“She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child; we must soon begin to
think of it.”
Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance of intelligence.
Madame Grandet was a dry, thin woman, as yellow as a quince, awkward,
slow, one of those women who are born to be down-trodden. She had big
bones, a big nose, a big forehead, big eyes, and presented at first
sight a vague resemblance to those mealy fruits that have neither savor
nor succulence. Her teeth were black and few in number, her mouth was
wrinkled, her chin long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, a true
la Bertelliere. L’abbe Cruchot found occasional opportunity to tell her
that she had not done ill; and she believed him. Angelic sweetness,
the resignation of an insect tortured by children, a rare piety, a good
heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made her universally pitied
and respected. Her husband never gave her more than six francs at a time
for her personal expenses. Ridiculous as it may seem, this woman, who by
her own fortune and her various inheritances brought Pere Grandet
more than three hundred thousand francs, had always felt so profoundly
humiliated by her dependence and the slavery in which she lived, against
which the gentleness of her spirit prevented her from revolting, that
she had never asked for one penny or made a single remark on the deeds
which Maitre Cruchot brought for her signature. This foolish secret
pride, this nobility of soul perpetually misunderstood and wounded by
Grandet, ruled the whole conduct of the wife.
Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown of greenish levantine
silk, endeavoring to make it last nearly a year; with it she wore a
large kerchief of white cotton cloth, a bonnet made of plaited straws
sewn together, and almost always a black-silk apron. As she seldom left
the house she wore out very few shoes. She never asked anything for
herself. Grandet, seized with occasional remorse when he remembered how
long a time had elapsed since he gave her the last six francs, always
stipulated for the “wife’s pin-money” when he sold his yearly vintage.
The four or five louis presented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who
purchased the wine were the chief visible signs of Madame Grandet’s
annual revenues. But after she had received the five louis, her husband
would often say to her, as though their purse were held in common:
“Can you lend me a few sous?” and the poor woman, glad to be able to do
something for a man whom her confessor held up to her as her lord and
master, returned him in the course of the winter several crowns out of
the “pin-money.” When Grandet drew from his pocket the five-franc piece
which he allowed monthly for the minor expenses,--thread, needles, and
toilet,--of his daughter, he never failed to say as he buttoned his
breeches’ pocket: “And you, mother, do you want anything?”
“My friend,” Madame Grandet would answer, moved by a sense of maternal
dignity, “we will see about that later.”
Wasted dignity! Grandet thought himself very generous to his wife.
Philosophers who meet the like of Nanon, of Madame Grandet, of Eugenie,
have surely a right to say that irony is at the bottom of the ways of
Providence.
After the dinner at which for the first time allusion had been made
to Eugenie’s marriage, Nanon went to fetch a bottle of black-currant
ratafia from Monsieur Grandet’s bed-chamber, and nearly fell as she came
down the stairs.
“You great stupid!” said her master; “are you going to tumble about like
other people, hey?”
“Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which has given way.”
“She is right,” said Madame Grandet; “it ought to have been mended long
ago. Yesterday Eugenie nearly twisted her ankle.”
“Here,” said Grandet to Nanon, seeing that she looked quite pale, “as it
is Eugenie’s birthday, and you came near falling, take a little glass of
ratafia to set you right.”
“Faith! I’ve earned it,” said Nanon; “most people would have broken the
bottle; but I’d sooner have broken my elbow holding it up high.”
“Poor Nanon!” said Grandet, filling a glass.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Eugenie, looking kindly at her.
“No, I didn’t fall; I threw myself back on my haunches.”
“Well! as it is Eugenie’s birthday,” said Grandet, “I’ll have the step
mended. You people don’t know how to set your foot in the corner where
the wood is still firm.”
Grandet took the candle, leaving his wife, daughter, and servant without
any other light than that from the hearth, where the flames were lively,
and went into the bakehouse to fetch planks, nails, and tools.
“Can I help you?” cried Nanon, hearing him hammer on the stairs.
“No, no! I’m an old hand at it,” answered the former cooper.
At the moment when Grandet was mending his worm-eaten staircase and
whistling with all his might, in remembrance of the days of his youth,
the three Cruchots knocked at the door.
“Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?” asked Nanon, peeping through the little
grating.
“Yes,” answered the president.
Nanon opened the door, and the light from the hearth, reflected on the
ceiling, enabled the three Cruchots to find their way into the room.
“Ha! you’ve come a-greeting,” said Nanon, smelling the flowers.
“Excuse me, messieurs,” cried Grandet, recognizing their voices; “I’ll
be with you in a moment. I’m not proud; I am patching up a step on my
staircase.”
“Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man’s house is his castle,” said the
president sententiously.
Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting by the
darkness, said to Eugenie:
“Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the day of your
birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of the health which
you now enjoy?”
He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were rare in
Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed her on each
side of her neck with a complacency that made her blush. The president,
who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his courtship was
progressing.
“Don’t stand on ceremony,” said Grandet, entering. “How well you do
things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!”
“When it concerns mademoiselle,” said the abbe, armed with his own
bouquet, “every day is a fete-day for my nephew.”
The abbe kissed Eugenie’s hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he boldly kissed
her on both cheeks, remarking: “How we sprout up, to be sure! Every year
is twelve months.”
As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who never
forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he thought them
funny, said,--
“As this is Eugenie’s birthday let us illuminate.”
He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a socket on
each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with paper twisted
round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made it firm, lit it, and
then sat down beside his wife, looking alternately at his friends, his
daughter, and the two candles. The Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little
man, with a red wig plastered down and a face like an old female
gambler, said as he stretched out his feet, well shod in stout shoes
with silver buckles: “The des Grassins have not come?”
“Not yet,” said Grandet.
“But are they coming?” asked the old notary, twisting his face, which
had as many holes as a collander, into a queer grimace.
“I think so,” answered Madame Grandet.
“Are your vintages all finished?” said Monsieur de Bonfons to Grandet.
“Yes, all of them,” said the old man, rising to walk up and down the
room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the words, “all of them.”
Through the door of the passage which led to the kitchen he saw la
Grande Nanon sitting beside her fire with a candle and preparing to spin
there, so as not to intrude among the guests.
“Nanon,” he said, going into the passage, “put out that fire and that
candle, and come and sit with us. Pardieu! the hall is big enough for
all.”
“But monsieur, you are to have the great people.”
“Are not you as good as they? They are descended from Adam, and so are
you.”