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Eugenie Grandet

by Honore de Balzac

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

April, 1999  [Etext #1715]
[Most recently updated October 23, 2002]

Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
</pre>

<p>EUGENIE GRANDET</p>

<p>by HONORE DE BALZAC</p>

<p>Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley</p>

<p> </p>

<p>DEDICATION</p>

<p>To Maria.</p>

<p>May your name, that of one whose portrait is the noblest
ornament of this work, lie on its opening pages like a branch of
sacred box, taken from an unknown tree, but sanctified by
religion, and kept ever fresh and green by pious hands to bless
the house.</p>

<p>De Balzac.</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

<h2 align="center">EUGENIE GRANDET</h2>

<h3>I</h3>

<p>There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect
inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre
cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within
these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the
barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are
so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited,
were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of
a motionless person, whose half- monastic face peers beyond the
window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.</p>

<p>Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were,
of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the
steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the
town. This street--now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in
winter, dark in certain sections--is remarkable for the resonance
of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the
narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness
of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped
by the ramparts. Houses three centuries old are still solid,
though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the
originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the
attention of artists and antiquaries.</p>

<p>It is difficult to pass these houses without admiring the
enormous oaken beams, their ends carved into fantastic figures,
which crown with a black bas-relief the lower floor of most of
them. In one place these transverse timbers are covered with
slate and mark a bluish line along the frail wall of a dwelling
covered by a roof <i>en</i> <i>colombage</i> which bends beneath
the weight of years, and whose rotting shingles are twisted by
the alternate action of sun and rain. In another place blackened,
worn-out window-sills, with delicate sculptures now scarcely
discernible, seem too weak to bear the brown clay pots from which
springs the heart's-ease or the rose-bush of some poor working-
woman. Farther on are doors studded with enormous nails, where
the genius of our forefathers has traced domestic hieroglyphics,
of which the meaning is now lost forever. Here a Protestant
attested his belief; there a Leaguer cursed Henry IV.; elsewhere
some bourgeois has carved the insignia of his <i>noblesse de
cloches</i>, symbols of his long- forgotten magisterial glory.
The whole history of France is there.</p>

<p>Next to a tottering house with roughly plastered walls, where
an artisan enshrines his tools, rises the mansion of a country
gentleman, on the stone arch of which above the door vestiges of
armorial bearings may still be seen, battered by the many
revolutions that have shaken France since 1789. In this hilly
street the ground-floors of the merchants are neither shops nor
warehouses; lovers of the Middle Ages will here find the
<i>ouvrouere</i> of our forefathers in all its naive simplicity.
These low rooms, which have no shop-frontage, no show-windows, in
fact no glass at all, are deep and dark and without interior or
exterior decoration. Their doors open in two parts, each roughly
iron-bound; the upper half is fastened back within the room, the
lower half, fitted with a spring-bell, swings continually to and
fro. Air and light reach the damp den within, either through the
upper half of the door, or through an open space between the
ceiling and a low front wall, breast-high, which is closed by
solid shutters that are taken down every morning, put up every
evening, and held in place by heavy iron bars.</p>

<p>This wall serves as a counter for the merchandise. No delusive
display is there; only samples of the business, whatever it may
chance to be, --such, for instance, as three or four tubs full of
codfish and salt, a few bundles of sail-cloth, cordage, copper
wire hanging from the joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged
along the wall, or a few pieces of cloth upon the shelves. Enter.
A neat girl, glowing with youth, wearing a white kerchief, her
arms red and bare, drops her knitting and calls her father or her
mother, one of whom comes forward and sells you what you want,
phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly, according to his or her
individual character, whether it be a matter of two sous' or
twenty thousand francs' worth of merchandise. You may see a
cooper, for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his
thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns
nothing more than a few miserable boat-ribs and two or three
bundles of laths; but below in the port his teeming wood-yard
supplies all the cooperage trade of Anjou. He knows to a plank
how many casks are needed if the vintage is good. A hot season
makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single morning
puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six. In
this country, as in Touraine, atmospheric vicissitudes control
commercial life. Wine-growers, proprietors, wood- merchants,
coopers, inn-keepers, mariners, all keep watch of the sun. They
tremble when they go to bed lest they should hear in the morning
of a frost in the night; they dread rain, wind, drought, and want
water, heat, and clouds to suit their fancy. A perpetual duel
goes on between the heavens and their terrestrial interests. The
barometer smooths, saddens, or makes merry their countenances,
turn and turn about. From end to end of this street, formerly the
Grand'Rue de Saumur, the words: "Here's golden weather," are
passed from door to door; or each man calls to his neighbor: "It
rains louis," knowing well what a sunbeam or the opportune
rainfall is bringing him.</p>

<p>On Saturdays after midday, in the fine season, not one sou's
worth of merchandise can be bought from these worthy traders.
Each has his vineyard, his enclosure of fields, and all spend two
days in the country. This being foreseen, and purchases, sales,
and profits provided for, the merchants have ten or twelve hours
to spend in parties of pleasure, in making observations, in
criticisms, and in continual spying. A housewife cannot buy a
partridge without the neighbors asking the husband if it were
cooked to a turn. A young girl never puts her head near a window
that she is not seen by idling groups in the street. Consciences
are held in the light; and the houses, dark, silent, impenetrable
as they seem, hide no mysteries. Life is almost wholly in the
open air; every household sits at its own threshold, breakfasts,
dines, and quarrels there. No one can pass along the street
without being examined; in fact formerly, when a stranger entered
a provincial town he was bantered and made game of from door to
door. From this came many good stories, and the nickname
<i>copieux</i>, which was applied to the inhabitants of Angers,
who excelled in such urban sarcasms.</p>

<p>The ancient mansions of the old town of Saumur are at the top
of this hilly street, and were formerly occupied by the nobility
of the neighborhood. The melancholy dwelling where the events of
the following history took place is one of these
mansions,--venerable relics of a century in which men and things
bore the characteristics of simplicity which French manners and
customs are losing day by day. Follow the windings of the
picturesque thoroughfare, whose irregularities awaken
recollections that plunge the mind mechanically into reverie, and
you will see a somewhat dark recess, in the centre of which is
hidden the door of the house of Monsieur Grandet. It is
impossible to understand the force of this provincial
expression--the house of Monsieur Grandet--without giving the
biography of Monsieur Grandet himself.</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet enjoyed a reputation in Saumur whose causes
and effects can never be fully understood by those who have not,
at one time or another, lived in the provinces. In 1789 Monsieur
Grandet-- still called by certain persons le Pere Grandet, though
the number of such old persons has perceptibly diminished--was a
master-cooper, able to read, write, and cipher. At the period
when the French Republic offered for sale the church property in
the arrondissement of Saumur, the cooper, then forty years of
age, had just married the daughter of a rich wood-merchant.
Supplied with the ready money of his own fortune and his wife's
<i>dot</i>, in all about two thousand louis-d'or, Grandet went to
the newly established "district," where, with the help of two
hundred double louis given by his father-in-law to the surly
republican who presided over the sales of the national domain, he
obtained for a song, legally if not legitimately, one of the
finest vineyards in the arrondissement, an old abbey, and several
farms. The inhabitants of Saumur were so little revolutionary
that they thought Pere Grandet a bold man, a republican, and a
patriot with a mind open to all the new ideas; though in point of
fact it was open only to vineyards. He was appointed a member of
the administration of Saumur, and his pacific influence made
itself felt politically and commercially. Politically, he
protected the ci-devant nobles, and prevented, to the extent of
his power, the sale of the lands and property of the
<i>emigres</i>; commercially, he furnished the Republican armies
with two or three thousand puncheons of white wine, and took his
pay in splendid fields belonging to a community of women whose
lands had been reserved for the last lot.</p>

<p>Under the Consulate Grandet became mayor, governed wisely, and
harvested still better pickings. Under the Empire he was called
Monsieur Grandet. Napoleon, however, did not like republicans,
and superseded Monsieur Grandet (who was supposed to have worn
the Phrygian cap) by a man of his own surroundings, a future
baron of the Empire. Monsieur Grandet quitted office without
regret. He had constructed in the interests of the town certain
fine roads which led to his own property; his house and lands,
very advantageously assessed, paid moderate taxes; and since the
registration of his various estates, the vineyards, thanks to his
constant care, had become the "head of the country,"--a local
term used to denote those that produced the finest quality of
wine. He might have asked for the cross of the Legion of
honor.</p>

<p>This event occurred in 1806. Monsieur Grandet was then
fifty-seven years of age, his wife thirty-six, and an only
daughter, the fruit of their legitimate love, was ten years old.
Monsieur Grandet, whom Providence no doubt desired to compensate
for the loss of his municipal honors, inherited three fortunes in
the course of this year, --that of Madame de la Gaudiniere, born
de la Bertelliere, the mother of Madame Grandet; that of old
Monsieur de la Bertelliere, her grandfather; and, lastly, that of
Madame Gentillet, her grandmother on the mother's side: three
inheritances, whose amount was not known to any one. The avarice
of the deceased persons was so keen that for a long time they had
hoarded their money for the pleasure of secretly looking at it.
Old Monsieur de la Bertelliere called an investment an
extravagance, and thought he got better interest from the sight
of his gold than from the profits of usury. The inhabitants of
Saumur consequently estimated his savings according to "the
revenues of the sun's wealth," as they said.</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet thus obtained that modern title of nobility
which our mania for equality can never rub out. He became the
most imposing personage in the arrondissement. He worked a
hundred acres of vineyard, which in fruitful years yielded seven
or eight hundred hogsheads of wine. He owned thirteen farms, an
old abbey, whose windows and arches he had walled up for the sake
of economy,--a measure which preserved them,--also a hundred and
twenty-seven acres of meadow-land, where three thousand poplars,
planted in 1793, grew and flourished; and finally, the house in
which he lived. Such was his visible estate; as to his other
property, only two persons could give even a vague guess at its
value: one was Monsieur Cruchot, a notary employed in the
usurious investments of Monsieur Grandet; the other was Monsieur
des Grassins, the richest banker in Saumur, in whose profits
Grandet had a certain covenanted and secret share.</p>

<p>Although old Cruchot and Monsieur des Grassins were both
gifted with the deep discretion which wealth and trust beget in
the provinces, they publicly testified so much respect to
Monsieur Grandet that observers estimated the amount of his
property by the obsequious attention which they bestowed upon
him. In all Saumur there was no one not persuaded that Monsieur
Grandet had a private treasure, some hiding-place full of louis,
where he nightly took ineffable delight in gazing upon great
masses of gold. Avaricious people gathered proof of this when
they looked at the eyes of the good man, to which the yellow
metal seemed to have conveyed its tints. The glance of a man
accustomed to draw enormous interest from his capital acquires,
like that of the libertine, the gambler, or the sycophant,
certain indefinable habits,--furtive, eager, mysterious
movements, which never escape the notice of his co-religionists.
This secret language is in a certain way the freemasonry of the
passions. Monsieur Grandet inspired the respectful esteem due to
one who owed no man anything, who, skilful cooper and experienced
wine-grower that he was, guessed with the precision of an
astronomer whether he ought to manufacture a thousand puncheons
for his vintage, or only five hundred, who never failed in any
speculation, and always had casks for sale when casks were worth
more than the commodity that filled them, who could store his
whole vintage in his cellars and bide his time to put the
puncheons on the market at two hundred francs, when the little
proprietors had been forced to sell theirs for five louis. His
famous vintage of 1811, judiciously stored and slowly disposed
of, brought him in more than two hundred and forty thousand
francs.</p>

<p>Financially speaking, Monsieur Grandet was something between a
tiger and a boa-constrictor. He could crouch and lie low, watch
his prey a long while, spring upon it, open his jaws, swallow a
mass of louis, and then rest tranquilly like a snake in process
of digestion, impassible, methodical, and cold. No one saw him
pass without a feeling of admiration mingled with respect and
fear; had not every man in Saumur felt the rending of those
polished steel claws? For this one, Maitre Cruchot had procured
the money required for the purchase of a domain, but at eleven
per cent. For that one, Monsieur des Grassins discounted bills of
exchange, but at a frightful deduction of interest. Few days ever
passed that Monsieur Grandet's name was not mentioned either in
the markets or in social conversations at the evening gatherings.
To some the fortune of the old wine-grower was an object of
patriotic pride. More than one merchant, more than one innkeeper,
said to strangers with a certain complacency: "Monsieur, we have
two or three millionaire establishments; but as for Monsieur
Grandet, he does not himself know how much he is worth."</p>

<p>In 1816 the best reckoners in Saumur estimated the landed
property of the worthy man at nearly four millions; but as, on an
average, he had made yearly, from 1793 to 1817, a hundred
thousand francs out of that property, it was fair to presume that
he possessed in actual money a sum nearly equal to the value of
his estate. So that when, after a game of boston or an evening
discussion on the matter of vines, the talk fell upon Monsieur
Grandet, knowing people said: "Le Pere Grandet? le Pere Grandet
must have at least five or six millions."</p>

<p>"You are cleverer than I am; I have never been able to find
out the amount," answered Monsieur Cruchot or Monsieur des
Grassins, when either chanced to overhear the remark.</p>

<p>If some Parisian mentioned Rothschild or Monsieur Lafitte, the
people of Saumur asked if he were as rich as Monsieur Grandet.
When the Parisian, with a smile, tossed them a disdainful
affirmative, they looked at each other and shook their heads with
an incredulous air. So large a fortune covered with a golden
mantle all the actions of this man. If in early days some
peculiarities of his life gave occasion for laughter or ridicule,
laughter and ridicule had long since died away. His least
important actions had the authority of results repeatedly shown.
His speech, his clothing, his gestures, the blinking of his eyes,
were law to the country-side, where every one, after studying him
as a naturalist studies the result of instinct in the lower
animals, had come to understand the deep mute wisdom of his
slightest actions.</p>

<p>"It will be a hard winter," said one; "Pere Grandet has put on
his fur gloves."</p>

<p>"Pere Grandet is buying quantities of staves; there will be
plenty of wine this year."</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet never bought either bread or meat. His
farmers supplied him weekly with a sufficiency of capons,
chickens, eggs, butter, and his tithe of wheat. He owned a mill;
and the tenant was bound, over and above his rent, to take a
certain quantity of grain and return him the flour and bran. La
Grande Nanon, his only servant, though she was no longer young,
baked the bread of the household herself every Saturday. Monsieur
Grandet arranged with kitchen- gardeners who were his tenants to
supply him with vegetables. As to fruits, he gathered such
quantities that he sold the greater part in the market. His
fire-wood was cut from his own hedgerows or taken from the
half-rotten old sheds which he built at the corners of his
fields, and whose planks the farmers carted into town for him,
all cut up, and obligingly stacked in his wood-house, receiving
in return his thanks. His only known expenditures were for the
consecrated bread, the clothing of his wife and daughter, the
hire of their chairs in church, the wages of la Grand Nanon, the
tinning of the saucepans, lights, taxes, repairs on his
buildings, and the costs of his various industries. He had six
hundred acres of woodland, lately purchased, which he induced a
neighbor's keeper to watch, under the promise of an indemnity.
After the acquisition of this property he ate game for the first
time.</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet's manners were very simple. He spoke little.
He usually expressed his meaning by short sententious phrases
uttered in a soft voice. After the Revolution, the epoch at which
he first came into notice, the good man stuttered in a wearisome
way as soon as he was required to speak at length or to maintain
an argument. This stammering, the incoherence of his language,
the flux of words in which he drowned his thought, his apparent
lack of logic, attributed to defects of education, were in
reality assumed, and will be sufficiently explained by certain
events in the following history. Four sentences, precise as
algebraic formulas, sufficed him usually to grasp and solve all
difficulties of life and commerce: "I don't know; I cannot; I
will not; I will see about it." He never said yes, or no, and
never committed himself to writing. If people talked to him he
listened coldly, holding his chin in his right hand and resting
his right elbow in the back of his left hand, forming in his own
mind opinions on all matters, from which he never receded. He
reflected long before making any business agreement. When his
opponent, after careful conversation, avowed the secret of his
own purposes, confident that he had secured his listener's
assent, Grandet answered: "I can decide nothing without
consulting my wife." His wife, whom he had reduced to a state of
helpless slavery, was a useful screen to him in business. He went
nowhere among friends; he neither gave nor accepted dinners; he
made no stir or noise, seeming to economize in everything, even
movement. He never disturbed or disarranged the things of other
people, out of respect for the rights of property. Nevertheless,
in spite of his soft voice, in spite of his circumspect bearing,
the language and habits of a coarse nature came to the surface,
especially in his own home, where he controlled himself less than
elsewhere.</p>

<p>Physically, Grandet was a man five feet high, thick-set,
square-built, with calves twelve inches in circumference, knotted
knee-joints, and broad shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and
pitted by the small- pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no
curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring
expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead,
full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant
protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and
gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety
of making a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His nose, thick at the
end, bore a veined wen, which the common people said, not without
reason, was full of malice. The whole countenance showed a
dangerous cunning, an integrity without warmth, the egotism of a
man long used to concentrate every feeling upon the enjoyments of
avarice and upon the only human being who was anything whatever
to him,--his daughter and sole heiress, Eugenie. Attitude,
manners, bearing, everything about him, in short, testified to
that belief in himself which the habit of succeeding in all
enterprises never fails to give to a man.</p>

<p>Thus, though his manners were unctuous and soft outwardly,
Monsieur Grandet's nature was of iron. His dress never varied;
and those who saw him to-day saw him such as he had been since
1791. His stout shoes were tied with leathern thongs; he wore, in
all weathers, thick woollen stockings, short breeches of coarse
maroon cloth with silver buckles, a velvet waistcoat, in
alternate stripes of yellow and puce, buttoned squarely, a large
maroon coat with wide flaps, a black cravat, and a quaker's hat.
His gloves, thick as those of a gendarme, lasted him twenty
months; to preserve them, he always laid them methodically on the
brim of his hat in one particular spot. Saumur knew nothing
further about this personage.</p>

<p>Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur
Grandet's house. The most important of the first three was a
nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of
the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of
Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons.
Any litigant so ill- advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot
would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate
protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he
favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur
de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and
possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven
thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of
his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot,
a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom
were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a
goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the
town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the
Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.</p>

<p>Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of
age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping
to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des
Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife
by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser,
and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three
des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their
faithful allies. On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of
the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply
contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and
tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the
president.</p>

<p>This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the
prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept
the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would
Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur
Adolphe des Grassins? To this problem some replied that Monsieur
Grandet would never give his daughter to the one or to the other.
The old cooper, eaten up with ambition, was looking, they said,
for a peer of France, to whom an income of three hundred thousand
francs would make all the past, present, and future casks of the
Grandets acceptable. Others replied that Monsieur and Madame des
Grassins were nobles, and exceedingly rich; that Adolphe was a
personable young fellow; and that unless the old man had a nephew
of the pope at his beck and call, such a suitable alliance ought
to satisfy a man who came from nothing,--a man whom Saumur
remembered with an adze in his hand, and who had, moreover, worn
the <i>bonnet rouge</i>. Certain wise heads called attention to
the fact that Monsieur Cruchot de Bonfons had the right of entry
to the house at all times, whereas his rival was received only on
Sundays. Others, however, maintained that Madame des Grassins was
more intimate with the women of the house of Grandet than the
Cruchots were, and could put into their minds certain ideas which
would lead, sooner or later, to success. To this the former
retorted that the Abbe Cruchot was the most insinuating man in
the world: pit a woman against a monk, and the struggle was even.
"It is diamond cut diamond," said a Saumur wit.</p>

<p>The oldest inhabitants, wiser than their fellows, declared
that the Grandets knew better than to let the property go out of
the family, and that Mademoiselle Eugenie Grandet of Saumur would
be married to the son of Monsieur Grandet of Paris, a wealthy
wholesale wine- merchant. To this the Cruchotines and the
Grassinists replied: "In the first place, the two brothers have
seen each other only twice in thirty years; and next, Monsieur
Grandet of Paris has ambitious designs for his son. He is mayor
of an arrondissement, a deputy, colonel of the National Guard,
judge in the commercial courts; he disowns the Grandets of
Saumur, and means to ally himself with some ducal family,--ducal
under favor of Napoleon." In short, was there anything not said
of an heiress who was talked of through a circumference of fifty
miles, and even in the public conveyances from Angers to Blois,
inclusively!</p>

<p>At the beginning of 1811, the Cruchotines won a signal
advantage over the Grassinists. The estate of Froidfond,
remarkable for its park, its mansion, its farms, streams, ponds,
forests, and worth about three millions, was put up for sale by
the young Marquis de Froidfond, who was obliged to liquidate his
possessions. Maitre Cruchot, the president, and the abbe, aided
by their adherents, were able to prevent the sale of the estate
in little lots. The notary concluded a bargain with the young man
for the whole property, payable in gold, persuading him that
suits without number would have to be brought against the
purchasers of small lots before he could get the money for them;
it was better, therefore, to sell the whole to Monsieur Grandet,
who was solvent and able to pay for the estate in ready money.
The fine marquisate of Froidfond was accordingly conveyed down
the gullet of Monsieur Grandet, who, to the great astonishment of
Saumur, paid for it, under proper discount, with the usual
formalities.</p>

<p>This affair echoed from Nantes to Orleans. Monsieur Grandet
took advantage of a cart returning by way of Froidfond to go and
see his chateau. Having cast a master's eye over the whole
property, he returned to Saumur, satisfied that he had invested
his money at five per cent, and seized by the stupendous thought
of extending and increasing the marquisate of Froidfond by
concentrating all his property there. Then, to fill up his
coffers, now nearly empty, he resolved to thin out his woods and
his forests, and to sell off the poplars in the meadows.</p>

<h3>II</h3>

<p>It is now easy to understand the full meaning of the term,
"the house of Monsieur Grandet,"--that cold, silent, pallid
dwelling, standing above the town and sheltered by the ruins of
the ramparts. The two pillars and the arch, which made the
porte-cochere on which the door opened, were built, like the
house itself, of tufa,--a white stone peculiar to the shores of
the Loire, and so soft that it lasts hardly more than two
centuries. Numberless irregular holes, capriciously bored or
eaten out by the inclemency of the weather, gave an appearance of
the vermiculated stonework of French architecture to the arch and
the side walls of this entrance, which bore some resemblance to
the gateway of a jail. Above the arch was a long bas-relief, in
hard stone, representing the four seasons, the faces already
crumbling away and blackened. This bas-relief was surmounted by a
projecting plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had
sprung up,--yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, nettles,
plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already grown to some
height.</p>

<p>The door of the archway was made of solid oak, brown,
shrunken, and split in many places; though frail in appearance,
it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in
symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red
with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a
motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck
upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the
oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called
<i>jaquemart</i>, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an
antiquary who examined it attentively might have found
indications of the figure, essentially burlesque, which it once
represented, and which long usage had now effaced. Through this
little grating--intended in olden times for the recognition of
friends in times of civil war--inquisitive persons could
perceive, at the farther end of the dark and slimy vault, a few
broken steps which led to a garden, picturesquely shut in by
walls that were thick and damp, and through which oozed a
moisture that nourished tufts of sickly herbage. These walls were
the ruins of the ramparts, under which ranged the gardens of
several neighboring houses.</p>

<p>The most important room on the ground-floor of the house was a
large hall, entered directly from beneath the vault of the
porte-cochere. Few people know the importance of a hall in the
little towns of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry. The hall is at one
and the same time antechamber, salon, office, boudoir, and
dining-room; it is the theatre of domestic life, the common
living-room. There the barber of the neighborhood came, twice a
year, to cut Monsieur Grandet's hair; there the farmers, the
cure, the under-prefect, and the miller's boy came on business.
This room, with two windows looking on the street, was entirely
of wood. Gray panels with ancient mouldings covered the walls
from top to bottom; the ceiling showed all its beams, which were
likewise painted gray, while the space between them had been
washed over in white, now yellow with age. An old brass clock,
inlaid with arabesques, adorned the mantel of the ill-cut white
stone chimney-piece, above which was a greenish mirror, whose
edges, bevelled to show the thickness of the glass, reflected a
thread of light the whole length of a gothic frame in damascened
steel-work. The two copper-gilt candelabra which decorated the
corners of the chimney-piece served a double purpose: by taking
off the side-branches, each of which held a socket, the main
stem--which was fastened to a pedestal of bluish marble tipped
with copper--made a candlestick for one candle, which was
sufficient for ordinary occasions. The chairs, antique in shape,
were covered with tapestry representing the fables of La
Fontaine; it was necessary, however, to know that writer well to
guess at the subjects, for the faded colors and the figures,
blurred by much darning, were difficult to distinguish.</p>

<p>At the four corners of the hall were closets, or rather
buffets, surmounted by dirty shelves. An old card-table in
marquetry, of which the upper part was a chess-board, stood in
the space between the two windows. Above this table was an oval
barometer with a black border enlivened with gilt bands, on which
the flies had so licentiously disported themselves that the
gilding had become problematical. On the panel opposite to the
chimney-piece were two portraits in pastel, supposed to represent
the grandfather of Madame Grandet, old Monsieur de la
Bertelliere, as a lieutenant in the French guard, and the
deceased Madame Gentillet in the guise of a shepherdess. The
windows were draped with curtains of red <i>gros de Tours</i>
held back by silken cords with ecclesiastical tassels. This
luxurious decoration, little in keeping with the habits of
Monsieur Grandet, had been, together with the steel pier-glass,
the tapestries, and the buffets, which were of rose-wood,
included in the purchase of the house.</p>

<p>By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose
legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet,
to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table
of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little
armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the
lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round
of constant work from the month of April to the month of
November. On the first day of the latter month they took their
winter station by the chimney. Not until that day did Grandet
permit a fire to be lighted; and on the thirty- first of March it
was extinguished, without regard either to the chills of the
early spring or to those of a wintry autumn. A foot- warmer,
filled with embers from the kitchen fire, which la Grande Nanon
contrived to save for them, enabled Madame and Mademoiselle
Grandet to bear the chilly mornings and evenings of April and
October. Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and
spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of
working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for
her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and
deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time
the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la
Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and
other necessaries for the daily consumption.</p>

<p>La Grande Nanon was perhaps the only human being capable of
accepting willingly the despotism of her master. The whole town
envied Monsieur and Madame Grandet the possession of her. La
Grande Nanon, so called on account of her height, which was five
feet eight inches, had lived with Monsieur Grandet for
thirty-five years. Though she received only sixty francs a year
in wages, she was supposed to be one of the richest serving-women
in Saumur. Those sixty francs, accumulating through thirty-five
years, had recently enabled her to invest four thousand francs in
an annuity with Maitre Cruchot. This result of her long and
persistent economy seemed gigantic. Every servant in the town,
seeing that the poor sexagenarian was sure of bread for her old
age, was jealous of her, and never thought of the hard slavery
through which it had been won.</p>

<p>At twenty-two years of age the poor girl had been unable to
find a situation, so repulsive was her face to almost every one.
Yet the feeling was certainly unjust: the face would have been
much admired on the shoulders of a grenadier of the guard; but
all things, so they say, should be in keeping. Forced to leave a
farm where she kept the cows, because the dwelling-house was
burned down, she came to Saumur to find a place, full of the
robust courage that shrinks from no labor. Le Pere Grandet was at
that time thinking of marriage and about to set up his household.
He espied the girl, rejected as she was from door to door. A good
judge of corporeal strength in his trade as a cooper, he guessed
the work that might be got out of a female creature shaped like a
Hercules, as firm on her feet as an oak sixty years old on its
roots, strong in the hips, square in the back, with the hands of
a cartman and an honesty as sound as her unblemished virtue.
Neither the warts which adorned her martial visage, nor the
red-brick tints of her skin, nor the sinewy arms, nor the ragged
garments of la Grande Nanon, dismayed the cooper, who was at that
time still of an age when the heart shudders. He fed, shod, and
clothed the poor girl, gave her wages, and put her to work
without treating her too roughly. Seeing herself thus welcomed,
la Grande Nanon wept secretly tears of joy, and attached herself
in all sincerity to her master, who from that day ruled her and
worked her with feudal authority. Nanon did everything. She
cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and
brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to
bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the
harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the
property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of
blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd
exactions.</p>

<p>In the famous year of 1811, when the grapes were gathered with
unheard-of difficulty, Grandet resolved to give Nanon his old
watch,-- the first present he had made her during twenty years of
service. Though he turned over to her his old shoes (which fitted
her), it is impossible to consider that quarterly benefit as a
gift, for the shoes were always thoroughly worn-out. Necessity
had made the poor girl so niggardly that Grandet had grown to
love her as we love a dog, and Nanon had let him fasten a spiked
collar round her throat, whose spikes no longer pricked her. If
Grandet cut the bread with rather too much parsimony, she made no
complaint; she gaily shared the hygienic benefits derived from
the severe regime of the household, in which no one was ever ill.
Nanon was, in fact, one of the family; she laughed when Grandet
laughed, felt gloomy or chilly, warmed herself, and toiled as he
did. What pleasant compensations there were in such equality!
Never did the master have occasion to find fault with the servant
for pilfering the grapes, nor for the plums and nectarines eaten
under the trees. "Come, fall-to, Nanon!" he would say in years
when the branches bent under the fruit and the farmers were
obliged to give it to the pigs.</p>

<p>To the poor peasant who in her youth had earned nothing but
harsh treatment, to the pauper girl picked up by charity,
Grandet's ambiguous laugh was like a sunbeam. Moreover, Nanon's
simple heart and narrow head could hold only one feeling and one
idea. For thirty-five years she had never ceased to see herself
standing before the wood- yard of Monsieur Grandet, ragged and
barefooted, and to hear him say: "What do you want, young one?"
Her gratitude was ever new. Sometimes Grandet, reflecting that
the poor creature had never heard a flattering word, that she was
ignorant of all the tender sentiments inspired by women, that she
might some day appear before the throne of God even more chaste
than the Virgin Mary herself,--Grandet, struck with pity, would
say as he looked at her, "Poor Nanon!" The exclamation was always
followed by an undefinable look cast upon him in return by the
old servant. The words, uttered from time to time, formed a chain
of friendship that nothing ever parted, and to which each
exclamation added a link. Such compassion arising in the heart of
the miser, and accepted gratefully by the old spinster, had
something inconceivably horrible about it. This cruel pity,
recalling, as it did, a thousand pleasures to the heart of the
old cooper, was for Nanon the sum total of happiness. Who does
not likewise say, "Poor Nanon!" God will recognize his angels by
the inflexions of their voices and by their secret sighs.</p>

<p>There were very many households in Saumur where the servants
were better treated, but where the masters received far less
satisfaction in return. Thus it was often said: "What have the
Grandets ever done to make their Grande Nanon so attached to
them? She would go through fire and water for their sake!" Her
kitchen, whose barred windows looked into the court, was always
clean, neat, cold,--a true miser's kitchen, where nothing went to
waste. When Nanon had washed her dishes, locked up the remains of
the dinner, and put out her fire, she left the kitchen, which was
separated by a passage from the living- room, and went to spin
hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle sufficed the family
for the evening. The servant slept at the end of the passage in a
species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health
enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there she could
hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which reigned
night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she slept
with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.</p>

<p>A description of the other parts of the dwelling will be found
connected with the events of this history, though the foregoing
sketch of the hall, where the whole luxury of the household
appears, may enable the reader to surmise the nakedness of the
upper floors.</p>

<p>In 1819, at the beginning of an evening in the middle of
November, la Grande Nanon lighted the fire for the first time.
The autumn had been very fine. This particular day was a fete-day
well known to the Cruchotines and the Grassinists. The six
antagonists, armed at all points, were making ready to meet at
the Grandets and surpass each other in testimonials of
friendship. That morning all Saumur had seen Madame and
Mademoiselle Grandet, accompanied by Nanon, on their way to hear
Mass at the parish church, and every one remembered that the day
was the anniversary of Mademoiselle Eugenie's birth. Calculating
the hour at which the family dinner would be over, Maitre
Cruchot, the Abbe Cruchot, and Monsieur C. de Bonfons hastened to
arrive before the des Grassins, and be the first to pay their
compliments to Mademoiselle Eugenie. All three brought enormous
bouquets, gathered in their little green-houses. The stalks of
the flowers which the president intended to present were
ingeniously wound round with a white satin ribbon adorned with
gold fringe. In the morning Monsieur Grandet, following his usual
custom on the days that commemorated the birth and the fete of
Eugenie, went to her bedside and solemnly presented her with his
paternal gift,--which for the last thirteen years had consisted
regularly of a curious gold-piece. Madame Grandet gave her
daughter a winter dress or a summer dress, as the case might be.
These two dresses and the gold-pieces, of which she received two
others on New Year's day and on her father's fete-day, gave
Eugenie a little revenue of a hundred crowns or thereabouts,
which Grandet loved to see her amass. Was it not putting his
money from one strong-box to another, and, as it were, training
the parsimony of his heiress? from whom he sometimes demanded an
account of her treasure (formerly increased by the gifts of the
Bertellieres), saying: "It is to be your marriage dozen."</p>

<p>The "marriage dozen" is an old custom sacredly preserved and
still in force in many parts of central France. In Berry and in
Anjou, when a young girl marries, her family, or that of the
husband, must give her a purse, in which they place, according to
their means, twelve pieces, or twelve dozen pieces, or twelve
hundred pieces of gold. The poorest shepherd-girl never marries
without her dozen, be it only a dozen coppers. They still tell in
Issoudun of a certain "dozen" presented to a rich heiress, which
contained a hundred and forty-four <i>portugaises d'or</i>. Pope
Clement VII., uncle of Catherine de' Medici, gave her when he
married her to Henri II. a dozen antique gold medals of priceless
value.</p>

<p>During dinner the father, delighted to see his Eugenie looking
well in a new gown, exclaimed: "As it is Eugenie's birthday let
us have a fire; it will be a good omen."</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle will be married this year, that's certain," said
la Grande Nanon, carrying away the remains of the goose,--the
pheasant of tradesmen.</p>

<p>"I don't see any one suitable for her in Saumur," said Madame
Grandet, glancing at her husband with a timid look which,
considering her years, revealed the conjugal slavery under which
the poor woman languished.</p>

<p>Grandet looked at his daughter and exclaimed gaily,--</p>

<p>"She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child; we must soon
begin to think of it."</p>

<p>Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance of
intelligence.</p>

<p>Madame Grandet was a dry, thin woman, as yellow as a quince,
awkward, slow, one of those women who are born to be
down-trodden. She had big bones, a big nose, a big forehead, big
eyes, and presented at first sight a vague resemblance to those
mealy fruits that have neither savor nor succulence. Her teeth
were black and few in number, her mouth was wrinkled, her chin
long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, a true la
Bertelliere. L'abbe Cruchot found occasional opportunity to tell
her that she had not done ill; and she believed him. Angelic
sweetness, the resignation of an insect tortured by children, a
rare piety, a good heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made
her universally pitied and respected. Her husband never gave her
more than six francs at a time for her personal expenses.
Ridiculous as it may seem, this woman, who by her own fortune and
her various inheritances brought Pere Grandet more than three
hundred thousand francs, had always felt so profoundly humiliated
by her dependence and the slavery in which she lived, against
which the gentleness of her spirit prevented her from revolting,
that she had never asked for one penny or made a single remark on
the deeds which Maitre Cruchot brought for her signature. This
foolish secret pride, this nobility of soul perpetually
misunderstood and wounded by Grandet, ruled the whole conduct of
the wife.</p>

<p>Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown of greenish
levantine silk, endeavoring to make it last nearly a year; with
it she wore a large kerchief of white cotton cloth, a bonnet made
of plaited straws sewn together, and almost always a black-silk
apron. As she seldom left the house she wore out very few shoes.
She never asked anything for herself. Grandet, seized with
occasional remorse when he remembered how long a time had elapsed
since he gave her the last six francs, always stipulated for the
"wife's pin-money" when he sold his yearly vintage. The four or
five louis presented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who purchased
the wine were the chief visible signs of Madame Grandet's annual
revenues. But after she had received the five louis, her husband
would often say to her, as though their purse were held in
common: "Can you lend me a few sous?" and the poor woman, glad to
be able to do something for a man whom her confessor held up to
her as her lord and master, returned him in the course of the
winter several crowns out of the "pin-money." When Grandet drew
from his pocket the five-franc piece which he allowed monthly for
the minor expenses,-- thread, needles, and toilet,--of his
daughter, he never failed to say as he buttoned his breeches'
pocket: "And you, mother, do you want anything?"</p>

<p>"My friend," Madame Grandet would answer, moved by a sense of
maternal dignity, "we will see about that later."</p>

<p>Wasted dignity! Grandet thought himself very generous to his
wife. Philosophers who meet the like of Nanon, of Madame Grandet,
of Eugenie, have surely a right to say that irony is at the
bottom of the ways of Providence.</p>

<p>After the dinner at which for the first time allusion had been
made to Eugenie's marriage, Nanon went to fetch a bottle of
black-currant ratafia from Monsieur Grandet's bed-chamber, and
nearly fell as she came down the stairs.</p>

<p>"You great stupid!" said her master; "are you going to tumble
about like other people, hey?"</p>

<p>"Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which has given
way."</p>

<p>"She is right," said Madame Grandet; "it ought to have been
mended long ago. Yesterday Eugenie nearly twisted her ankle."</p>

<p>"Here," said Grandet to Nanon, seeing that she looked quite
pale, "as it is Eugenie's birthday, and you came near falling,
take a little glass of ratafia to set you right."</p>

<p>"Faith! I've earned it," said Nanon; "most people would have
broken the bottle; but I'd sooner have broken my elbow holding it
up high."</p>

<p>"Poor Nanon!" said Grandet, filling a glass.</p>

<p>"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Eugenie, looking kindly at
her.</p>

<p>"No, I didn't fall; I threw myself back on my haunches."</p>

<p>"Well! as it is Eugenie's birthday," said Grandet, "I'll have
the step mended. You people don't know how to set your foot in
the corner where the wood is still firm."</p>

<p>Grandet took the candle, leaving his wife, daughter, and
servant without any other light than that from the hearth, where
the flames were lively, and went into the bakehouse to fetch
planks, nails, and tools.</p>

<p>"Can I help you?" cried Nanon, hearing him hammer on the
stairs.</p>

<p>"No, no! I'm an old hand at it," answered the former
cooper.</p>

<p>At the moment when Grandet was mending his worm-eaten
staircase and whistling with all his might, in remembrance of the
days of his youth, the three Cruchots knocked at the door.</p>

<p>"Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?" asked Nanon, peeping through
the little grating.</p>

<p>"Yes," answered the president.</p>

<p>Nanon opened the door, and the light from the hearth,
reflected on the ceiling, enabled the three Cruchots to find
their way into the room.</p>

<p>"Ha! you've come a-greeting," said Nanon, smelling the
flowers.</p>

<p>"Excuse me, messieurs," cried Grandet, recognizing their
voices; "I'll be with you in a moment. I'm not proud; I am
patching up a step on my staircase."</p>

<p>"Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man's house is his castle,"
said the president sententiously.</p>

<p>Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting
by the darkness, said to Eugenie:</p>

<p>"Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the
day of your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of
the health which you now enjoy?"</p>

<p>He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were
rare in Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed
her on each side of her neck with a complacency that made her
blush. The president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt
that his courtship was progressing.</p>

<p>"Don't stand on ceremony," said Grandet, entering. "How well
you do things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!"</p>

<p>"When it concerns mademoiselle," said the abbe, armed with his
own bouquet, "every day is a fete-day for my nephew."</p>

<p>The abbe kissed Eugenie's hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he
boldly kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: "How we sprout up,
to be sure! Every year is twelve months."</p>

<p>As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who
never forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he
thought them funny, said,--</p>

<p>"As this is Eugenie's birthday let us illuminate."</p>

<p>He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a
socket on each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with
paper twisted round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made
it firm, lit it, and then sat down beside his wife, looking
alternately at his friends, his daughter, and the two candles.
The Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little man, with a red wig
plastered down and a face like an old female gambler, said as he
stretched out his feet, well shod in stout shoes with silver
buckles: "The des Grassins have not come?"</p>

<p>"Not yet," said Grandet.</p>

<p>"But are they coming?" asked the old notary, twisting his
face, which had as many holes as a collander, into a queer
grimace.</p>

<p>"I think so," answered Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"Are your vintages all finished?" said Monsieur de Bonfons to
Grandet.</p>

<p>"Yes, all of them," said the old man, rising to walk up and
down the room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the
words, "all of them." Through the door of the passage which led
to the kitchen he saw la Grande Nanon sitting beside her fire
with a candle and preparing to spin there, so as not to intrude
among the guests.</p>

<p>"Nanon," he said, going into the passage, "put out that fire
and that candle, and come and sit with us. Pardieu! the hall is
big enough for all."</p>

<p>"But monsieur, you are to have the great people."</p>

<p>"Are not you as good as they? They are descended from Adam,
and so are you."</p>

<p>Grandet came back to the president and said,--</p>

<p>"Have you sold your vintage?"</p>

<p>"No, not I; I shall keep it. If the wine is good this year, it
will be better two years hence. The proprietors, you know, have
made an agreement to keep up the price; and this year the
Belgians won't get the better of us. Suppose they are sent off
empty-handed for once, faith! they'll come back."</p>

<p>"Yes, but let us mind what we are about," said Grandet in a
tone which made the president tremble.</p>

<p>"Is he driving some bargain?" thought Cruchot.</p>

<p>At this moment the knocker announced the des Grassins family,
and their arrival interrupted a conversation which had begun
between Madame Grandet and the abbe.</p>

<p>Madame des Grassins was one of those lively, plump little
women, with pink-and-white skins, who, thanks to the claustral
calm of the provinces and the habits of a virtuous life, keep
their youth until they are past forty. She was like the last rose
of autumn,--pleasant to the eye, though the petals have a certain
frostiness, and their perfume is slight. She dressed well, got
her fashions from Paris, set the tone to Saumur, and gave
parties. Her husband, formerly a quartermaster in the Imperial
guard, who had been desperately wounded at Austerlitz, and had
since retired, still retained, in spite of his respect for
Grandet, the seeming frankness of an old soldier.</p>

<p>"Good evening, Grandet," he said, holding out his hand and
affecting a sort of superiority, with which he always crushed the
Cruchots. "Mademoiselle," he added, turning to Eugenie, after
bowing to Madame Grandet, "you are always beautiful and good, and
truly I do not know what to wish you." So saying, he offered her
a little box which his servant had brought and which contained a
Cape heather,--a flower lately imported into Europe and very
rare.</p>

<p>Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately,
pressed her hand, and said: "Adolphe wishes to make you my little
offering."</p>

<p>A tall, blond young man, pale and slight, with tolerable
manners and seemingly rather shy, although he had just spent
eight or ten thousand francs over his allowance in Paris, where
he had been sent to study law, now came forward and kissed
Eugenie on both cheeks, offering her a workbox with utensils in
silver-gilt,--mere show-case trumpery, in spite of the monogram
E.G. in gothic letters rather well engraved, which belonged
properly to something in better taste. As she opened it, Eugenie
experienced one of those unexpected and perfect delights which
make a young girl blush and quiver and tremble with pleasure. She
turned her eyes to her father as if to ask permission to accept
it, and Monsieur Grandet replied: "Take it, my daughter," in a
tone which would have made an actor illustrious.</p>

<p>The three Cruchots felt crushed as they saw the joyous,
animated look cast upon Adolphe des Grassins by the heiress, to
whom such riches were unheard-of. Monsieur des Grassins offered
Grandet a pinch of snuff, took one himself, shook off the grains
as they fell on the ribbon of the Legion of honor which was
attached to the button-hole of his blue surtout; then he looked
at the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say, "Parry that
thrust if you can!" Madame des Grassins cast her eyes on the blue
vases which held the Cruchot bouquets, looking at the enemy's
gifts with the pretended interest of a satirical woman. At this
delicate juncture the Abbe Cruchot left the company seated in a
circle round the fire and joined Grandet at the lower end of the
hall. As the two men reached the embrasure of the farthest window
the priest said in the miser's ear: "Those people throw money out
of the windows."</p>

<p>"What does that matter if it gets into my cellar?" retorted
the old wine-grower.</p>

<p>"If you want to give gilt scissors to your daughter, you have
the means," said the abbe.</p>

<p>"I give her something better than scissors," answered
Grandet.</p>

<p>"My nephew is a blockhead," thought the abbe as he looked at
the president, whose rumpled hair added to the ill grace of his
brown countenance. "Couldn't he have found some little trifle
which cost money?"</p>

<p>"We will join you at cards, Madame Grandet," said Madame des
Grassins.</p>

<p>"We might have two tables, as we are all here."</p>

<p>"As it is Eugenie's birthday you had better play loto all
together," said Pere Grandet: "the two young ones can join"; and
the old cooper, who never played any game, motioned to his
daughter and Adolphe. "Come, Nanon, set the tables."</p>

<p>"We will help you, Mademoiselle Nanon," said Madame des
Grassins gaily, quite joyous at the joy she had given
Eugenie.</p>

<p>"I have never in my life been so pleased," the heiress said to
her; "I have never seen anything so pretty."</p>

<p>"Adolphe brought it from Paris, and he chose it," Madame des
Grassins whispered in her ear.</p>

<p>"Go on! go on! damned intriguing thing!" thought the
president. "If you ever have a suit in court, you or your
husband, it shall go hard with you."</p>

<p>The notary, sitting in his corner, looked calmly at the abbe,
saying to himself: "The des Grassins may do what they like; my
property and my brother's and that of my nephew amount in all to
eleven hundred thousand francs. The des Grassins, at the most,
have not half that; besides, they have a daughter. They may give
what presents they like; heiress and presents too will be ours
one of these days."</p>

<p>At half-past eight in the evening the two card-tables were set
out. Madame des Grassins succeeded in putting her son beside
Eugenie. The actors in this scene, so full of interest,
commonplace as it seems, were provided with bits of pasteboard
striped in many colors and numbered, and with counters of blue
glass, and they appeared to be listening to the jokes of the
notary, who never drew a number without making a remark, while in
fact they were all thinking of Monsieur Grandet's millions. The
old cooper, with inward self-conceit, was contemplating the pink
feathers and the fresh toilet of Madame des Grassins, the martial
head of the banker, the faces of Adolphe, the president, the
abbe, and the notary, saying to himself:--</p>

<p>"They are all after my money. Hey! neither the one nor the
other shall have my daughter; but they are useful--useful as
harpoons to fish with."</p>

<p>This family gaiety in the old gray room dimly lighted by two
tallow candles; this laughter, accompanied by the whirr of
Nanon's spinning- wheel, sincere only upon the lips of Eugenie or
her mother; this triviality mingled with important interests;
this young girl, who, like certain birds made victims of the
price put upon them, was now lured and trapped by proofs of
friendship of which she was the dupe,-- all these things
contributed to make the scene a melancholy comedy. Is it not,
moreover, a drama of all times and all places, though here
brought down to its simplest expression? The figure of Grandet,
playing his own game with the false friendship of the two
families and getting enormous profits from it, dominates the
scene and throws light upon it. The modern god,--the only god in
whom faith is preserved,-- money, is here, in all its power,
manifested in a single countenance. The tender sentiments of life
hold here but a secondary place; only the three pure, simple
hearts of Nanon, of Eugenie, and of her mother were inspired by
them. And how much of ignorance there was in the simplicity of
these poor women! Eugenie and her mother knew nothing of
Grandet's wealth; they could only estimate the things of life by
the glimmer of their pale ideas, and they neither valued nor
despised money, because they were accustomed to do without it.
Their feelings, bruised, though they did not know it, but
ever-living, were the secret spring of their existence, and made
them curious exceptions in the midst of these other people whose
lives were purely material. Frightful condition of the human
race! there is no one of its joys that does not come from some
species of ignorance.</p>

<p>At the moment when Madame Grandet had won a loto of sixteen
sous,--the largest ever pooled in that house,--and while la
Grande Nanon was laughing with delight as she watched madame
pocketing her riches, the knocker resounded on the house-door
with such a noise that the women all jumped in their chairs.</p>

<p>"There is no man in Saumur who would knock like that," said
the notary.</p>

<p>"How can they bang in that way!" exclaimed Nanon; "do they
want to break in the door?"</p>

<p>"Who the devil is it?" cried Grandet.</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>III</h3>

<p>Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door,
followed by her master.</p>

<p>"Grandet! Grandet!" cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse
of fear, and running to the door of the room.</p>

<p>All the players looked at each other.</p>

<p>"Suppose we all go?" said Monsieur des Grassins; "that knock
strikes me as evil-intentioned."</p>

<p>Hardly was Monsieur des Grassins allowed to see the figure of
a young man, accompanied by a porter from the coach-office
carrying two large trunks and dragging a carpet-bag after him,
than Monsieur Grandet turned roughly on his wife and said,--</p>

<p>"Madame Grandet, go back to your loto; leave me to speak with
monsieur."</p>

<p>Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited players
returned to their seats, but did not continue the game.</p>

<p>"Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des Grassins?"
asked his wife.</p>

<p>"No, it is a traveller."</p>

<p>"He must have come from Paris."</p>

<p>"Just so," said the notary, pulling out his watch, which was
two inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war; "it's nine
o'clock; the diligence of the Grand Bureau is never late."</p>

<p>"Is the gentleman young?" inquired the Abbe Cruchot.</p>

<p>"Yes," answered Monsieur des Grassins, "and he has brought
luggage which must weigh nearly three tons."</p>

<p>"Nanon does not come back," said Eugenie.</p>

<p>"It must be one of your relations," remarked the
president.</p>

<p>"Let us go on with our game," said Madame Grandet gently. "I
know from Monsieur Grandet's tone of voice that he is annoyed;
perhaps he would not like to find us talking of his affairs."</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle," said Adolphe to his neighbor, "it is no doubt
your cousin Grandet,--a very good-looking young man; I met him at
the ball of Monsieur de Nucingen." Adolphe did not go on, for his
mother trod on his toes; and then, asking him aloud for two sous
to put on her stake, she whispered: "Will you hold your tongue,
you great goose!"</p>

<p>At this moment Grandet returned, without la Grande Nanon,
whose steps, together with those of the porter, echoed up the
staircase; and he was followed by the traveller who had excited
such curiosity and so filled the lively imaginations of those
present that his arrival at this dwelling, and his sudden fall
into the midst of this assembly, can only be likened to that of a
snail into a beehive, or the introduction of a peacock into some
village poultry-yard.</p>

<p>"Sit down near the fire," said Grandet.</p>

<p>Before seating himself, the young stranger saluted the
assembled company very gracefully. The men rose to answer by a
courteous inclination, and the women made a ceremonious bow.</p>

<p>"You are cold, no doubt, monsieur," said Madame Grandet; "you
have, perhaps, travelled from--"</p>

<p>"Just like all women!" said the old wine-grower, looking up
from a letter he was reading. "Do let monsieur rest himself!"</p>

<p>"But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take something,"
said Eugenie.</p>

<p>"He has got a tongue," said the old man sternly.</p>

<p>The stranger was the only person surprised by this scene; all
the others were well-used to the despotic ways of the master.
However, after the two questions and the two replies had been
exchanged, the newcomer rose, turned his back towards the fire,
lifted one foot so as to warm the sole of its boot, and said to
Eugenie,--</p>

<p>"Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. And," he added,
looking at Grandet, "I need nothing; I am not even tired."</p>

<p>"Monsieur has come from the capital?" asked Madame des
Grassins.</p>

<p>Monsieur Charles,--such was the name of the son of Monsieur
Grandet of Paris,--hearing himself addressed, took a little
eye-glass, suspended by a chain from his neck, applied it to his
right eye to examine what was on the table, and also the persons
sitting round it. He ogled Madame des Grassins with much
impertinence, and said to her, after he had observed all he
wished,--</p>

<p>"Yes, madame. You are playing at loto, aunt," he added. "Do
not let me interrupt you, I beg; go on with your game: it is too
amusing to leave."</p>

<p>"I was certain it was the cousin," thought Madame des
Grassins, casting repeated glances at him.</p>

<p>"Forty-seven!" cried the old abbe. "Mark it down, Madame des
Grassins. Isn't that your number?"</p>

<p>Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife's card, who
sat watching first the cousin from Paris and then Eugenie,
without thinking of her loto, a prey to mournful presentiments.
From time to time the young the heiress glanced furtively at her
cousin, and the banker's wife easily detected a <i>crescendo</i>
of surprise and curiosity in her mind.</p>

<p>Monsieur Charles Grandet, a handsome young man of twenty-two,
presented at this moment a singular contrast to the worthy
provincials, who, considerably disgusted by his aristocratic
manners, were all studying him with sarcastic intent. This needs
an explanation. At twenty-two, young people are still so near
childhood that they often conduct themselves childishly. In all
probability, out of every hundred of them fully ninety-nine would
have behaved precisely as Monsieur Charles Grandet was now
behaving.</p>

<p>Some days earlier than this his father had told him to go and
spend several months with his uncle at Saumur. Perhaps Monsieur
Grandet was thinking of Eugenie. Charles, sent for the first time
in his life into the provinces, took a fancy to make his
appearance with the superiority of a man of fashion, to reduce
the whole arrondissement to despair by his luxury, and to make
his visit an epoch, importing into those country regions all the
refinements of Parisian life. In short, to explain it in one
word, he mean to pass more time at Saumur in brushing his nails
than he ever thought of doing in Paris, and to assume the extra
nicety and elegance of dress which a young man of fashion often
lays aside for a certain negligence which in itself is not devoid
of grace. Charles therefore brought with him a complete
hunting-costume, the finest gun, the best hunting-knife in the
prettiest sheath to be found in all Paris. He brought his whole
collection of waistcoats. They were of all kinds,--gray, black,
white, scarabaeus-colored: some were shot with gold, some
spangled, some <i>chined</i>; some were double-breasted and
crossed like a shawl, others were straight in the collar; some
had turned-over collars, some buttoned up to the top with gilt
buttons. He brought every variety of collar and cravat in fashion
at that epoch. He brought two of Buisson's coats and all his
finest linen He brought his pretty gold toilet-set,--a present
from his mother. He brought all his dandy knick-knacks, not
forgetting a ravishing little desk presented to him by the most
amiable of women,--amiable for him, at least,--a fine lady whom
he called Annette and who at this moment was travelling,
matrimonially and wearily, in Scotland, a victim to certain
suspicions which required a passing sacrifice of happiness; in
the desk was much pretty note-paper on which to write to her once
a fortnight.</p>

<p>In short, it was as complete a cargo of Parisian frivolities
as it was possible for him to get together,--a collection of all
the implements of husbandry with which the youth of leisure tills
his life, from the little whip which helps to begin a duel, to
the handsomely chased pistols which end it. His father having
told him to travel alone and modestly, he had taken the coupe of
the diligence all to himself, rather pleased at not having to
damage a delightful travelling- carriage ordered for a journey on
which he was to meet his Annette, the great lady who, etc.,--whom
he intended to rejoin at Baden in the following June. Charles
expected to meet scores of people at his uncle's house, to hunt
in his uncle's forests,--to live, in short, the usual chateau
life; he did not know that his uncle was in Saumur, and had only
inquired about him incidentally when asking the way to Froidfond.
Hearing that he was in town, he supposed that he should find him
in a suitable mansion.</p>

<p>In order that he might make a becoming first appearance before
his uncle either at Saumur or at Froidfond, he had put on his
most elegant travelling attire, simple yet
exquisite,--"adorable," to use the word which in those days
summed up the special perfections of a man or a thing. At Tours a
hairdresser had re-curled his beautiful chestnut locks; there he
changed his linen and put on a black satin cravat, which,
combined with a round shirt-collar, framed his fair and smiling
countenance agreeably. A travelling great-coat, only half
buttoned up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere
waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat
of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket,
was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray
trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams
with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a
cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his
gray gloves. And to complete all, his cap was in excellent taste.
None but a Parisian, and a Parisian of the upper spheres, could
thus array himself without appearing ridiculous; none other could
give the harmony of self-conceit to all these fopperies, which
were carried off, however, with a dashing air,--the air of a
young man who has fine pistols, a sure aim, and Annette.</p>

<p>Now if you wish to understand the mutual amazement of the
provincial party and the young Parisian; if you would clearly see
the brilliance which the traveller's elegance cast among the gray
shadows of the room and upon the faces of this family
group,--endeavor to picture to your minds the Cruchots. All three
took snuff, and had long ceased to repress the habit of
snivelling or to remove the brown blotches which strewed the
frills of their dingy shirts and the yellowing creases of their
crumpled collars. Their flabby cravats were twisted into ropes as
soon as they wound them about their throats. The enormous
quantity of linen which allowed these people to have their
clothing washed only once in six months, and to keep it during
that time in the depths of their closets, also enabled time to
lay its grimy and decaying stains upon it. There was perfect
unison of ill-grace and senility about them; their faces, as
faded as their threadbare coats, as creased as their trousers,
were worn-out, shrivelled-up, and puckered. As for the others,
the general negligence of their dress, which was incomplete and
wanting in freshness,--like the toilet of all country places,
where insensibly people cease to dress for others and come to
think seriously of the price of a pair of gloves,--was in keeping
with the negligence of the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the
only point on which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines
agreed.</p>

<p>When the Parisian took up his eye-glass to examine the strange
accessories of this dwelling,--the joists of the ceiling, the
color of the woodwork, and the specks which the flies had left
there in sufficient number to punctuate the "Moniteur" and the
"Encyclopaedia of Sciences,"--the loto-players lifted their noses
and looked at him with as much curiosity as they might have felt
about a giraffe. Monsieur des Grassins and his son, to whom the
appearance of a man of fashion was not wholly unknown, were
nevertheless as much astonished as their neighbors, whether it
was that they fell under the indefinable influence of the general
feeling, or that they really shared it as with satirical glances
they seemed to say to their compatriots,--</p>

<p>"That is what you see in Paris!"</p>

<p>They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without
fearing to displease the master of the house. Grandet was
absorbed in the long letter which he held in his hand; and to
read it he had taken the only candle upon the card-table, paying
no heed to his guests or their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a
type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely
unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from
seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted
from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have
liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied
Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and
refinement of his features. In short,--if it is possible to sum
up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young
girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her
father's clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean
rafters, seeing none but occasional passers along the silent
street,--this vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion
of delicate desire like that inspired in a young man by the
fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the English
"Keepsakes," and that engraved by the Findens with so clever a
tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the paper, that the
celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew from his
pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now
travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work,
done in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at
her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to make use
of it. The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in
which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness,
his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so
much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently
regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous,--all these
things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased
Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams
of her phoenix cousin.</p>

<p>The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and presently the
game came suddenly to an end. La Grand Nanon entered and said
aloud: "Madame, I want the sheets for monsieur's bed."</p>

<p>Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des Grassins said in a
low voice: "Let us keep our sous and stop playing." Each took his
or her two sous from the chipped saucer in which they had been
put; then the party moved in a body toward the fire.</p>

<p>"Have you finished your game?" said Grandet, without looking
up from his letter.</p>

<p>"Yes, yes!" replied Madame des Grassins, taking a seat near
Charles.</p>

<p>Eugenie, prompted by a thought often born in the heart of a
young girl when sentiment enters it for the first time, left the
room to go and help her mother and Nanon. Had an able confessor
then questioned her she would, no doubt, have avowed to him that
she thought neither of her mother nor of Nanon, but was pricked
by a poignant desire to look after her cousin's room and concern
herself with her cousin; to supply what might be needed, to
remedy any forgetfulness, to see that all was done to make it, as
far as possible, suitable and elegant; and, in fact, she arrived
in time to prove to her mother and Nanon that everything still
remained to be done. She put into Nanon's head the notion of
passing a warming-pan between the sheets. She herself covered the
old table with a cloth and requested Nanon to change it every
morning; she convinced her mother that it was necessary to light
a good fire, and persuaded Nanon to bring up a great pile of wood
into the corridor without saying anything to her father. She ran
to get, from one of the corner-shelves of the hall, a tray of old
lacquer which was part of the inheritance of the late Monsieur de
la Bertelliere, catching up at the same time a six-sided crystal
goblet, a little tarnished gilt spoon, an antique flask engraved
with cupids, all of which she put triumphantly on the corner of
her cousin's chimney-piece. More ideas surged through her head in
one quarter of an hour than she had ever had since she came into
the world.</p>

<p>"Mamma," she said, "my cousin will never bear the smell of a
tallow candle; suppose we buy a wax one?" And she darted, swift
as a bird, to get the five-franc piece which she had just
received for her monthly expenses. "Here, Nanon," she cried,
"quick!"</p>

<p>"What will your father say?" This terrible remonstrance was
uttered by Madame Grandet as she beheld her daughter armed with
an old Sevres sugar-basin which Grandet had brought home from the
chateau of Froidfond. "And where will you get the sugar? Are you
crazy?"</p>

<p>"Mamma, Nanon can buy some sugar as well as the candle."</p>

<p>"But your father?"</p>

<p>"Surely his nephew ought not to go without a glass of <i>eau
sucree</i>? Besides, he will not notice it."</p>

<p>"Your father sees everything," said Madame Grandet, shaking
her head.</p>

<p>Nanon hesitated; she knew her master.</p>

<p>"Come, Nanon, go,--because it is my birthday."</p>

<p>Nanon gave a loud laugh as she heard the first little jest her
young mistress had ever made, and then obeyed her.</p>

<p>While Eugenie and her mother were trying to embellish the
bedroom assigned by Monsieur Grandet for his nephew, Charles
himself was the object of Madame des Grassins' attentions; to all
appearances she was setting her cap at him.</p>

<p>"You are very courageous, monsieur," she said to the young
dandy, "to leave the pleasures of the capital at this season and
take up your abode in Saumur. But if we do not frighten you away,
you will find there are some amusements even here."</p>

<p>She threw him the ogling glance of the provinces, where women
put so much prudence and reserve into their eyes that they impart
to them the prudish concupiscence peculiar to certain
ecclesiastics to whom all pleasure is either a theft or an error.
Charles was so completely out of his element in this abode, and
so far from the vast chateau and the sumptuous life with which
his fancy had endowed his uncle, that as he looked at Madame des
Grassins he perceived a dim likeness to Parisian faces. He
gracefully responded to the species of invitation addressed to
him, and began very naturally a conversation, in which Madame des
Grassins gradually lowered her voice so as to bring it into
harmony with the nature of the confidences she was making. With
her, as with Charles, there was the need of conference; so after
a few moments spent in coquettish phrases and a little serious
jesting, the clever provincial said, thinking herself unheard by
the others, who were discussing the sale of wines which at that
season filled the heads of every one in Saumur,--</p>

<p>"Monsieur if you will do us the honor to come and see us, you
will give as much pleasure to my husband as to myself. Our salon
is the only one in Saumur where you will find the higher business
circles mingling with the nobility. We belong to both societies,
who meet at our house simply because they find it amusing. My
husband--I say it with pride--is as much valued by the one class
as by the other. We will try to relieve the monotony of your
visit here. If you stay all the time with Monsieur Grandet, good
heavens! what will become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser
who thinks of nothing but his vines; your aunt is a pious soul
who can't put two ideas together; and your cousin is a little
fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who will
spend her life in darning towels."</p>

<p>"She is really very nice, this woman," thought Charles Grandet
as he duly responded to Madame des Grassins' coquetries.</p>

<p>"It seems to me, wife, that you are taking possession of
monsieur," said the stout banker, laughing.</p>

<p>On this remark the notary and the president said a few words
that were more or less significant; but the abbe, looking at them
slyly, brought their thoughts to a focus by taking a pinch of
snuff and saying as he handed round his snuff-box: "Who can do
the honors of Saumur for monsieur so well as madame?"</p>

<p>"Ah! what do you mean by that, monsieur l'abbe?" demanded
Monsieur des Grassins.</p>

<p>"I mean it in the best possible sense for you, for madame, for
the town of Saumur, and for monsieur," said the wily old man,
turning to Charles.</p>

<p>The Abbe Cruchot had guessed the conversation between Charles
and Madame des Grassins without seeming to pay attention to
it.</p>

<p>"Monsieur," said Adolphe to Charles with an air which he tried
to make free and easy, "I don't know whether you remember me, but
I had the honor of dancing as your <i>vis-a-vis</i> at a ball
given by the Baron de Nucingen, and--"</p>

<p>"Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur," answered Charles,
pleased to find himself the object of general attention.</p>

<p>"Monsieur is your son?" he said to Madame des Grassins.</p>

<p>The abbe looked at her maliciously.</p>

<p>"Yes, monsieur," she answered.</p>

<p>"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said
Charles, addressing Adolphe.</p>

<p>"You must know, monsieur," said the abbe, "that we send them
to Babylon as soon as they are weaned."</p>

<p>Madame des Grassins examined the abbe with a glance of extreme
penetration.</p>

<p>"It is only in the provinces," he continued, "that you will
find women of thirty and more years as fresh as madame, here,
with a son about to take his degree. I almost fancy myself back
in the days when the young men stood on chairs in the ball-room
to see you dance, madame," said the abbe, turning to his female
adversary. "To me, your triumphs are but of yesterday--"</p>

<p>"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed
my intentions?"</p>

<p>"It seems that I shall have a good deal of success in Saumur,"
thought Charles as he unbuttoned his great-coat, put a hand into
his waistcoat, and cast a glance into the far distance, to
imitate the attitude which Chantrey has given to Lord Byron.</p>

<p>The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more truly, the
preoccupation of mind into which the reading of the letter had
plunged him, did not escape the vigilance of the notary and the
president, who tried to guess the contents of the letter by the
almost imperceptible motions of the miser's face, which was then
under the full light of the candle. He maintained the habitual
calm of his features with evident difficulty; we may, in fact,
picture to ourselves the countenance such a man endeavored to
preserve as he read the fatal letter which here follows:--</p>

<p>My Brother,--It is almost twenty-three years since we have
seen each other. My marriage was the occasion of our last
interview, after which we parted, and both of us were happy.
Assuredly I could not then foresee that you would one day be the
prop of the family whose prosperity you then predicted.</p>

<p>When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no
longer living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive the
disgrace of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of the gulf
until the last moment, hoping to save myself. The end has come, I
must sink into it. The double bankruptcies of my broker and of
Roguin, my notary, have carried off my last resources and left me
nothing. I have the bitterness of owing nearly four millions,
with assets not more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay
them. The wines in my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices
caused by the abundance and quality of your vintage. In three
days Paris will cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I,
an honest man, shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I
deprive my son of a good name, which I have stained, and the
fortune of his mother, which I have lost. He knows nothing of all
this,--my unfortunate child whom I idolize! We parted tenderly.
He was ignorant, happily, that the last beatings of my heart were
spent in that farewell. Will he not some day curse me? My
brother, my brother! the curses of our children are horrible;
they can appeal against ours, but theirs are irrevocable.
Grandet, you are my elder brother, you owe me your protection;
act for me so that Charles may cast no bitter words upon my
grave! My brother, if I were writing with my blood, with my
tears, no greater anguish could I put into this letter,--nor as
great, for then I should weep, I should bleed, I should die, I
should suffer no more, but now I suffer and look at death with
dry eyes.</p>

<p>From henceforth you are my son's father; he has no relations,
as you well know, on his mother's side. Why did I not consider
social prejudices? Why did I yield to love? Why did I marry the
natural daughter of a great lord? Charles has no family. Oh, my
unhappy son! my son! Listen, Grandet! I implore nothing for
myself,-- besides, your property may not be large enough to carry
a mortgage of three millions,--but for my son! Brother, my
suppliant hands are clasped as I think of you; behold them!
Grandet, I confide my son to you in dying, and I look at the
means of death with less pain as I think that you will be to him
a father. He loved me well, my Charles; I was good to him, I
never thwarted him; he will not curse me. Ah, you see! he is
gentle, he is like his mother, he will cause you no grief. Poor
boy! accustomed to all the enjoyments of luxury, he knows nothing
of the privations to which you and I were condemned by the
poverty of our youth. And I leave him ruined! alone! Yes, all my
friends will avoid him, and it is I who have brought this
humiliation upon him! Would that I had the force to send him with
one thrust into the heavens to his mother's side! Madness! I come
back to my disaster--to his. I send him to you that you may tell
him in some fitting way of my death, of his future fate. Be a
father to him, but a good father. Do not tear him all at once
from his idle life, it would kill him. I beg him on my knees to
renounce all rights that, as his mother's heir, he may have on my
estate. But the prayer is superfluous; he is honorable, and he
will feel that he must not appear among my creditors. Bring him
to see this at the right time; reveal to him the hard conditions
of the life I have made for him: and if he still has tender
thoughts of me, tell him in my name that all is not lost for him.
Yes, work, labor, which saved us both, may give him back the
fortune of which I have deprived him; and if he listens to his
father's voice as it reaches him from the grave, he will go the
Indies. My brother, Charles is an upright and courageous young
man; give him the wherewithal to make his venture; he will die
sooner than not repay you the funds which you may lend him.
Grandet! if you will not do this, you will lay up for yourself
remorse. Ah, should my child find neither tenderness nor succor
in you, I would call down the vengeance of God upon your
cruelty!</p>

<p>If I had been able to save something from the wreck, I might
have had the right to leave him at least a portion of his
mother's property; but my last monthly payments have absorbed
everything. I did not wish to die uncertain of my child's fate; I
hoped to feel a sacred promise in a clasp of your hand which
might have warmed my heart: but time fails me. While Charles is
journeying to you I shall be preparing my assignment. I shall
endeavor to show by the order and good faith of my accounts that
my disaster comes neither from a faulty life nor from dishonesty.
It is for my son's sake that I strive to do this.</p>

<p>Farewell, my brother! May the blessing of God be yours for the
generous guardianship I lay upon you, and which, I doubt not, you
will accept. A voice will henceforth and forever pray for you in
that world where we must all go, and where I am now as you read
these lines.</p>

<p>Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet.</p>

<p>"So you are talking?" said Pere Grandet as he carefully folded
the letter in its original creases and put it into his
waistcoat-pocket. He looked at his nephew with a humble, timid
air, beneath which he hid his feelings and his calculations.
"Have you warmed yourself?" he said to him.</p>

<p>"Thoroughly, my dear uncle."</p>

<p>"Well, where are the women?" said his uncle, already
forgetting that his nephew was to sleep at the house. At this
moment Eugenie and Madame Grandet returned.</p>

<p>"Is the room all ready?" said Grandet, recovering his
composure.</p>

<p>"Yes, father."</p>

<p>"Well then, my nephew, if you are tired, Nanon shall show you
your room. It isn't a dandy's room; but you will excuse a poor
wine-grower who never has a penny to spare. Taxes swallow up
everything."</p>

<p>"We do not wish to intrude, Grandet," said the banker; "you
may want to talk to your nephew, and therefore we will bid you
good-night."</p>

<p>At these words the assembly rose, and each made a parting bow
in keeping with his or her own character. The old notary went to
the door to fetch his lantern and came back to light it, offering
to accompany the des Grassins on their way. Madame des Grassins
had not foreseen the incident which brought the evening
prematurely to an end, her servant therefore had not arrived.</p>

<p>"Will you do me the honor to take my arm, madame?" said the
abbe.</p>

<p>"Thank you, monsieur l'abbe, but I have my son," she answered
dryly.</p>

<p>"Ladies cannot compromise themselves with me," said the
abbe.</p>

<p>"Take Monsieur Cruchot's arm," said her husband.</p>

<p>The abbe walked off with the pretty lady so quickly that they
were soon some distance in advance of the caravan.</p>

<p>"That is a good-looking young man, madame," he said, pressing
her arm. "Good-by to the grapes, the vintage is done. It is all
over with us. We may as well say adieu to Mademoiselle Grandet.
Eugenie will belong to the dandy. Unless this cousin is enamoured
of some Parisian woman, your son Adolphe will find another rival
in--"</p>

<p>"Not at all, monsieur l'abbe. This young man cannot fail to
see that Eugenie is a little fool,--a girl without the least
freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a
quince."</p>

<p>"Perhaps you made the cousin notice it?"</p>

<p>"I did not take the trouble--"</p>

<p>"Place yourself always beside Eugenie, madame, and you need
never take the trouble to say anything to the young man against
his cousin; he will make his own comparisons, which--"</p>

<p>"Well, he has promised to dine with me the day after
to-morrow."</p>

<p>"Ah! if you only <i>would</i>, madame--" said the abbe.</p>

<p>"What is it that you wish me to do, monsieur l'abbe? Do you
mean to offer me bad advice? I have not reached the age of
thirty-nine, without a stain upon my reputation, thank God! to
compromise myself now, even for the empire of the Great Mogul.
You and I are of an age when we both know the meaning of words.
For an ecclesiastic, you certainly have ideas that are very
incongruous. Fie! it is worthy of Faublas!"</p>

<p>"You have read Faublas?"</p>

<p>"No, monsieur l'abbe; I meant to say the <i>Liaisons
dangereuses</i>."</p>

<p>"Ah! that book is infinitely more moral," said the abbe,
laughing. "But you make me out as wicked as a young man of the
present day; I only meant--"</p>

<p>"Do you dare to tell me you were not thinking of putting
wicked things into my head? Isn't it perfectly clear? If this
young man--who I admit is very good-looking--were to make love to
me, he would not think of his cousin. In Paris, I know, good
mothers do devote themselves in this way to the happiness and
welfare of their children; but we live in the provinces, monsieur
l'abbe."</p>

<p>"Yes, madame."</p>

<p>"And," she continued, "I do not want, and Adolphe himself
would not want, a hundred millions brought at such a price."</p>

<p>"Madame, I said nothing about a hundred millions; that
temptation might be too great for either of us to withstand.
Only, I do think that an honest woman may permit herself, in all
honor, certain harmless little coquetries, which are, in fact,
part of her social duty and which--"</p>

<p>"Do you think so?"</p>

<p>"Are we not bound, madame, to make ourselves agreeable to each
other? --Permit me to blow my nose.--I assure you, madame," he
resumed, "that the young gentleman ogled you through his glass in
a more flattering manner than he put on when he looked at me; but
I forgive him for doing homage to beauty in preference to old
age--"</p>

<p>"It is quite apparent," said the president in his loud voice,
"that Monsieur Grandet of Paris has sent his son to Saumur with
extremely matrimonial intentions."</p>

<p>"But in that case the cousin wouldn't have fallen among us
like a cannon-ball," answered the notary.</p>

<p>"That doesn't prove anything," said Monsieur des Grassins;
"the old miser is always making mysteries."</p>

<p>"Des Grassins, my friend, I have invited the young man to
dinner. You must go and ask Monsieur and Madame de Larsonniere
and the du Hautoys, with the beautiful demoiselle du Hautoy, of
course. I hope she will be properly dressed; that jealous mother
of hers does make such a fright of her! Gentlemen, I trust that
you will all do us the honor to come," she added, stopping the
procession to address the two Cruchots.</p>

<p>"Here you are at home, madame," said the notary.</p>

<p>After bowing to the three des Grassins, the three Cruchots
returned home, applying their provincial genius for analysis to
studying, under all its aspects, the great event of the evening,
which undoubtedly changed the respective positions of Grassinists
and Cruchotines. The admirable common-sense which guided all the
actions of these great machinators made each side feel the
necessity of a momentary alliance against a common enemy. Must
they not mutually hinder Eugenie from loving her cousin, and the
cousin from thinking of Eugenie? Could the Parisian resist the
influence of treacherous insinuations, soft-spoken calumnies,
slanders full of faint praise and artless denials, which should
be made to circle incessantly about him and deceive him?</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>IV</h3>

<p>When the four relations were left alone, Monsieur Grandet said
to his nephew,--</p>

<p>"We must go to bed. It is too late to talk about the matters
which have brought you here; to-morrow we will take a suitable
moment. We breakfast at eight o'clock; at midday we eat a little
fruit or a bit of bread, and drink a glass of white wine; and we
dine, like the Parisians, at five o'clock. That's the order of
the day. If you like to go and see the town and the environs you
are free to do so. You will excuse me if my occupations do not
permit me to accompany you. You may perhaps hear people say that
I am rich,--Monsieur Grandet this, Monsieur Grandet that. I let
them talk; their gossip does not hurt my credit. But I have not a
penny; I work in my old age like an apprentice whose worldly
goods are a bad plane and two good arms. Perhaps you'll soon know
yourself what a franc costs when you have got to sweat for it.
Nanon, where are the candles?"</p>

<p>"I trust, my nephew, that you will find all you want," said
Madame Grandet; "but if you should need anything else, you can
call Nanon."</p>

<p>"My dear aunt, I shall need nothing; I have, I believe,
brought everything with me. Permit me to bid you good-night, and
my young cousin also."</p>

<p>Charles took a lighted wax candle from Nanon's hand,--an Anjou
candle, very yellow in color, and so shopworn that it looked like
tallow and deceived Monsieur Grandet, who, incapable of
suspecting its presence under his roof, did not perceive this
magnificence.</p>

<p>"I will show you the way," he said.</p>

<p>Instead of leaving the hall by the door which opened under the
archway, Grandet ceremoniously went through the passage which
divided the hall from the kitchen. A swing-door, furnished with a
large oval pane of glass, shut this passage from the staircase,
so as to fend off the cold air which rushed through it. But the
north wind whistled none the less keenly in winter, and, in spite
of the sand-bags at the bottom of the doors of the living-room,
the temperature within could scarcely be kept at a proper height.
Nanon went to bolt the outer door; then she closed the hall and
let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that he seemed
to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for his ferocity,
recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored children of the
fields understood each other.</p>

<p>When Charles saw the yellow, smoke-stained walls of the well
of the staircase, where each worm-eaten step shook under the
heavy foot-fall of his uncle, his expectations began to sober
more and more. He fancied himself in a hen-roost. His aunt and
cousin, to whom he turned an inquiring look, were so used to the
staircase that they did not guess the cause of his amazement, and
took the glance for an expression of friendliness, which they
answered by a smile that made him desperate.</p>

<p>"Why the devil did my father send me to such a place?" he said
to himself.</p>

<p>When they reached the first landing he saw three doors painted
in Etruscan red and without casings,--doors sunk in the dusty
walls and provided with iron bars, which in fact were bolts, each
ending with the pattern of a flame, as did both ends of the long
sheath of the lock. The first door at the top of the staircase,
which opened into a room directly above the kitchen, was
evidently walled up. In fact, the only entrance to that room was
through Grandet's bedchamber; the room itself was his office. The
single window which lighted it, on the side of the court, was
protected by a lattice of strong iron bars. No one, not even
Madame Grandet, had permission to enter it. The old man chose to
be alone, like an alchemist in his laboratory. There, no doubt,
some hiding-place had been ingeniously constructed; there the
title- deeds of property were stored; there hung the scales on
which to weigh the louis; there were devised, by night and
secretly, the estimates, the profits, the receipts, so that
business men, finding Grandet prepared at all points, imagined
that he got his cue from fairies or demons; there, no doubt,
while Nanon's loud snoring shook the rafters, while the wolf-dog
watched and yawned in the courtyard, while Madame and
Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleeping, came the old cooper
to cuddle, to con over, to caress and clutch and clasp his gold.
The walls were thick, the screens sure. He alone had the key of
this laboratory, where--so people declared--he studied the maps
on which his fruit-trees were marked, and calculated his profits
to a vine, and almost to a twig.</p>

<p>The door of Eugenie's chamber was opposite to the walled-up
entrance to this room. At the other end of the landing were the
appartements of the married pair, which occupied the whole front
of the house. Madame Grandet had a room next to that of Eugenie,
which was entered through a glass door. The master's chamber was
separated from that of his wife by a partition, and from the
mysterious strong-room by a thick wall. Pere Grandet lodged his
nephew on the second floor, in the high mansarde attic which was
above his own bedroom, so that he might hear him if the young man
took it into his head to go and come. When Eugenie and her mother
reached the middle of the landing they kissed each other for
good-night; then with a few words of adieu to Charles, cold upon
the lips, but certainly very warm in the heart of the young girl,
they withdrew into their own chambers.</p>

<p>"Here you are in your room, my nephew," said Pere Grandet as
he opened the door. "If you need to go out, call Nanon; without
her, beware! the dog would eat you up without a word. Sleep well.
Good-night. Ha! why, they have made you a fire!" he cried.</p>

<p>At this moment Nanon appeared with the warming pan.</p>

<p>"Here's something more!" said Monsieur Grandet. "Do you take
my nephew for a lying-in woman? Carry off your brazier,
Nanon!"</p>

<p>"But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gentleman is as
delicate as a woman."</p>

<p>"Well, go on, as you've taken it into your head," said
Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; "but don't set things on
fire." So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling
indistinct sentences.</p>

<p>Charles stood aghast in the midst of his trunks. After casting
his eyes on the attic-walls covered with that yellow paper
sprinkled with bouquets so well known in dance-houses, on the
fireplace of ribbed stone whose very look was chilling, on the
chairs of yellow wood with varnished cane seats that seemed to
have more than the usual four angles, on the open night-table
capacious enough to hold a small sergeant-at-arms, on the meagre
bit of rag-carpet beside the bed, on the tester whose cloth
valance shook as if, devoured by moths, it was about to fall, he
turned gravely to la Grande Nanon and said,--</p>

<p>"Look here! my dear woman, just tell me, am I in the house of
Monsieur Grandet, formerly mayor of Saumur, and brother to
Monsieur Grandet of Paris?"</p>

<p>"Yes, monsieur; and a very good, a very kind, a very perfect
gentleman. Shall I help you to unpack your trunks?"</p>

<p>"Faith! yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn't you serve in
the marines of the Imperial Guard?"</p>

<p>"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Nanon. "What's that,--the marines of the
guard? Is it salt? Does it go in the water?"</p>

<p>"Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise; there's the
key."</p>

<p>Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing-gown made
of green silk, brocaded with gold flowers of an antique
design.</p>

<p>"Are you going to put that on to go to bed with?" she
asked.</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"Holy Virgin! what a beautiful altar-cloth it would make for
the parish church! My dear darling monsieur, give it to the
church, and you'll save your soul; if you don't, you'll lose it.
Oh, how nice you look in it! I must call mademoiselle to see
you."</p>

<p>"Come, Nanon, if Nanon you are, hold your tongue; let me go to
bed. I'll arrange my things to-morrow. If my dressing-gown
pleases you so much, you shall save your soul. I'm too good a
Christian not to give it to you when I go away, and you can do
what you like with it."</p>

<p>Nanon stood rooted to the ground, gazing at Charles and unable
to put faith into his words.</p>

<p>"Good night, Nanon."</p>

<p>"What in the world have I come here for?" thought Charles as
he went to sleep. "My father is not a fool; my journey must have
some object. Pshaw! put off serious thought till the morrow, as
some Greek idiot said."</p>

<p>"Blessed Virgin! how charming he is, my cousin!" Eugenie was
saying, interrupting her prayers, which that night at least were
never finished.</p>

<p>Madame Grandet had no thoughts at all as she went to bed. She
heard the miser walking up and down his room through the door of
communication which was in the middle of the partition. Like all
timid women, she had studied the character of her lord. Just as
the petrel foresees the storm, she knew by imperceptible signs
when an inward tempest shook her husband; and at such times, to
use an expression of her own, she "feigned dead."</p>

<p>Grandet gazed at the door lined with sheet-iron which he
lately put to his sanctum, and said to himself,--</p>

<p>"What a crazy idea of my brother to bequeath his son to me! A
fine legacy! I have not fifty francs to give him. What are fifty
francs to a dandy who looked at my barometer as if he meant to
make firewood of it!"</p>

<p>In thinking over the consequences of that legacy of anguish
Grandet was perhaps more agitated than his brother had been at
the moment of writing it.</p>

<p>"I shall have that golden robe," thought Nanon, who went to
sleep tricked out in her altar-cloth, dreaming for the first time
in her life of flowers, embroidery, and damask, just as Eugenie
was dreaming of love.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a
delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when
the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the
heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt
all thoughts into a vague desire,--day of innocent melancholy and
of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young
girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she
smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not
love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of
earthly things had come for Eugenie.</p>

<p>An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes
and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,--a
business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she
brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy
masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing
the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a
symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the
simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent
sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again
in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she
looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her
cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so
delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest
shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single
eyelet. And then, wishing for the first time in her life to
appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well
made, which rendered her attractive.</p>

<p>As she finished her toilet the clock of the parish church
struck the hour; to her astonishment, it was only seven. The
desire of having plenty of time for dressing carefully had led
her to get up too early. Ignorant of the art of retouching every
curl and studying every effect, Eugenie simply crossed her arms,
sat down by the window, and looked at the court-yard, the narrow
garden, and the high terraced walls that over-topped it: a
dismal, hedged-in prospect, yet not wholly devoid of those
mysterious beauties which belong to solitary or uncultivated
nature. Near the kitchen was a well surrounded by a curb, with a
pulley fastened to a bent iron rod clasped by a vine whose leaves
were withered, reddened, and shrivelled by the season. From
thence the tortuous shoots straggled to the wall, clutched it,
and ran the whole length of the house, ending near the wood-pile,
where the logs were ranged with as much precision as the books in
a library. The pavement of the court-yard showed the black stains
produced in time by lichens, herbage, and the absence of all
movement or friction. The thick walls wore a coating of green
moss streaked with waving brown lines, and the eight stone steps
at the bottom of the court-yard which led up to the gate of the
garden were disjointed and hidden beneath tall plants, like the
tomb of a knight buried by his widow in the days of the Crusades.
Above a foundation of moss-grown, crumbling stones was a trellis
of rotten wood, half fallen from decay; over them clambered and
intertwined at will a mass of clustering creepers. On each side
of the latticed gate stretched the crooked arms of two stunted
apple-trees. Three parallel walks, gravelled and separated from
each other by square beds, where the earth was held in by box-
borders, made the garden, which terminated, beneath a terrace of
the old walls, in a group of lindens. At the farther end were
raspberry- bushes; at the other, near the house, an immense
walnut-tree drooped its branches almost into the window of the
miser's sanctum.</p>

<p>A clear day and the beautiful autumnal sun common to the banks
of the Loire was beginning to melt the hoar-frost which the night
had laid on these picturesque objects, on the walls, and on the
plants which swathed the court-yard. Eugenie found a novel charm
in the aspect of things lately so insignificant to her. A
thousand confused thoughts came to birth in her mind and grew
there, as the sunbeams grew without along the wall. She felt that
impulse of delight, vague, inexplicable, which wraps the moral
being as a cloud wraps the physical body. Her thoughts were all
in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, and the
harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies of nature. When
the sun reached an angle of the wall where the "Venus- hair" of
southern climes drooped its thick leaves, lit with the changing
colors of a pigeon's breast, celestial rays of hope illumined the
future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze upon that
piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue harebells, its
wilting herbage, with which she mingled memories as tender as
those of childhood. The noise made by each leaf as it fell from
its twig in the void of that echoing court gave answer to the
secret questionings of the young girl, who could have stayed
there the livelong day without perceiving the flight of time.
Then came tumultuous heavings of the soul. She rose often, went
to her glass, and looked at herself, as an author in good faith
looks at his work to criticise it and blame it in his own
mind.</p>

<p>"I am not beautiful enough for him!" Such was Eugenie's
thought,--a humble thought, fertile in suffering. The poor girl
did not do herself justice; but modesty, or rather fear, is among
the first of love's virtues. Eugenie belonged to the type of
children with sturdy constitutions, such as we see among the
lesser bourgeoisie, whose beauties always seem a little vulgar;
and yet, though she resembled the Venus of Milo, the lines of her
figure were ennobled by the softer Christian sentiment which
purifies womanhood and gives it a distinction unknown to the
sculptors of antiquity. She had an enormous head, with the
masculine yet delicate forehead of the Jupiter of Phidias, and
gray eyes, to which her chaste life, penetrating fully into them,
carried a flood of light. The features of her round face,
formerly fresh and rosy, were at one time swollen by the
small-pox, which destroyed the velvet texture of the skin, though
it kindly left no other traces, and her cheek was still so soft
and delicate that her mother's kiss made a momentary red mark
upon it. Her nose was somewhat too thick, but it harmonized well
with the vermilion mouth, whose lips, creased in many lines, were
full of love and kindness. The throat was exquisitely round. The
bust, well curved and carefully covered, attracted the eye and
inspired reverie. It lacked, no doubt, the grace which a fitting
dress can bestow; but to a connoisseur the non-flexibility of her
figure had its own charm. Eugenie, tall and strongly made, had
none of the prettiness which pleases the masses; but she was
beautiful with a beauty which the spirit recognizes, and none but
artists truly love. A painter seeking here below for a type of
Mary's celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud
modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often
due to chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life
alone can bestow or keep unchanged,--such a painter, in love with
his ideal, would have found in the face of Eugenie the innate
nobleness that is ignorant of itself; he would have seen beneath
the calmness of that brow a world of love; he would have felt, in
the shape of the eyes, in the fall of the eyelids, the presence
of the nameless something that we call divine. Her features, the
contour of her head, which no expression of pleasure had ever
altered or wearied, were like the lines of the horizon softly
traced in the far distance across the tranquil lakes. That calm
and rosy countenance, margined with light like a lovely
full-blown flower, rested the mind, held the eye, and imparted
the charm of the conscience that was there reflected. Eugenie was
standing on the shore of life where young illusions flower, where
daisies are gathered with delights ere long to be unknown; and
thus she said, looking at her image in the glass, unconscious as
yet of love: "I am too ugly; he will not notice me."</p>

<p>Then she opened the door of her chamber which led to the
staircase, and stretched out her neck to listen for the household
noises. "He is not up," she thought, hearing Nanon's morning
cough as the good soul went and came, sweeping out the halls,
lighting her fire, chaining the dog, and speaking to the beasts
in the stable. Eugenie at once went down and ran to Nanon, who
was milking the cow.</p>

<p>"Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for my cousin's
breakfast."</p>

<p>"Why, mademoiselle, you should have thought of that
yesterday," said Nanon, bursting into a loud peal of laughter. "I
can't make cream. Your cousin is a darling, a darling! oh, that
he is! You should have seen him in his dressing-gown, all silk
and gold! I saw him, I did! He wears linen as fine as the
surplice of monsieur le cure."</p>

<p>"Nanon, please make us a <i>galette</i>."</p>

<p>"And who'll give me wood for the oven, and flour and butter
for the cakes?" said Nanon, who in her function of prime-minister
to Grandet assumed at times enormous importance in the eyes of
Eugenie and her mother. "Mustn't rob the master to feast the
cousin. You ask him for butter and flour and wood: he's your
father, perhaps he'll give you some. See! there he is now, coming
to give out the provisions."</p>

<p>Eugenie escaped into the garden, quite frightened as she heard
the staircase shaking under her father's step. Already she felt
the effects of that virgin modesty and that special consciousness
of happiness which lead us to fancy, not perhaps without reason,
that our thoughts are graven on our foreheads and are open to the
eyes of all. Perceiving for the first time the cold nakedness of
her father's house, the poor girl felt a sort of rage that she
could not put it in harmony with her cousin's elegance. She felt
the need of doing something for him,--what, she did not know.
Ingenuous and truthful, she followed her angelic nature without
mistrusting her impressions or her feelings. The mere sight of
her cousin had wakened within her the natural yearnings of a
woman,--yearnings that were the more likely to develop ardently
because, having reached her twenty-third year, she was in the
plenitude of her intelligence and her desires. For the first time
in her life her heart was full of terror at the sight of her
father; in him she saw the master of the fate, and she fancied
herself guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his knowledge
certain thoughts. She walked with hasty steps, surprised to
breathe a purer air, to feel the sun's rays quickening her
pulses, to absorb from their heat a moral warmth and a new life.
As she turned over in her mind some stratagem by which to get the
cake, a quarrel--an event as rare as the sight of swallows in
winter--broke out between la Grande Nanon and Grandet. Armed with
his keys, the master had come to dole out provisions for the
day's consumption.</p>

<p>"Is there any bread left from yesterday?" he said to
Nanon.</p>

<p>"Not a crumb, monsieur."</p>

<p>Grandet took a large round loaf, well floured and moulded in
one of the flat baskets which they use for baking in Anjou, and
was about to cut it, when Nanon said to him,--</p>

<p>"We are five, to-day, monsieur."</p>

<p>"That's true," said Grandet, "but your loaves weigh six
pounds; there'll be some left. Besides, these young fellows from
Paris don't eat bread, you'll see."</p>

<p>"Then they must eat <i>frippe</i>?" said Nanon.</p>

<p><i>Frippe</i> is a word of the local lexicon of Anjou, and
means any accompaniment of bread, from butter which is spread
upon it, the commonest kind of <i>frippe</i>, to peach preserve,
the most distinguished of all the <i>frippes</i>; those who in
their childhood have licked the <i>frippe</i> and left the bread,
will comprehend the meaning of Nanon's speech.</p>

<p>"No," answered Grandet, "they eat neither bread nor
<i>frippe</i>; they are something like marriageable girls."</p>

<p>After ordering the meals for the day with his usual parsimony,
the goodman, having locked the closets containing the supplies,
was about to go towards the fruit-garden, when Nanon stopped him
to say,--</p>

<p>"Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, and I'll
make a <i>galette</i> for the young ones."</p>

<p>"Are you going to pillage the house on account of my
nephew?"</p>

<p>"I wasn't thinking any more of your nephew than I was of your
dog,-- not more than you think yourself; for, look here, you've
only forked out six bits of sugar. I want eight."</p>

<p>"What's all this, Nanon? I have never seen you like this
before. What have you got in your head? Are you the mistress
here? You sha'n't have more than six pieces of sugar."</p>

<p>"Well, then, how is your nephew to sweeten his coffee?"</p>

<p>"With two pieces; I'll go without myself."</p>

<p>"Go without sugar at your age! I'd rather buy you some out of
my own pocket."</p>

<p>"Mind your own business."</p>

<p>In spite of the recent fall in prices, sugar was still in
Grandet's eyes the most valuable of all the colonial products; to
him it was always six francs a pound. The necessity of
economizing it, acquired under the Empire, had grown to be the
most inveterate of his habits. All women, even the greatest
ninnies, know how to dodge and dodge to get their ends; Nanon
abandoned the sugar for the sake of getting the
<i>galette</i>.</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle!" she called through the window, "do you want
some <i>galette</i>?"</p>

<p>"No, no," answered Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Come, Nanon," said Grandet, hearing his daughter's voice.
"See here." He opened the cupboard where the flour was kept, gave
her a cupful, and added a few ounces of butter to the piece he
had already cut off.</p>

<p>"I shall want wood for the oven," said the implacable
Nanon.</p>

<p>"Well, take what you want," he answered sadly; "but in that
case you must make us a fruit-tart, and you'll cook the whole
dinner in the oven. In that way you won't need two fires."</p>

<p>"Goodness!" cried Nanon, "you needn't tell me that."</p>

<p>Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his
faithful deputy.</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle," she cried, when his back was turned, "we shall
have the <i>galette</i>."</p>

<p>Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and
arranged a plateful on the kitchen-table.</p>

<p>"Just see, monsieur," said Nanon, "what pretty boots your
nephew has. What leather! why it smells good! What does he clean
it with, I wonder? Am I to put your egg-polish on it?"</p>

<p>"Nanon, I think eggs would injure that kind of leather. Tell
him you don't know how to black morocco; yes, that's morocco. He
will get you something himself in Saumur to polish those boots
with. I have heard that they put sugar into the blacking to make
it shine."</p>

<p>"They look good to eat," said the cook, putting the boots to
her nose. "Bless me! if they don't smell like madame's
eau-de-cologne. Ah! how funny!"</p>

<p>"Funny!" said her master. "Do you call it funny to put more
money into boots than the man who stands in them is worth?"</p>

<p>"Monsieur," she said, when Grandet returned the second time,
after locking the fruit-garden, "won't you have the
<i>pot-au-feu</i> put on once or twice a week on account of your
nephew?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"Am I to go to the butcher's?"</p>

<p>"Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls; the farmers
will bring them. I shall tell Cornoiller to shoot some crows;
they make the best soup in the world."</p>

<p>"Isn't it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?"</p>

<p>"You are a fool, Nanon. They eat what they can get, like the
rest of the world. Don't we all live on the dead? What are
legacies?"</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet, having no further orders to give, drew out
his watch, and seeing that he had half an hour to dispose of
before breakfast, he took his hat, went and kissed his daughter,
and said to her:</p>

<p>"Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, down by the
Loire? I have something to do there."</p>

<p>Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink taffeta;
then the father and daughter went down the winding street to the
shore.</p>

<p>"Where are you going at this early hour?" said Cruchot, the
notary, meeting them.</p>

<p>"To see something," answered Grandet, not duped by the
matutinal appearance of his friend.</p>

<p>When Pere Grandet went to "see something," the notary knew by
experience there was something to be got by going with him; so he
went.</p>

<p>"Come, Cruchot," said Grandet, "you are one of my friends.
I'll show you what folly it is to plant poplar-trees on good
ground."</p>

<p>"Do you call the sixty thousand francs that you pocketed for
those that were in your fields down by the Loire, folly?" said
Maitre Cruchot, opening his eyes with amazement. "What luck you
have had! To cut down your trees at the very time they ran short
of white-wood at Nantes, and to sell them at thirty francs!"</p>

<p>Eugenie listened, without knowing that she approached the most
solemn moment of her whole life, and that the notary was about to
bring down upon her head a paternal and supreme sentence. Grandet
had now reached the magnificent fields which he owned on the
banks of the Loire, where thirty workmen were employed in
clearing away, filling up, and levelling the spots formerly
occupied by the poplars.</p>

<p>"Maitre Cruchot, see how much ground this tree once took up!
Jean," he cried to a laborer, "m-m-measure with your r-r-rule,
b-both ways."</p>

<p>"Four times eight feet," said the man.</p>

<p>"Thirty-two feet lost," said Grandet to Cruchot. "I had three
hundred poplars in this one line, isn't that so? Well, then,
three h-h-hundred times thir-thirty-two lost m-m-me five hundred
in h-h-hay; add twice as much for the side rows,--fifteen
hundred; the middle rows as much more. So we may c-c-call it a
th-thousand b-b-bales of h-h-hay--"</p>

<p>"Very good," said Cruchot, to help out his friend; "a thousand
bales are worth about six hundred francs."</p>

<p>"Say t-t-twelve hundred, be-c-cause there's three or four
hundred francs on the second crop. Well, then, c-c-calculate that
t-twelve thousand francs a year for f-f-forty years with interest
c-c-comes to--"</p>

<p>"Say sixty thousand francs," said the notary.</p>

<p>"I am willing; c-c-comes t-t-to sixty th-th-thousand. Very
good," continued Grandet, without stuttering: "two thousand
poplars forty years old will only yield me fifty thousand francs.
There's a loss. I have found that myself," said Grandet, getting
on his high horse. "Jean, fill up all the holes except those at
the bank of the river; there you are to plant the poplars I have
bought. Plant 'em there, and they'll get nourishment from the
government," he said, turning to Cruchot, and giving a slight
motion to the wen on his nose, which expressed more than the most
ironical of smiles.</p>

<p>"True enough; poplars should only be planted on poor soil,"
said Cruchot, amazed at Grandet's calculations.</p>

<p>"Y-y-yes, monsieur," answered the old man satirically.</p>

<p>Eugenie, who was gazing at the sublime scenery of the Loire,
and paying no attention to her father's reckonings, presently
turned an ear to the remarks of Cruchot when she heard him
say,--</p>

<p>"So you have brought a son-in-law from Paris. All Saumur is
talking about your nephew. I shall soon have the
marriage-contract to draw up, hey! Pere Grandet?"</p>

<p>"You g-g-got up very early to t-t-tell me that," said Grandet,
accompanying the remark with a motion of his wen. "Well, old
c-c-comrade, I'll be frank, and t-t-tell you what you want t-t-to
know. I would rather, do you see, f-f-fling my daughter into the
Loire than g-g-give her to her c-c-cousin. You may t-t-tell that
everywhere, --no, never mind; let the world t-t-talk."</p>

<p>This answer dazzled and blinded the young girl with sudden
light. The distant hopes upspringing in her heart bloomed
suddenly, became real, tangible, like a cluster of flowers, and
she saw them cut down and wilting on the earth. Since the
previous evening she had attached herself to Charles by those
links of happiness which bind soul to soul; from henceforth
suffering was to rivet them. Is it not the noble destiny of women
to be more moved by the dark solemnities of grief than by the
splendors of fortune? How was it that fatherly feeling had died
out of her father's heart? Of what crime had Charles been guilty?
Mysterious questions! Already her dawning love, a mystery so
profound, was wrapping itself in mystery. She walked back
trembling in all her limbs; and when she reached the gloomy
street, lately so joyous to her, she felt its sadness, she
breathed the melancholy which time and events had printed there.
None of love's lessons lacked. A few steps from their own door
she went on before her father and waited at the threshold. But
Grandet, who saw a newspaper in the notary's hand, stopped short
and asked,--</p>

<p>"How are the Funds?"</p>

<p>"You never listen to my advice, Grandet," answered Cruchot.
"Buy soon; you will still make twenty per cent in two years,
besides getting an excellent rate of interest,--five thousand a
year for eighty thousand francs fifty centimes."</p>

<p>"We'll see about that," answered Grandet, rubbing his
chin.</p>

<p>"Good God!" exclaimed the notary.</p>

<p>"Well, what?" cried Grandet; and at the same moment Cruchot
put the newspaper under his eyes and said:</p>

<p>"Read that!"</p>

<p>"Monsieur Grandet, one of the most respected merchants in
Paris, blew his brains out yesterday, after making his usual
appearance at the Bourse. He had sent his resignation to the
president of the Chamber of Deputies, and had also resigned his
functions as a judge of the commercial courts. The failures of
Monsieur Roguin and Monsieur Souchet, his broker and his notary,
had ruined him. The esteem felt for Monsieur Grandet and the
credit he enjoyed were nevertheless such that he might have
obtained the necessary assistance from other business houses. It
is much to be regretted that so honorable a man should have
yielded to momentary despair," etc.</p>

<p>"I knew it," said the old wine-grower to the notary.</p>

<p>The words sent a chill of horror through Maitre Cruchot, who,
notwithstanding his impassibility as a notary, felt the cold
running down his spine as he thought that Grandet of Paris had
possibly implored in vain the millions of Grandet of Saumur.</p>

<p>"And his son, so joyous yesterday--"</p>

<p>"He knows nothing as yet," answered Grandet, with the same
composure.</p>

<p>"Adieu! Monsieur Grandet," said Cruchot, who now understood
the state of the case, and went off to reassure Monsieur de
Bonfons.</p>

<p>On entering, Grandet found breakfast ready. Madame Grandet,
round whose neck Eugenie had flung her arms, kissing her with the
quick effusion of feeling often caused by secret grief, was
already seated in her chair on castors, knitting sleeves for the
coming winter.</p>

<p>"You can begin to eat," said Nanon, coming downstairs four
steps at a time; "the young one is sleeping like a cherub. Isn't
he a darling with his eyes shut? I went in and I called him: no
answer."</p>

<p>"Let him sleep," said Grandet; "he'll wake soon enough to hear
ill- tidings."</p>

<p>"What is it?" asked Eugenie, putting into her coffee the two
little bits of sugar weighing less than half an ounce which the
old miser amused himself by cutting up in his leisure hours.
Madame Grandet, who did not dare to put the question, gazed at
her husband.</p>

<p>"His father has blown his brains out."</p>

<p>"My uncle?" said Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Poor young man!" exclaimed Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"Poor indeed!" said Grandet; "he isn't worth a sou!"</p>

<p>"Eh! poor boy, and he's sleeping like the king of the world!"
said Nanon in a gentle voice.</p>

<p>Eugenie stopped eating. Her heart was wrung, as the young
heart is wrung when pity for the suffering of one she loves
overflows, for the first time, the whole being of a woman. The
poor girl wept.</p>

<p>"What are you crying about? You didn't know your uncle," said
her father, giving her one of those hungry tigerish looks he
doubtless threw upon his piles of gold.</p>

<p>"But, monsieur," said Nanon, "who wouldn't feel pity for the
poor young man, sleeping there like a wooden shoe, without
knowing what's coming?"</p>

<p>"I didn't speak to you, Nanon. Hold your tongue!"</p>

<p>Eugenie learned at that moment that the woman who loves must
be able to hide her feelings. She did not answer.</p>

<p>"You will say nothing to him about it, Ma'ame Grandet, till I
return," said the old man. "I have to go and straighten the line
of my hedge along the high-road. I shall be back at noon, in time
for the second breakfast, and then I will talk with my nephew
about his affairs. As for you, Mademoiselle Eugenie, if it is for
that dandy you are crying, that's enough, child. He's going off
like a shot to the Indies. You will never see him again."</p>

<p>The father took his gloves from the brim of his hat, put them
on with his usual composure, pushed them in place by shoving the
fingers of both hands together, and went out.</p>

<p>"Mamma, I am suffocating!" cried Eugenie when she was alone
with her mother; "I have never suffered like this."</p>

<p>Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened the window
and let her breathe fresh air.</p>

<p>"I feel better!" said Eugenie after a moment.</p>

<p>This nervous excitement in a nature hitherto, to all
appearance, calm and cold, reacted on Madame Grandet; she looked
at her daughter with the sympathetic intuition with which mothers
are gifted for the objects of their tenderness, and guessed all.
In truth the life of the Hungarian sisters, bound together by a
freak of nature, could scarcely have been more intimate than that
of Eugenie and her mother,--always together in the embrasure of
that window, and sleeping together in the same atmosphere.</p>

<p>"My poor child!" said Madame Grandet, taking Eugenie's head
and laying it upon her bosom.</p>

<p>At these words the young girl raised her head, questioned her
mother by a look, and seemed to search out her inmost
thought.</p>

<p>"Why send him to the Indies?" she said. "If he is unhappy,
ought he not to stay with us? Is he not our nearest
relation?"</p>

<p>"Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father has his
reasons: we must respect them."</p>

<p>The mother and daughter sat down in silence, the former upon
her raised seat, the latter in her little armchair, and both took
up their work. Swelling with gratitude for the full
heart-understanding her mother had given her, Eugenie kissed the
dear hand, saying,--</p>

<p>"How good you are, my kind mamma!"</p>

<p>The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn
and blighted as it was by many sorrows.</p>

<p>"You like him?" asked Eugenie.</p>

<p>Madame Grandet only smiled in reply. Then, after a moment's
silence, she said in a low voice: "Do you love him already? That
is wrong."</p>

<p>"Wrong?" said Eugenie. "Why is it wrong? You are pleased with
him, Nanon is pleased with him; why should he not please me?
Come, mamma, let us set the table for his breakfast."</p>

<p>She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying,
"Foolish child!" But she sanctioned the child's folly by sharing
it. Eugenie called Nanon.</p>

<p>"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"</p>

<p>"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"</p>

<p>"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old
servant.</p>

<p>"Well, let him have his coffee very strong; I heard Monsieur
des Grassins say that they make the coffee very strong in Paris.
Put in a great deal."</p>

<p>"Where am I to get it?"</p>

<p>"Buy some."</p>

<p>"Suppose monsieur meets me?"</p>

<p>"He has gone to his fields."</p>

<p>"I'll run, then. But Monsieur Fessard asked me yesterday if
the Magi had come to stay with us when I bought the wax candle.
All the town will know our goings-on."</p>

<p>"If your father finds it out," said Madame Grandet, "he is
capable of beating us."</p>

<p>"Well, let him beat us; we will take his blows on our
knees."</p>

<p>Madame Grandet for all answer raised her eyes to heaven. Nanon
put on her hood and went off. Eugenie got out some clean
table-linen, and went to fetch a few bunches of grapes which she
had amused herself by hanging on a string across the attic; she
walked softly along the corridor, so as not to waken her cousin,
and she could not help listening at the door to his quiet
breathing.</p>

<p>"Sorrow is watching while he sleeps," she thought.</p>

<p>She took the freshest vine-leaves and arranged her dish of
grapes as coquettishly as a practised house-keeper might have
done, and placed it triumphantly on the table. She laid hands on
the pears counted out by her father, and piled them in a pyramid
mixed with leaves. She went and came, and skipped and ran. She
would have liked to lay under contribution everything in her
father's house; but the keys were in his pocket. Nanon came back
with two fresh eggs. At sight of them Eugenie almost hugged her
round the neck.</p>

<p>"The farmer from Lande had them in his basket. I asked him for
them, and he gave them to me, the darling, for nothing, as an
attention!"</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>V</h3>

<p>After two hours' thought and care, during which Eugenie jumped
up twenty times from her work to see if the coffee were boiling,
or to go and listen to the noise her cousin made in dressing, she
succeeded in preparing a simple little breakfast, very
inexpensive, but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from
the inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast was
always taken standing. Each took a slice of bread, a little fruit
or some butter, and a glass of wine. As Eugenie looked at the
table drawn up near the fire with an arm-chair placed before her
cousin's plate, at the two dishes of fruit, the egg- cup, the
bottle of white wine, the bread, and the sugar heaped up in a
saucer, she trembled in all her limbs at the mere thought of the
look her father would give her if he should come in at that
moment. She glanced often at the clock to see if her cousin could
breakfast before the master's return.</p>

<p>"Don't be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes in, I will
take it all upon myself," said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>Eugenie could not repress a tear.</p>

<p>"Oh, my good mother!" she cried, "I have never loved you
enough."</p>

<p>Charles, who had been tramping about his room for some time,
singing to himself, now came down. Happily, it was only eleven
o'clock. The true Parisian! he had put as much dandyism into his
dress as if he were in the chateau of the noble lady then
travelling in Scotland. He came into the room with the smiling,
courteous manner so becoming to youth, which made Eugenie's heart
beat with mournful joy. He had taken the destruction of his
castles in Anjou as a joke, and came up to his aunt gaily.</p>

<p>"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?"</p>

<p>"Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"I? perfectly."</p>

<p>"You must be hungry, cousin," said Eugenie; "will you take
your seat?"</p>

<p>"I never breakfast before midday; I never get up till then.
However, I fared so badly on the journey that I am glad to eat
something at once. Besides--" here he pulled out the prettiest
watch Breguet ever made. "Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven
o'clock!"</p>

<p>"Early?" said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. Well, I shall be
glad to have anything to eat,--anything, it doesn't matter what,
a chicken, a partridge."</p>

<p>"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.</p>

<p>"A partridge!" whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly
have given the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.</p>

<p>"Come and sit down," said his aunt.</p>

<p>The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a
pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother
took ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.</p>

<p>"Do you always live here?" said Charles, thinking the room
uglier by daylight than it had seemed the night before.</p>

<p>"Always," answered Eugenie, looking at him, "except during the
vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des
Noyers."</p>

<p>"Don't you ever take walks?"</p>

<p>"Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine,"
said Madame Grandet, "we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch
the haymakers."</p>

<p>"Have you a theatre?"</p>

<p>"Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play!
Why, monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?"</p>

<p>"See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here
are your chickens,--in the shell."</p>

<p>"Oh! fresh eggs," said Charles, who, like all people
accustomed to luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge,
"that is delicious: now, if you will give me the butter, my good
girl."</p>

<p>"Butter! then you can't have the <i>galette</i>."</p>

<p>"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.</p>

<p>The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his sippets, with
as much pleasure as a grisette takes in a melodrama where
innocence and virtue triumph. Charles, brought up by a charming
mother, improved, and trained by a woman of fashion, had the
elegant, dainty, foppish movements of a coxcomb. The
compassionate sympathy and tenderness of a young girl possess a
power that is actually magnetic; so that Charles, finding himself
the object of the attentions of his aunt and cousin, could not
escape the influence of feelings which flowed towards him, as it
were, and inundated him. He gave Eugenie a bright, caressing look
full of kindness,--a look which seemed itself a smile. He
perceived, as his eyes lingered upon her, the exquisite harmony
of features in the pure face, the grace of her innocent attitude,
the magic clearness of the eyes, where young love sparkled and
desire shone unconsciously.</p>

<p>"Ah! my dear cousin, if you were in full dress at the Opera, I
assure you my aunt's words would come true,--you would make the
men commit the mortal sin of envy, and the women the sin of
jealousy."</p>

<p>The compliment went to Eugenie's heart and set it beating,
though she did not understand its meaning.</p>

<p>"Oh! cousin," she said, "you are laughing at a poor little
country girl."</p>

<p>"If you knew me, my cousin, you would know that I abhor
ridicule; it withers the heart and jars upon all my feelings."
Here he swallowed his buttered sippet very gracefully. "No, I
really have not enough mind to make fun of others; and doubtless
it is a great defect. In Paris, when they want to disparage a
man, they say: 'He has a good heart.' The phrase means: 'The poor
fellow is as stupid as a rhinoceros.' But as I am rich, and known
to hit the bull's-eye at thirty paces with any kind of pistol,
and even in the open fields, ridicule respects me."</p>

<p>"My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart."</p>

<p>"You have a very pretty ring," said Eugenie; "is there any
harm in asking to see it?"</p>

<p>Charles held out his hand after loosening the ring, and
Eugenie blushed as she touched the pink nails of her cousin with
the tips of her fingers.</p>

<p>"See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship."</p>

<p>"My! there's a lot of gold!" said Nanon, bringing in the
coffee.</p>

<p>"What is that?" exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he pointed to
an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed on the inside, and
edged with a fringe of ashes, from the bottom of which the
coffee-grounds were bubbling up and falling in the boiling
liquid.</p>

<p>"It is boiled coffee," said Nanon.</p>

<p>"Ah! my dear aunt, I shall at least leave one beneficent trace
of my visit here. You are indeed behind the age! I must teach you
to make good coffee in a Chaptal coffee-pot."</p>

<p>He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.</p>

<p>"Gracious! if there are so many things as all that to do,"
said Nanon, "we may as well give up our lives to it. I shall
never make coffee that way; I know that! Pray, who is to get the
fodder for the cow while I make the coffee?"</p>

<p>"I will make it," said Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Child!" said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.</p>

<p>The word recalled to their minds the sorrow that was about to
fall upon the unfortunate young man; the three women were silent,
and looked at him with an air of commiseration that caught his
attention.</p>

<p>"Is anything the matter, my cousin?" he said.</p>

<p>"Hush!" said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to
answer; "you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not
to speak to monsieur--"</p>

<p>"Say Charles," said young Grandet.</p>

<p>"Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!" cried
Eugenie.</p>

<p>Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. At this
moment Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, who had all three been
thinking with a shudder of the old man's return, heard the knock
whose echoes they knew but too well.</p>

<p>"There's papa!" said Eugenie.</p>

<p>She removed the saucer filled with sugar, leaving a few pieces
on the table-cloth; Nanon carried off the egg-cup; Madame Grandet
sat up like a frightened hare. It was evidently a panic, which
amazed Charles, who was wholly unable to understand it.</p>

<p>"Why! what is the matter?" he asked.</p>

<p>"My father has come," answered Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Well, what of that?"</p>

<p>Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen eye upon the
table, upon Charles, and saw the whole thing.</p>

<p>"Ha! ha! so you have been making a feast for your nephew; very
good, very good, very good indeed!" he said, without stuttering.
"When the cat's away, the mice will play."</p>

<p>"Feast!" thought Charles, incapable of suspecting or imagining
the rules and customs of the household.</p>

<p>"Give me my glass, Nanon," said the master</p>

<p>Eugenie brought the glass. Grandet drew a horn-handled knife
with a big blade from his breeches' pocket, cut a slice of bread,
took a small bit of butter, spread it carefully on the bread, and
ate it standing. At this moment Charlie was sweetening his
coffee. Pere Grandet saw the bits of sugar, looked at his wife,
who turned pale, and made three steps forward; he leaned down to
the poor woman's ear and said,--</p>

<p>"Where did you get all that sugar?"</p>

<p>"Nanon fetched it from Fessard's; there was none."</p>

<p>It is impossible to picture the profound interest the three
women took in this mute scene. Nanon had left her kitchen and
stood looking into the room to see what would happen. Charles,
having tasted his coffee, found it bitter and glanced about for
the sugar, which Grandet had already put away.</p>

<p>"What do you want?" said his uncle.</p>

<p>"The sugar."</p>

<p>"Put in more milk," answered the master of the house; "your
coffee will taste sweeter."</p>

<p>Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put away and placed
it on the table, looking calmly at her father as she did so. Most
assuredly, the Parisian woman who held a silken ladder with her
feeble arms to facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no
greater courage than Eugenie displayed when she replaced the
sugar upon the table. The lover rewarded his mistress when she
proudly showed him her beautiful bruised arm, and bathed every
swollen vein with tears and kisses till it was cured with
happiness. Charles, on the other hand, never so much as knew the
secret of the cruel agitation that shook and bruised the heart of
his cousin, crushed as it was by the look of the old miser.</p>

<p>"You are not eating your breakfast, wife."</p>

<p>The poor helot came forward with a piteous look, cut herself a
piece of bread, and took a pear. Eugenie boldly offered her
father some grapes, saying,--</p>

<p>"Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will eat some, will
you not? I went to get these pretty grapes expressly for
you."</p>

<p>"If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for you,
nephew. When you have finished, we will go into the garden; I
have something to tell you which can't be sweetened."</p>

<p>Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning
the young man could not mistake.</p>

<p>"What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of my poor
mother"--at these words his voice softened--"no other sorrow can
touch me."</p>

<p>"My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to
try us?" said his aunt.</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta," said Grandet, "there's your nonsense
beginning. I am sorry to see those white hands of yours, nephew";
and he showed the shoulder-of-mutton fists which Nature had put
at the end of his own arms. "There's a pair of hands made to pick
up silver pieces. You've been brought up to put your feet in the
kid out of which we make the purses we keep our money in. A bad
look-out! Very bad!"</p>

<p>"What do you mean, uncle? I'll be hanged if I understand a
single word of what you are saying."</p>

<p>"Come!" said Grandet.</p>

<p>The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the
last of his wine, and opened the door.</p>

<p>"My cousin, take courage!"</p>

<p>The tone of the young girl struck terror to Charles's heart,
and he followed his terrible uncle, a prey to disquieting
thoughts. Eugenie, her mother, and Nanon went into the kitchen,
moved by irresistible curiosity to watch the two actors in the
scene which was about to take place in the garden, where at first
the uncle walked silently ahead of the nephew. Grandet was not at
all troubled at having to tell Charles of the death of his
father; but he did feel a sort of compassion in knowing him to be
without a penny, and he sought for some phrase or formula by
which to soften the communication of that cruel truth. "You have
lost your father," seemed to him a mere nothing to say; fathers
die before their children. But "you are absolutely without
means,"-- all the misfortunes of life were summed up in those
words! Grandet walked round the garden three times, the gravel
crunching under his heavy step.</p>

<p>In the crucial moments of life our minds fasten upon the
locality where joys or sorrows overwhelm us. Charles noticed with
minute attention the box-borders of the little garden, the yellow
leaves as they fluttered down, the dilapidated walls, the gnarled
fruit-trees,-- picturesque details which were destined to remain
forever in his memory, blending eternally, by the mnemonics that
belong exclusively to the passions, with the recollections of
this solemn hour.</p>

<p>"It is very fine weather, very warm," said Grandet, drawing a
long breath.</p>

<p>"Yes, uncle; but why--"</p>

<p>"Well, my lad," answered his uncle, "I have some bad news to
give you. Your father is ill--"</p>

<p>"Then why am I here?" said Charles. "Nanon," he cried, "order
post- horses! I can get a carriage somewhere?" he added, turning
to his uncle, who stood motionless.</p>

<p>"Horses and carriages are useless," answered Grandet, looking
at Charles, who remained silent, his eyes growing fixed. "Yes, my
poor boy, you guess the truth,--he is dead. But that's nothing;
there is something worse: he blew out his brains."</p>

<p>"My father!"</p>

<p>"Yes, but that's not the worst; the newspapers are all talking
about it. Here, read that."</p>

<p>Grandet, who had borrowed the fatal article from Cruchot,
thrust the paper under his nephew's eyes. The poor young man,
still a child, still at an age when feelings wear no mask, burst
into tears.</p>

<p>"That's good!" thought Grandet; "his eyes frightened me. He'll
be all right if he weeps,--That is not the worst, my poor
nephew," he said aloud, not noticing whether Charles heard him,
"that is nothing; you will get over it: but--"</p>

<p>"Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!"</p>

<p>"He has ruined you, you haven't a penny."</p>

<p>"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"</p>

<p>His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and
reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity,
wept also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter.
Charles, without listening further to his uncle, ran through the
court and up the staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself
across the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace
for his lost parents.</p>

<p>"The first burst must have its way," said Grandet, entering
the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed
their seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping
their eyes. "But that young man is good for nothing; his head is
more taken up with the dead than with his money."</p>

<p>Eugenie shuddered as she heard her father's comment on the
most sacred of all griefs. From that moment she began to judge
him. Charles's sobs, though muffled, still sounded through the
sepulchral house; and his deep groans, which seemed to come from
the earth beneath, only ceased towards evening, after growing
gradually feebler.</p>

<p>"Poor young man!" said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>Fatal exclamation! Pere Grandet looked at his wife, at
Eugenie, and at the sugar-bowl. He recollected the extraordinary
breakfast prepared for the unfortunate youth, and he took a
position in the middle of the room.</p>

<p>"Listen to me," he said, with his usual composure. "I hope
that you will not continue this extravagance, Madame Grandet. I
don't give you MY money to stuff that young fellow with
sugar."</p>

<p>"My mother had nothing to do with it," said Eugenie; "it was I
who--"</p>

<p>"Is it because you are of age," said Grandet, interrupting his
daughter, "that you choose to contradict me? Remember,
Eugenie--"</p>

<p>"Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from
us--"</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" exclaimed the cooper on four chromatic
tones; "the son of my brother this, my nephew that! Charles is
nothing at all to us; he hasn't a farthing, his father has
failed; and when this dandy has cried his fill, off he goes from
here. I won't have him revolutionize my household."</p>

<p>"What is 'failing,' father?" asked Eugenie.</p>

<p>"To fail," answered her father, "is to commit the most
dishonorable action that can disgrace a man."</p>

<p>"It must be a great sin," said Madame Grandet, "and our
brother may be damned."</p>

<p>"There, there, don't begin with your litanies!" said Grandet,
shrugging his shoulders. "To fail, Eugenie," he resumed, "is to
commit a theft which the law, unfortunately, takes under its
protection. People have given their property to Guillaume Grandet
trusting to his reputation for honor and integrity; he has made
away with it all, and left them nothing but their eyes to weep
with. A highway robber is better than a bankrupt: the one attacks
you and you can defend yourself, he risks his own life; but the
other--in short, Charles is dishonored."</p>

<p>The words rang in the poor girl's heart and weighed it down
with their heavy meaning. Upright and delicate as a flower born
in the depths of a forest, she knew nothing of the world's
maxims, of its deceitful arguments and specious sophisms; she
therefore believed the atrocious explanation which her father
gave her designedly, concealing the distinction which exists
between an involuntary failure and an intentional one.</p>

<p>"Father, could you not have prevented such a misfortune?"</p>

<p>"My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes four
millions."</p>

<p>"What is a 'million,' father?" she asked, with the simplicity
of a child which thinks it can find out at once all that it wants
to know.</p>

<p>"A million?" said Grandet, "why, it is a million pieces of
twenty sous each, and it takes five twenty sous pieces to make
five francs."</p>

<p>"Dear me!" cried Eugenie, "how could my uncle possibly have
had four millions? Is there any one else in France who ever had
so many millions?" Pere Grandet stroked his chin, smiled, and his
wen seemed to dilate. "But what will become of my cousin
Charles?"</p>

<p>"He is going off to the West Indies by his father's request,
and he will try to make his fortune there."</p>

<p>"Has he got the money to go with?"</p>

<p>"I shall pay for his journey as far as--yes, as far as
Nantes."</p>

<p>Eugenie sprang into his arms.</p>

<p>"Oh, father, how good you are!"</p>

<p>She kissed him with a warmth that almost made Grandet ashamed
of himself, for his conscience galled him a little.</p>

<p>"Will it take much time to amass a million?" she asked.</p>

<p>"Look here!" said the old miser, "you know what a napoleon is?
Well, it takes fifty thousand napoleons to make a million."</p>

<p>"Mamma, we must say a great many <i>neuvaines</i> for
him."</p>

<p>"I was thinking so," said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"That's the way, always spending my money!" cried the father.
"Do you think there are francs on every bush?"</p>

<p>At this moment a muffled cry, more distressing than all the
others, echoed through the garrets and struck a chill to the
hearts of Eugenie and her mother.</p>

<p>"Nanon, go upstairs and see that he does not kill himself,"
said Grandet. "Now, then," he added, looking at his wife and
daughter, who had turned pale at his words, "no nonsense, you
two! I must leave you; I have got to see about the Dutchmen who
are going away to-day. And then I must find Cruchot, and talk
with him about all this."</p>

<p>He departed. As soon as he had shut the door Eugenie and her
mother breathed more freely. Until this morning the young girl
had never felt constrained in the presence of her father; but for
the last few hours every moment wrought a change in her feelings
and ideas.</p>

<p>"Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?"</p>

<p>"Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred and fifty
francs, sometimes two hundred,--at least, so I've heard say."</p>

<p>"Then papa must be rich?"</p>

<p>"Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me he bought
Froidfond two years ago; that may have pinched him."</p>

<p>Eugenie, not being able to understand the question of her
father's fortune, stopped short in her calculations.</p>

<p>"He didn't even see me, the darling!" said Nanon, coming back
from her errand. "He's stretched out like a calf on his bed and
crying like the Madeleine, and that's a blessing! What's the
matter with the poor dear young man!"</p>

<p>"Let us go and console him, mamma; if any one knocks, we can
come down."</p>

<p>Madame Grandet was helpless against the sweet persuasive tones
of her daughter's voice. Eugenie was sublime: she had become a
woman. The two, with beating hearts, went up to Charles's room.
The door was open. The young man heard and saw nothing; plunged
in grief, he only uttered inarticulate cries.</p>

<p>"How he loves his father!" said Eugenie in a low voice.</p>

<p>In the utterance of those words it was impossible to mistake
the hopes of a heart that, unknown to itself, had suddenly become
passionate. Madame Grandet cast a mother's look upon her
daughter, and then whispered in her ear,--</p>

<p>"Take care, you will love him!"</p>

<p>"Love him!" answered Eugenie. "Ah! if you did but know what my
father said to Monsieur Cruchot."</p>

<p>Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin.</p>

<p>"I have lost my father, my poor father! If he had told me his
secret troubles we might have worked together to repair them. My
God! my poor father! I was so sure I should see him again that I
think I kissed him quite coldly--"</p>

<p>Sobs cut short the words.</p>

<p>"We will pray for him," said Madame Grandet. "Resign yourself
to the will of God."</p>

<p>"Cousin," said Eugenie, "take courage! Your loss is
irreparable; therefore think only of saving your honor."</p>

<p>With the delicate instinct of a woman who intuitively puts her
mind into all things, even at the moment when she offers
consolation, Eugenie sought to cheat her cousin's grief by
turning his thoughts inward upon himself.</p>

<p>"My honor?" exclaimed the young man, tossing aside his hair
with an impatient gesture as he sat up on his bed and crossed his
arms. "Ah! that is true. My uncle said my father had failed." He
uttered a heart- rending cry, and hid his face in his hands.
"Leave me, leave me, cousin! My God! my God! forgive my father,
for he must have suffered sorely!"</p>

<p>There was something terribly attractive in the sight of this
young sorrow, sincere without reasoning or afterthought. It was a
virgin grief which the simple hearts of Eugenie and her mother
were fitted to comprehend, and they obeyed the sign Charles made
them to leave him to himself. They went downstairs in silence and
took their accustomed places by the window and sewed for nearly
an hour without exchanging a word. Eugenie had seen in the
furtive glance that she cast about the young man's room--that
girlish glance which sees all in the twinkling of an eye--the
pretty trifles of his dressing-case, his scissors, his razors
embossed with gold. This gleam of luxury across her cousin's
grief only made him the more interesting to her, possibly by way
of contrast. Never before had so serious an event, so dramatic a
sight, touched the imaginations of these two passive beings,
hitherto sunk in the stillness and calm of solitude.</p>

<p>"Mamma," said Eugenie, "we must wear mourning for my
uncle."</p>

<p>"Your father will decide that," answered Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>They relapsed into silence. Eugenie drew her stitches with a
uniform motion which revealed to an observer the teeming thoughts
of her meditation. The first desire of the girl's heart was to
share her cousin's mourning.</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>VI</h3>

<p>About four o'clock an abrupt knock at the door struck sharply
on the heart of Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"What can have happened to your father?" she said to her
daughter.</p>

<p>Grandet entered joyously. After taking off his gloves, he
rubbed his hands hard enough to take off their skin as well, if
his epidermis had not been tanned and cured like Russia
leather,--saving, of course, the perfume of larch-trees and
incense. Presently his secret escaped him.</p>

<p>"Wife," he said, without stuttering, "I've trapped them all!
Our wine is sold! The Dutch and the Belgians have gone. I walked
about the market-place in front of their inn, pretending to be
doing nothing. That Belgian fellow--you know who I mean--came up
to me. The owners of all the good vineyards have kept back their
vintages, intending to wait; well, I didn't hinder them. The
Belgian was in despair; I saw that. In a minute the bargain was
made. He takes my vintage at two hundred francs the puncheon,
half down. He paid me in gold; the notes are drawn. Here are six
louis for you. In three months wines will have fallen."</p>

<p>These words, uttered in a quiet tone of voice, were
nevertheless so bitterly sarcastic that the inhabitants of
Saumur, grouped at this moment in the market-place and
overwhelmed by the news of the sale Grandet had just effected,
would have shuddered had they heard them. Their panic would have
brought the price of wines down fifty per cent at once.</p>

<p>"Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?"</p>

<p>"Yes, little one."</p>

<p>That term applied to his daughter was the superlative
expression of the old miser's joy.</p>

<p>"Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of twenty sous
each?"</p>

<p>"Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet."</p>

<p>"Then, father, you can easily help Charles."</p>

<p>The amazement, the anger, the stupefaction of Belshazzar when
he saw the <i>Mene-Tekel-Upharsin</i> before his eyes is not to
be compared with the cold rage of Grandet, who, having forgotten
his nephew, now found him enshrined in the heart and calculations
of his daughter.</p>

<p>"What's this? Ever since that dandy put foot in MY house
everything goes wrong! You behave as if you had the right to buy
sugar-plums and make feasts and weddings. I won't have that sort
of thing. I hope I know my duty at my time of life! I certainly
sha'n't take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. I
shall do for my nephew what it is proper to do, and you have no
need to poke your nose into it. As for you, Eugenie," he added,
facing her, "don't speak of this again, or I'll send you to the
Abbaye des Noyers with Nanon, see if I don't; and no later than
to-morrow either, if you disobey me! Where is that fellow, has he
come down yet?"</p>

<p>"No, my friend," answered Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"What is he doing then?"</p>

<p>"He is weeping for his father," said Eugenie.</p>

<p>Grandet looked at his daughter without finding a word to say;
after all, he was a father. He made a couple of turns up and down
the room, and then went hurriedly to his secret den to think over
an investment he was meditating in the public Funds. The thinning
out of his two thousand acres of forest land had yielded him six
hundred thousand francs: putting this sum to that derived from
the sale of his poplars and to his other gains for the last year
and for the current year, he had amassed a total of nine hundred
thousand francs, without counting the two hundred thousand he had
got by the sale just concluded. The twenty per cent which Cruchot
assured him would gain in a short time from the Funds, then
quoted at seventy, tempted him. He figured out his calculation on
the margin of the newspaper which gave the account of his
brother's death, all the while hearing the moans of his nephew,
but without listening to them. Nanon came and knocked on the wall
to summon him to dinner. On the last step of the staircase he was
saying to himself as he came down,--</p>

<p>"I'll do it; I shall get eight per cent interest. In two years
I shall have fifteen hundred thousand francs, which I will then
draw out in good gold,--Well, where's my nephew?"</p>

<p>"He says he doesn't want anything to eat," answered Nanon;
"that's not good for him."</p>

<p>"So much saved," retorted her master.</p>

<p>"That's so," she said.</p>

<p>"Bah! he won't cry long. Hunger drives the wolves out of the
woods."</p>

<p>The dinner was eaten in silence.</p>

<p>"My good friend," said Madame Grandet, when the cloth was
removed, "we must put on mourning."</p>

<p>"Upon my word, Madame Grandet! what will you invent next to
spend money on? Mourning is in the heart, and not in the
clothes."</p>

<p>"But mourning for a brother is indispensable; and the Church
commands us to--"</p>

<p>"Buy your mourning out of your six louis. Give me a hat-band;
that's enough for me."</p>

<p>Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven without uttering a word. Her
generous instincts, slumbering and long repressed but now
suddenly and for the first time awakened, were galled at every
turn. The evening passed to all appearance like a thousand other
evenings of their monotonous life, yet it was certainly the most
horrible. Eugenie sewed without raising her head, and did not use
the workbox which Charles had despised the night before. Madame
Grandet knitted her sleeves. Grandet twirled his thumbs for four
hours, absorbed in calculations whose results were on the morrow
to astonish Saumur. No one came to visit the family that day. The
whole town was ringing with the news of the business trick just
played by Grandet, the failure of his brother, and the arrival of
his nephew. Obeying the desire to gossip over their mutual
interests, all the upper and middle-class wine-growers in Saumur
met at Monsieur des Grassins, where terrible imprecations were
being fulminated against the ex-mayor. Nanon was spinning, and
the whirr of her wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray
rafters of that silent hall.</p>

<p>"We don't waste our tongues," she said, showing her teeth, as
large and white as peeled almonds.</p>

<p>"Nothing should be wasted," answered Grandet, rousing himself
from his reverie. He saw a perspective of eight millions in three
years, and he was sailing along that sheet of gold. "Let us go to
bed. I will bid my nephew good-night for the rest of you, and see
if he will take anything."</p>

<p>Madame Grandet remained on the landing of the first storey to
hear the conversation that was about to take place between the
goodman and his nephew. Eugenie, bolder than her mother, went up
two stairs.</p>

<p>"Well, nephew, you are in trouble. Yes, weep, that's natural.
A father is a father; but we must bear our troubles patiently. I
am a good uncle to you, remember that. Come, take courage! Will
you have a little glass of wine?" (Wine costs nothing in Saumur,
and they offer it as tea is offered in China.) "Why!" added
Grandet, "you have got no light! That's bad, very bad; you ought
to see what you are about," and he walked to the chimney-piece.
"What's this?" he cried. "A wax candle! How the devil did they
filch a wax candle? The spendthrifts would tear down the ceilings
of my house to boil the fellow's eggs."</p>

<p>Hearing these words, mother and daughter slipped back into
their rooms and burrowed in their beds, with the celerity of
frightened mice getting back to their holes.</p>

<p>"Madame Grandet, have you found a mine?" said the man, coming
into the chamber of his wife.</p>

<p>"My friend, wait; I am saying my prayers," said the poor
mother in a trembling voice.</p>

<p>"The devil take your good God!" growled Grandet in reply.</p>

<p>Misers have no belief in a future life; the present is their
all in all. This thought casts a terrible light upon our present
epoch, in which, far more than at any former period, money sways
the laws and politics and morals. Institutions, books, men, and
dogmas, all conspire to undermine belief in a future life,--a
belief upon which the social edifice has rested for eighteen
hundred years. The grave, as a means of transition, is little
feared in our day. The future, which once opened to us beyond the
requiems, has now been imported into the present. To obtain
<i>per fas et nefas</i> a terrestrial paradise of luxury and
earthly enjoyment, to harden the heart and macerate the body for
the sake of fleeting possessions, as the martyrs once suffered
all things to reach eternal joys, this is now the universal
thought--a thought written everywhere, even in the very laws
which ask of the legislator, "What do you pay?" instead of asking
him, "What do you think?" When this doctrine has passed down from
the bourgeoisie to the populace, where will this country be?</p>

<p>"Madame Grandet, have you done?" asked the old man.</p>

<p>"My friend, I am praying for you."</p>

<p>"Very good! Good-night; to-morrow morning we will have a
talk."</p>

<p>The poor woman went to sleep like a schoolboy who, not having
learned his lessons, knows he will see his master's angry face on
the morrow. At the moment when, filled with fear, she was drawing
the sheet above her head that she might stifle hearing, Eugenie,
in her night-gown and with naked feet, ran to her side and kissed
her brow.</p>

<p>"Oh! my good mother," she said, "to-morrow I will tell him it
was I."</p>

<p>"No; he would send you to Noyers. Leave me to manage it; he
cannot eat me."</p>

<p>"Do you hear, mamma?"</p>

<p>"What?"</p>

<p>"<i>He</i> is weeping still."</p>

<p>"Go to bed, my daughter; you will take cold in your feet: the
floor is damp."</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>Thus passed the solemn day which was destined to weight upon
the whole life of the rich and poor heiress, whose sleep was
never again to be so calm, nor yet so pure, as it had been up to
this moment. It often happens that certain actions of human life
seem, literally speaking, improbable, though actual. Is not this
because we constantly omit to turn the stream of psychological
light upon our impulsive determinations, and fail to explain the
subtile reasons, mysteriously conceived in our minds, which
impelled them? Perhaps Eugenie's deep passion should be analyzed
in its most delicate fibres; for it became, scoffers might say, a
malady which influenced her whole existence. Many people prefer
to deny results rather than estimate the force of ties and links
and bonds, which secretly join one fact to another in the moral
order. Here, therefore, Eugenie's past life will offer to
observers of human nature an explanation of her naive want of
reflection and the suddenness of the emotions which overflowed
her soul. The more tranquil her life had been, the more vivid was
her womanly pity, the more simple-minded were the sentiments now
developed in her soul.</p>

<p>Made restless by the events of the day, she woke at intervals
to listen to her cousin, thinking she heard the sighs which still
echoed in her heart. Sometimes she saw him dying of his trouble,
sometimes she dreamed that he fainted from hunger. Towards
morning she was certain that she heard a startling cry. She
dressed at once and ran, in the dawning light, with a swift foot
to her cousin's chamber, the door of which he had left open. The
candle had burned down to the socket. Charles, overcome by
nature, was sleeping, dressed and sitting in an armchair beside
the bed, on which his head rested; he dreamed as men dream on an
empty stomach. Eugenie might weep at her ease; she might admire
the young and handsome face blotted with grief, the eyes swollen
with weeping, that seemed, sleeping as they were, to well forth
tears. Charles felt sympathetically the young girl's presence; he
opened his eyes and saw her pitying him.</p>

<p>"Pardon me, my cousin," he said, evidently not knowing the
hour nor the place in which he found himself.</p>

<p>"There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and <i>we</i> thought
you might need something. You should go to bed; you tire yourself
by sitting thus."</p>

<p>"That is true."</p>

<p>"Well, then, adieu!"</p>

<p>She escaped, ashamed and happy at having gone there. Innocence
alone can dare to be so bold. Once enlightened, virtue makes her
calculations as well as vice. Eugenie, who had not trembled
beside her cousin, could scarcely stand upon her legs when she
regained her chamber. Her ignorant life had suddenly come to an
end; she reasoned, she rebuked herself with many reproaches.</p>

<p>"What will he think of me? He will think that I love him!"</p>

<p>That was what she most wished him to think. An honest love has
its own prescience, and knows that love begets love. What an
event for this poor solitary girl thus to have entered the
chamber of a young man! Are there not thoughts and actions in the
life of love which to certain souls bear the full meaning of the
holiest espousals? An hour later she went to her mother and
dressed her as usual. Then they both came down and sat in their
places before the window waiting for Grandet, with that cruel
anxiety which, according to the individual character, freezes the
heart or warms it, shrivels or dilates it, when a scene is
feared, a punishment expected,--a feeling so natural that even
domestic animals possess it, and whine at the slightest pain of
punishment, though they make no outcry when they inadvertently
hurt themselves. The goodman came down; but he spoke to his wife
with an absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table
without appearing to remember his threats of the night
before.</p>

<p>"What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble."</p>

<p>"Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon.</p>

<p>"So much the better; he won't want a wax candle," said Grandet
in a jeering tone.</p>

<p>This unusual clemency, this bitter gaiety, struck Madame
Grandet with amazement, and she looked at her husband
attentively. The goodman-- here it may be well to explain that in
Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and Bretagne the word "goodman," already
used to designate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and
cruel men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either have
reached a certain age; the title means nothing on the score of
individual gentleness--the goodman took his hat and gloves,
saying as he went out,--</p>

<p>"I am going to loiter about the market-place and find
Cruchot."</p>

<p>"Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his
mind."</p>

<p>Grandet, who was a poor sleeper, employed half his nights in
the preliminary calculations which gave such astonishing accuracy
to his views and observations and schemes, and secured to them
the unfailing success at sight of which his townsmen stood
amazed. All human power is a compound of time and patience.
Powerful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the
constant exercise of human power put to the service of self. It
rests on two sentiments only,--self-love and self- interest; but
self-interest being to a certain extent compact and intelligent
self-love, the visible sign of real superiority, it follows that
self-love and self-interest are two parts of the same
whole,--egotism. From this arises, perhaps, the excessive
curiosity shown in the habits of a miser's life whenever they are
put before the world. Every nature holds by a thread to those
beings who challenge all human sentiments by concentrating all in
one passion. Where is the man without desire? and what social
desire can be satisfied without money?</p>

<p>Grandet unquestionably "had something on his mind," to use his
wife's expression. There was in him, as in all misers, a
persistent craving to play a commercial game with other men and
win their money legally. To impose upon other people was to him a
sign of power, a perpetual proof that he had won the right to
despise those feeble beings who suffer themselves to be preyed
upon in this world. Oh! who has ever truly understood the lamb
lying peacefully at the feet of God?-- touching emblem of all
terrestrial victims, myth of their future, suffering and weakness
glorified! This lamb it is which the miser fattens, puts in his
fold, slaughters, cooks, eats, and then despises. The pasture of
misers is compounded of money and disdain. During the night
Grandet's ideas had taken another course, which was the reason of
his sudden clemency. He had hatched a plot by which to trick the
Parisians, to decoy and dupe and snare them, to drive them into a
trap, and make them go and come and sweat and hope and turn
pale,--a plot by which to amuse himself, the old provincial
cooper, sitting there beneath his gloomy rafters, or passing up
and down the rotten staircase of his house in Saumur. His nephew
filled his mind. He wished to save the honor of his dead brother
without the cost of a penny to the son or to himself. His own
funds he was about to invest for three years; he had therefore
nothing further to do than to manage his property in Saumur. He
needed some nutriment for his malicious activity, and he found it
suddenly in his brother's failure. Feeling nothing to squeeze
between his own paws, he resolved to crush the Parisians in
behalf of Charles, and to play the part of a good brother on the
cheapest terms. The honor of the family counted for so little in
this scheme that his good intentions might be likened to the
interest a gambler takes in seeing a game well played in which he
has no stake. The Cruchots were a necessary part of his plan; but
he would not seek them,--he resolved to make them come to him,
and to lead up that very evening to a comedy whose plot he had
just conceived, which should make him on the morrow an object of
admiration to the whole town without its costing him a single
penny.</p>

<p>In her father's absence Eugenie had the happiness of busying
herself openly with her much-loved cousin, of spending upon him
fearlessly the treasures of her pity,--woman's sublime
superiority, the sole she desires to have recognized, the sole
she pardons man for letting her assume. Three or four times the
young girl went to listen to her cousin's breathing, to know if
he were sleeping or awake; then, when he had risen, she turned
her thoughts to the cream, the eggs, the fruits, the plates, the
glasses,--all that was a part of his breakfast became the object
of some special care. At length she ran lightly up the old
staircase to listen to the noise her cousin made. Was he
dressing? Did he still weep? She reached the door.</p>

<p>"My cousin!"</p>

<p>"Yes, cousin."</p>

<p>"Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room?"</p>

<p>"Where you like."</p>

<p>"How do you feel?"</p>

<p>"Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry."</p>

<p>This conversation, held through the closed door, was like an
episode in a poem to Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so
as not to annoy my father."</p>

<p>She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a
bird.</p>

<p>"Nanon, go and do his room!"</p>

<p>That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to the
slightest noise, now lost its decaying aspect in the eyes of
Eugenie. It grew luminous; it had a voice and spoke to her; it
was young like herself, --young like the love it was now serving.
Her mother, her kind, indulgent mother, lent herself to the
caprices of the child's love, and after the room was put in
order, both went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him
company. Does not Christian charity make consolation a duty? The
two women drew a goodly number of little sophistries from their
religion wherewith to justify their conduct. Charles was made the
object of the tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart
felt the sweetness of the gentle friendship, the exquisite
sympathy which these two souls, crushed under perpetual
restraint, knew so well how to display when, for an instant, they
were left unfettered in the regions of suffering, their natural
sphere.</p>

<p>Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to fold the
linen and put in order the toilet articles which Charles had
brought; thus she could marvel at her ease over each luxurious
bauble and the various knick-knacks of silver or chased gold,
which she held long in her hand under a pretext of examining
them. Charles could not see without emotion the generous interest
his aunt and cousin felt in him; he knew society in Paris well
enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, he would find
all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie thus appeared to him in
the splendor of a special beauty, and from thenceforth he admired
the innocence of life and manners which the previous evening he
had been inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took from Nanon
the bowl of coffee and cream, and began to pour it out for her
cousin with the simplicity of real feeling, giving him a kindly
glance, the eyes of the Parisian filled with tears; he took her
hand and kissed it.</p>

<p>"What troubles you?" she said.</p>

<p>"Oh! these are tears of gratitude," he answered.</p>

<p>Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the
candlesticks.</p>

<p>"Here, Nanon, carry them away!" she said.</p>

<p>When she looked again towards her cousin she was still
blushing, but her looks could at least deceive, and did not
betray the excess of joy which innundated her heart; yet the eyes
of both expressed the same sentiment as their souls flowed
together in one thought,--the future was theirs. This soft
emotion was all the more precious to Charles in the midst of his
heavy grief because it was wholly unexpected. The sound of the
knocker recalled the women to their usual station. Happily they
were able to run downstairs with sufficient rapidity to be seated
at their work when Grandet entered; had he met them under the
archway it would have been enough to rouse his suspicions. After
breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the keeper from
Froidfond, to whom the promised indemnity had never yet been
paid, made his appearance, bearing a hare and some partridges
shot in the park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the
millers.</p>

<p>"Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is
all that fit to eat?"</p>

<p>"Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed two
days."</p>

<p>"Come, Nanon, bestir yourself," said Grandet; "take these
things, they'll do for dinner. I have invited the two
Cruchots."</p>

<p>Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and looked at
everybody in the room.</p>

<p>"Well!" she said, "and how am I to get the lard and the
spices?"</p>

<p>"Wife," said Grandet, "give Nanon six francs, and remind me to
get some of the good wine out of the cellar."</p>

<p>"Well, then, Monsieur Grandet," said the keeper, who had come
prepared with an harangue for the purpose of settling the
question of the indemnity, "Monsieur Grandet--"</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet; "I know what you want to say.
You are a good fellow; we will see about it to-morrow, I'm too
busy to-day. Wife, give him five francs," he added to Madame
Grandet as he decamped.</p>

<p>The poor woman was only too happy to buy peace at the cost of
eleven francs. She knew that Grandet would let her alone for a
fortnight after he had thus taken back, franc by franc, the money
he had given her.</p>

<p>"Here, Cornoiller," she said, slipping ten francs into the
man's hand, "some day we will reward your services."</p>

<p>Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.</p>

<p>"Madame," said Nanon, who had put on her black coif and taken
her basket, "I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it'll
go fast enough somehow."</p>

<p>"Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down," said
Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Something very extraordinary is going on, I am certain of
it," said Madame Grandet. "This is only the third time since our
marriage that your father has given a dinner."</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>About four o'clock, just as Eugenie and her mother had
finished setting the table for six persons, and after the master
of the house had brought up a few bottles of the exquisite wine
which provincials cherish with true affection, Charles came down
into the hall. The young fellow was pale; his gestures, the
expression of his face, his glance, and the tones of his voice,
all had a sadness which was full of grace. He was not pretending
grief, he truly suffered; and the veil of pain cast over his
features gave him an interesting air dear to the heart of women.
Eugenie loved him the more for it. Perhaps she felt that sorrow
drew him nearer to her. Charles was no longer the rich and
distinguished young man placed in a sphere far above her, but a
relation plunged into frightful misery. Misery begets equality.
Women have this in common with the angels,--suffering humanity
belongs to them. Charles and Eugenie understood each other and
spoke only with their eyes; for the poor fallen dandy, orphaned
and impoverished, sat apart in a corner of the room, and was
proudly calm and silent. Yet, from time to time, the gentle and
caressing glance of the young girl shone upon him and constrained
him away from his sad thoughts, drawing him with her into the
fields of hope and of futurity, where she loved to hold him at
her side.</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>VII</h3>

<p>At this moment the town of Saumur was more excited about the
dinner given by Grandet to the Cruchots than it had been the
night before at the sale of his vintage, though that constituted
a crime of high- treason against the whole wine-growing
community. If the politic old miser had given his dinner from the
same idea that cost the dog of Alcibiades his tail, he might
perhaps have been called a great man; but the fact is,
considering himself superior to a community which he could trick
on all occasions, he paid very little heed to what Saumur might
say.</p>

<p>The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure and the
violent death of Guillaume Grandet, and they determined to go to
their client's house that very evening to commiserate his
misfortune and show him some marks of friendship, with a view of
ascertaining the motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots
to dinner. At precisely five o'clock Monsieur C. de Bonfons and
his uncle the notary arrived in their Sunday clothes. The party
sat down to table and began to dine with good appetites. Grandet
was grave, Charles silent, Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did
not say more than usual; so that the dinner was, very properly, a
repast of condolence. When they rose from table Charles said to
his aunt and uncle,--</p>

<p>"Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a
long and painful correspondence."</p>

<p>"Certainly, nephew."</p>

<p>As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles could hear
nothing and was probably deep in his letter-writing, he said,
with a dissimulating glance at his wife,--</p>

<p>"Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will be Latin to
you; it is half-past seven; you can go and attend to your
household accounts. Good-night, my daughter."</p>

<p>He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. A scene now
took place in which Pere Grandet brought to bear, more than at
any other moment of his life, the shrewd dexterity he had
acquired in his intercourse with men, and which had won him from
those whose flesh he sometimes bit too sharply the nickname of
"the old dog." If the mayor of Saumur had carried his ambition
higher still, if fortunate circumstances, drawing him towards the
higher social spheres, had sent him into congresses where the
affairs of nations were discussed, and had he there employed the
genius with which his personal interests had endowed him, he
would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his native land.
Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside of Saumur the
goodman would have cut a very sorry figure. Possibly there are
minds like certain animals which cease to breed when transplanted
from the climates in which they are born.</p>

<p>"M-m-mon-sieur le p-p-president, you said t-t-that
b-b-bankruptcy--"</p>

<p>The stutter which for years the old miser had assumed when it
suited him, and which, together with the deafness of which he
sometimes complained in rainy weather, was thought in Saumur to
be a natural defect, became at this crisis so wearisome to the
two Cruchots that while they listened they unconsciously made
faces and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over
which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here it may be
well to give the history of this impediment of the speech and
hearing of Monsieur Grandet. No one in Anjou heard better, or
could pronounce more crisply the French language (with an Angevin
accent) than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite of
his shrewdness, he had been taken in by an Israelite, who in the
course of the discussion held his hand behind his ear to catch
sounds, and mangled his meaning so thoroughly in trying to utter
his words that Grandet fell a victim to his humanity and was
compelled to prompt the wily Jew with the words and ideas he
seemed to seek, to complete himself the arguments of the said
Jew, to say what that cursed Jew ought to have said for himself;
in short, to be the Jew instead of being Grandet. When the cooper
came out of this curious encounter he had concluded the only
bargain of which in the course of a long commercial life he ever
had occasion to complain. But if he lost at the time pecuniarily,
he gained morally a valuable lesson; later, he gathered its
fruits. Indeed, the goodman ended by blessing that Jew for having
taught him the art of irritating his commercial antagonist and
leading him to forget his own thoughts in his impatience to
suggest those over which his tormentor was stuttering. No affair
had ever needed the assistance of deafness, impediments of
speech, and all the incomprehensible circumlocutions with which
Grandet enveloped his ideas, as much as the affair now in hand.
In the first place, he did not mean to shoulder the
responsibility of his own scheme; in the next, he was determined
to remain master of the conversation and to leave his real
intentions in doubt.</p>

<p>"M-m-monsieur de B-B-Bonfons,"--for the second time in three
years Grandet called the Cruchot nephew Monsieur de Bonfons; the
president felt he might consider himself the artful old fellow's
son-in-law,-- "you-ou said th-th-that b-b-bankruptcy c-c-could,
in some c-c-cases, b-b-be p-p-prevented b-b-by--"</p>

<p>"By the courts of commerce themselves. It is done constantly,"
said Monsieur C. de Bonfons, bestriding Grandet's meaning, or
thinking he guessed it, and kindly wishing to help him out with
it. "Listen."</p>

<p>"Y-yes," said Grandet humbly, with the mischievous expression
of a boy who is inwardly laughing at his teacher while he pays
him the greatest attention.</p>

<p>"When a man so respected and important as, for example, your
late brother--"</p>

<p>"M-my b-b-brother, yes."</p>

<p>"--is threatened with insolvency--"</p>

<p>"They c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency?"</p>

<p>"Yes; when his failure is imminent, the court of commerce, to
which he is amenable (please follow me attentively), has the
power, by a decree, to appoint a receiver. Liquidation, you
understand, is not the same as failure. When a man fails, he is
dishonored; but when he merely liquidates, he remains an honest
man."</p>

<p>"T-t-that's very d-d-different, if it d-d-doesn't c-c-cost
m-m-more," said Grandet.</p>

<p>"But a liquidation can be managed without having recourse to
the courts at all. For," said the president, sniffing a pinch of
snuff, "don't you know how failures are declared?"</p>

<p>"N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought," answered Grandet.</p>

<p>"In the first place," resumed the magistrate, "by filing the
schedule in the record office of the court, which the merchant
may do himself, or his representative for him with a power of
attorney duly certified. In the second place, the failure may be
declared under compulsion from the creditors. Now if the merchant
does not file his schedule, and if no creditor appears before the
courts to obtain a decree of insolvency against the merchant,
what happens?"</p>

<p>"W-w-what h-h-happens?"</p>

<p>"Why, the family of the deceased, his representatives, his
heirs, or the merchant himself, if he is not dead, or his friends
if he is only hiding, liquidate his business. Perhaps you would
like to liquidate your brother's affairs?"</p>

<p>"Ah! Grandet," said the notary, "that would be the right thing
to do. There is honor down here in the provinces. If you save
your name--for it is your name--you will be a man--"</p>

<p>"A noble man!" cried the president, interrupting his
uncle.</p>

<p>"Certainly," answered the old man, "my b-b-brother's name was
G-G-Grandet, like m-m-mine. Th-that's c-c-certain; I d-d-don't
d-d-deny it. And th-th-this l-l-liquidation might be, in m-m-many
ways, v-v-very advan-t-t-tageous t-t-to the interests of m-m-my
n-n-nephew, whom I l-l-love. But I must consider. I don't
k-k-know the t-t-tricks of P-P-Paris. I b-b-belong to Sau-m-mur,
d-d-don't you see? M-m-my vines, my d-d-drains--in short, I've my
own b-b-business. I never g-g-give n-n-notes. What are n-n-notes?
I t-t-take a good m-m-many, but I have never s-s-signed one. I
d-d-don't understand such things. I have h-h-heard say that
n-n-notes c-c-can be b-b-bought up."</p>

<p>"Of course," said the president. "Notes can be bought in the
market, less so much per cent. Don't you understand?"</p>

<p>Grandet made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and the president
repeated his words.</p>

<p>"Well, then," replied the man, "there's s-s-something to be
g-g-got out of it? I k-know n-nothing at my age about such
th-th-things. I l-l-live here and l-l-look after the v-v-vines.
The vines g-g-grow, and it's the w-w-wine that p-p-pays. L-l-look
after the v-v-vintage, t-t-that's my r-r-rule. My c-c-chief
interests are at Froidfond. I c-c-can't l-l-leave my h-h-house to
m-m-muddle myself with a d-d-devilish b-b-business I kn-know
n-n-nothing about. You say I ought to l-l-liquidate my
b-b-brother's af-f-fairs, to p-p-prevent the f-f-failure. I
c-c-can't be in two p-p-places at once, unless I were a little
b-b-bird, and--"</p>

<p>"I understand," cried the notary. "Well, my old friend, you
have friends, old friends, capable of devoting themselves to your
interests."</p>

<p>"All right!" thought Grandet, "make haste and come to the
point!"</p>

<p>"Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your brother
Guillaume's chief creditor and said to him--"</p>

<p>"One m-m-moment," interrupted the goodman, "said wh-wh-what?
Something l-l-like this. Monsieur Gr-Grandet of Saumur this,
Monsieur Grandet of Saumur that. He l-loves his b-b-brother, he
loves his n-nephew. Grandet is a g-g-good uncle; he m-m-means
well. He has sold his v-v-vintage. D-d-don't declare a
f-f-failure; c-c-call a meeting; l-l-liquidate; and then
Gr-Gr-Grandet will see what he c-c-can do. B-b-better liquidate
than l-let the l-l-law st-st-stick its n-n-nose in. Hein? isn't
it so?"</p>

<p>"Exactly so," said the president.</p>

<p>"B-because, don't you see, Monsieur de B-Bonfons, a man must
l-l-look b-b-before he l-leaps. If you c-c-can't, you c-c-can't.
M-m-must know all about the m-m-matter, all the resources and the
debts, if you d-d-don't want to be r-r-ruined. Hein? isn't it
so?"</p>

<p>"Certainly," said the president. "I'm of opinion that in a few
months the debts might be bought up for a certain sum, and then
paid in full by an agreement. Ha! ha! you can coax a dog a long
way if you show him a bit of lard. If there has been no
declaration of failure, and you hold a lien on the debts, you
come out of the business as white as the driven snow."</p>

<p>"Sn-n-now," said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear,
"wh-wh-what about s-now?"</p>

<p>"But," cried the president, "do pray attend to what I am
saying."</p>

<p>"I am at-t-tending."</p>

<p>"A note is merchandise,--an article of barter which rises and
falls in prices. That is a deduction from Jeremy Bentham's theory
about usury. That writer has proved that the prejudice which
condemned usurers to reprobation was mere folly."</p>

<p>"Whew!" ejaculated the goodman.</p>

<p>"Allowing that money, according to Bentham, is an article of
merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally
merchandise," resumed the president; "allowing also that it is
notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that
signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values,
rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth
nothing at another, the courts decide--ah! how stupid I am, I beg
your pardon--I am inclined to think you could buy up your
brother's debts for twenty- five per cent."</p>

<p>"D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jeremy B-Ben?"</p>

<p>"Bentham, an Englishman.'</p>

<p>"That's a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamentations in
business," said the notary, laughing.</p>

<p>"Those Englishmen s-sometimes t-t-talk sense," said Grandet.
"So, ac-c-cording to Ben-Bentham, if my b-b-brother's n-notes are
worth n-n-nothing; if Je-Je--I'm c-c-correct, am I not? That
seems c-c-clear to my m-m-mind--the c-c-creditors would be--No,
would not be; I understand."</p>

<p>"Let me explain it all," said the president. "Legally, if you
acquire a title to all the debts of the Maison Grandet, your
brother or his heirs will owe nothing to any one. Very good."</p>

<p>"Very g-good," repeated Grandet.</p>

<p>"In equity, if your brother's notes are
negotiated--negotiated, do you clearly understand the
term?--negotiated in the market at a reduction of so much per
cent in value, and if one of your friends happening to be present
should buy them in, the creditors having sold them of their own
free-will without constraint, the estate of the late Grandet is
honorably released."</p>

<p>"That's t-true; b-b-business is b-business," said the cooper.
"B-b-but, st-still, you know, it is d-d-difficult. I h-have n-no
m-m-money and n-no t-t-time."</p>

<p>"Yes, but you need not undertake it. I am quite ready to go to
Paris (you may pay my expenses, they will only be a trifle). I
will see the creditors and talk with them and get an extension of
time, and everything can be arranged if you will add something to
the assets so as to buy up all title to the debts."</p>

<p>"We-we'll see about th-that. I c-c-can't and I w-w-won't bind
myself without--He who c-c-can't, can't; don't you see?"</p>

<p>"That's very true."</p>

<p>"I'm all p-p-put ab-b-bout by what you've t-t-told me. This is
the f-first t-t-time in my life I have b-been obliged to
th-th-think--"</p>

<p>"Yes, you are not a lawyer."</p>

<p>"I'm only a p-p-poor wine-g-grower, and know n-nothing about
wh-what you have just t-told me; I m-m-must th-think about
it."</p>

<p>"Very good," said the president, preparing to resume his
argument.</p>

<p>"Nephew!" said the notary, interrupting him in a warning
tone.</p>

<p>"Well, what, uncle?" answered the president.</p>

<p>"Let Monsieur Grandet explain his own intentions. The matter
in question is of the first importance. Our good friend ought to
define his meaning clearly, and--"</p>

<p>A loud knock, which announced the arrival of the des Grassins
family, succeeded by their entrance and salutations, hindered
Cruchot from concluding his sentence. The notary was glad of the
interruption, for Grandet was beginning to look suspiciously at
him, and the wen gave signs of a brewing storm. In the first
place, the notary did not think it becoming in a president of the
Civil courts to go to Paris and manipulate creditors and lend
himself to an underhand job which clashed with the laws of strict
integrity; moreover, never having known old Grandet to express
the slightest desire to pay anything, no matter what, he
instinctively feared to see his nephew taking part in the affair.
He therefore profited by the entrance of the des Grassins to take
the nephew by the arm and lead him into the embrasure of the
window,--</p>

<p>"You have said enough, nephew; you've shown enough devotion.
Your desire to win the girl blinds you. The devil! you mustn't go
at it tooth and nail. Let me sail the ship now; you can haul on
the braces. Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as a
magistrate in such a--"</p>

<p>He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins saying to the
old cooper as they shook hands,--</p>

<p>"Grandet, we have heard of the frightful misfortunes which
have just befallen your family,--the failure of the house of
Guillaume Grandet and the death of your brother. We have come to
express our grief at these sad events."</p>

<p>"There is but one sad event," said the notary, interrupting
the banker,--"the death of Monsieur Grandet, junior; and he would
never have killed himself had he thought in time of applying to
his brother for help. Our old friend, who is honorable to his
finger-nails, intends to liquidate the debts of the Maison
Grandet of Paris. To save him the worry of legal proceedings, my
nephew, the president, has just offered to go to Paris and
negotiate with the creditors for a satisfactory settlement."</p>

<p>These words, corroborated by Grandet's attitude as he stood
silently nursing his chin, astonished the three des Grassins, who
had been leisurely discussing the old man's avarice as they came
along, very nearly accusing him of fratricide.</p>

<p>"Ah! I was sure of it," cried the banker, looking at his wife.
"What did I tell you just now, Madame des Grassins? Grandet is
honorable to the backbone, and would never allow his name to
remain under the slightest cloud! Money without honor is a
disease. There is honor in the provinces! Right, very right,
Grandet. I'm an old soldier, and I can't disguise my thoughts; I
speak roughly. Thunder! it is sublime!"</p>

<p>"Th-then s-s-sublime th-things c-c-cost d-dear," answered the
goodman, as the banker warmly wrung his hand.</p>

<p>"But this, my dear Grandet,--if the president will excuse
me,--is a purely commercial matter, and needs a consummate
business man. Your agent must be some one fully acquainted with
the markets,--with disbursements, rebates, interest calculations,
and so forth. I am going to Paris on business of my own, and I
can take charge of--"</p>

<p>"We'll see about t-t-trying to m-m-manage it b-b-between us,
under the p-p-peculiar c-c-circumstances, b-b-but without
b-b-binding m-m-myself to anything th-that I c-c-could not do,"
said Grandet, stuttering; "because, you see, monsieur le
president naturally expects me to pay the expenses of his
journey."</p>

<p>The goodman did not stammer over the last words.</p>

<p>"Eh!" cried Madame des Grassins, "why it is a pleasure to go
to Paris. I would willingly pay to go myself."</p>

<p>She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage him in
cutting the enemy out of the commission, <i>coute que coute</i>;
then she glanced ironically at the two Cruchots, who looked
chap-fallen. Grandet seized the banker by a button and drew him
into a corner of the room.</p>

<p>"I have a great deal more confidence in you than in the
president," he said; "besides, I've other fish to fry," he added,
wriggling his wen. "I want to buy a few thousand francs in the
Funds while they are at eighty. They fall, I'm told, at the end
of each month. You know all about these things, don't you?"</p>

<p>"Bless me! then, am I to invest enough to give you a few
thousand francs a year?"</p>

<p>"That's not much to begin with. Hush! I don't want any one to
know I am going to play that game. You can make the investment by
the end of the month. Say nothing to the Cruchots; that'll annoy
them. If you are really going to Paris, we will see if there is
anything to be done for my poor nephew."</p>

<p>"Well, it's all settled. I'll start to-morrow by the
mail-post," said des Grassins aloud, "and I will come and take
your last directions at --what hour will suit you?"</p>

<p>"Five o'clock, just before dinner," said Grandet, rubbing his
hands.</p>

<p>The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said,
after a pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder,--</p>

<p>"It is a good thing to have a relation like him."</p>

<p>"Yes, yes; without making a show," said Grandet, "I am a
g-good relation. I loved my brother, and I will prove it, unless
it c-c-costs--"</p>

<p>"We must leave you, Grandet," said the banker, interrupting
him fortunately before he got to the end of his sentence. "If I
hurry my departure, I must attend to some matters at once."</p>

<p>"Very good, very good! I myself--in c-consequence of what I
t-told you --I must retire to my own room and 'd-d-deliberate,'
as President Cruchot says."</p>

<p>"Plague take him! I am no longer Monsieur de Bonfons," thought
the magistrate ruefully, his face assuming the expression of a
judge bored by an argument.</p>

<p>The heads of the two factions walked off together. Neither
gave any further thought to the treachery Grandet had been guilty
of in the morning against the whole wine-growing community; each
tried to fathom what the other was thinking about the real
intentions of the wily old man in this new affair, but in
vain.</p>

<p>"Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval's?" said des Grassins
to the notary.</p>

<p>"We will go there later," answered the president. "I have
promised to say good-evening to Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt, and
we will go there first, if my uncle is willing."</p>

<p>"Farewell for the present!" said Madame des Grassins.</p>

<p>When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to
his father,--</p>

<p>"Are not they fuming, hein?"</p>

<p>"Hold your tongue, my son!" said his mother; "they might hear
you. Besides, what you say is not in good taste,--law-school
language."</p>

<p>"Well, uncle," cried the president when he saw the des
Grassins disappearing, "I began by being de Bonfons, and I have
ended as nothing but Cruchot."</p>

<p>"I saw that that annoyed you; but the wind has set fair for
the des Grassins. What a fool you are, with all your cleverness!
Let them sail off on Grandet's 'We'll see about it,' and keep
yourself quiet, young man. Eugenie will none the less be your
wife."</p>

<p>In a few moments the news of Grandet's magnanimous resolve was
disseminated in three houses at the same moment, and the whole
town began to talk of his fraternal devotion. Every one forgave
Grandet for the sale made in defiance of the good faith pledged
to the community; they admired his sense of honor, and began to
laud a generosity of which they had never thought him capable. It
is part of the French nature to grow enthusiastic, or angry, or
fervent about some meteor of the moment. Can it be that
collective beings, nationalities, peoples, are devoid of
memory?</p>

<p>When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.</p>

<p>"Don't let the dog loose, and don't go to bed; we have work to
do together. At eleven o'clock Cornoiller will be at the door
with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his
knocking; tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don't
allow nocturnal racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not
know that I am starting on a journey."</p>

<p>So saying, Grandet returned to his private room, where Nanon
heard him moving about, rummaging, and walking to and fro, though
with much precaution, for he evidently did not wish to wake his
wife and daughter, and above all not to rouse the attention of
his nephew, whom he had begun to anathematize when he saw a
thread of light under his door. About the middle of the night
Eugenie, intent on her cousin, fancied she heard a cry like that
of a dying person. It must be Charles, she thought; he was so
pale, so full of despair when she had seen him last,--could he
have killed himself? She wrapped herself quickly in a loose
garment,--a sort of pelisse with a hood,--and was about to leave
the room when a bright light coming through the chinks of her
door made her think of fire. But she recovered herself as she
heard Nanon's heavy steps and gruff voice mingling with the
snorting of several horses.</p>

<p>"Can my father be carrying off my cousin?" she said to
herself, opening her door with great precaution lest it should
creak, and yet enough to let her see into the corridor.</p>

<p>Suddenly her eye encountered that of her father; and his
glance, vague and unnoticing as it was, terrified her. The
goodman and Nanon were yoked together by a stout stick, each end
of which rested on their shoulders; a stout rope was passed over
it, on which was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere
Grandet still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his
leisure hours.</p>

<p>"Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!" said the voice of Nanon.</p>

<p>"What a pity that it is only copper sous!" answered Grandet.
"Take care you don't knock over the candlestick."</p>

<p>The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two
rails of the staircase.</p>

<p>"Cornoiller," said Grandet to his keeper <i>in partibus</i>,
"have you brought your pistols?"</p>

<p>"No, monsieur. Mercy! what's there to fear for your copper
sous?"</p>

<p>"Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.</p>

<p>"Besides, we shall go fast," added the man; "your farmers have
picked out their best horses."</p>

<p>"Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?"</p>

<p>"I didn't know where."</p>

<p>"Very good. Is the carriage strong?"</p>

<p>"Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand
weight. How much does that old keg weigh?"</p>

<p>"Goodness!" exclaimed Nanon. "I ought to know! There's pretty
nigh eighteen hundred--"</p>

<p>"Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I
have gone into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive
fast, Cornoiller; I must get to Angers before nine o'clock."</p>

<p>The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose
the dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in
the neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or
the object of his journey. The precautions of the old miser and
his reticence were never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in
that house, filled as it was with gold. Hearing in the morning,
through the gossip of the port, that exchange on gold had doubled
in price in consequence of certain military preparations
undertaken at Nantes, and that speculators had arrived at Angers
to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by the simple process of
borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling
his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury notes the
sum he intended to put into the Funds, having swelled it
considerably by the exchange.</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>VIII</h3>

<p>"My father has gone," thought Eugenie, who heard all that took
place from the head of the stairs. Silence was restored in the
house, and the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by
degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this
moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her
ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her
cousin's chamber. A line of light, thin as the blade of a sabre,
shone through a chink in the door and fell horizontally on the
balusters of the rotten staircase.</p>

<p>"He suffers!" she said, springing up the stairs. A second moan
brought her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she
pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side
of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen,
nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the
strained posture suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the
room hastily.</p>

<p>"He must be very tired," she said to herself, glancing at a
dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their
addresses: "To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, &amp; Co.,
carriage-makers"; "To Monsieur Buisson, tailor," etc.</p>

<p>"He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France
at once," she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The
words, "My dear Annette," at the head of one of them, blinded her
for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the
floor.</p>

<p>"His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does
he say to her?"</p>

<p>These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the
words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of
fire.</p>

<p>"Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I
ought to go away--What if I do read it?"</p>

<p>She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and
placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a
child which, though asleep, knows its mother's touch and
receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful care. Like a
mother Eugenie raised the drooping hand, and like a mother she
gently kissed the chestnut hair-- "Dear Annette!" a demon
shrieked the words in her ear.</p>

<p>"I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter," she said.
She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached
her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled
together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to
blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she
read each sentence her heart swelled more and more, and the keen
glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of
first love still more precious.</p>

<p>My dear Annette,--Nothing could ever have separated us but the
great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human
foresight could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his
fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age
when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and
yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am
plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my position.
If I wish to leave France an honest man,--and there is no doubt
of that,--I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try
my fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must
seek my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they
tell me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I
cannot do so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the
affronts, the neglect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son
of a bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be
killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return
there. Your love--the most tender and devoted love which ever
ennobled the heart of man--cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved,
I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a
last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn
enterprise.</p>

<p>"Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I
will give it to him," thought Eugenie.</p>

<p>She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.</p>

<p>I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have the
hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, I have
not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hundred louis,
not even one louis. I don't know that anything will be left after
I have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go
quietly to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin
in the new world like other men who have started young without a
sou and brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long
day I have faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me
than for another, because I have been so petted by a mother who
adored me, so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by
meeting, on my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The
flowers of life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could
not last. Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than
a careless young man is supposed to feel,--above all a young man
used to the caressing ways of the dearest woman in all Paris,
cradled in family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home,
whose wishes were a law to his father--oh, my father! Annette, he
is dead!</p>

<p>Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I
have grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to
keep me with you in Paris you were to sacrifice your luxury, your
dress, your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for
the expenses of my extravagant ways of living. Besides, I would
never accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and
forever--</p>

<p>"He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!"</p>

<p>Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a
chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, he did not wake,
and she resumed her reading.</p>

<p>When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West
Indies ages a European, so they say; especially a European who
works hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten
years your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion,
your spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps
more cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment
and ingratitude of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep
in the depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of
four years of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the
memory of your poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness,
because, do you see, dear Annette, I must conform to the
exigencies of my new life; I must take a commonplace view of them
and do the best I can. Therefore I must think of marriage, which
becomes one of the necessities of my future existence; and I will
admit to you that I have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle's
house, a cousin whose face, manners, mind, and heart would please
you, and who, besides, seems to me--</p>

<p>"He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her,"
thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped
abruptly in the middle of the last sentence.</p>

<p>Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent
girl should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter?
To young girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant
and pure, all is love from the moment they set their feet within
the enchanted regions of that passion. They walk there bathed in
a celestial light shed from their own souls, which reflects its
rays upon their lover; they color all with the flame of their own
emotion and attribute to him their highest thoughts. A woman's
errors come almost always from her belief in good or her
confidence in truth. In Eugenie's simple heart the words, "My
dear Annette, my loved one," echoed like the sweetest language of
love; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes
of the <i>Venite adoremus</i>, repeated by the organ, caressed
her ear. Moreover, the tears which still lingered on the young
man's lashes gave signs of that nobility of heart by which young
girls are rightly won. How could she know that Charles, though he
loved his father and mourned him truly, was moved far more by
paternal goodness than by the goodness of his own heart? Monsieur
and Madame Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their
son, and lavishing upon him the pleasures of a large fortune, had
kept him from making the horrible calculations of which so many
sons in Paris become more or less guilty when, face to face with
the enjoyments of the world, they form desires and conceive
schemes which they see with bitterness must be put off or laid
aside during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of the
father in this instance had shed into the heart of the son a real
love, in which there was no afterthought of self-interest.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, Charles was a true child of Paris, taught by the
customs of society and by Annette herself to calculate
everything; already an old man under the mask of youth. He had
gone through the frightful education of social life, of that
world where in one evening more crimes are committed in thought
and speech than justice ever punishes at the assizes; where jests
and clever sayings assassinate the noblest ideas; where no one is
counted strong unless his mind sees clear: and to see clear in
that world is to believe in nothing, neither in feelings, nor in
men, nor even in events,--for events are falsified. There, to
"see clear" we must weigh a friend's purse daily, learn how to
keep ourselves adroitly on the top of the wave, cautiously admire
nothing, neither works of art nor glorious actions, and remember
that self-interest is the mainspring of all things here below.
After committing many follies, the great lady--the beautiful
Annette-- compelled Charles to think seriously; with her perfumed
hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future position;
as she rearranged his locks, she taught him lessons of worldly
prudence; she made him effeminate and materialized him,--a double
corruption, but a delicate and elegant corruption, in the best
taste.</p>

<p>"You are very foolish, Charles," she would say to him. "I
shall have a great deal of trouble in teaching you to understand
the world. You behaved extremely ill to Monsieur des Lupeaulx. I
know very well he is not an honorable man; but wait till he is no
longer in power, then you may despise him as much as you like. Do
you know what Madame Campan used to tell us?--'My dears, as long
as a man is a minister, adore him; when he falls, help to drag
him in the gutter. Powerful, he is a sort of god; fallen, he is
lower than Marat in the sewer, because he is living, and Marat is
dead. Life is a series of combinations, and you must study them
and understand them if you want to keep yourselves always in good
position.'"</p>

<p>Charles was too much a man of the world, his parents had made
him too happy, he had received too much adulation in society, to
be possessed of noble sentiments. The grain of gold dropped by
his mother into his heart was beaten thin in the smithy of
Parisian society; he had spread it superficially, and it was worn
away by the friction of life. Charles was only twenty-one years
old. At that age the freshness of youth seems inseparable from
candor and sincerity of soul. The voice, the glance, the face
itself, seem in harmony with the feelings; and thus it happens
that the sternest judge, the most sceptical lawyer, the least
complying of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude of
heart or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes are
still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the brow. Charles, so
far, had had no occasion to apply the maxims of Parisian
morality; up to this time he was still endowed with the beauty of
inexperience. And yet, unknown to himself, he had been inoculated
with selfishness. The germs of Parisian political economy, latent
in his heart, would assuredly burst forth, sooner or later,
whenever the careless spectator became an actor in the drama of
real life.</p>

<p>Nearly all young girls succumb to the tender promises such an
outward appearance seems to offer: even if Eugenie had been as
prudent and observing as provincial girls are often found to be,
she was not likely to distrust her cousin when his manners,
words, and actions were still in unison with the aspirations of a
youthful heart. A mere chance--a fatal chance--threw in her way
the last effusions of real feeling which stirred the young man's
soul; she heard as it were the last breathings of his conscience.
She laid down the letter--to her so full of love--and began
smilingly to watch her sleeping cousin; the fresh illusions of
life were still, for her at least, upon his face; she vowed to
herself to love him always. Then she cast her eyes on the other
letter, without attaching much importance to this second
indiscretion; and though she read it, it was only to obtain new
proofs of the noble qualities which, like all women, she
attributed to the man her heart had chosen.</p>

<p>My dear Alphonse,--When you receive this letter I shall be
without friends; but let me assure you that while I doubt the
friendship of the world, I have never doubted yours. I beg you
therefore to settle all my affairs, and I trust to you to get as
much as you can out of my possessions. By this time you know my
situation. I have nothing left, and I intend to go at once to the
Indies. I have just written to all the people to whom I think I
owe money, and you will find enclosed a list of their names, as
correct as I can make it from memory. My books, my furniture, my
pictures, my horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do
not wish to keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles which
might serve as the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. My
dear Alphonse, I will send you a proper power of attorney under
which you can make these sales. Send me all my weapons. Keep
Briton for yourself; nobody would pay the value of that noble
beast, and I would rather give him to you--like a mourning-ring
bequeathed by a dying man to his executor. Farry, Breilmann,
&amp; Co. built me a very comfortable travelling-carriage, which
they have not yet delivered; persuade them to keep it and not ask
for any payment on it. If they refuse, do what you can in the
matter, and avoid everything that might seem dishonorable in me
under my present circumstances. I owe the British Islander six
louis, which I lost at cards; don't fail to pay him--</p>

<p>"Dear cousin!" whispered Eugenie, throwing down the letter and
running softly back to her room, carrying one of the lighted
candles. A thrill of pleasure passed over her as she opened the
drawer of an old oak cabinet, a fine specimen of the period
called the Renaissance, on which could still be seen, partly
effaced, the famous royal salamander. She took from the drawer a
large purse of red velvet with gold tassels, edged with a
tarnished fringe of gold wire,--a relic inherited from her
grandmother. She weighed it proudly in her hand, and began with
delight to count over the forgotten items of her little hoard.
First she took out twenty <i>portugaises</i>, still new, struck
in the reign of John V., 1725, worth by exchange, as her father
told her, five <i>lisbonnines</i>, or a hundred and sixty-eight
francs, sixty-four centimes each; their conventional value,
however, was a hundred and eighty francs apiece, on account of
the rarity and beauty of the coins, which shone like little suns.
Item, five <i>genovines</i>, or five hundred-franc pieces of
Genoa; another very rare coin worth eighty- seven francs on
exchange, but a hundred francs to collectors. These had formerly
belonged to old Monsieur de la Bertelliere. Item, three gold
<i>quadruples</i>, Spanish, of Philip V., struck in 1729, given
to her one by one by Madame Gentillet, who never failed to say,
using the same words, when she made the gift, "This dear little
canary, this little yellow-boy, is worth ninety-eight francs!
Keep it, my pretty one, it will be the flower of your treasure."
Item (that which her father valued most of all, the gold of these
coins being twenty-three carats and a fraction), a hundred Dutch
ducats, made in the year 1756, and worth thirteen francs apiece.
Item, a great curiosity, a species of medal precious to the soul
of misers,--three rupees with the sign of the Scales, and five
rupees with the sign of the Virgin, all in pure gold of
twenty-four carats; the magnificent money of the Great Mogul,
each of which was worth by mere weight thirty-seven francs, forty
centimes, but at least fifty francs to those connoisseurs who
love to handle gold. Item, the napoleon of forty francs received
the day before, which she had forgotten to put away in the velvet
purse. This treasure was all in virgin coins, true works of art,
which Grandet from time to time inquired after and asked to see,
pointing out to his daughter their intrinsic merits,--such as the
beauty of the milled edge, the clearness of the flat surface, the
richness of the lettering, whose angles were not yet rubbed
off.</p>

<p>Eugenie gave no thought to these rarities, nor to her father's
mania for them, nor to the danger she incurred in depriving
herself of a treasure so dear to him; no, she thought only of her
cousin, and soon made out, after a few mistakes of calculation,
that she possessed about five thousand eight hundred francs in
actual value, which might be sold for their additional value to
collectors for nearly six thousand. She looked at her wealth and
clapped her hands like a happy child forced to spend its
overflowing joy in artless movements of the body. Father and
daughter had each counted up their fortune this night,--he, to
sell his gold; Eugenie to fling hers into the ocean of affection.
She put the pieces back into the old purse, took it in her hand,
and ran upstairs without hesitation. The secret misery of her
cousin made her forget the hour and conventional propriety; she
was strong in her conscience, in her devotion, in her
happiness.</p>

<p>As she stood upon the threshold of the door, holding the
candle in one hand and the purse in the other, Charles woke,
caught sight of her, and remained speechless with surprise.
Eugenie came forward, put the candle on the table, and said in a
quivering voice:</p>

<p>"My cousin, I must beg pardon for a wrong I have done you; but
God will pardon me--if you--will help me to wipe it out."</p>

<p>"What is it?" asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.</p>

<p>"I have read those letters."</p>

<p>Charles colored.</p>

<p>"How did it happen?" she continued; "how came I here? Truly, I
do not know. I am tempted not to regret too much that I have read
them; they have made me know your heart, your soul, and--"</p>

<p>"And what?" asked Charles.</p>

<p>"Your plans, your need of a sum--"</p>

<p>"My dear cousin--"</p>

<p>"Hush, hush! my cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others.
See," she said, opening her purse, "here are the savings of a
poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I
was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It
is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can
surely borrow the purse of your sister."</p>

<p>Eugenie, as much a woman as a young girl, never dreamed of
refusal; but her cousin remained silent.</p>

<p>"Oh! you will not refuse?" cried Eugenie, the beatings of
whose heart could be heard in the deep silence.</p>

<p>Her cousin's hesitation mortified her; but the sore need of
his position came clearer still to her mind, and she knelt
down.</p>

<p>"I will never rise till you have taken that gold!" she said.
"My cousin, I implore you, answer me! let me know if you respect
me, if you are generous, if--"</p>

<p>As he heard this cry of noble distress the young man's tears
fell upon his cousin's hands, which he had caught in his own to
keep her from kneeling. As the warm tears touched her, Eugenie
sprang to the purse and poured its contents upon the table.</p>

<p>"Ah! yes, yes, you consent?" she said, weeping with joy. "Fear
nothing, my cousin, you will be rich. This gold will bring you
happiness; some day you shall bring it back to me,--are we not
partners? I will obey all conditions. But you should not attach
such value to the gift."</p>

<p>Charles was at last able to express his feelings.</p>

<p>"Yes, Eugenie; my soul would be small indeed if I did not
accept. And yet,--gift for gift, confidence for confidence."</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" she said, frightened.</p>

<p>"Listen, dear cousin; I have here--" He interrupted himself to
point out a square box covered with an outer case of leather
which was on the drawers. "There," he continued, "is something as
precious to me as life itself. This box was a present from my
mother. All day I have been thinking that if she could rise from
her grave, she would herself sell the gold which her love for me
lavished on this dressing-case; but were I to do so, the act
would seem to me a sacrilege." Eugenie pressed his hand as she
heard these last words. "No," he added, after a slight pause,
during which a liquid glance of tenderness passed between them,
"no, I will neither sell it nor risk its safety on my journey.
Dear Eugenie, you shall be its guardian. Never did friend commit
anything more sacred to another. Let me show it to you."</p>

<p>He went to the box, took it from its outer coverings, opened
it, and showed his delighted cousin a dressing-case where the
rich workmanship gave to the gold ornaments a value far above
their weight.</p>

<p>"What you admire there is nothing," he said, pushing a secret
spring which opened a hidden drawer. "Here is something which to
me is worth the whole world." He drew out two portraits,
masterpieces of Madame Mirbel, richly set with pearls.</p>

<p>"Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote
that--"</p>

<p>"No," he said, smiling; "this is my mother, and here is my
father, your aunt and uncle. Eugenie, I beg you on my knees, keep
my treasure safely. If I die and your little fortune is lost,
this gold and these pearls will repay you. To you alone could I
leave these portraits; you are worthy to keep them. But destroy
them at last, so that they may pass into no other hands." Eugenie
was silent. "Ah, yes, say yes! You consent?" he added with
winning grace.</p>

<p>Hearing the very words she had just used to her cousin now
addressed to herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her
first look of loving womanhood,--a glance in which there is
nearly as much of coquetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand
and kissed it.</p>

<p>"Angel of purity! between us two money is nothing, never can
be anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be all henceforth."</p>

<p>"You are like your mother,--was her voice as soft as
yours?"</p>

<p>"Oh! much softer--"</p>

<p>"Yes, for you," she said, dropping her eyelids. "Come,
Charles, go to bed; I wish it; you must be tired. Good-night."
She gently disengaged her hand from those of her cousin, who
followed her to her room, lighting the way. When they were both
upon the threshold,--</p>

<p>"Ah!" he said, "why am I ruined?"</p>

<p>"What matter?--my father is rich; I think so," she
answered.</p>

<p>"Poor child!" said Charles, making a step into her room and
leaning his back against the wall, "if that were so, he would
never have let my father die; he would not let you live in this
poor way; he would live otherwise himself."</p>

<p>"But he owns Froidfond."</p>

<p>"What is Froidfond worth?"</p>

<p>"I don't know; but he has Noyers."</p>

<p>"Nothing but a poor farm!"</p>

<p>"He has vineyards and fields."</p>

<p>"Mere nothing," said Charles disdainfully. "If your father had
only twenty-four thousand francs a year do you suppose you would
live in this cold, barren room?" he added, making a step in
advance. "Ah! there you will keep my treasures," he said,
glancing at the old cabinet, as if to hide his thoughts.</p>

<p>"Go and sleep," she said, hindering his entrance into the
disordered room.</p>

<p>Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good-night with
a mutual smile.</p>

<p>Both fell asleep in the same dream; and from that moment the
youth began to wear roses with his mourning. The next day, before
breakfast, Madame Grandet found her daughter in the garden in
company with Charles. The young man was still sad, as became a
poor fellow who, plunged in misfortune, measures the depths of
the abyss into which he has fallen, and sees the terrible burden
of his whole future life.</p>

<p>"My father will not be home till dinner-time," said Eugenie,
perceiving the anxious look on her mother's face.</p>

<p>It was easy to trace in the face and manners of the young girl
and in the singular sweetness of her voice a unison of thought
between her and her cousin. Their souls had espoused each other,
perhaps before they even felt the force of the feelings which
bound them together. Charles spent the morning in the hall, and
his sadness was respected. Each of the three women had
occupations of her own. Grandet had left all his affairs
unattended to, and a number of persons came on business,--the
plumber, the mason, the slater, the carpenter, the diggers, the
dressers, the farmers; some to drive a bargain about repairs,
others to pay their rent or to be paid themselves for services.
Madame Grandet and Eugenie were obliged to go and come and listen
to the interminable talk of all these workmen and country folk.
Nanon put away in her kitchen the produce which they brought as
tribute. She always waited for her master's orders before she
knew what portion was to be used in the house and what was to be
sold in the market. It was the goodman's custom, like that of a
great many country gentlemen, to drink his bad wine and eat his
spoiled fruit.</p>

<p>Towards five in the afternoon Grandet returned from Angers,
having made fourteen thousand francs by the exchange on his gold,
bringing home in his wallet good treasury-notes which bore
interest until the day he should invest them in the Funds. He had
left Cornoiller at Angers to look after the horses, which were
well-nigh foundered, with orders to bring them home slowly after
they were rested.</p>

<p>"I have got back from Angers, wife," he said; "I am
hungry."</p>

<p>Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: "Haven't you eaten
anything since yesterday?"</p>

<p>"Nothing," answered the old man.</p>

<p>Nanon brought in the soup. Des Grassins came to take his
client's orders just as the family sat down to dinner. Grandet
had not even observed his nephew.</p>

<p>"Go on eating, Grandet," said the banker; "we can talk. Do you
know what gold is worth in Angers? They have come from Nantes
after it? I shall send some of ours."</p>

<p>"Don't send any," said Grandet; "they have got enough. We are
such old friends, I ought to save you from such a loss of
time."</p>

<p>"But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes."</p>

<p>"Say <i>was</i> worth--"</p>

<p>"Where the devil have they got any?"</p>

<p>"I went to Angers last night," answered Grandet in a low
voice.</p>

<p>The banker shook with surprise. Then a whispered conversation
began between the two, during which Grandet and des Grassins
frequently looked at Charles. Presently des Grassins gave a start
of astonishment; probably Grandet was then instructing him to
invest the sum which was to give him a hundred thousand francs a
year in the Funds.</p>

<p>"Monsieur Grandet," said the banker to Charles, "I am starting
for Paris; if you have any commissions--"</p>

<p>"None, monsieur, I thank you," answered Charles.</p>

<p>"Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur is going to
settle the affairs of the house of Guillaume Grandet."</p>

<p>"Is there any hope?" said Charles eagerly.</p>

<p>"What!" exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, "are you
not my nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not your name Grandet?"</p>

<p>Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned pale,
and left the room. Eugenie looked at her father with
admiration.</p>

<p>"Well, good-by, des Grassins; it is all in your hands. Decoy
those people as best you can; lead 'em by the nose."</p>

<p>The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper accompanied
the banker to the front door. Then, after closing it, he came
back and plunged into his armchair, saying to Nanon,--</p>

<p>"Get me some black-currant ratafia."</p>

<p>Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, he got up,
looked at the portrait of Monsieur de la Bertelliere, and began
to sing, doing what Nanon called his dancing steps,--</p>

<blockquote>
<p>"Dans les gardes francaises</p>

<p>J'avais un bon papa."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at each other in
silence. The hilarity of the master always frightened them when
it reached its climax. The evening was soon over. Pere Grandet
chose to go to bed early, and when he went to bed, everybody else
was expected to go too; like as when Augustus drank, Poland was
drunk. On this occasion Nanon, Charles, and Eugenie were not less
tired than the master. As for Madame Grandet, she slept, ate,
drank, and walked according to the will of her husband. However,
during the two hours consecrated to digestion, the cooper, more
facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered a number of
his own particular apothegms,--a single one of which will give
the measure of his mind. When he had drunk his ratafia, he looked
at his glass and said,--</p>

<p>"You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than it is empty!
Such is life. You can't have and hold. Gold won't circulate and
stay in your purse. If it were not for that, life would be too
fine."</p>

<p>He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came with her
spinning-wheel, "You must be tired," he said; "put away your
hemp."</p>

<p>"Ah, bah! then I shall get sleepy," she answered.</p>

<p>"Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?"</p>

<p>"I won't refuse a good offer; madame makes it a deal better
than the apothecaries. What they sell is all drugs."</p>

<p>"They put too much sugar," said the master; "you can't taste
anything else."</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>IX</h3>

<p>The following day the family, meeting at eight o'clock for the
early breakfast, made a picture of genuine domestic intimacy.
Grief had drawn Madame Grandet, Eugenie, and Charles <i>en
rapport</i>; even Nanon sympathized, without knowing why. The
four now made one family. As to the old man, his satisfied
avarice and the certainty of soon getting rid of the dandy
without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, made him
nearly indifferent to his presence in the house. He left the two
children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to conduct
themselves as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet, in
whom he had implicit confidence as to all that concerned public
and religious morality. He busied himself in straightening the
boundaries of his fields and ditches along the high-road, in his
poplar- plantations beside the Loire, in the winter work of his
vineyards, and at Froidfond. All these things occupied his whole
time.</p>

<p>For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene
at night when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her
heart had followed the treasure. Confederates in the same secret,
they looked at each other with a mutual intelligence which sank
to the depth of their consciousness, giving a closer communion, a
more intimate relation to their feelings, and putting them, so to
speak, beyond the pale of ordinary life. Did not their near
relationship warrant the gentleness in their tones, the
tenderness in their glances? Eugenie took delight in lulling her
cousin's pain with the pretty childish joys of a new- born love.
Are there no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the
birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle songs and
softest glances? Do we not tell it marvellous tales of the golden
future? Hope herself, does she not spread her radiant wings above
its head? Does it not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of
sorrow and its tears of joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry
for the pretty pebbles with which to build its shifting palaces,
for the flowers forgotten as soon as plucked? Is it not eager to
grasp the coming time, to spring forward into life? Love is our
second transformation. Childhood and love were one and the same
thing to Eugenie and to Charles; it was a first passion, with all
its child-like play,--the more caressing to their hearts because
they now were wrapped in sadness. Struggling at birth against the
gloom of mourning, their love was only the more in harmony with
the provincial plainness of that gray and ruined house. As they
exchanged a few words beside the well in the silent court, or
lingered in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy
seat saying to each other the infinite nothings of love, or mused
in the silent calm which reigned between the house and the
ramparts like that beneath the arches of a church, Charles
comprehended the sanctity of love; for his great lady, his dear
Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles. At this moment
he left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy as it
was, and turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house,
whose customs no longer seemed to him ridiculous. He got up early
in the mornings that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment
before her father came to dole out the provisions; when the steps
of the old man sounded on the staircase he escaped into the
garden. The small criminality of this morning <i>tete-a-tete</i>
which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to their innocent love the
lively charm of a forbidden joy.</p>

<p>After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his
other occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter,
finding an unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching
them at work, in listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity
of this half-monastic life, which revealed to him the beauty of
these souls, unknown and unknowing of the world, touched him
keenly. He had believed such morals impossible in France, and
admitted their existence nowhere but in Germany; even so, they
seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels of Auguste
Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of
Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks
enraptured the poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious
non-resistance to the current of love; she caught her happiness
as a swimmer seizes the overhanging branch of a willow to draw
himself from the river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no
dread of a coming absence sadden the happy hours of those
fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded them of
the parting that was at hand.</p>

<p>Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took
his nephew to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country
people attach to all legal acts, that he might sign a deed
surrendering his rights in his father's estate. Terrible
renunciation! species of domestic apostasy! Charles also went
before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of attorney,--one for
des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had charged with
the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all the
formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries;
and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from
Paris, he sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his
useless wardrobe. This last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.</p>

<p>"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your
fortune," he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain
black cloth. "Good! very good!"</p>

<p>"I hope you will believe, monsieur," answered his nephew,
"that I shall always try to conform to my situation."</p>

<p>"What's that?" said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a
handful of gold which Charles was carrying.</p>

<p>"Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings and other
superfluities which may have some value; but not knowing any one
in Saumur, I wanted to ask you to--"</p>

<p>"To buy them?" said Grandet, interrupting him.</p>

<p>"No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who--"</p>

<p>"Give me those things, I will go upstairs and estimate their
value; I will come back and tell you what it is to a fraction.
Jeweller's gold," examining a long chain, "eighteen or nineteen
carats."</p>

<p>The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of
gold, which he carried away.</p>

<p>"Cousin," said Grandet, "may I offer you these two buttons?
They can fasten ribbons round your wrists; that sort of bracelet
is much the fashion just now."</p>

<p>"I accept without hesitation," she answered, giving him an
understanding look.</p>

<p>"Aunt, here is my mother's thimble; I have always kept it
carefully in my dressing-case," said Charles, presenting a pretty
gold thimble to Madame Grandet, who for many years had longed for
one.</p>

<p>"I cannot thank you; no words are possible, my nephew," said
the poor mother, whose eyes filled with tears. "Night and morning
in my prayers I shall add one for you, the most earnest of
all--for those who travel. If I die, Eugenie will keep this
treasure for you."</p>

<p>"They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine francs,
seventy-five centimes," said Grandet, opening the door. "To save
you the pain of selling them, I will advance the money--in
<i>livres</i>."</p>

<p>The word <i>livres</i> on the littoral of the Loire signifies
that crown prices of six <i>livres</i> are to be accepted as six
francs without deduction.</p>

<p>"I dared not propose it to you," answered Charles; "but it was
most repugnant to me to sell my jewels to some second-hand dealer
in your own town. People should wash their dirty linen at home,
as Napoleon said. I thank you for your kindness."</p>

<p>Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment's
silence.</p>

<p>"My dear uncle," resumed Charles, looking at him with an
uneasy air, as if he feared to wound his feelings, "my aunt and
cousin have been kind enough to accept a trifling remembrance of
me. Will you allow me to give you these sleeve-buttons, which are
useless to me now? They will remind you of a poor fellow who, far
away, will always think of those who are henceforth all his
family."</p>

<p>"My lad, my lad, you mustn't rob yourself this way! Let me
see, wife, what have you got?" he added, turning eagerly to her.
"Ah! a gold thimble. And you, little girl? What! diamond buttons?
Yes, I'll accept your present, nephew," he answered, shaking
Charles by the hand. "But --you must let me--pay--your--yes, your
passage to the Indies. Yes, I wish to pay your passage
because--d'ye see, my boy?--in valuing your jewels I estimated
only the weight of the gold; very likely the workmanship is worth
something. So let us settle it that I am to give you fifteen
hundred francs--in <i>livres</i>; Cruchot will lend them to me. I
haven't got a copper farthing here,--unless Perrotet, who is
behindhand with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I'll go and
see him."</p>

<p>He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.</p>

<p>"Then you are really going?" said Eugenie to her cousin, with
a sad look, mingled with admiration.</p>

<p>"I must," he said, bowing his head.</p>

<p>For some days past, Charles's whole bearing, manners, and
speech had become those of a man who, in spite of his profound
affliction, feels the weight of immense obligations and has the
strength to gather courage from misfortune. He no longer repined,
he became a man. Eugenie never augured better of her cousin's
character than when she saw him come down in the plain black
clothes which suited well with his pale face and sombre
countenance. On that day the two women put on their own mourning,
and all three assisted at a Requiem celebrated in the parish
church for the soul of the late Guillaume Grandet.</p>

<p>At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris
and began to read them.</p>

<p>"Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your
affairs?" said Eugenie in a low voice.</p>

<p>"Never ask such questions, my daughter," said Grandet. "What
the devil! do I tell you my affairs? Why do you poke your nose
into your cousin's? Let the lad alone!"</p>

<p>"Oh! I haven't any secrets," said Charles.</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you'll soon find out that you must
hold your tongue in business."</p>

<p>When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to
Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the
walnut-tree,--</p>

<p>"I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has
managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe
nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me
that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent
three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European
curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He
has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San
Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other
farewell--perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten
thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very
small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear
cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may
perish; some good marriage may be offered to you--"</p>

<p>"Do you love me?" she said.</p>

<p>"Oh, yes! indeed, yes!" he answered, with a depth of tone that
revealed an equal depth of feeling.</p>

<p>"I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at
his window," she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward
to kiss her.</p>

<p>She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When
she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and
opened the swing- door; then, scarcely knowing where she was
going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon's den, in the
darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and
drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made
her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she
received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the
most unreserved of kisses.</p>

<p>"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can
marry you," said Charles.</p>

<p>"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.</p>

<p>The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie
took up her work and Charles began to read the litanies of the
Virgin in Madame Grandet's prayer-book.</p>

<p>"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."</p>

<p>As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet
bestirred himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He
became very liberal of all that cost him nothing; took pains to
find a packer; declared the man asked too much for his cases;
insisted on making them himself out of old planks; got up early
in the morning to fit and plane and nail together the strips, out
of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some strong cases, in
which he packed all Charles's effects; he also took upon himself
to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and get them
to Nantes in proper time.</p>

<p>After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for
Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of
following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of
all passions,--the one whose duration is each day shortened by
time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and
fatalities,--they will understand the poor girl's tortures. She
wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed
the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in
thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to
traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in
the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which
contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only
drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now
empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a
goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key
within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which
Charles sealed the act.</p>

<p>"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.</p>

<p>"Then my heart will be always there."</p>

<p>"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed
him.</p>

<p>"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take
mine."</p>

<p>"Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the
words twice over.</p>

<p>No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent
sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's
love.</p>

<p>On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite
of the gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by
Charles, had tears in her eyes.</p>

<p>"The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God
guide him!"</p>

<p>At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to
the diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the
door, and insisted on carrying the young man's carpet-bag. All
the tradesmen in the tortuous old street were on the sill of
their shop-doors to watch the procession, which was joined in the
market-place by Maitre Cruchot.</p>

<p>"Eugenie, be sure you don't cry," said her mother.</p>

<p>"Nephew," said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which
the coach started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, "depart poor,
return rich; you will find the honor of your father safe. I
answer for that myself, I--Grandet; for it will only depend on
you to--"</p>

<p>"Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is
it not the best gift that you could make me?"</p>

<p>Not understanding his uncle's words which he had thus
interrupted, Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned
cheeks of the old miser, while Eugenie pressed the hand of her
cousin and that of her father with all her strength. The notary
smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old man, which he alone
had understood. The family stood about the coach until it
started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble
grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:</p>

<p>"Good-by to you!"</p>

<p>Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation.
Eugenie and her mother had gone to a corner of the quay from
which they could still see the diligence and wave their white
handkerchiefs, to which Charles made answer by displaying
his.</p>

<p>"Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single
moment," said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover's
handkerchief.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take
place in the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast
a forestalling eye upon the various operations which the goodman
carried on in Paris by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month
after the latter's departure from Saumur, Grandet, became
possessed of a certificate of a hundred thousand francs a year
from his investment in the Funds, bought at eighty francs net.
The particulars revealed at his death by the inventory of his
property threw no light upon the means which his suspicious
nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive the
certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon,
unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money
was transported; for about this time she was absent five days,
under a pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond,-- as if
the goodman were capable of leaving anything lying about or out
of order!</p>

<p>In all that concerned the business of the house of Guillaume
Grandet the old cooper's intentions were fulfilled to the letter.
The Bank of France, as everybody knows, affords exact information
about all the large fortunes in Paris and the provinces. The
names of des Grassins and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well known
there, and they enjoyed the esteem bestowed on financial
celebrities whose wealth comes from immense and unencumbered
territorial possessions. The arrival of the Saumur banker for the
purpose, it was said, of honorably liquidating the affairs of
Grandet of Paris, was enough to avert the shame of protested
notes from the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the
property were taken off in presence of the creditors, and the
notary employed by Grandet went to work at once on the inventory
of the assets. Soon after this, des Grassins called a meeting of
the creditors, who unanimously elected him, conjointly with
Francois Keller, the head of a rich banking-house and one of
those principally interested in the affair, as liquidators, with
full power to protect both the honor of the family and the
interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet of Saumur, the
hopes he diffused by means of des Grassins in the minds of all
concerned, facilitated the transactions. Not a single creditor
proved recalcitrant; no one thought of passing his claim to his
profit-and-loss account; each and all said confidently, "Grandet
of Saumur will pay."</p>

<p>Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed the notes in
circulation as they fell due, and held them under lock and key in
their desks. First result aimed at by the old cooper! Nine months
after this preliminary meeting, the two liquidators distributed
forty- seven per cent to each creditor on his claim. This amount
was obtained by the sale of the securities, property, and
possessions of all kinds belonging to the late Guillaume Grandet,
and was paid over with scrupulous fidelity. Unimpeachable
integrity was shown in the transaction. The creditors gratefully
acknowledged the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed by
the Grandets. When these praises had circulated for a certain
length of time, the creditors asked for the rest of their money.
It became necessary to write a collective letter to Grandet of
Saumur.</p>

<p>"Here it comes!" said the old man as he threw the letter into
the fire. "Patience, my good friends!"</p>

<p>In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, Grandet of
Saumur demanded that all vouchers for claims against the estate
of his brother should be deposited with a notary, together with
aquittances for the forty-seven per cent already paid; he made
this demand under pretence of sifting the accounts and finding
out the exact condition of the estate. It roused at once a
variety of difficulties. Generally speaking, the creditor is a
species of maniac, ready to agree to anything one day, on the
next breathing fire and slaughter; later on, he grows amicable
and easy-going. To-day his wife is good-humored, his last baby
has cut its first tooth, all is well at home, and he is
determined not to lose a sou; on the morrow it rains, he can't go
out, he is gloomy, he says yes to any proposal that is made to
him, so long as it will put an end to the affair; on the third
day he declares he must have guarantees; by the end of the month
he wants his debtor's head, and becomes at heart an executioner.
The creditor is a good deal like the sparrow on whose tail
confiding children are invited to put salt,--with this
difference, that he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds
of which he is never able to lay hold of. Grandet had studied the
atmospheric variations of creditors, and the creditors of his
brother justified all his calculations. Some were angry, and
flatly refused to give in their vouchers.</p>

<p>"Very good; so much the better," said Grandet, rubbing his
hands over the letter in which des Grassins announced the
fact.</p>

<p>Others agreed to the demand, but only on condition that their
rights should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even
reserved the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this
began a long correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur
agreeing to all conditions. By means of this concession the
placable creditors were able to bring the dissatisfied creditors
to reason. The deposit was then made, but not without sundry
complaints.</p>

<p>"Your goodman," they said to des Grassins, "is tricking
us."</p>

<p>Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume Grandet many
of the creditors, carried away by more pressing business in the
markets of Paris, had forgotten their Grandet claims, or only
thought of them to say:</p>

<p>"I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall
ever get out of that affair."</p>

<p>The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, which, as
he used to say, is a pretty good devil after all. By the end of
the third year des Grassins wrote to Grandet that he had brought
the creditors to agree to give up their claims for ten per cent
on the two million four hundred thousand francs still due by the
house of Grandet. Grandet answered that the notary and the broker
whose shameful failures had caused the death of his brother were
still living, that they might now have recovered their credit,
and that they ought to be sued, so as to get something out of
them towards lessening the total of the deficit.</p>

<p>By the end of the fourth year the liabilities were definitely
estimated at a sum of twelve hundred thousand francs. Many
negotiations, lasting over six months, took place between the
creditors and the liquidators, and between the liquidators and
Grandet. To make a long story short, Grandet of Saumur, anxious
by this time to get out of the affair, told the liquidators,
about the ninth month of the fourth year, that his nephew had
made a fortune in the Indies and was disposed to pay his father's
debts in full; he therefore could not take upon himself to make
any settlement without previously consulting him; he had written
to him, and was expecting an answer. The creditors were held in
check until the middle of the fifth year by the words, "payment
in full," which the wily old miser threw out from time to time as
he laughed in his beard, saying with a smile and an oath, "Those
Parisians!"</p>

<p>But the creditors were reserved for a fate unexampled in the
annals of commerce. When the events of this history bring them
once more into notice, they will be found still in the position
Grandet had resolved to force them into from the first.</p>

<p>As soon as the Funds reached a hundred and fifteen, Pere
Grandet sold out his interests and withdrew two million four
hundred thousand francs in gold, to which he added, in his
coffers, the six hundred thousand francs compound interest which
he had derived from the capital. Des Grassins now lived in Paris.
In the first place he had been made a deputy; then he became
infatuated (father of a family as he was, though horribly bored
by the provincial life of Saumur) with a pretty actress at the
Theatre de Madame, known as Florine, and he presently relapsed
into the old habits of his army life. It is useless to speak of
his conduct; Saumur considered it profoundly immoral. His wife
was fortunate in the fact of her property being settled upon
herself, and in having sufficient ability to keep up the
banking-house in Saumur, which was managed in her name and
repaired the breach in her fortune caused by the extravagance of
her husband. The Cruchotines made so much talk about the false
position of the quasi-widow that she married her daughter very
badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between
Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris
and became, it was said, a worthless fellow. The Cruchots
triumphed.</p>

<p>"Your husband hasn't common sense," said Grandet as he lent
Madame des Grassins some money on a note securely endorsed. "I am
very sorry for you, for you are a good little woman."</p>

<p>"Ah, monsieur," said the poor lady, "who could have believed
that when he left Saumur to go to Paris on your business he was
going to his ruin?"</p>

<p>"Heaven is my witness, madame, that up to the last moment I
did all I could to prevent him from going. Monsieur le president
was most anxious to take his place; but he was determined to go,
and now we all see why."</p>

<p>In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no
obligation to des Grassins.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>In all situations women have more cause for suffering than
men, and they suffer more. Man has strength and the power of
exercising it; he acts, moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks
ahead, and sees consolation in the future. It was thus with
Charles. But the woman stays at home; she is always face to face
with the grief from which nothing distracts her; she goes down to
the depths of the abyss which yawns before her, measures it, and
often fills it with her tears and prayers. Thus did Eugenie. She
initiated herself into her destiny. To feel, to love, to suffer,
to devote herself,--is not this the sum of woman's life? Eugenie
was to be in all things a woman, except in the one thing that
consoles for all. Her happiness, picked up like nails scattered
on a wall--to use the fine simile of Bossuet--would never so much
as fill even the hollow of her hand. Sorrows are never long in
coming; for her they came soon. The day after Charles's departure
the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed its ordinary aspect in the
eyes of all, except in those of Eugenie, to whom it grew suddenly
empty. She wished, if it could be done unknown to her father,
that Charles's room might be kept as he had left it. Madame
Grandet and Nanon were willing accomplices in this <i>statu
quo</i>.</p>

<p>"Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?" she
said.</p>

<p>"Ah, don't I wish I could see him back!" answered Nanon. "I
took to him! He was such a dear, sweet young man,--pretty too,
with his curly hair." Eugenie looked at Nanon. "Holy Virgin!
don't look at me that way, mademoiselle; your eyes are like those
of a lost soul."</p>

<p>From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new
character. The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her
soul, and the dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features
an illumination such as painters render by a halo. Before the
coming of her cousin, Eugenie might be compared to the Virgin
before the conception; after he had gone, she was like the Virgin
Mother,--she had given birth to love. These two Marys so
different, so well represented by Spanish art, embody one of
those shining symbols with which Christianity abounds.</p>

<p>Returning from Mass on the morning after Charles's
departure,--having made a vow to hear it daily,--Eugenie bought a
map of the world, which she nailed up beside her looking-glass,
that she might follow her cousin on his westward way, that she
might put herself, were it ever so little, day by day into the
ship that bore him, and see him and ask him a thousand
questions,--"Art thou well? Dost thou suffer? Dost thou think of
me when the star, whose beauty and usefulness thou hast taught me
to know, shines upon thee?" In the mornings she sat pensive
beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with
gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious
things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles
of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked
upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered
her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun
crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept.
Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides
into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers
might have said, the tissue of life. When the would-be friends of
Pere Grandet came in the evening for their game at cards, she was
gay and dissimulating; but all the morning she talked of Charles
with her mother and Nanon. Nanon had brought herself to see that
she could pity the sufferings of her young mistress without
failing in her duty to the old master, and she would say to
Eugenie,--</p>

<p>"If I had a man for myself I'd--I'd follow him to hell, yes,
I'd exterminate myself for him; but I've none. I shall die and
never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz'elle, that old
Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my
petticoats for the sake of my money,--just for all the world like
the rats who come smelling after the master's cheese and paying
court to you? I see it all; I've got a shrewd eye, though I am as
big as a steeple. Well, mamz'elle, it pleases me, but it isn't
love."</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>X</h3>

<p>Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous,
was now quickened with the intense interest of a secret that
bound these women intimately together. For them Charles lived and
moved beneath the grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and
morning Eugenie opened the dressing-case and gazed at the
portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning her mother surprised her
as she stood absorbed in finding her cousin's features in his
mother's face. Madame Grandet was then for the first time
admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made by Charles
against her daughter's treasure.</p>

<p>"You gave him all!" cried the poor mother, terrified. "What
will you say to your father on New Year's Day when he asks to see
your gold?"</p>

<p>Eugenie's eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through
mortal terror for more than half the morning. They were so
troubled in mind that they missed high Mass, and only went to the
military service. In three days the year 1819 would come to an
end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois
tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood;
but--as regards the actors in it-- more cruel than all the fabled
horrors in the family of the Atrides.</p>

<p>"What will become of us?" said Madame Grandet to her daughter,
letting her knitting fall upon her knees.</p>

<p>The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for the past two
months that the woollen sleeves which she needed for the coming
winter were not yet finished. This domestic fact, insignificant
as it seems, bore sad results. For want of those sleeves, a chill
seized her in the midst of a sweat caused by a terrible explosion
of anger on the part of her husband.</p>

<p>"I have been thinking, my poor child, that if you had confided
your secret to me we should have had time to write to Monsieur
des Grassins in Paris. He might have sent us gold pieces like
yours; though Grandet knows them all, perhaps--"</p>

<p>"Where could we have got the money?"</p>

<p>"I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des
Grassins would have--"</p>

<p>"It is too late," said Eugenie in a broken, hollow voice.
"To-morrow morning we must go and wish him a happy New Year in
his chamber."</p>

<p>"But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?"</p>

<p>"No, no; it would be delivering me up to them, and putting
ourselves in their power. Besides, I have chosen my course. I
have done right, I repent of nothing. God will protect me. His
will be done! Ah! mother, if you had read his letter, you, too,
would have thought only of him."</p>

<p>The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear to which
mother and daughter were a prey suggested to their minds a
natural excuse by which to escape the solemn entrance into
Grandet's chamber. The winter of 1819-1820 was one of the coldest
of that epoch. The snow encumbered the roofs.</p>

<p>Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him
stirring in his chamber, and said,--</p>

<p>"Grandet, will you let Nanon light a fire here for me? The
cold is so sharp that I am freezing under the bedclothes. At my
age I need some comforts. Besides," she added, after a slight
pause, "Eugenie shall come and dress here; the poor child might
get an illness from dressing in her cold room in such weather.
Then we will go and wish you a happy New Year beside the fire in
the hall."</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta, what a tongue! a pretty way to begin the new
year, Madame Grandet! You never talked so much before; but you
haven't been sopping your bread in wine, I know that."</p>

<p>There was a moment's silence.</p>

<p>"Well," resumed the goodman, who no doubt had some reason of
his own for agreeing to his wife's request, "I'll do what you
ask, Madame Grandet. You are a good woman, and I don't want any
harm to happen to you at your time of life,--though as a general
thing the Bertellieres are as sound as a roach. Hein! isn't that
so?" he added after a pause. "Well, I forgive them; we got their
property in the end." And he coughed.</p>

<p>"You are very gay this morning, monsieur," said the poor woman
gravely.</p>

<p>"I'm always gay,--</p>

<p>"'Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier, Raccommodez votre cuvier!'"</p>

<p>he answered, entering his wife's room fully dressed. "Yes, on
my word, it is cold enough to freeze you solid. We shall have a
fine breakfast, wife. Des Grassins has sent me a
pate-de-foie-gras truffled! I am going now to get it at the
coach-office. There'll be a double napoleon for Eugenie in the
package," he whispered in Madame Grandet's ear. "I have no gold
left, wife. I had a few stray pieces--I don't mind telling you
that--but I had to let them go in business."</p>

<p>Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the
forehead.</p>

<p>"Eugenie," cried the mother, when Grandet was fairly gone, "I
don't know which side of the bed your father got out of, but he
is good- tempered this morning. Perhaps we shall come out safe
after all?"</p>

<p>"What's happened to the master?" said Nanon, entering her
mistress's room to light the fire. "First place, he said,
'Good-morning; happy New Year, you big fool! Go and light my
wife's fire, she's cold'; and then, didn't I feel silly when he
held out his hand and gave me a six- franc piece, which isn't
worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind man! He is a
good man, that's a fact. There are some people who the older they
get the harder they grow; but he,--why he's getting soft and
improving with time, like your ratafia! He is a good, good
man--"</p>

<p>The secret of Grandet's joy lay in the complete success of his
speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after deducting the amount
which the old cooper owed him for the discount on a hundred and
fifty thousand francs in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which
he had advanced to make up the sum required for the investment in
the Funds which was to produce a hundred thousand francs a year,
had now sent him, by the diligence, thirty thousand francs in
silver coin, the remainder of his first half-year's interest,
informing him at the same time that the Funds had already gone up
in value. They were then quoted at eighty-nine; the shrewdest
capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at
ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months twelve per
cent on his capital; he had simplified his accounts, and would in
future receive fifty thousand francs interest every six months,
without incurring any taxes or costs for repairs. He understood
at last what it was to invest money in the public securities,--a
system for which provincials have always shown a marked
repugnance,--and at the end of five years he found himself master
of a capital of six millions, which increased without much effort
of his own, and which, joined to the value and proceeds of his
territorial possessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely
colossal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps the
reward of some great service which the poor servant had rendered
to her master unawares.</p>

<p>"Oh! oh! where's Pere Grandet going? He has been scurrying
about since sunrise as if to a fire," said the tradespeople to
each other as they opened their shops for the day.</p>

<p>When they saw him coming back from the wharf, followed by a
porter from the coach-office wheeling a barrow which was laden
with sacks, they all had their comments to make:--</p>

<p>"Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after
his gold," said one.</p>

<p>"He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland," said
another.</p>

<p>"He'll end by buying up Saumur," cried a third.</p>

<p>"He doesn't mind the cold, he's so wrapped up in his gains,"
said a wife to her husband.</p>

<p>"Hey! hey! Monsieur Grandet, if that's too heavy for you,"
said a cloth-dealer, his nearest neighbor, "I'll take it off your
hands."</p>

<p>"Heavy?" said the cooper, "I should think so; it's all
sous!"</p>

<p>"Silver sous," said the porter in a low voice.</p>

<p>"If you want me to take care of you, keep your tongue between
your teeth," said the goodman to the porter as they reached the
door.</p>

<p>"The old fox! I thought he was deaf; seems he can hear fast
enough in frosty weather."</p>

<p>"Here's twenty sous for your New Year, and <i>mum</i>!" said
Grandet. "Be off with you! Nanon shall take back your barrow.
Nanon, are the linnets at church?"</p>

<p>"Yes, monsieur."</p>

<p>"Then lend a hand! go to work!" he cried, piling the sacks
upon her. In a few moments all were carried up to his inner room,
where he shut himself in with them. "When breakfast is ready,
knock on the wall," he said as he disappeared. "Take the barrow
back to the coach-office."</p>

<p>The family did not breakfast that day until ten o'clock.</p>

<p>"Your father will not ask to see your gold downstairs," said
Madame Grandet as they got back from Mass. "You must pretend to
be very chilly. We may have time to replace the treasure before
your fete- day."</p>

<p>Grandet came down the staircase thinking of his splendid
speculation in government securities, and wondering how he could
metamorphose his Parisian silver into solid gold; he was making
up his mind to invest in this way everything he could lay hands
on until the Funds should reach a par value. Fatal reverie for
Eugenie! As soon as he came in, the two women wished him a happy
New Year,--his daughter by putting her arms round his neck and
caressing him; Madame Grandet gravely and with dignity.</p>

<p>"Ha! ha! my child," he said, kissing his daughter on both
cheeks. "I work for you, don't you see? I think of your
happiness. Must have money to be happy. Without money there's not
a particle of happiness. Here! there's a new napoleon for you. I
sent to Paris for it. On my word of honor, it's all the gold I
have; you are the only one that has got any gold. I want to see
your gold, little one."</p>

<p>"Oh! it is too cold; let us have breakfast," answered
Eugenie.</p>

<p>"Well, after breakfast, then; it will help the digestion. That
fat des Grassins sent me the pate. Eat as much as you like, my
children, it costs nothing. Des Grassins is getting along very
well. I am satisfied with him. The old fish is doing Charles a
good service, and gratis too. He is making a very good settlement
of that poor deceased Grandet's business. Hoo! hoo!" he muttered,
with his mouth full, after a pause, "how good it is! Eat some,
wife; that will feed you for at least two days."</p>

<p>"I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know that."</p>

<p>"Ah, bah! you can stuff yourself as full as you please without
danger, you're a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit
yellow, that's true; but I like yellow, myself."</p>

<p>The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps
less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of
what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie.
The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their
hearts shrank within them. The daughter, however, had an inward
prop at this crisis, --she gathered strength through love.</p>

<p>"For him! for him!" she cried within her, "I would die a
thousand deaths."</p>

<p>At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed
with courage.</p>

<p>"Clear away," said Grandet to Nanon when, about eleven
o'clock, breakfast was over, "but leave the table. We can spread
your little treasure upon it," he said, looking at Eugenie.
"Little? Faith! no; it isn't little. You possess, in actual
value, five thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine francs and the
forty I gave you just now. That makes six thousand francs, less
one. Well, now see here, little one! I'll give you that one franc
to make up the round number. Hey! what are you listening for,
Nanon? Mind your own business; go and do your work."</p>

<p>Nanon disappeared.</p>

<p>"Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You
won't refuse your father, my little girl, hein?"</p>

<p>The two women were dumb.</p>

<p>"I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I'll
give you in return six thousand francs in <i>livres</i>, and you
are to put them just where I tell you. You mustn't think anything
more about your 'dozen.' When I marry you (which will be soon) I
shall get you a husband who can give you the finest 'dozen' ever
seen in the provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. There's a
fine chance for you; you can put your six thousand francs into
government funds, and you will receive every six months nearly
two hundred francs interest, without taxes, or repairs, or frost,
or hail, or floods, or anything else to swallow up the money.
Perhaps you don't like to part with your gold, hey, my girl?
Never mind, bring it to me all the same. I'll get you some more
like it,--like those Dutch coins and the <i>portugaises</i>, the
rupees of Mogul, and the <i>genovines</i>,--I'll give you some
more on your fete-days, and in three years you'll have got back
half your little treasure. What's that you say? Look up, now.
Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on
the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries of the
life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold live and swarm like
men; they come, and go, and sweat, and multiply--"</p>

<p>Eugenie rose; but after making a few steps towards the door
she turned abruptly, looked her father in the face, and
said,--</p>

<p>"I have not got <i>my</i> gold."</p>

<p>"You have not got your gold!" cried Grandet, starting up
erect, like a horse that hears a cannon fired beside him.</p>

<p>"No, I have not got it."</p>

<p>"You are mistaken, Eugenie."</p>

<p>"No."</p>

<p>"By the shears of my father!"</p>

<p>Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.</p>

<p>"Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale," cried Nanon.</p>

<p>"Grandet, your anger will kill me," said the poor mother.</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family!
Eugenie, what have you done with your gold?" he cried, rushing
upon her.</p>

<p>"Monsieur," said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet's
knees, "my mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her."</p>

<p>Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his
wife's face, usually so yellow.</p>

<p>"Nanon, help me to bed," said the poor woman in a feeble
voice; "I am dying--"</p>

<p>Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her another; but
it was only with infinite difficulty that they could get her
upstairs, she fell with exhaustion at every step. Grandet
remained alone. However, in a few moments he went up six or eight
stairs and called out,--</p>

<p>"Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down."</p>

<p>"Yes, father."</p>

<p>She soon came, after reassuring her mother.</p>

<p>"My daughter," said Grandet, "you will now tell me what you
have done with your gold."</p>

<p>"My father, if you make me presents of which I am not the sole
mistress, take them back," she answered coldly, picking up the
napoleon from the chimney-piece and offering it to him.</p>

<p>Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches'
pocket.</p>

<p>"I shall certainly never give you anything again. Not so much
as that!" he said, clicking his thumb-nail against a front tooth.
"Do you dare to despise your father? have you no confidence in
him? Don't you know what a father is? If he is nothing for you,
he is nothing at all. Where is your gold?"</p>

<p>"Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your anger; but I
humbly ask you to remember that I am twenty-three years old. You
have told me often that I have attained my majority, and I do not
forget it. I have used my money as I chose to use it, and you may
be sure that it was put to a good use--"</p>

<p>"What use?"</p>

<p>"That is an inviolable secret," she answered. "Have you no
secrets?"</p>

<p>"I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs."</p>

<p>"And this is mine."</p>

<p>"It must be something bad if you can't tell it to your father,
Mademoiselle Grandet."</p>

<p>"It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father."</p>

<p>"At least you can tell me when you parted with your gold?"</p>

<p>Eugenie made a negative motion with her head.</p>

<p>"You had it on your birthday, hein?"</p>

<p>She grew as crafty through love as her father was through
avarice, and reiterated the negative sign.</p>

<p>"Was there ever such obstinacy! It's a theft," cried Grandet,
his voice going up in a crescendo which gradually echoed through
the house. "What! here, in my own home, under my very eyes,
somebody has taken your gold!--the only gold we have!--and I'm
not to know who has got it! Gold is a precious thing. Virtuous
girls go wrong sometimes, and give--I don't know what; they do it
among the great people, and even among the bourgeoisie. But give
their gold!--for you have given it to some one, hein?--"</p>

<p>Eugenie was silent and impassive.</p>

<p>"Was there ever such a daughter? Is it possible that I am your
father? If you have invested it anywhere, you must have a
receipt--"</p>

<p>"Was I free--yes or no--to do what I would with my own? Was it
not mine?"</p>

<p>"You are a child."</p>

<p>"Of age."</p>

<p>Dumbfounded by his daughter's logic, Grandet turned pale and
stamped and swore. When at last he found words, he cried:
"Serpent! Cursed girl! Ah, deceitful creature! You know I love
you, and you take advantage of it. She'd cut her father's throat!
Good God! you've given our fortune to that ne'er-do-well,--that
dandy with morocco boots! By the shears of my father! I can't
disinherit you, but I curse you,--you and your cousin and your
children! Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it was to
Charles--but, no; it's impossible. What! has that wretched fellow
robbed me?--"</p>

<p>He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.</p>

<p>"She won't stir; she won't flinch! She's more Grandet than I'm
Grandet! Ha! you have not given your gold for nothing? Come,
speak the truth!"</p>

<p>Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that
stung him.</p>

<p>"Eugenie, you are here, in my house,--in your father's house.
If you wish to stay here, you must submit yourself to me. The
priests tell you to obey me." Eugenie bowed her head. "You
affront me in all I hold most dear. I will not see you again
until you submit. Go to your chamber. You will stay there till I
give you permission to leave it. Nanon will bring you bread and
water. You hear me--go!"</p>

<p>Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. Grandet,
after marching two or three times round the garden in the snow
without heeding the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter
had gone to her mother; only too happy to find her disobedient to
his orders, he climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and
appeared in Madame Grandet's room just as she was stroking
Eugenie's hair, while the girl's face was hidden in her motherly
bosom.</p>

<p>"Be comforted, my poor child," she was saying; "your father
will get over it."</p>

<p>"She has no father!" said the old man. "Can it be you and I,
Madame Grandet, who have given birth to such a disobedient child?
A fine education,--religious, too! Well! why are you not in your
chamber? Come, to prison, to prison, mademoiselle!"</p>

<p>"Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?" said Madame
Grandet, turning towards him a face that was now red with
fever.</p>

<p>"If you want to keep her, carry her off! Clear out--out of my
house, both of you! Thunder! where is the gold? what's become of
the gold?"</p>

<p>Eugenie rose, looked proudly at her father, and withdrew to
her room. Grandet turned the key of the door.</p>

<p>"Nanon," he cried, "put out the fire in the hall."</p>

<p>Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife's fire and
said to her,--</p>

<p>"Undoubtedly she has given the gold to that miserable seducer,
Charles, who only wanted our money."</p>

<p>"I knew nothing about it," she answered, turning to the other
side of the bed, that she might escape the savage glances of her
husband. "I suffer so much from your violence that I shall never
leave this room, if I trust my own presentiments, till I am
carried out of it in my coffin. You ought to have spared me this
suffering, monsieur,--you, to whom I have caused no pain; that
is, I think so. Your daughter loves you. I believe her to be as
innocent as the babe unborn. Do not make her wretched. Revoke
your sentence. The cold is very severe; you may give her some
serious illness."</p>

<p>"I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. She shall
stay in her room, on bread and water, until she submits to her
father. What the devil! shouldn't a father know where the gold in
his house has gone to? She owned the only rupees in France,
perhaps, and the Dutch ducats and the <i>genovines</i>--"</p>

<p>"Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had
thrown them into the water--"</p>

<p>"Into the water!" cried her husband; "into the water! You are
crazy, Madame Grandet! What I have said is said; you know that
well enough. If you want peace in this household, make your
daughter confess, pump it out of her. Women understand how to do
that better than we do. Whatever she has done, I sha'n't eat her.
Is she afraid of me? Even if she has plastered Charles with gold
from head to foot, he is on the high seas, and nobody can get at
him, hein!"</p>

<p>"But, monsieur--" Excited by the nervous crisis through which
she had passed, and by the fate of her daughter, which brought
forth all her tenderness and all her powers of mind, Madame
Grandet suddenly observed a frightful movement of her husband's
wen, and, in the very act of replying, she changed her speech
without changing the tones of her voice,--"But, monsieur, I have
not more influence over her than you have. She has said nothing
to me; she takes after you."</p>

<p>"Tut, tut! Your tongue is hung in the middle this morning. Ta,
ta, ta, ta! You are setting me at defiance, I do believe. I
daresay you are in league with her."</p>

<p>He looked fixedly at his wife.</p>

<p>"Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, you have only to go
on like this. I tell you, monsieur,--and if it were to cost me my
life, I would say it,--you do wrong by your daughter; she is more
in the right than you are. That money belonged to her; she is
incapable of making any but a good use of it, and God alone has
the right to know our good deeds. Monsieur, I implore you, take
Eugenie back into favor; forgive her. If you will do this you
will lessen the injury your anger has done me; perhaps you will
save my life. My daughter! oh, monsieur, give me back my
daughter!"</p>

<p>"I shall decamp," he said; "the house is not habitable. A
mother and daughter talking and arguing like that! Broooouh!
Pouah! A fine New Year's present you've made me, Eugenie," he
called out. "Yes, yes, cry away! What you've done will bring you
remorse, do you hear? What's the good of taking the sacrament six
times every three months, if you give away your father's gold
secretly to an idle fellow who'll eat your heart out when you've
nothing else to give him? You'll find out some day what your
Charles is worth, with his morocco boots and supercilious airs.
He has got neither heart nor soul if he dared to carry off a
young girl's treasure without the consent of her parents."</p>

<p>When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out of her room
and went to her mother.</p>

<p>"What courage you have had for your daughter's sake!" she
said.</p>

<p>"Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may lead us. You
forced me to tell a lie."</p>

<p>"I will ask God to punish only me."</p>

<p>"Is it true," cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, "that
mademoiselle is to be kept on bread and water for the rest of her
life?"</p>

<p>"What does that signify, Nanon?" said Eugenie tranquilly.</p>

<p>"Goodness! do you suppose I'll eat <i>frippe</i> when the
daughter of the house is eating dry bread? No, no!"</p>

<p>"Don't say a word about all this, Nanon," said Eugenie.</p>

<p>"I'll be as mute as a fish; but you'll see!"</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four
years.</p>

<p>"So you're a widower, monsieur," said Nanon; "it must be
disagreeable to be a widower with two women in the house."</p>

<p>"I did not speak to you. Hold your jaw, or I'll turn you off!
What is that I hear boiling in your saucepan on the stove?"</p>

<p>"It is grease I'm trying out."</p>

<p>"There will be some company to-night. Light the fire."</p>

<p>The Cruchots, Madame des Grassins, and her son arrived at the
usual hour of eight, and were surprised to see neither Madame
Grandet nor her daughter.</p>

<p>"My wife is not very well, and Eugenie is with her," said the
old wine-grower, whose face betrayed no emotion.</p>

<p>At the end of an hour spent in idle conversation, Madame des
Grassins, who had gone up to see Madame Grandet, came down, and
every one inquired,--</p>

<p>"How is Madame Grandet?"</p>

<p>"Not at all well," she answered; "her condition seems to me
really alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution,
Papa Grandet."</p>

<p>"We'll see about it," said the old man in an absent way.</p>

<p>They all wished him good-night. When the Cruchots got into the
street Madame des Grassins said to them,--</p>

<p>"There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is
very ill without her knowing it. The girl's eyes are red, as if
she had been crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her
against her will?"</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie's
room in her stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a
saucepan.</p>

<p>"See, mademoiselle," said the good soul, "Cornoiller gave me a
hare. You eat so little that this pate will last you full a week;
in such frosty weather it won't spoil. You sha'n't live on dry
bread, I'm determined; it isn't wholesome."</p>

<p>"Poor Nanon!" said Eugenie, pressing her hand.</p>

<p>"I've made it downright good and dainty, and <i>he</i> never
found it out. I bought the lard and the spices out of my six
francs: I'm the mistress of my own money"; and she disappeared
rapidly, fancying she</p>

<p>heard Grandet.</p>

<h3>XI</h3>

<p>For several months the old wine-grower came constantly to his
wife's room at all hours of the day, without ever uttering his
daughter's name, or seeing her, or making the smallest allusion
to her. Madame Grandet did not leave her chamber, and daily grew
worse. Nothing softened the old man; he remained unmoved, harsh,
and cold as a granite rock. He continued to go and come about his
business as usual; but ceased to stutter, talked less, and was
more obdurate in business transactions than ever before. Often he
made mistakes in adding up his figures.</p>

<p>"Something is going on at the Grandets," said the Grassinists
and the Cruchotines.</p>

<p>"What has happened in the Grandet family?" became a fixed
question which everybody asked everybody else at the little
evening-parties of Saumur. Eugenie went to Mass escorted by
Nanon. If Madame des Grassins said a few words to her on coming
out of church, she answered in an evasive manner, without
satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end of two months, it
became impossible to hide, either from the three Cruchots or from
Madame des Grassins, the fact that Eugenie was in confinement.
There came a moment when all pretexts failed to explain her
perpetual absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover by
whom the secret had been betrayed, all the town became aware that
ever since New Year's day Mademoiselle Grandet had been kept in
her room without fire, on bread and water, by her father's
orders, and that Nanon cooked little dainties and took them to
her secretly at night. It was even known that the young woman was
not able to see or take care of her mother, except at certain
times when her father was out of the house.</p>

<p>Grandet's conduct was severely condemned. The whole town
outlawed him, so to speak; they remembered his treachery, his
hard-heartedness, and they excommunicated him. When he passed
along the streets, people pointed him out and muttered at him.
When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by
Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the
windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the
rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of
angelic gentleness and melancholy. Her imprisonment and the
condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a
map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the
wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love's
kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town
talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it.
Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love
helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her
father.</p>

<p>One deep grief silenced all others. Her mother, that gentle,
tender creature, made beautiful by the light which shone from the
inner to the outer as she approached the tomb,--her mother was
perishing from day to day. Eugenie often reproached herself as
the innocent cause of the slow, cruel malady that was wasting her
away. This remorse, though her mother soothed it, bound her still
closer to her love. Every morning, as soon as her father left the
house, she went to the bedside of her mother, and there Nanon
brought her breakfast. The poor girl, sad, and suffering through
the sufferings of her mother, would turn her face to the old
servant with a mute gesture, weeping, and yet not daring to speak
of her cousin. It was Madame Grandet who first found courage to
say,--</p>

<p>"Where is <i>he</i>? Why does <i>he</i> not write?"</p>

<p>"Let us think about him, mother, but not speak of him. You are
ill-- you, before all."</p>

<p>"All" meant "him."</p>

<p>"My child," said Madame Grandet, "I do not wish to live. God
protects me and enables me to look with joy to the end of my
misery."</p>

<p>Every utterance of this woman was unfalteringly pious and
Christian. Sometimes, during the first months of the year, when
her husband came to breakfast with her and tramped up and down
the room, she would say to him a few religious words, always
spoken with angelic sweetness, yet with the firmness of a woman
to whom approaching death lends a courage she had lacked in
life.</p>

<p>"Monsieur, I thank you for the interest you take in my
health," she would answer when he made some commonplace inquiry;
"but if you really desire to render my last moments less bitter
and to ease my grief, take back your daughter: be a Christian, a
husband, and a father."</p>

<p>When he heard these words, Grandet would sit down by the bed
with the air of a man who sees the rain coming and quietly gets
under the shelter of a gateway till it is over. When these
touching, tender, and religious supplications had all been made,
he would say,--</p>

<p>"You are rather pale to-day, my poor wife."</p>

<p>Absolute forgetfulness of his daughter seemed graven on his
stony brow, on his closed lips. He was unmoved by the tears which
flowed down the white cheeks of his unhappy wife as she listened
to his meaningless answers.</p>

<p>"May God pardon you," she said, "even as I pardon you! You
will some day stand in need of mercy."</p>

<p>Since Madame Grandet's illness he had not dared to make use of
his terrible "Ta, ta, ta, ta!" Yet, for all that, his despotic
nature was not disarmed by this angel of gentleness, whose
ugliness day by day decreased, driven out by the ineffable
expression of moral qualities which shone upon her face. She was
all soul. The spirit of prayer seemed to purify her and refine
those homely features and make them luminous. Who has not seen
the phenomenon of a like transfiguration on sacred faces where
the habits of the soul have triumphed over the plainest features,
giving them that spiritual illumination whose light comes from
the purity and nobility of the inward thought? The spectacle of
this transformation wrought by the struggle which consumed the
last shreds of the human life of this woman, did somewhat affect
the old cooper, though feebly, for his nature was of iron; if his
language ceased to be contemptuous, an imperturbable silence,
which saved his dignity as master of the household, took its
place and ruled his conduct.</p>

<p>When the faithful Nanon appeared in the market, many quips and
quirks and complaints about the master whistled in her ears; but
however loudly public opinion condemned Monsieur Grandet, the old
servant defended him, for the honor of the family.</p>

<p>"Well!" she would say to his detractors, "don't we all get
hard as we grow old? Why shouldn't he get horny too? Stop telling
lies. Mademoiselle lives like a queen. She's alone, that's true;
but she likes it. Besides, my masters have good reasons."</p>

<p>At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Grandet, worn out
by grief even more than by illness, having failed, in spite of
her prayers, to reconcile the father and daughter, confided her
secret troubles to the Cruchots.</p>

<p>"Keep a girl of twenty-three on bread and water!" cried
Monsieur de Bonfons; "without any reason, too! Why, that
constitutes wrongful cruelty; she can contest, as much in as
upon--"</p>

<p>"Come, nephew, spare us your legal jargon," said the notary.
"Set your mind at ease, madame; I will put a stop to such
treatment to-morrow."</p>

<p>Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her room.</p>

<p>"Gentlemen," she said, coming forward with a proud step, "I
beg you not to interfere in this matter. My father is master in
his own house. As long as I live under his roof I am bound to
obey him. His conduct is not subject to the approbation or the
disapprobation of the world; he is accountable to God only. I
appeal to your friendship to keep total silence in this affair.
To blame my father is to attack our family honor. I am much
obliged to you for the interest you have shown in me; you will do
me an additional service if you will put a stop to the offensive
rumors which are current in the town, of which I am accidentally
informed."</p>

<p>"She is right," said Madame Grandet.</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure
your liberty," answered the old notary respectfully, struck with
the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon
her face.</p>

<p>"Well, my daughter, let Monsieur Cruchot manage the matter if
he is so sure of success. He understands your father, and how to
manage him. If you wish to see me happy for my few remaining
days, you must, at any cost, be reconciled to your father."</p>

<p>On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun
since Eugenie's imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up
and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie
brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the
walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few
moments watching his daughter's movements, hesitating, perhaps,
between the course to which the obstinacy of his character
impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child.
Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and
Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her
father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose
and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and
looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung,
where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and
the sedum,--a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the
vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and
found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the
little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden,
engaged in watching his daughter.</p>

<p>"What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?" he said, perceiving the
notary.</p>

<p>"I came to speak to you on business."</p>

<p>"Ah! ah! have you brought some gold in exchange for my
silver?"</p>

<p>"No, no, I have not come about money; it is about your
daughter Eugenie. All the town is talking of her and you."</p>

<p>"What does the town meddle for? A man's house is his
castle."</p>

<p>"Very true; and a man may kill himself if he likes, or, what
is worse, he may fling his money into the gutter."</p>

<p>"What do you mean?"</p>

<p>"Why, your wife is very ill, my friend. You ought to consult
Monsieur Bergerin; she is likely to die. If she does die without
receiving proper care, you will not be very easy in mind, I take
it."</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! you know a deal about my wife! These doctors,
if they once get their foot in your house, will come five and six
times a day."</p>

<p>"Of course you will do as you think best. We are old friends;
there is no one in all Saumur who takes more interest than I in
what concerns you. Therefore, I was bound to tell you this.
However, happen what may, you have the right to do as you please;
you can choose your own course. Besides, that is not what brings
me here. There is another thing which may have serious results
for you. After all, you can't wish to kill your wife; her life is
too important to you. Think of your situation in connection with
your daughter if Madame Grandet dies. You must render an account
to Eugenie, because you enjoy your wife's estate only during her
lifetime. At her death your daughter can claim a division of
property, and she may force you to sell Froidfond. In short, she
is her mother's heir, and you are not."</p>

<p>These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, who was
not as wise about law as he was about business. He had never
thought of a legal division of the estate.</p>

<p>"Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly," added Cruchot,
in conclusion.</p>

<p>"But do you know what she has done, Cruchot?"</p>

<p>"What?" asked the notary, curious to hear the truth and find
out the cause of the quarrel.</p>

<p>"She has given away her gold!"</p>

<p>"Well, wasn't it hers?" said the notary.</p>

<p>"They all tell me that!" exclaimed the old man, letting his
arms fall to his sides with a movement that was truly tragic.</p>

<p>"Are you going--for a mere nothing,"--resumed Cruchot, "to put
obstacles in the way of the concessions which you will be obliged
to ask from your daughter as soon as her mother dies?"</p>

<p>"Do you call six thousand francs a mere nothing?"</p>

<p>"Hey! my old friend, do you know what the inventory of your
wife's property will cost, if Eugenie demands the division?"</p>

<p>"How much?"</p>

<p>"Two, three, four thousand francs, perhaps! The property would
have to be put up at auction and sold, to get at its actual
value. Instead of that, if you are on good terms with--"</p>

<p>"By the shears of my father!" cried Grandet, turning pale as
he suddenly sat down, "we will see about it, Cruchot."</p>

<p>After a moment's silence, full of anguish perhaps, the old man
looked at the notary and said,--</p>

<p>"Life is very hard! It has many griefs! Cruchot," he continued
solemnly, "you would not deceive me? Swear to me upon your honor
that all you've told me is legally true. Show me the law; I must
see the law!"</p>

<p>"My poor friend," said the notary, "don't I know my own
business?"</p>

<p>"Then it is true! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, destroyed by
my own daughter!"</p>

<p>"It is true that your daughter is her mother's heir."</p>

<p>"Why do we have children? Ah! my wife, I love her! Luckily
she's sound and healthy; she's a Bertelliere."</p>

<p>"She has not a month to live."</p>

<p>Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came back, cast
a dreadful look on Cruchot, and said,--</p>

<p>"What can be done?"</p>

<p>"Eugenie can relinquish her claim to her mother's property.
Should she do this you would not disinherit her, I presume?--but
if you want to come to such a settlement, you must not treat her
harshly. What I am telling you, old man, is against my own
interests. What do I live by, if it isn't liquidations,
inventories, conveyances, divisions of property?--"</p>

<p>"We'll see, we'll see! Don't let's talk any more about it,
Cruchot; it wrings my vitals. Have you received any gold?"</p>

<p>"No; but I have a few old louis, a dozen or so, which you may
have. My good friend, make it up with Eugenie. Don't you know all
Saumur is pelting you with stones?"</p>

<p>"The scoundrels!"</p>

<p>"Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satisfied for once
in your life."</p>

<p>"At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"Hey, hey! Ninety-nine!" repeated the old man, accompanying
the notary to the street-door. Then, too agitated by what he had
just heard to stay in the house, he went up to his wife's room
and said,--</p>

<p>"Come, mother, you may have your daughter to spend the day
with you. I'm going to Froidfond. Enjoy yourselves, both of you.
This is our wedding-day, wife. See! here are sixty francs for
your altar at the Fete-Dieu; you've wanted one for a long time.
Come, cheer up, enjoy yourself, and get well! Hurrah for
happiness!"</p>

<p>He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon the bed,
and took his wife's head between his hands and kissed her
forehead.</p>

<p>"My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?"</p>

<p>"How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house
when you refuse to forgive your daughter?" she said with
emotion.</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet in a coaxing voice. "We'll see
about that."</p>

<p>"Merciful heaven! Eugenie," cried the mother, flushing with
joy, "come and kiss your father; he forgives you!"</p>

<p>But the old man had disappeared. He was going as fast as his
legs could carry him towards his vineyards, trying to get his
confused ideas into order. Grandet had entered his seventy-sixth
year. During the last two years his avarice had increased upon
him, as all the persistent passions of men increase at a certain
age. As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to
misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by
any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special
symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold,
had become a monomania. His despotic spirit had grown in
proportion to his avarice, and to part with the control of the
smallest fraction of his property at the death of his wife seemed
to him a thing "against nature." To declare his fortune to his
daughter, to give an inventory of his property, landed and
personal, for the purposes of division--</p>

<p>"Why," he cried aloud in the midst of a field where he was
pretending to examine a vine, "it would be cutting my
throat!"</p>

<p>He came at last to a decision, and returned to Saumur in time
for dinner, resolved to unbend to Eugenie, and pet and coax her,
that he might die regally, holding the reins of his millions in
his own hands so long as the breath was in his body. At the
moment when the old man, who chanced to have his pass-key in his
pocket, opened the door and climbed with a stealthy step up the
stairway to go into his wife's room, Eugenie had brought the
beautiful dressing-case from the oak cabinet and placed it on her
mother's bed. Mother and daughter, in Grandet's absence, allowed
themselves the pleasure of looking for a likeness to Charles in
the portrait of his mother.</p>

<p>"It is exactly his forehead and his mouth," Eugenie was saying
as the old man opened the door. At the look which her husband
cast upon the gold, Madame Grandet cried out,--</p>

<p>"O God, have pity upon us!"</p>

<p>The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger might
spring upon a sleeping child.</p>

<p>"What's this?" he said, snatching the treasure and carrying it
to the window. "Gold, good gold!" he cried. "All gold,--it weighs
two pounds! Ha, ha! Charles gave you that for your money, did he?
Hein! Why didn't you tell me so? It was a good bargain, little
one! Yes, you are my daughter, I see that--" Eugenie trembled in
every limb. "This came from Charles, of course, didn't it?"
continued the old man.</p>

<p>"Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust."</p>

<p>"Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it
back."</p>

<p>"Father!"</p>

<p>Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do
this, he placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang
forward to recover it; but her father, who had his eye on her and
on the treasure too, pushed her back so violently with a thrust
of his arm that she fell upon her mother's bed.</p>

<p>"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the mother, lifting herself
up.</p>

<p>Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the
gold.</p>

<p>"Father!" cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging
herself close to him with clasped hands, "father, in the name of
all the saints and the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died
upon the cross! in the name of your eternal salvation, father!
for my life's sake, father!--do not touch that! It is neither
yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an unhappy
relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!"</p>

<p>"If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it
is as bad as touching it."</p>

<p>"Father, don't destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do
you hear?"</p>

<p>"Oh, have pity!" said the mother.</p>

<p>"Father!" cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran
upstairs terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at
hand.</p>

<p>"Well, what now?" said Grandet coldly, with a callous
smile.</p>

<p>"Oh, you are killing me!" said the mother.</p>

<p>"Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that
gold, I will stab myself with this one! You have already driven
my mother to her death; you will now kill your child! Do as you
choose! Wound for wound!"</p>

<p>Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as
he looked at his daughter.</p>

<p>"Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?" he said.</p>

<p>"Yes, yes!" said the mother.</p>

<p>"She'll do it if she says so!" cried Nanon. "Be reasonable,
monsieur, for once in your life."</p>

<p>The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter
alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.</p>

<p>"There! don't you see, monsieur, that madame is dying?" cried
Nanon.</p>

<p>"Come, come, my daughter, we won't quarrel for a box! Here,
take it!" he cried hastily, flinging the case upon the bed.
"Nanon, go and fetch Monsieur Bergerin! Come, mother," said he,
kissing his wife's hand, "it's all over! There! we've made
up--haven't we, little one? No more dry bread; you shall have all
you want--Ah, she opens her eyes! Well, mother, little mother,
come! See, I'm kissing Eugenie! She loves her cousin, and she may
marry him if she wants to; she may keep his case. But don't die,
mother; live a long time yet, my poor wife! Come, try to move!
Listen! you shall have the finest altar that ever was made in
Saumur."</p>

<p>"Oh, how can you treat your wife and daughter so!" said Madame
Grandet in a feeble voice.</p>

<p>"I won't do so again, never again," cried her husband; "you
shall see, my poor wife!" He went to his inner room and returned
with a handful of louis, which he scattered on the bed. "Here,
Eugenie! see, wife! all these are for you," he said, fingering
the coins. "Come, be happy, wife! feel better, get well; you
sha'n't want for anything, nor Eugenie either. Here's a hundred
<i>louis d'or</i> for her. You won't give these away, will you,
Eugenie, hein?"</p>

<p>Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each other in
astonishment.</p>

<p>"Take back your money, father; we ask for nothing but your
affection."</p>

<p>"Well, well, that's right!" he said, pocketing the coins;
"let's be good friends! We will all go down to dinner to-day, and
we'll play loto every evening for two sous. You shall both be
happy. Hey, wife?"</p>

<p>"Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure," said
the dying woman; "but I cannot rise from my bed."</p>

<p>"Poor mother," said Grandet, "you don't know how I love you!
and you too, my daughter!" He took her in his arms and kissed
her. "Oh, how good it is to kiss a daughter when we have been
angry with her! There, mother, don't you see it's all over now?
Go and put that away, Eugenie," he added, pointing to the case.
"Go, don't be afraid! I shall never speak of it again,
never!"</p>

<p>Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, presently
arrived. After an examination, he told Grandet positively that
his wife was very ill; but that perfect peace of mind, a generous
diet, and great care might prolong her life until the autumn.</p>

<p>"Will all that cost much?" said the old man. "Will she need
medicines?"</p>

<p>"Not much medicine, but a great deal of care," answered the
doctor, who could scarcely restrain a smile.</p>

<p>"Now, Monsieur Bergerin," said Grandet, "you are a man of
honor, are not you? I trust to you! Come and see my wife how and
when you think necessary. Save my good wife! I love her,--don't
you see?--though I never talk about it; I keep things to myself.
I'm full of trouble. Troubles began when my brother died; I have
to spend enormous sums on his affairs in Paris. Why, I'm paying
through my nose; there's no end to it. Adieu, monsieur! If you
can save my wife, save her. I'll spare no expense, not even if it
costs me a hundred or two hundred francs."</p>

<p>In spite of Grandet's fervent wishes for the health of his
wife, whose death threatened more than death to him; in spite of
the consideration he now showed on all occasions for the least
wish of his astonished wife and daughter; in spite of the tender
care which Eugenie lavished upon her mother,--Madame Grandet
rapidly approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and wasted
visibly, as women of her age when attacked by serious illness are
wont to do. She was fragile as the foliage in autumn; the
radiance of heaven shone through her as the sun strikes athwart
the withering leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her
life,--a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month
of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for
her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she
passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to
heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and
dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a
destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white
as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to
strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.</p>

<p>"My child," she said as she expired, "there is no happiness
except in heaven; you will know it some day."</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>XII</h3>

<p>On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new motive for
attachment to the house in which she was born, where she had
suffered so much, where her mother had just died. She could not
see the window and the chair on its castors without weeping. She
thought she had mistaken the heart of her old father when she
found herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in the
morning and gave her his arm to take her to breakfast; he looked
at her for hours together with an eye that was almost kind; he
brooded over her as though she had been gold. The old man was so
unlike himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that
Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weakness, attributed
it to his great age, and feared that his faculties were giving
away. But the day on which the family put on their mourning, and
after dinner, to which meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who
knew his secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser
was explained.</p>

<p>"My dear child," he said to Eugenie when the table had been
cleared and the doors carefully shut, "you are now your mother's
heiress, and we have a few little matters to settle between us.
Isn't that so, Cruchot?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?"</p>

<p>"Yes, yes, little one; I can't bear the uncertainty in which
I'm placed. I think you don't want to give me pain?"</p>

<p>"Oh! father--"</p>

<p>"Well, then! let us settle it all to-night."</p>

<p>"What is it you wish me to do?"</p>

<p>"My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her,
Cruchot."</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide the
property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous taxes on the
ready money which he may possess. Therefore, to avoid all this,
he must be released from making the inventory of his whole
fortune, part of which you inherit from your mother, and which is
now undivided between you and your father--"</p>

<p>"Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you
tell it to a mere child?"</p>

<p>"Let me tell it my own way, Grandet."</p>

<p>"Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob
me,--do you, little one?"</p>

<p>"But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?" said Eugenie
impatiently.</p>

<p>"Well," said the notary, "it is necessary to sign this deed,
by which you renounce your rights to your mother's estate and
leave your father the use and disposition, during his lifetime,
of all the property undivided between you, of which he guarantees
you the capital."</p>

<p>"I do not understand a word of what you are saying," returned
Eugenie; "give me the deed, and show me where I am to sign
it."</p>

<p>Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his
daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did
so such violent emotion that he wiped the sweat from his
brow.</p>

<p>"My little girl," he said, "if, instead of signing this deed,
which will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to
renounce your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother's
property, and would trust to me for the future, I should like it
better. In that case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of
a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for as many masses as
you want for anybody-- Hein! a hundred francs a month--in
<i>livres</i>?"</p>

<p>"I will do all you wish, father."</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle," said the notary, "it is my duty to point out
to you that you are despoiling yourself without guarantee--"</p>

<p>"Good heavens! what is all that to me?"</p>

<p>"Hold your tongue, Cruchot! It's settled, all settled," cried
Grandet, taking his daughter's hand and striking it with his own.
"Eugenie, you won't go back on your word?--you are an honest
girl, hein?"</p>

<p>"Oh! father!--"</p>

<p>He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms till he
almost choked her.</p>

<p>"Go, my good child, you restore your father's life; but you
only return to him that which he gave you: we are quits. This is
how business should be done. Life is a business. I bless you! you
are a virtuous girl, and you love your father. Do just what you
like in future. To-morrow, Cruchot," he added, looking at the
horrified notary, "you will see about preparing the deed of
relinquishment, and then enter it on the records of the
court."</p>

<p>The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by which she
herself completed her spoliation. At the end of the first year,
however, in spite of his bargain, the old man had not given his
daughter one sou of the hundred francs he had so solemnly pledged
to her. When Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could
not help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding-place,
from whence he brought down about a third of the jewels he had
taken from his nephew, and gave them to her.</p>

<p>"There, little one," he said in a sarcastic tone, "do you want
those for your twelve hundred francs?"</p>

<p>"Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to me?"</p>

<p>"I'll give you as many more next year," he said, throwing them
into her apron. "So before long you'll get all his gewgaws," he
added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on
his daughter's feelings.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust, felt the
importance of initiating his daughter into the secrets of his
thrift and its management. For two consecutive years he made her
order the household meals in his presence and receive the rents,
and he taught her slowly and successively the names and
remunerative capacity of his vineyards and his farms. About the
third year he had so thoroughly accustomed her to his avaricious
methods that they had turned into the settled habits of her own
life, and he was able to leave the household keys in her charge
without anxiety, and to install her as mistress of the house.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>Five years passed away without a single event to relieve the
monotonous existence of Eugenie and her father. The same actions
were performed daily with the automatic regularity of clockwork.
The deep sadness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every one;
but if others surmised the cause, she herself never uttered a
word that justified the suspicions which all Saumur entertained
about the state of the rich heiress's heart. Her only society was
made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular
friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the
Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they
came every night for their game. During the year 1827 her father,
feeling the weight of his infirmities, was obliged to initiate
her still further into the secrets of his landed property, and
told her that in case of difficulty she was to have recourse to
Maitre Cruchot, whose integrity was well known to him.</p>

<p>Towards the end of this year the old man, then eighty-two, was
seized by paralysis, which made rapid progress. Dr. Bergerin gave
him up. Eugenie, feeling that she was about to be left alone in
the world, came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped
more tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, as
in that of all loving women, love was the whole of life. Charles
was not there, and she devoted all her care and attention to the
old father, whose faculties had begun to weaken, though his
avarice remained instinctively acute. The death of this man
offered no contrast to his life. In the morning he made them roll
him to a spot between the chimney of his chamber and the door of
the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, with gold. He asked
for an explanation of every noise he heard, even the slightest;
to the great astonishment of the notary, he even heard the
watch-dog yawning in the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent
stupor at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when
accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers, and receipts
given. At such times he worked his chair forward on its castors
until he faced the door of the inner room. He made his daughter
open it, and watched while she placed the bags of money one upon
another in his secret receptacles and relocked the door. Then she
returned silently to her seat, after giving him the key, which he
replaced in his waistcoat pocket and fingered from time to time.
His old friend the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress
would inevitably marry his nephew the president, if Charles
Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions; he came
every day to take Grandet's orders, went on his errands to
Froidfond, to the farms and the fields and the vineyards, sold
the vintages, and turned everything into gold and silver, which
found their way in sacks to the secret hiding-place.</p>

<p>At length the last struggle came, in which the strong frame of
the old man slowly yielded to destruction. He was determined to
sit at the chimney-corner facing the door of the secret room. He
drew off and rolled up all the coverings which were laid over
him, saying to Nanon, "Put them away, lock them up, for fear they
should be stolen."</p>

<p>So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole being
had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door behind which lay
his treasures, saying to his daughter, "Are they there? are they
there?" in a tone of voice which revealed a sort of panic
fear.</p>

<p>"Yes, my father," she would answer.</p>

<p>"Take care of the gold--put gold before me."</p>

<p>Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before him, and he
would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed upon them, like
a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in
stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a
distressful smile would flicker upon his face.</p>

<p>"It warms me!" he would sometimes say, as an expression of
beatitude stole across his features.</p>

<p>When the cure of the parish came to administer the last
sacraments, the old man's eyes, sightless, apparently, for some
hours, kindled at the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and
the holy-water vessel of silver; he gazed at them fixedly, and
his wen moved for the last time. When the priest put the crucifix
of silver-gilt to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he
made a frightful gesture, as if to seize it; and that last effort
cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not see, though
she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his stiffening
hand, which was already cold.</p>

<p>"My father, bless me!" she entreated.</p>

<p>"Take care of it all. You will render me an account yonder!"
he said, proving by these last words that Christianity must
always be the religion of misers.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house,
with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of
being heard and understood,--Nanon the sole being who loved her
for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La
Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant,
but a humble friend. After her father's death Eugenie learned
from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed an income of three hundred
thousand francs from landed and personal property in the
arrondissement of Saumur; also six millions invested at three per
cent in the Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six
francs); also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred thousand
francs in silver crown-pieces, besides all the interest which was
still to be collected. The sum total of her property reached
seventeen millions.</p>

<p>"Where is my cousin?" was her one thought.</p>

<p>The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a
clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie
remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the
vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on
castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her
cousin drank.</p>

<p>"Nanon, we are alone--"</p>

<p>"Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling,
I'd go on foot to find him."</p>

<p>"The ocean is between us," she said.</p>

<p>While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in
that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole
province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen
millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had
settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who,
already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable
match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to
wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was
appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet's estates. Madame
Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her
contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did
not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the
ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her
semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the
vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps
she never looked as well in her life as she did on her
marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was
big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her
indestructible features which made a good many people envy
Cornoiller.</p>

<p>"Fast colors!" said the draper.</p>

<p>"Quite likely to have children," said the salt merchant.
"She's pickled in brine, saving your presence."</p>

<p>"She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing
for himself," said a third man.</p>

<p>When she came forth from the old house on her way to the
parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood,
received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street.
Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a
wedding present. Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, spoke
of his mistress with tears in his eyes; he would willingly have
been hacked in pieces in her behalf. Madame Cornoiller, appointed
housekeeper to Mademoiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of
her new position as she did from the possession of a husband. She
took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions
and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master;
she ruled over two servants,--a cook, and a maid whose business
it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle's dresses.
Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff. It is
unnecessary to say that the women-servants selected by Nanon were
"perfect treasures." Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants,
whose devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no change
after Monsieur Grandet's death; the usages and customs he had
sternly established were scrupulously carried out by Monsieur and
Madame Cornoiller.</p>

<p>At thirty years of age Eugenie knew none of the joys of life.
Her pale, sad childhood had glided on beside a mother whose
heart, always misunderstood and wounded, had known only
suffering. Leaving this life joyfully, the mother pitied the
daughter because she still must live; and she left in her child's
soul some fugitive remorse and many lasting regrets. Eugenie's
first and only love was a wellspring of sadness within her.
Meeting her lover for a few brief days, she had given him her
heart between two kisses furtively exchanged; then he had left
her, and a whole world lay between them. This love, cursed by her
father, had cost the life of her mother and brought her only
sorrow, mingled with a few frail hopes. Thus her upward spring
towards happiness had wasted her strength and given her nothing
in exchange for it. In the life of the soul, as in the physical
life, there is an inspiration and a respiration; the soul needs
to absorb the sentiments of another soul and assimilate them,
that it may render them back enriched. Were it not for this
glorious human phenomenon, there would be no life for the heart;
air would be wanting; it would suffer, and then perish. Eugenie
had begun to suffer. For her, wealth was neither a power nor a
consolation; she could not live except through love, through
religion, through faith in the future. Love explained to her the
mysteries of eternity. Her heart and the Gospel taught her to
know two worlds; she bathed, night and day, in the depths of two
infinite thoughts, which for her may have had but one meaning.
She drew back within herself, loving, and believing herself
beloved. For seven years her passion had invaded everything. Her
treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up;
they were Charles's dressing- case, the portraits hanging above
her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread
upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble
of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore
religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,--a Penelope's
web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that
gold so rich in memories.</p>

<p>It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry
during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well
known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided
by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with
surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most
affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a
party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its
mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand
almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime
minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain
have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a
train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a
queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble
souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further
belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the
persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So
the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle
Grandet's house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond)
outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of
praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under
its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the
sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was
so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had
seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far
more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at
last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet
of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a
sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every
evening.</p>

<p>Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where
his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were
perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven
years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought
in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like
the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the
heiress.</p>

<p>"Do you know, mademoiselle," said an habitual visitor, "that
the Cruchots have an income of forty thousand francs among
them!"</p>

<p>"And then, their savings!" exclaimed an elderly female
Cruchotine, Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.</p>

<p>"A gentleman from Paris has lately offered Monsieur Cruchot
two hundred thousand francs for his practice," said another. "He
will sell it if he is appointed <i>juge de paix."</i></p>

<p>"He wants to succeed Monsieur de Bonfons as president of the
Civil courts, and is taking measures," replied Madame d'Orsonval.
"Monsieur le president will certainly be made councillor."</p>

<p>"Yes, he is a very distinguished man," said another,--"don't
you think so, mademoiselle?"</p>

<p>Monsieur de Bonfons endeavored to put himself in keeping with
the role he sought to play. In spite of his forty years, in spite
of his dusky and crabbed features, withered like most judicial
faces, he dressed in youthful fashions, toyed with a bamboo cane,
never took snuff in Mademoiselle de Froidfond's house, and came
in a white cravat and a shirt whose pleated frill gave him a
family resemblance to the race of turkeys. He addressed the
beautiful heiress familiarly, and spoke of her as "Our dear
Eugenie." In short, except for the number of visitors, the change
from loto to whist, and the disappearance of Monsieur and Madame
Grandet, the scene was about the same as the one with which this
history opened. The pack were still pursuing Eugenie and her
millions; but the hounds, more in number, lay better on the
scent, and beset the prey more unitedly. If Charles could have
dropped from the Indian Isles, he would have found the same
people and the same interests. Madame des Grassins, to whom
Eugenie was full of kindness and courtesy, still persisted in
tormenting the Cruchots. Eugenie, as in former days, was the
central figure of the picture; and Charles, as heretofore, would
still have been the sovereign of all. Yet there had been some
progress. The flowers which the president formerly presented to
Eugenie on her birthdays and fete-days had now become a daily
institution. Every evening he brought the rich heiress a huge and
magnificent bouquet, which Madame Cornoiller placed conspicuously
in a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the court-yard
when the visitors had departed.</p>

<p>Early in the spring, Madame des Grassins attempted to trouble
the peace of the Cruchotines by talking to Eugenie of the Marquis
de Froidfond, whose ancient and ruined family might be restored
if the heiress would give him back his estates through marriage.
Madame des Grassins rang the changes on the peerage and the title
of marquise, until, mistaking Eugenie's disdainful smile for
acquiescence, she went about proclaiming that the marriage with
"Monsieur Cruchot" was not nearly as certain as people
thought.</p>

<p>"Though Monsieur de Froidfond is fifty," she said, "he does
not look older than Monsieur Cruchot. He is a widower, and he has
children, that's true. But then he is a marquis; he will be peer
of France; and in times like these where you will find a better
match? I know it for a fact that Pere Grandet, when he put all
his money into Froidfond, intended to graft himself upon that
stock; he often told me so. He was a deep one, that old man!"</p>

<p>"Ah! Nanon," said Eugenie, one night as she was going to bed,
"how is it that in seven years he has never once written to
me?"</p>

<p> </p>

<h3>XIII</h3>

<p>While these events were happening in Saumur, Charles was
making his fortune in the Indies. His commercial outfit had sold
well. He began by realizing a sum of six thousand dollars.
Crossing the line had brushed a good many cobwebs out of his
brain; he perceived that the best means of attaining fortune in
tropical regions, as well as in Europe, was to buy and sell men.
He went to the coast of Africa and bought Negroes, combining his
traffic in human flesh with that of other merchandise equally
advantageous to his interests. He carried into this business an
activity which left him not a moment of leisure. He was governed
by the desire of reappearing in Paris with all the prestige of a
large fortune, and by the hope of regaining a position even more
brilliant than the one from which he had fallen.</p>

<p>By dint of jostling with men, travelling through many lands,
and studying a variety of conflicting customs, his ideas had been
modified and had become sceptical. He ceased to have fixed
principles of right and wrong, for he saw what was called a crime
in one country lauded as a virtue in another. In the perpetual
struggle of selfish interests his heart grew cold, then
contracted, and then dried up. The blood of the Grandets did not
fail of its destiny; Charles became hard, and eager for prey. He
sold Chinamen, Negroes, birds' nests, children, artists; he
practised usury on a large scale; the habit of defrauding
custom-houses soon made him less scrupulous about the rights of
his fellow men. He went to the Island of St. Thomas and bought,
for a mere song, merchandise that had been captured by pirates,
and took it to ports where he could sell it at a good price. If
the pure and noble face of Eugenie went with him on his first
voyage, like that image of the Virgin which Spanish mariners
fastened to their masts, if he attributed his first success to
the magic influence of the prayers and intercessions of his
gentle love, later on women of other kinds,-- blacks, mulattoes,
whites, and Indian dancing-girls,--orgies and adventures in many
lands, completely effaced all recollection of his cousin, of
Saumur, of the house, the bench, the kiss snatched in the dark
passage. He remembered only the little garden shut in with
crumbling walls, for it was there he learned the fate that had
overtaken him; but he rejected all connection with his family.
His uncle was an old dog who had filched his jewels; Eugenie had
no place in his heart nor in his thoughts, though she did have a
place in his accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand
francs.</p>

<p>Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet's silence.
In the Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon,
and in the United States the adventurer had taken the pseudonym
of Shepherd, that he might not compromise his own name. Charles
Shepherd could safely be indefatigable, bold, grasping, and
greedy of gain, like a man who resolves to snatch his fortune
<i>quibus cumque viis</i>, and makes haste to have done with
villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as an honest
man.</p>

<p>With such methods, prosperity was rapid and brilliant; and in
1827 Charles Grandet returned to Bordeaux on the "Marie
Caroline," a fine brig belonging to a royalist house of business.
He brought with him nineteen hundred thousand francs worth of
gold-dust, from which he expected to derive seven or eight per
cent more at the Paris mint. On the brig he met a
gentleman-in-ordinary to His Majesty Charles X., Monsieur
d'Aubrion, a worthy old man who had committed the folly of
marrying a woman of fashion with a fortune derived from the West
India Islands. To meet the costs of Madame d'Aubrion's
extravagance, he had gone out to the Indies to sell the property,
and was now returning with his family to France.</p>

<p>Monsieur and Madame d'Aubrion, of the house of d'Aubrion de
Buch, a family of southern France, whose last <i>captal</i>, or
chief, died before 1789, were now reduced to an income of about
twenty thousand francs, and they possessed an ugly daughter whom
the mother was resolved to marry without a <i>dot</i>,--the
family fortune being scarcely sufficient for the demands of her
own life in Paris. This was an enterprise whose success might
have seemed problematical to most men of the world, in spite of
the cleverness with which such men credit a fashionable woman; in
fact, Madame d'Aubrion herself, when she looked at her daughter,
almost despaired of getting rid of her to any one, even to a man
craving connection with nobility. Mademoiselle d'Aubrion was a
long, spare, spindling demoiselle, like her namesake the insect;
her mouth was disdainful; over it hung a nose that was too long,
thick at the end, sallow in its normal condition, but very red
after a meal,--a sort of vegetable phenomenon which is
particularly disagreeable when it appears in the middle of a
pale, dull, and uninteresting face. In one sense she was all that
a worldly mother, thirty-eight years of age and still a beauty
with claims to admiration, could have wished. However, to
counterbalance her personal defects, the marquise gave her
daughter a distinguished air, subjected her to hygienic treatment
which provisionally kept her nose at a reasonable flesh-tint,
taught her the art of dressing well, endowed her with charming
manners, showed her the trick of melancholy glances which
interest a man and make him believe that he has found a
long-sought angel, taught her the manoeuvre of the foot,--letting
it peep beneath the petticoat, to show its tiny size, at the
moment when the nose became aggressively red; in short, Madame
d'Aubrion had cleverly made the very best of her offspring. By
means of full sleeves, deceptive pads, puffed dresses amply
trimmed, and high-pressure corsets, she had obtained such curious
feminine developments that she ought, for the instruction of
mothers, to have exhibited them in a museum.</p>

<p>Charles became very intimate with Madame d'Aubrion precisely
because she was desirous of becoming intimate with him. Persons
who were on board the brig declared that the handsome Madame
d'Aubrion neglected no means of capturing so rich a son-in-law.
On landing at Bordeaux in June, 1827, Monsieur, Madame,
Mademoiselle d'Aubrion, and Charles lodged at the same hotel and
started together for Paris. The hotel d'Aubrion was hampered with
mortgages; Charles was destined to free it. The mother told him
how delighted she would be to give up the ground-floor to a
son-in-law. Not sharing Monsieur d'Aubrion's prejudices on the
score of nobility, she promised Charles Grandet to obtain a royal
ordinance from Charles X. which would authorize him, Grandet, to
take the name and arms of d'Aubrion and to succeed, by purchasing
the entailed estate for thirty-six thousand francs a year, to the
titles of Captal de Buch and Marquis d'Aubrion. By thus uniting
their fortunes, living on good terms, and profiting by sinecures,
the two families might occupy the hotel d'Aubrion with an income
of over a hundred thousand francs.</p>

<p>"And when a man has a hundred thousand francs a year, a name,
a family, and a position at court,--for I will get you appointed
as gentleman-of-the-bedchamber,--he can do what he likes," she
said to Charles. "You can then become anything you
choose,--master of the rolls in the council of State, prefect,
secretary to an embassy, the ambassador himself, if you like.
Charles X. is fond of d'Aubrion; they have known each other from
childhood."</p>

<p>Intoxicated with ambition, Charles toyed with the hopes thus
cleverly presented to him in the guise of confidences poured from
heart to heart. Believing his father's affairs to have been
settled by his uncle, he imagined himself suddenly anchored in
the Faubourg Saint- Germain,--that social object of all desire,
where, under shelter of Mademoiselle Mathilde's purple nose, he
was to reappear as the Comte d'Aubrion, very much as the Dreux
reappeared in Breze. Dazzled by the prosperity of the
Restoration, which was tottering when he left France, fascinated
by the splendor of aristocratic ideas, his intoxication, which
began on the brig, increased after he reached Paris, and he
finally determined to take the course and reach the high position
which the selfish hopes of his would-be mother-in-law pointed out
to him. His cousin counted for no more than a speck in this
brilliant perspective; but he went to see Annette. True woman of
the world, Annette advised her old friend to make the marriage,
and promised him her support in all his ambitious projects. In
her heart she was enchanted to fasten an ugly and uninteresting
girl on Charles, whose life in the West Indies had rendered him
very attractive. His complexion had bronzed, his manners had
grown decided and bold, like those of a man accustomed to make
sharp decisions, to rule, and to succeed. Charles breathed more
at his ease in Paris, conscious that he now had a part to
play.</p>

<p>Des Grassins, hearing of his return, of his approaching
marriage and his large fortune, came to see him, and inquired
about the three hundred thousand francs still required to settle
his father's debts. He found Grandet in conference with a
goldsmith, from whom he had ordered jewels for Mademoiselle
d'Aubrion's <i>corbeille</i>, and who was then submitting the
designs. Charles had brought back magnificent diamonds, and the
value of their setting, together with the plate and jewelry of
the new establishment, amounted to more than two hundred thousand
francs. He received des Grassins, whom he did not recognize, with
the impertinence of a young man of fashion conscious of having
killed four men in as many duels in the Indies. Monsieur des
Grassins had already called several times. Charles listened to
him coldly, and then replied, without fully understanding what
had been said to him,--</p>

<p>"My father's affairs are not mine. I am much obliged,
monsieur, for the trouble you have been good enough to take,--by
which, however, I really cannot profit. I have not earned two
millions by the sweat of my brow to fling them at the head of my
father's creditors."</p>

<p>"But suppose that your father's estate were within a few days
to be declared bankrupt?"</p>

<p>"Monsieur, in a few days I shall be called the Comte
d'Aubrion; you will understand, therefore, that what you threaten
is of no consequence to me. Besides, you know as well as I do
that when a man has an income of a hundred thousand francs his
father has <i>never failed</i>." So saying, he politely edged
Monsieur des Grassins to the door.</p>

<p>*****</p>

<p>At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was
sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to
love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the
weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in
the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the
great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes
which had followed it. The sun had just reached the angle of the
ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a caprice
of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though Cornoiller often
remarked to his wife that "it would fall and crush somebody one
of these days." At this moment the postman knocked, and gave a
letter to Madame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying
out:</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle, a letter!" She gave it to her mistress, adding,
"Is it the one you expected?"</p>

<p>The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as they
echoed in sound from wall to wall of the court and garden.</p>

<p>"Paris--from him--he has returned!"</p>

<p>Eugenie turned pale and held the letter for a moment. She
trembled so violently that she could not break the seal. La
Grande Nanon stood before her, both hands on her hips, her joy
puffing as it were like smoke through the cracks of her brown
face.</p>

<p>"Read it, mademoiselle!"</p>

<p>"Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went from
Saumur."</p>

<p>"Read it, and you'll find out."</p>

<p>Eugenie opened the letter with trembling fingers. A cheque on
the house of "Madame des Grassins and Coret, of Saumur,"
fluttered down. Nanon picked it up.</p>

<p>My dear Cousin,--</p>

<p>"No longer 'Eugenie,'" she thought, and her heart quailed.</p>

<p>You--</p>

<p>"He once said 'thou.'" She folded her arms and dared not read
another word; great tears gathered in her eyes.</p>

<p>"Is he dead?" asked Nanon.</p>

<p>"If he were, he could not write," said Eugenie.</p>

<p>She then read the whole letter, which was as follows:</p>

<p>My dear Cousin,--You will, I am sure, hear with pleasure of
the success of my enterprise. You brought me luck; I have come
back rich, and I have followed the advice of my uncle, whose
death, together with that of my aunt, I have just learned from
Monsieur des Grassins. The death of parents is in the course of
nature, and we must succeed them. I trust you are by this time
consoled. Nothing can resist time, as I am well aware. Yes, my
dear cousin, the day of illusions is, unfortunately, gone for me.
How could it be otherwise? Travelling through many lands, I have
reflected upon life. I was a child when I went away,--I have come
back a man. To-day, I think of many I did not dream of then. You
are free, my dear cousin, and I am free still. Nothing apparently
hinders the realization of our early hopes; but my nature is too
loyal to hide from you the situation in which I find myself. I
have not forgotten our relations; I have always remembered,
throughout my long wanderings, the little wooden seat--</p>

<p>Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and went
away and sat down on the stone steps of the court.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>--the little wooden seat where we vowed to love each other
forever, the passage, the gray hall, my attic chamber, and the
night when, by your delicate kindness, you made my future easier
to me. Yes, these recollections sustained my courage; I said in
my heart that you were thinking of me at the hour we had agreed
upon. Have you always looked at the clouds at nine o'clock? Yes,
I am sure of it. I cannot betray so true a friendship,--no, I
must not deceive you. An alliance has been proposed to me which
satisfies all my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a
delusion. My present experience warns me that in marrying we are
bound to obey all social laws and meet the conventional demands
of the world. Now, between you and me there are differences which
might affect your future, my dear cousin, even more than they
would mine. I will not here speak of your customs and
inclinations, your education, nor yet of your habits, none of
which are in keeping with Parisian life, or with the future which
I have marked out for myself. My intention is to keep my
household on a stately footing, to receive much company,--in
short, to live in the world; and I think I remember that you love
a quiet and tranquil life. I will be frank, and make you the
judge of my situation; you have the right to understand it and to
judge it.</p>

<p>I possess at the present moment an income of eighty thousand
francs. This fortune enables me to marry into the family of
Aubrion, whose heiress, a young girl nineteen years of age,
brings me a title, a place of gentleman-of-the-bed-chamber to His
Majesty, and a very brilliant position. I will admit to you, my
dear cousin, that I do not love Mademoiselle d'Aubrion; but in
marrying her I secure to my children a social rank whose
advantages will one day be incalculable: monarchical principles
are daily coming more and more into favor. Thus in course of time
my son, when he becomes Marquis d'Aubrion, having, as he then
will have, an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand
francs a year, can obtain any position in the State which he may
think proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children.</p>

<p>You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state of my
heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possibly, after seven
years' separation, you have yourself forgotten our youthful
loves; but I have never forgotten either your kindness or my own
words. I remember all, even words that were lightly
uttered,--words by which a man less conscientious than I, with a
heart less youthful and less upright, would scarcely feel himself
bound. In telling you that the marriage I propose to make is
solely one of convenience, that I still remember our childish
love, am I not putting myself entirely in your hands and making
you the mistress of my fate? am I not telling you that if I must
renounce my social ambitions, I shall willingly content myself
with the pure and simple happiness of which you have shown me so
sweet an image?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>"Tan, ta, ta--tan, ta, ti," sang Charles Grandet to the air of
<i>Non piu andrai,</i> as he signed himself,--</p>

<p>Your devoted cousin, Charles.</p>

<p>"Thunder! that's doing it handsomely!" he said, as he looked
about him for the cheque; having found it, he added the
words:--</p>

<blockquote>
<p>P.S.--I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank for eight
thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which includes
the capital and interest of the sum you were kind enough to lend
me. I am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few
things which you must allow me to offer you as a mark of my
unceasing gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the
diligence to the hotel d'Aubrion, rue Hillerin-Bertin.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>"By the diligence!" said Eugenie. "A thing for which I would
have laid down my life!"</p>

<p>Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a
spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they
see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the
arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the
earth,--to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine;
the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human
justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they
go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and
recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is
love,--true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives
upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie's love after
she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven,
thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with
the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear
and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death,
that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny.
Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings,
stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of
her deliverance.</p>

<p>"My mother was right," she said, weeping. "Suffer--and
die!"</p>

<p>XIV</p>

<p>Eugenie came slowly back from the garden to the house, and
avoided passing, as was her custom, through the corridor. But the
memory of her cousin was in the gray old hall and on the
chimney-piece, where stood a certain saucer and the old Sevres
sugar-bowl which she used every morning at her breakfast.</p>

<p>This day was destined to be solemn throughout and full of
events. Nanon announced the cure of the parish church. He was
related to the Cruchots, and therefore in the interests of
Monsieur de Bonfons. For some time past the old abbe had urged
him to speak to Mademoiselle Grandet, from a purely religious
point of view, about the duty of marriage for a woman in her
position. When she saw her pastor, Eugenie supposed he had come
for the thousand francs which she gave monthly to the poor, and
she told Nanon to go and fetch them; but the cure only
smiled.</p>

<p>"To-day, mademoiselle," he said, "I have come to speak to you
about a poor girl in whom the whole town of Saumur takes an
interest, who, through lack of charity to herself, neglects her
Christian duties."</p>

<p>"Monsieur le cure, you have come to me at a moment when I
cannot think of my neighbor, I am filled with thoughts of myself.
I am very unhappy; my only refuge is in the Church; her bosom is
large enough to hold all human woe, her love so full that we may
draw from its depths and never drain it dry."</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle, in speaking of this young girl we shall speak
of you. Listen! If you wish to insure your salvation you have
only two paths to take,--either leave the world or obey its laws.
Obey either your earthly destiny or your heavenly destiny."</p>

<p>"Ah! your voice speaks to me when I need to hear a voice. Yes,
God has sent you to me; I will bid farewell to the world and live
for God alone, in silence and seclusion."</p>

<p>"My daughter, you must think long before you take so violent a
step. Marriage is life, the veil is death."</p>

<p>"Yes, death,--a quick death!" she said, with dreadful
eagerness.</p>

<p>"Death? but you have great obligations to fulfil to society,
mademoiselle. Are you not the mother of the poor, to whom you
give clothes and wood in winter and work in summer? Your great
fortune is a loan which you must return, and you have sacredly
accepted it as such. To bury yourself in a convent would be
selfishness; to remain an old maid is to fail in duty. In the
first place, can you manage your vast property alone? May you not
lose it? You will have law-suits, you will find yourself
surrounded by inextricable difficulties. Believe your pastor: a
husband is useful; you are bound to preserve what God has
bestowed upon you. I speak to you as a precious lamb of my flock.
You love God too truly not to find your salvation in the midst of
his world, of which you are noble ornament and to which you owe
your example."</p>

<p>At this moment Madame des Grassins was announced. She came
incited by vengeance and the sense of a great despair.</p>

<p>"Mademoiselle," she said--"Ah! here is monsieur le cure; I am
silent. I came to speak to you on business; but I see that you
are conferring with--"</p>

<p>"Madame," said the cure, "I leave the field to you."</p>

<p>"Oh! monsieur le cure," said Eugenie, "come back later; your
support is very necessary to me just now."</p>

<p>"Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child!" said Madame des
Grassins.</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" asked Eugenie and the cure together.</p>

<p>"Don't I know about your cousin's return, and his marriage
with Mademoiselle d'Aubrion? A woman doesn't carry her wits in
her pocket."</p>

<p>Eugenie blushed, and remained silent for a moment. From this
day forth she assumed the impassible countenance for which her
father had been so remarkable.</p>

<p>"Well, madame," she presently said, ironically, "no doubt I
carry my wits in my pocket, for I do not understand you. Speak,
say what you mean, before monsieur le cure; you know he is my
director."</p>

<p>"Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins writes
me. Read it."</p>

<p>Eugenie read the following letter:--</p>

<blockquote>
<p>My dear Wife,--Charles Grandet has returned from the Indies
and has been in Paris about a month--</p>
</blockquote>

<p>"A month!" thought Eugenie, her hand falling to her side.
After a pause she resumed the letter,--</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I had to dance attendance before I was allowed to see the
future Vicomte d'Aubrion. Though all Paris is talking of his
marriage and the banns are published--</p>
</blockquote>

<p>"He wrote to me after that!" thought Eugenie. She did not
conclude the thought; she did not cry out, as a Parisian woman
would have done, "The villain!" but though she said it not,
contempt was none the less present in her mind.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The marriage, however, will not come off. The Marquis
d'Aubrion will never give his daughter to the son of a bankrupt.
I went to tell Grandet of the steps his uncle and I took in his
father's business, and the clever manoeuvres by which we had
managed to keep the creditor's quiet until the present time. The
insolent fellow had the face to say to me--to me, who for five
years have devoted myself night and day to his interests and his
honor!--that <i>his father's</i> <i>affairs were not his</i>! A
solicitor would have had the right to demand fees amounting to
thirty or forty thousand francs, one per cent on the total of the
debts. But patience! there are twelve hundred thousand francs
legitimately owing to the creditors, and I shall at once declare
his father a bankrupt.</p>

<p>I went into this business on the word of that old crocodile
Grandet, and I have made promises in the name of his family. If
Monsieur de vicomte d'Aubrion does not care for his honor, I care
for mine. I shall explain my position to the creditors. Still, I
have too much respect for Mademoiselle Eugenie (to whom under
happier circumstances we once hoped to be allied) to act in this
matter before you have spoken to her about it--</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There Eugenie paused, and coldly returned the letter without
finishing it.</p>

<p>"I thank you," she said to Madame des Grassins.</p>

<p>"Ah! you have the voice and manner of your deceased father,"
Madame des Grassins replied.</p>

<p>"Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay us," said
Nanon, producing Charles's cheque.</p>

<p>"That's true; have the kindness to come with me now, Madame
Cornoiller."</p>

<p>"Monsieur le cure," said Eugenie with a noble composure,
inspired by the thought she was about to express, "would it be a
sin to remain a virgin after marriage?"</p>

<p>"That is a case of conscience whose solution is not within my
knowledge. If you wish to know what the celebrated Sanchez says
of it in his treatise 'De Matrimonio,' I shall be able to tell
you to-morrow."</p>

<p>The cure went away; Mademoiselle Grandet went up to her
father's secret room and spent the day there alone, without
coming down to dinner, in spite of Nanon's entreaties. She
appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began
to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion.
The news of Charles's return and his foolish treachery had spread
through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the
visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected
scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul
to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a
smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their
interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her
misery behind a veil of courtesy. Towards nine o'clock the games
ended and the players left the tables, paying their losses and
discussing points of the game as they joined the rest of the
company. At the moment when the whole party rose to take leave,
an unexpected and striking event occurred, which resounded
through the length and breadth of Saumur, from thence through the
arrondissement, and even to the four surrounding prefectures.</p>

<p>"Stay, monsieur le president," said Eugenie to Monsieur de
Bonfons as she saw him take his cane.</p>

<p>There was not a person in that numerous assembly who was
unmoved by these words. The president turned pale, and was forced
to sit down.</p>

<p>"The president gets the millions," said Mademoiselle de
Gribeaucourt.</p>

<p>"It is plain enough; the president marries Mademoiselle
Grandet," cried Madame d'Orsonval.</p>

<p>"All the trumps in one hand," said the abbe.</p>

<p>"A love game," said the notary.</p>

<p>Each and all said his say, made his pun, and looked at the
heiress mounted on her millions as on a pedestal. The drama begun
nine years before had reached its conclusion. To tell the
president, in face of all Saumur, to "stay," was surely the same
thing as proclaiming him her husband. In provincial towns social
conventionalities are so rigidly enforced than an infraction like
this constituted a solemn promise.</p>

<p>"Monsieur le president," said Eugenie in a voice of some
emotion when they were left alone, "I know what pleases you in
me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of
the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is
yours. Oh!" she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, "I
have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish
one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment
which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor
to violate the laws of my own heart. But you can possess my hand
and my fortune only at the cost of doing me an inestimable
service."</p>

<p>"I am ready for all things," said the president.</p>

<p>"Here are fifteen hundred thousand francs," she said, drawing
from her bosom a certificate of a hundred shares in the Bank of
France. "Go to Paris,--not to-morrow, but instantly. Find
Monsieur des Grassins, learn the names of my uncle's creditors,
call them together, pay them in full all that was owing, with
interest at five per cent from the day the debt was incurred to
the present time. Be careful to obtain a full and legal receipt,
in proper form, before a notary. You are a magistrate, and I can
trust this matter in your hands. You are a man of honor; I will
put faith in your word, and meet the dangers of life under
shelter of your name. Let us have mutual indulgence. We have
known each other so long that we are almost related; you would
not wish to render me unhappy."</p>

<p>The president fell at the feet of the rich heiress, his heart
beating and wrung with joy.</p>

<p>"I will be your slave!" he said.</p>

<p>"When you obtain the receipts, monsieur," she resumed, with a
cold glance, "you will take them with all the other papers to my
cousin Grandet, and you will give him this letter. On your return
I will keep my word."</p>

<p>The president understood perfectly that he owed the
acquiescence of Mademoiselle Grandet to some bitterness of love,
and he made haste to obey her orders, lest time should effect a
reconciliation between the pair.</p>

<p>When Monsieur de Bonfons left her, Eugenie fell back in her
chair and burst into tears. All was over.</p>

<p>The president took the mail-post, and reached Paris the next
evening. The morning after his arrival he went to see des
Grassins, and together they summoned the creditors to meet at the
notary's office where the vouchers had been deposited. Not a
single creditor failed to be present. Creditors though they were,
justice must be done to them, --they were all punctual. Monsieur
de Bonfons, in the name of Mademoiselle Grandet, paid them the
amount of their claims with interest. The payment of interest was
a remarkable event in the Parisian commerce of that day. When the
receipts were all legally registered, and des Grassins had
received for his services the sum of fifty thousand francs
allowed to him by Eugenie, the president made his way to the
hotel d'Aubrion and found Charles just entering his own apartment
after a serious encounter with his prospective father-in- law.
The old marquis had told him plainly that he should not marry his
daughter until all the creditors of Guillaume Grandet had been
paid in full.</p>

<p>The president gave Charles the following letter:--</p>

<blockquote>
<p>My Cousin,--Monsieur le president de Bonfons has undertaken to
place in your hands the aquittance for all claims upon my uncle,
also a receipt by which I acknowledge having received from you
the sum total of those claims. I have heard of a possible
failure, and I think that the son of a bankrupt may not be able
to marry Mademoiselle d'Aubrion. Yes, my cousin, you judged
rightly of my mind and of my manners. I have, it is true, no part
in the world; I understand neither its calculations nor its
customs; and I could not give you the pleasures that you seek in
it. Be happy, according to the social conventions to which you
have sacrificed our love. To make your happiness complete I can
only offer you your father's honor. Adieu! You will always have a
faithful friend in your cousin</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Eugenie.</p>

<p>The president smiled at the exclamation which the ambitious
young man could not repress as he received the documents.</p>

<p>"We shall announce our marriages at the same time," remarked
Monsieur de Bonfons.</p>

<p>"Ah! you marry Eugenie? Well, I am delighted; she is a good
girl. But," added Charles, struck with a luminous idea, "she must
be rich?"</p>

<p>"She had," said the president, with a mischievous smile,
"about nineteen millions four days ago; but she has only
seventeen millions to-day."</p>

<p>Charles looked at him thunderstruck.</p>

<p>"Seventeen mil--"</p>

<p>"Seventeen millions; yes, monsieur. We shall muster,
Mademoiselle Grandet and I, an income of seven hundred and fifty
thousand francs when we marry."</p>

<p>"My dear cousin," said Charles, recovering a little of his
assurance, "we can push each other's fortunes."</p>

<p>"Agreed," said the president. "Here is also a little case
which I am charged to give into your own hands," he added,
placing on the table the leather box which contained the
dressing-case.</p>

<p>"Well, my dear friend," said Madame d'Aubrion, entering the
room without noticing the president, "don't pay any attention to
what poor Monsieur d'Aubrion has just said to you; the Duchesse
de Chaulieu has turned his head. I repeat, nothing shall
interfere with the marriage--"</p>

<p>"Very good, madame. The three millions which my father owed
were paid yesterday."</p>

<p>"In money?" she asked.</p>

<p>"Yes, in full, capital and interest; and I am about to do
honor to his memory--"</p>

<p>"What folly!" exclaimed his mother-in-law. "Who is this?" she
whispered in Grandet's ear, perceiving the president.</p>

<p>"My man of business," he answered in a low voice.</p>

<p>The marquise bowed superciliously to Monsieur de Bonfons.</p>

<p>"We are pushing each other's fortunes already," said the
president, taking up his hat. "Good-by, cousin."</p>

<p>"He is laughing at me, the old cockatoo! I'd like to put six
inches of iron into him!" muttered Charles.</p>

<p>The president was out of hearing. Three days later Monsieur de
Bonfons, on his return to Saumur, announced his marriage with
Eugenie. Six months after the marriage he was appointed
councillor in the Cour royale at Angers. Before leaving Saumur
Madame de Bonfons had the gold of certain jewels, once so
precious to her, melted up, and put, together with the eight
thousand francs paid back by her cousin, into a golden pyx, which
she gave to the parish church where she had so long prayed for
<i>him</i>. She now spent her time between Angers and Saumur. Her
husband, who had shown some public spirit on a certain occasion,
became a judge in the superior courts, and finally, after a few
years, president of them. He was anxiously awaiting a general
election, in the hope of being returned to the Chamber of
deputies. He hankered after a peerage; and then--</p>

<p>"The king will be his cousin, won't he?" said Nanon, la Grande
Nanon, Madame Cornoiller, bourgeoise of Saumur, as she listened
to her mistress, who was recounting the honors to which she was
called.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished
his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious
ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur.
God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no
doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with
which, <i>accurante Cruchot</i>, he had drawn up his marriage
contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, "in case
they should have no children, their entire property of every
kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation,
dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that
said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and
assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc.,
etc." This clause of the contract will explain the profound
respect which monsieur le president always testified for the
wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons.
Women cited him as the most considerate and delicate of men,
pitied him, and even went so far as to find fault with the
passion and grief of Eugenie, blaming her, as women know so well
how to blame, with cruel but discreet insinuation.</p>

<p>"Madame de Bonfons must be very ill to leave her husband
entirely alone. Poor woman! Is she likely to get well? What is
it? Something gastric? A cancer?"--"She has grown perfectly
yellow. She ought to consult some celebrated doctor in
Paris."--"How can she be happy without a child? They say she
loves her husband; then why not give him an heir?--in his
position, too!"--"Do you know, it is really dreadful! If it is
the result of mere caprice, it is unpardonable. Poor
president!"</p>

<p>Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul
acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite
clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on
all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering
and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the
president desired her death that he might step into possession of
their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the
notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to
call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president.
Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference
of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she
spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life
to a child would give death to his hopes,--the hopes of
selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished
as he looked into the future.</p>

<p>God thus flung piles of gold upon this prisoner to whom gold
was a matter of indifference, who longed for heaven, who lived,
pious and good, in holy thoughts, succoring the unfortunate in
secret, and never wearying of such deeds. Madame de Bonfons
became a widow at thirty- six. She is still beautiful, but with
the beauty of a woman who is nearly forty years of age. Her face
is white and placid and calm; her voice gentle and
self-possessed; her manners are simple. She has the noblest
qualities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled
her soul by contact with the world; but she has also the rigid
bearing of an old maid and the petty habits inseparable from the
narrow round of provincial life. In spite of her vast wealth, she
lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never
lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to
be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the
rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her
mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth,
always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She
carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did
she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth.
Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age,
Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed,
bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons
lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their
embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically
spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential
respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest
emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the
calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid
influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings
to a woman who is all feeling.</p>

<p>"I have none but you to love me," she says to Nanon.</p>

<p>The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many
families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of
benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of
her education and the petty habits of her early life.</p>

<p>Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world
but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother,
has neither husband nor children nor family. Lately there has
been some question of her marrying again. The Saumur people talk
of her and of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose family are
beginning to beset the rich widow just as, in former days, the
Cruchots laid siege to the rich heiress. Nanon and Cornoiller
are, it is said, in the interests of the marquis. Nothing could
be more false. Neither la Grande Nanon nor Cornoiller has
sufficient mind to understand the corruptions of the world.</p>


<p> </p>

<p><br>
 ADDENDUM</p>

<p>The following personages appear in other stories of the Human
Comedy.</p>

<p>Chaulieu, Eleonore, Duchesse de<br>
 Letters of Two Brides</p>

<p>Grandet, Victor-Ange-Guillaume<br>
 The Firm of Nucingen</p>

<p>Grandet, Charles<br>
 The Firm of Nucingen</p>

<p>Keller, Francois<br>
 Domestic Peace<br>
 Cesar Birotteau<br>
 The Government Clerks<br>
 The Member for Arcis</p>

<p>Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des<br>
 The Muse of the Department<br>
 A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
 The Government Clerks<br>
 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
 Ursule Mirouet</p>

<p>Nathan, Madame Raoul<br>
 The Muse of the Department<br>
 Lost Illusions<br>
 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
 The Government Clerks<br>
 A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
 Ursule Mirouet<br>
 The Imaginary Mistress<br>
 A Prince of Bohemia<br>
 A Daughter of Eve<br>
 The Unconscious Humorists</p>

<p>Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de<br>
 Father Goriot<br>
 The Thirteen<br>
 Cesar Birotteau<br>
 Melmoth Reconciled<br>
 Lost Illusions<br>
 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
 The Commission in Lunacy<br>
 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
 Modeste Mignon<br>
 The Firm of Nucingen<br>
 Another Study of Woman<br>
 A Daughter of Eve<br>
 The Member for Arcis</p>

<p>Roguin<br>
 Cesar Birotteau<br>
 Eugenie Grandet<br>
 A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
 The Vendetta</p>

<p> </p>

<p>End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Eugenie Grandet, by Honore
de Balzac</p>

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