur le president," said Eugenie to Monsieur de Bonfons as
+she saw him take his cane.
+
+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.
+
+"The president gets the millions," said Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.
+
+"It is plain enough; the president marries Mademoiselle Grandet," cried
+Madame d'Orsonval.
+
+"All the trumps in one hand," said the abbe.
+
+"A love game," said the notary.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I am ready for all things," said the president.
+
+"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."
+
+The president fell at the feet of the rich heiress, his heart beating
+and wrung with joy.
+
+"I will be your slave!" he said.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+When Monsieur de Bonfons left her, Eugenie fell back in her chair and
+burst into tears. All was over.
+
+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.
+
+The president gave Charles the following letter:--
+
+  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
+
+Eugenie.
+
+
+The president smiled at the exclamation which the ambitious young man
+could not repress as he received the documents.
+
+"We shall announce our marriages at the same time," remarked Monsieur de
+Bonfons.
+
+"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?"
+
+"She had," said the president, with a mischievous smile, "about nineteen
+millions four days ago; but she has only seventeen millions to-day."
+
+Charles looked at him thunderstruck.
+
+"Seventeen mil--"
+
+"Seventeen millions; yes, monsieur. We shall muster, Mademoiselle
+Grandet and I, an income of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs when
+we marry."
+
+"My dear cousin," said Charles, recovering a little of his assurance,
+"we can push each other's fortunes."
+
+"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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Very good, madame. The three millions which my father owed were paid
+yesterday."
+
+"In money?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, in full, capital and interest; and I am about to do honor to his
+memory--"
+
+"What folly!" exclaimed his mother-in-law. "Who is this?" she whispered
+in Grandet's ear, perceiving the president.
+
+"My man of business," he answered in a low voice.
+
+The marquise bowed superciliously to Monsieur de Bonfons.
+
+"We are pushing each other's fortunes already," said the president,
+taking up his hat. "Good-by, cousin."
+
+"He is laughing at me, the old cockatoo! I'd like to put six inches of
+iron into him!" muttered Charles.
+
+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 _him_.
+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--
+
+"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.
+
+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, _accurante Cruchot_,
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"I have none but you to love me," she says to Nanon.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Chaulieu, Eleonore, Duchesse de
+       Letters of Two Brides
+
+     Grandet, Victor-Ange-Guillaume
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Grandet, Charles
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Keller, Francois
+       Domestic Peace
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
+       Father Goriot
+       The Thirteen
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Melmoth Reconciled
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Roguin
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Vendetta
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac
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