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

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

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

"I feel better!" said Eugenie after a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How good you are, my kind mamma!"

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

"You like him?" asked Eugenie.

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

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

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

"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"

"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"

"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old servant.

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

"Where am I to get it?"

"Buy some."

"Suppose monsieur meets me?"

"He has gone to his fields."

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

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

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

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

"Sorrow is watching while he sleeps," she thought.

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

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

V

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

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

Eugenie could not repress a tear.

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

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

"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?"

"Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.

"I? perfectly."

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

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

"Early?" said Madame Grandet.

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

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.

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

"Come and sit down," said his aunt.

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

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

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

"Don't you ever take walks?"

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

"Have you a theatre?"

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

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

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

"Butter! then you can't have the _galette_."

"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.

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

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

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

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

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

"My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart."

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

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

"See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship."

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

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

"It is boiled coffee," said Nanon.

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

He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.

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

"I will make it," said Eugenie.

"Child!" said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.

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

"Is anything the matter, my cousin?" he said.

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

"Say Charles," said young Grandet.

"Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!" cried Eugenie.

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

"There's papa!" said Eugenie.

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

"Why! what is the matter?" he asked.

"My father has come," answered Eugenie.

"Well, what of that?"

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

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

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

"Give me my glass, Nanon," said the master

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

"Where did you get all that sugar?"

"Nanon fetched it from Fessard's; there was none."

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

"What do you want?" said his uncle.

"The sugar."

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

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

"You are not eating your breakfast, wife."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come!" said Grandet.

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

"My cousin, take courage!"

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

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

"It is very fine weather, very warm," said Grandet, drawing a long
breath.

"Yes, uncle; but why--"

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

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

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

"My father!"

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

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

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

"Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!"

"He has ruined you, you haven't a penny."

"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"

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

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

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

"Poor young man!" said Madame Grandet.

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

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

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

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

"Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from us--"

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

"What is 'failing,' father?" asked Eugenie.

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

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

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

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

"Father, could you not have prevented such a misfortune?"

"My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes four millions."

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

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

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

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

"Has he got the money to go with?"

"I shall pay for his journey as far as--yes, as far as Nantes."

Eugenie sprang into his arms.

"Oh, father, how good you are!"

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

"Will it take much time to amass a million?" she asked.

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

"Mamma, we must say a great many _neuvaines_ for him."

"I was thinking so," said Madame Grandet.

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

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

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

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

"Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?"

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

"Then papa must be rich?"

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

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

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

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

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

"How he loves his father!" said Eugenie in a low voice.

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

"Take care, you will love him!"

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

Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin.

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

Sobs cut short the words.

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

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

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

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

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

"Mamma," said Eugenie, "we must wear mourning for my uncle."

"Your father will decide that," answered Madame Grandet.

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

VI

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

"What can have happened to your father?" she said to her daughter.

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

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

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

"Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?"

"Yes, little one."

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

"Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of twenty sous each?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet."

"Then, father, you can easily help Charles."

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

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

"No, my friend," answered Madame Grandet.

"What is he doing then?"

"He is weeping for his father," said Eugenie.

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

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

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

"So much saved," retorted her master.

"That's so," she said.

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

The dinner was eaten in silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The devil take your good God!" growled Grandet in reply.

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

"Madame Grandet, have you done?" asked the old man.

"My friend, I am praying for you."

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

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

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

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

"Do you hear, mamma?"

"What?"

"_He_ is weeping still."

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

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

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

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

"There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and _we_ thought you might need
something. You should go to bed; you tire yourself by sitting thus."

"That is true."

"Well, then, adieu!"

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

"What will he think of me? He will think that I love him!"

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

"What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble."

"Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon.

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

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

"I am going to loiter about the market-place and find Cruchot."

"Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his mind."

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

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

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

"My cousin!"

"Yes, cousin."

"Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room?"

"Where you like."

"How do you feel?"

"Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry."

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

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

She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a bird.

"Nanon, go and do his room!"

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

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

"What troubles you?" she said.

"Oh! these are tears of gratitude," he answered.

Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the candlesticks.

"Here, Nanon, carry them away!" she said.

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

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

"Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed two days."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.

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

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

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

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

VII

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

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

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

"Certainly, nephew."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"M-my b-b-brother, yes."

"--is threatened with insolvency--"

"They c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency?"

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

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

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

"N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought," answered Grandet.

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

"W-w-what h-h-happens?"

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

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

"A noble man!" cried the president, interrupting his uncle.

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

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

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

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

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

"All right!" thought Grandet, "make haste and come to the point!"

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

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

"Exactly so," said the president.

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

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

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

"But," cried the president, "do pray attend to what I am saying."

"I am at-t-tending."

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

"Whew!" ejaculated the goodman.

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

"D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jeremy B-Ben?"

"Bentham, an Englishman.'

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

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

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

"Very g-good," repeated Grandet.

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

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

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

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

"That's very true."

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

"Yes, you are not a lawyer."

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

"Very good," said the president, preparing to resume his argument.

"Nephew!" said the notary, interrupting him in a warning tone.

"Well, what, uncle?" answered the president.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The goodman did not stammer over the last words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Five o'clock, just before dinner," said Grandet, rubbing his hands.

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

"It is a good thing to have a relation like him."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Farewell for the present!" said Madame des Grassins.

When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to his
father,--

"Are not they fuming, hein?"

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

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

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

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

When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.

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

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

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

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

"Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!" said the voice of Nanon.

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

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

"Cornoiller," said Grandet to his keeper _in partibus_, "have you
brought your pistols?"

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

"Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.

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

"Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?"

"I didn't know where."

"Very good. Is the carriage strong?"

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

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

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

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

VIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.

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

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

"He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What is it?" asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.

"I have read those letters."

Charles colored.

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

"And what?" asked Charles.

"Your plans, your need of a sum--"

"My dear cousin--"

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

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

"Oh! you will not refuse?" cried Eugenie, the beatings of whose heart
could be heard in the deep silence.

Her cousin's hesitation mortified her; but the sore need of his position
came clearer still to her mind, and she knelt down.

"I will never rise till you have taken that gold!" she said. "My cousin,
I implore you, answer me! let me know if you respect me, if you are
generous, if--"

As he heard this cry of noble distress the young man's tears fell upon
his cousin's hands, which he had caught in his own to keep her from
kneeling. As the warm tears touched her, Eugenie sprang to the purse and
poured its contents upon the table.

"Ah! yes, yes, you consent?" she said, weeping with joy. "Fear nothing,
my cousin, you will be rich. This gold will bring you happiness; some
day you shall bring it back to me,--are we not partners? I will obey all
conditions. But you should not attach such value to the gift."

Charles was at last able to express his feelings.

"Yes, Eugenie; my soul would be small indeed if I did not accept. And
yet,--gift for gift, confidence for confidence."

"What do you mean?" she said, frightened.

"Listen, dear cousin; I have here--" He interrupted himself to point
out a square box covered with an outer case of leather which was on the
drawers. "There," he continued, "is something as precious to me as
life itself. This box was a present from my mother. All day I have been
thinking that if she could rise from her grave, she would herself sell
the gold which her love for me lavished on this dressing-case; but were
I to do so, the act would seem to me a sacrilege." Eugenie pressed
his hand as she heard these last words. "No," he added, after a slight
pause, during which a liquid glance of tenderness passed between them,
"no, I will neither sell it nor risk its safety on my journey. Dear
Eugenie, you shall be its guardian. Never did friend commit anything
more sacred to another. Let me show it to you."

He went to the box, took it from its outer coverings, opened it, and
showed his delighted cousin a dressing-case where the rich workmanship
gave to the gold ornaments a value far above their weight.

"What you admire there is nothing," he said, pushing a secret spring
which opened a hidden drawer. "Here is something which to me is worth
the whole world." He drew out two portraits, masterpieces of Madame
Mirbel, richly set with pearls.

"Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote that--"

"No," he said, smiling; "this is my mother, and here is my father, your
aunt and uncle. Eugenie, I beg you on my knees, keep my treasure safely.
If I die and your little fortune is lost, this gold and these pearls
will repay you. To you alone could I leave these portraits; you are
worthy to keep them. But destroy them at last, so that they may pass
into no other hands." Eugenie was silent. "Ah, yes, say yes! You
consent?" he added with winning grace.

Hearing the very words she had just used to her cousin now addressed to
herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her first look of loving
womanhood,--a glance in which there is nearly as much of coquetry as of
inmost depth. He took her hand and kissed it.

"Angel of purity! between us two money is nothing, never can be
anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be all henceforth."

"You are like your mother,--was her voice as soft as yours?"

"Oh! much softer--"

"Yes, for you," she said, dropping her eyelids. "Come, Charles, go to
bed; I wish it; you must be tired. Good-night." She gently disengaged
her hand from those of her cousin, who followed her to her room,
lighting the way. When they were both upon the threshold,--

"Ah!" he said, "why am I ruined?"

"What matter?--my father is rich; I think so," she answered.

"Poor child!" said Charles, making a step into her room and leaning
his back against the wall, "if that were so, he would never have let my
father die; he would not let you live in this poor way; he would live
otherwise himself."

"But he owns Froidfond."

"What is Froidfond worth?"

"I don't know; but he has Noyers."

"Nothing but a poor farm!"

"He has vineyards and fields."

"Mere nothing," said Charles disdainfully. "If your father had only
twenty-four thousand francs a year do you suppose you would live in this
cold, barren room?" he added, making a step in advance. "Ah! there you
will keep my treasures," he said, glancing at the old cabinet, as if to
hide his thoughts.

"Go and sleep," she said, hindering his entrance into the disordered
room.

Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good-night with a mutual
smile.

Both fell asleep in the same dream; and from that moment the youth began
to wear roses with his mourning. The next day, before breakfast, Madame
Grandet found her daughter in the garden in company with Charles.
The young man was still sad, as became a poor fellow who, plunged in
misfortune, measures the depths of the abyss into which he has fallen,
and sees the terrible burden of his whole future life.

"My father will not be home till dinner-time," said Eugenie, perceiving
the anxious look on her mother's face.

It was easy to trace in the face and manners of the young girl and in
the singular sweetness of her voice a unison of thought between her and
her cousin. Their souls had espoused each other, perhaps before they
even felt the force of the feelings which bound them together. Charles
spent the morning in the hall, and his sadness was respected. Each of
the three women had occupations of her own. Grandet had left all his
affairs unattended to, and a number of persons came on business,--the
plumber, the mason, the slater, the carpenter, the diggers, the
dressers, the farmers; some to drive a bargain about repairs, others to
pay their rent or to be paid themselves for services. Madame Grandet and
Eugenie were obliged to go and come and listen to the interminable talk
of all these workmen and country folk. Nanon put away in her kitchen
the produce which they brought as tribute. She always waited for her
master's orders before she knew what portion was to be used in the house
and what was to be sold in the market. It was the goodman's custom, like
that of a great many country gentlemen, to drink his bad wine and eat
his spoiled fruit.

Towards five in the afternoon Grandet returned from Angers, having made
fourteen thousand francs by the exchange on his gold, bringing home
in his wallet good treasury-notes which bore interest until the day he
should invest them in the Funds. He had left Cornoiller at Angers to
look after the horses, which were well-nigh foundered, with orders to
bring them home slowly after they were rested.

"I have got back from Angers, wife," he said; "I am hungry."

Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: "Haven't you eaten anything
since yesterday?"

"Nothing," answered the old man.

Nanon brought in the soup. Des Grassins came to take his client's orders
just as the family sat down to dinner. Grandet had not even observed his
nephew.

"Go on eating, Grandet," said the banker; "we can talk. Do you know what
gold is worth in Angers? They have come from Nantes after it? I shall
send some of ours."

"Don't send any," said Grandet; "they have got enough. We are such old
friends, I ought to save you from such a loss of time."

"But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes."

"Say _was_ worth--"

"Where the devil have they got any?"

"I went to Angers last night," answered Grandet in a low voice.

The banker shook with surprise. Then a whispered conversation began
between the two, during which Grandet and des Grassins frequently
looked at Charles. Presently des Grassins gave a start of astonishment;
probably Grandet was then instructing him to invest the sum which was to
give him a hundred thousand francs a year in the Funds.

"Monsieur Grandet," said the banker to Charles, "I am starting for
Paris; if you have any commissions--"

"None, monsieur, I thank you," answered Charles.

"Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur is going to settle the
affairs of the house of Guillaume Grandet."

"Is there any hope?" said Charles eagerly.

"What!" exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, "are you not my
nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not your name Grandet?"

Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned pale, and left the
room. Eugenie looked at her father with admiration.

"Well, good-by, des Grassins; it is all in your hands. Decoy those
people as best you can; lead 'em by the nose."

The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper accompanied the banker
to the front door. Then, after closing it, he came back and plunged into
his armchair, saying to Nanon,--

"Get me some black-currant ratafia."

Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, he got up, looked
at the portrait of Monsieur de la Bertelliere, and began to sing, doing
what Nanon called his dancing steps,--

  "Dans les gardes francaises
  J'avais un bon papa."

Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at each other in silence.
The hilarity of the master always frightened them when it reached its
climax. The evening was soon over. Pere Grandet chose to go to bed
early, and when he went to bed, everybody else was expected to go too;
like as when Augustus drank, Poland was drunk. On this occasion Nanon,
Charles, and Eugenie were not less tired than the master. As for Madame
Grandet, she slept, ate, drank, and walked according to the will of her
husband. However, during the two hours consecrated to digestion, the
cooper, more facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered a
number of his own particular apothegms,--a single one of which will give
the measure of his mind. When he had drunk his ratafia, he looked at his
glass and said,--

"You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than it is empty! Such is
life. You can't have and hold. Gold won't circulate and stay in your
purse. If it were not for that, life would be too fine."

He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came with her spinning-wheel,
"You must be tired," he said; "put away your hemp."

"Ah, bah! then I shall get sleepy," she answered.

"Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?"

"I won't refuse a good offer; madame makes it a deal better than the
apothecaries. What they sell is all drugs."

"They put too much sugar," said the master; "you can't taste anything
else."

IX

The following day the family, meeting at eight o'clock for the early
breakfast, made a picture of genuine domestic intimacy. Grief had
drawn Madame Grandet, Eugenie, and Charles _en rapport_; even Nanon
sympathized, without knowing why. The four now made one family. As to
the old man, his satisfied avarice and the certainty of soon getting rid
of the dandy without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, made
him nearly indifferent to his presence in the house. He left the two
children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to conduct themselves
as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet, in whom he had
implicit confidence as to all that concerned public and religious
morality. He busied himself in straightening the boundaries of his
fields and ditches along the high-road, in his poplar-plantations beside
the Loire, in the winter work of his vineyards, and at Froidfond. All
these things occupied his whole time.

For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene at night
when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her heart had followed
the treasure. Confederates in the same secret, they looked at each
other with a mutual intelligence which sank to the depth of their
consciousness, giving a closer communion, a more intimate relation
to their feelings, and putting them, so to speak, beyond the pale of
ordinary life. Did not their near relationship warrant the gentleness
in their tones, the tenderness in their glances? Eugenie took delight
in lulling her cousin's pain with the pretty childish joys of a new-born
love. Are there no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the
birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle songs and softest
glances? Do we not tell it marvellous tales of the golden future? Hope
herself, does she not spread her radiant wings above its head? Does it
not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of sorrow and its tears of
joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry for the pretty pebbles with which
to build its shifting palaces, for the flowers forgotten as soon as
plucked? Is it not eager to grasp the coming time, to spring forward
into life? Love is our second transformation. Childhood and love
were one and the same thing to Eugenie and to Charles; it was a first
passion, with all its child-like play,--the more caressing to their
hearts because they now were wrapped in sadness. Struggling at birth
against the gloom of mourning, their love was only the more in harmony
with the provincial plainness of that gray and ruined house. As they
exchanged a few words beside the well in the silent court, or lingered
in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy seat saying to
each other the infinite nothings of love, or mused in the silent calm
which reigned between the house and the ramparts like that beneath the
arches of a church, Charles comprehended the sanctity of love; for his
great lady, his dear Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles.
At this moment he left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy
as it was, and turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house,
whose customs no longer seemed to him ridiculous. He got up early in the
mornings that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father
came to dole out the provisions; when the steps of the old man sounded
on the staircase he escaped into the garden. The small criminality of
this morning _tete-a-tete_ which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to
their innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy.

After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his other
occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an
unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in
listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastic
life, which revealed to him the beauty of these souls, unknown and
unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed such morals
impossible in France, and admitted their existence nowhere but in
Germany; even so, they seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels
of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of
Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the
poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to
the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the
overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie at
rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the happy
hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded
them of the parting that was at hand.

Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took his nephew
to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country people attach to
all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in his
father's estate. Terrible renunciation! species of domestic apostasy!
Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of
attorney,--one for des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had
charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all
the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries;
and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from Paris, he
sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his useless wardrobe. This
last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.

"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your fortune,"
he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain black cloth. "Good!
very good!"

"I hope you will believe, monsieur," answered his nephew, "that I shall
always try to conform to my situation."

"What's that?" said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a handful of gold
which Charles was carrying.

"Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings and other
superfluities which may have some value; but not knowing any one in
Saumur, I wanted to ask you to--"

"To buy them?" said Grandet, interrupting him.

"No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who--"

"Give me those things, I will go upstairs and estimate their value; I
will come back and tell you what it is to a fraction. Jeweller's gold,"
examining a long chain, "eighteen or nineteen carats."

The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of gold, which
he carried away.

"Cousin," said Grandet, "may I offer you these two buttons? They can
fasten ribbons round your wrists; that sort of bracelet is much the
fashion just now."

"I accept without hesitation," she answered, giving him an understanding
look.

"Aunt, here is my mother's thimble; I have always kept it carefully in
my dressing-case," said Charles, presenting a pretty gold thimble to
Madame Grandet, who for many years had longed for one.

"I cannot thank you; no words are possible, my nephew," said the poor
mother, whose eyes filled with tears. "Night and morning in my prayers I
shall add one for you, the most earnest of all--for those who travel. If
I die, Eugenie will keep this treasure for you."

"They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine francs, seventy-five
centimes," said Grandet, opening the door. "To save you the pain of
selling them, I will advance the money--in _livres_."

The word _livres_ on the littoral of the Loire signifies that crown
prices of six _livres_ are to be accepted as six francs without
deduction.

"I dared not propose it to you," answered Charles; "but it was most
repugnant to me to sell my jewels to some second-hand dealer in your own
town. People should wash their dirty linen at home, as Napoleon said. I
thank you for your kindness."

Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment's silence.

"My dear uncle," resumed Charles, looking at him with an uneasy air, as
if he feared to wound his feelings, "my aunt and cousin have been kind
enough to accept a trifling remembrance of me. Will you allow me to give
you these sleeve-buttons, which are useless to me now? They will remind
you of a poor fellow who, far away, will always think of those who are
henceforth all his family."

"My lad, my lad, you mustn't rob yourself this way! Let me see, wife,
what have you got?" he added, turning eagerly to her. "Ah! a gold
thimble. And you, little girl? What! diamond buttons? Yes, I'll accept
your present, nephew," he answered, shaking Charles by the hand.
"But--you must let me--pay--your--yes, your passage to the Indies. Yes,
I wish to pay your passage because--d'ye see, my boy?--in valuing
your jewels I estimated only the weight of the gold; very likely the
workmanship is worth something. So let us settle it that I am to give
you fifteen hundred francs--in _livres_; Cruchot will lend them to me. I
haven't got a copper farthing here,--unless Perrotet, who is behindhand
with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I'll go and see him."

He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.

"Then you are really going?" said Eugenie to her cousin, with a sad
look, mingled with admiration.

"I must," he said, bowing his head.

For some days past, Charles's whole bearing, manners, and speech had
become those of a man who, in spite of his profound affliction, feels
the weight of immense obligations and has the strength to gather courage
from misfortune. He no longer repined, he became a man. Eugenie never
augured better of her cousin's character than when she saw him come
down in the plain black clothes which suited well with his pale face and
sombre countenance. On that day the two women put on their own mourning,
and all three assisted at a Requiem celebrated in the parish church for
the soul of the late Guillaume Grandet.

At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris and began to
read them.

"Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your affairs?"
said Eugenie in a low voice.

"Never ask such questions, my daughter," said Grandet. "What the devil!
do I tell you my affairs? Why do you poke your nose into your cousin's?
Let the lad alone!"

"Oh! I haven't any secrets," said Charles.

"Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you'll soon find out that you must hold your
tongue in business."

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie,
drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,--

"I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my
affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my
things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice
of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial
outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the
Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San
Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell--perhaps
forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which
two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to
return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the
scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to
you--"

"Do you love me?" she said.

"Oh, yes! indeed, yes!" he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed
an equal depth of feeling.

"I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at his window,"
she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she
saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the
swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached
the corner near Nanon's den, in the darkest end of the passage. There
Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about
her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted;
she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the
most unreserved of kisses.

"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,"
said Charles.

"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.

The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her
work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame
Grandet's prayer-book.

"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."

As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet bestirred
himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He became very liberal
of all that cost him nothing; took pains to find a packer; declared the
man asked too much for his cases; insisted on making them himself out
of old planks; got up early in the morning to fit and plane and nail
together the strips, out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some
strong cases, in which he packed all Charles's effects; he also took
upon himself to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and
get them to Nantes in proper time.

After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with
frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin.
Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,--the one whose
duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by
human chances and fatalities,--they will understand the poor girl's
tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her,
as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in
thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse.
At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence
of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two
portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet
which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This
deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When
Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the
kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.

"Then my heart will be always there."

"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed him.

"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take mine."

"Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the words twice
over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity
of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's love.

On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite of the
gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by Charles, had
tears in her eyes.

"The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God guide
him!"

At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to the
diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the door, and
insisted on carrying the young man's carpet-bag. All the tradesmen in
the tortuous old street were on the sill of their shop-doors to watch
the procession, which was joined in the market-place by Maitre Cruchot.

"Eugenie, be sure you don't cry," said her mother.

"Nephew," said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which the coach
started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, "depart poor, return rich;
you will find the honor of your father safe. I answer for that myself,
I--Grandet; for it will only depend on you to--"

"Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is it not the
best gift that you could make me?"

Not understanding his uncle's words which he had thus interrupted,
Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned cheeks of the old miser,
while Eugenie pressed the hand of her cousin and that of her father with
all her strength. The notary smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old
man, which he alone had understood. The family stood about the coach
until it started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble
grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:

"Good-by to you!"

Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation. Eugenie and her
mother had gone to a corner of the quay from which they could still see
the diligence and wave their white handkerchiefs, to which Charles made
answer by displaying his.

"Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single moment,"
said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover's handkerchief.

Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take place in
the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast a forestalling
eye upon the various operations which the goodman carried on in Paris
by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month after the latter's departure
from Saumur, Grandet, became possessed of a certificate of a hundred
thousand francs a year from his investment in the Funds, bought
at eighty francs net. The particulars revealed at his death by the
inventory of his property threw no light upon the means which his
suspicious nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive
the certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon,
unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money was
transported; for about this time she was absent five days, under a
pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond,--as if the goodman
were capable of leaving anything lying about or out of order!

In all that concerned the business of the house of Guillaume Grandet
the old cooper's intentions were fulfilled to the letter. The Bank of
France, as everybody knows, affords exact information about all the
large fortunes in Paris and the provinces. The names of des Grassins
and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well known there, and they enjoyed the
esteem bestowed on financial celebrities whose wealth comes from immense
and unencumbered territorial possessions. The arrival of the Saumur
banker for the purpose, it was said, of honorably liquidating the
affairs of Grandet of Paris, was enough to avert the shame of protested
notes from the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the property
were taken off in presence of the creditors, and the notary employed by
Grandet went to work at once on the inventory of the assets. Soon after
this, des Grassins called a meeting of the creditors, who unanimously
elected him, conjointly with Francois Keller, the head of a rich
banking-house and one of those principally interested in the affair, as
liquidators, with full power to protect both the honor of the family
and the interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet of Saumur,
the hopes he diffused by means of des Grassins in the minds of all
concerned, facilitated the transactions. Not a single creditor proved
recalcitrant; no one thought of passing his claim to his profit-and-loss
account; each and all said confidently, "Grandet of Saumur will pay."

Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed the notes in circulation
as they fell due, and held them under lock and key in their desks. First
result aimed at by the old cooper! Nine months after this preliminary
meeting, the two liquidators distributed forty-seven per cent to each
creditor on his claim. This amount was obtained by the sale of the
securities, property, and possessions of all kinds belonging to the
late Guillaume Grandet, and was paid over with scrupulous fidelity.
Unimpeachable integrity was shown in the transaction. The creditors
gratefully acknowledged the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed
by the Grandets. When these praises had circulated for a certain length
of time, the creditors asked for the rest of their money. It became
necessary to write a collective letter to Grandet of Saumur.

"Here it comes!" said the old man as he threw the letter into the fire.
"Patience, my good friends!"

In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, Grandet of Saumur
demanded that all vouchers for claims against the estate of his brother
should be deposited with a notary, together with acquittances for the
forty-seven per cent already paid; he made this demand under pretence of
sifting the accounts and finding out the exact condition of the estate.
It roused at once a variety of difficulties. Generally speaking, the
creditor is a species of maniac, ready to agree to anything one day, on
the next breathing fire and slaughter; later on, he grows amicable and
easy-going. To-day his wife is good-humored, his last baby has cut its
first tooth, all is well at home, and he is determined not to lose a
sou; on the morrow it rains, he can't go out, he is gloomy, he says yes
to any proposal that is made to him, so long as it will put an end to
the affair; on the third day he declares he must have guarantees; by
the end of the month he wants his debtor's head, and becomes at heart an
executioner. The creditor is a good deal like the sparrow on whose tail
confiding children are invited to put salt,--with this difference, that
he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds of which he is never
able to lay hold of. Grandet had studied the atmospheric variations
of creditors, and the creditors of his brother justified all his
calculations. Some were angry, and flatly refused to give in their
vouchers.

"Very good; so much the better," said Grandet, rubbing his hands over
the letter in which des Grassins announced the fact.

Others agreed to the demand, but only on condition that their rights
should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even reserved
the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this began a long
correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur agreeing to all
conditions. By means of this concession the placable creditors were
able to bring the dissatisfied creditors to reason. The deposit was then
made, but not without sundry complaints.

"Your goodman," they said to des Grassins, "is tricking us."

Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume Grandet many of the
creditors, carried away by more pressing business in the markets of
Paris, had forgotten their Grandet claims, or only thought of them to
say:

"I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall ever get
out of that affair."

The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, which, as he used to
say, is a pretty good devil after all. By the end of the third year des
Grassins wrote to Grandet that he had brought the creditors to agree to
give up their claims for ten per cent on the two million four hundred