The following day the family, meeting at eight o’clock for the early
breakfast, made a picture of genuine domestic intimacy. Grief had
drawn Madame Grandet, Eugenie, and Charles _en rapport_; even Nanon
sympathized, without knowing why. The four now made one family. As to
the old man, his satisfied avarice and the certainty of soon getting rid
of the dandy without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, made
him nearly indifferent to his presence in the house. He left the two
children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to conduct themselves
as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet, in whom he had
implicit confidence as to all that concerned public and religious
morality. He busied himself in straightening the boundaries of his
fields and ditches along the high-road, in his poplar-plantations beside
the Loire, in the winter work of his vineyards, and at Froidfond. All
these things occupied his whole time.
For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene at night
when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her heart had followed
the treasure. Confederates in the same secret, they looked at each
other with a mutual intelligence which sank to the depth of their
consciousness, giving a closer communion, a more intimate relation
to their feelings, and putting them, so to speak, beyond the pale of
ordinary life. Did not their near relationship warrant the gentleness
in their tones, the tenderness in their glances? Eugenie took delight
in lulling her cousin’s pain with the pretty childish joys of a new-born
love. Are there no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the
birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle songs and softest
glances? Do we not tell it marvellous tales of the golden future? Hope
herself, does she not spread her radiant wings above its head? Does it
not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of sorrow and its tears of
joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry for the pretty pebbles with which
to build its shifting palaces, for the flowers forgotten as soon as
plucked? Is it not eager to grasp the coming time, to spring forward
into life? Love is our second transformation. Childhood and love
were one and the same thing to Eugenie and to Charles; it was a first
passion, with all its child-like play,--the more caressing to their
hearts because they now were wrapped in sadness. Struggling at birth
against the gloom of mourning, their love was only the more in harmony
with the provincial plainness of that gray and ruined house. As they
exchanged a few words beside the well in the silent court, or lingered
in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy seat saying to
each other the infinite nothings of love, or mused in the silent calm
which reigned between the house and the ramparts like that beneath the
arches of a church, Charles comprehended the sanctity of love; for his
great lady, his dear Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles.
At this moment he left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy
as it was, and turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house,
whose customs no longer seemed to him ridiculous. He got up early in the
mornings that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father
came to dole out the provisions; when the steps of the old man sounded
on the staircase he escaped into the garden. The small criminality of
this morning _tete-a-tete_ which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to
their innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy.
After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his other
occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an
unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in
listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastic
life, which revealed to him the beauty of these souls, unknown and
unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed such morals
impossible in France, and admitted their existence nowhere but in
Germany; even so, they seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels
of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of
Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the
poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to
the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the
overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie at
rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the happy
hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded
them of the parting that was at hand.
Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took his nephew
to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country people attach to
all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in his
father’s estate. Terrible renunciation! species of domestic apostasy!
Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of
attorney,--one for des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had
charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all
the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries;
and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from Paris, he
sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his useless wardrobe. This
last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.
“Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your fortune,”
he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain black cloth. “Good!
very good!”
“I hope you will believe, monsieur,” answered his nephew, “that I shall
always try to conform to my situation.”
“What’s that?” said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a handful of gold
which Charles was carrying.
“Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings and other
superfluities which may have some value; but not knowing any one in
Saumur, I wanted to ask you to--”
“To buy them?” said Grandet, interrupting him.
“No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who--”
“Give me those things, I will go upstairs and estimate their value; I
will come back and tell you what it is to a fraction. Jeweller’s gold,”
examining a long chain, “eighteen or nineteen carats.”
The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of gold, which
he carried away.
“Cousin,” said Grandet, “may I offer you these two buttons? They can
fasten ribbons round your wrists; that sort of bracelet is much the
fashion just now.”
“I accept without hesitation,” she answered, giving him an understanding
look.
“Aunt, here is my mother’s thimble; I have always kept it carefully in
my dressing-case,” said Charles, presenting a pretty gold thimble to
Madame Grandet, who for many years had longed for one.
“I cannot thank you; no words are possible, my nephew,” said the poor
mother, whose eyes filled with tears. “Night and morning in my prayers I
shall add one for you, the most earnest of all--for those who travel. If
I die, Eugenie will keep this treasure for you.”
“They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine francs, seventy-five
centimes,” said Grandet, opening the door. “To save you the pain of
selling them, I will advance the money--in _livres_.”
The word _livres_ on the littoral of the Loire signifies that crown
prices of six _livres_ are to be accepted as six francs without
deduction.
“I dared not propose it to you,” answered Charles; “but it was most
repugnant to me to sell my jewels to some second-hand dealer in your own
town. People should wash their dirty linen at home, as Napoleon said. I
thank you for your kindness.”
Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment’s silence.
“My dear uncle,” resumed Charles, looking at him with an uneasy air, as
if he feared to wound his feelings, “my aunt and cousin have been kind
enough to accept a trifling remembrance of me. Will you allow me to give
you these sleeve-buttons, which are useless to me now? They will remind
you of a poor fellow who, far away, will always think of those who are
henceforth all his family.”
“My lad, my lad, you mustn’t rob yourself this way! Let me see, wife,
what have you got?” he added, turning eagerly to her. “Ah! a gold
thimble. And you, little girl? What! diamond buttons? Yes, I’ll accept
your present, nephew,” he answered, shaking Charles by the hand.
“But--you must let me--pay--your--yes, your passage to the Indies. Yes,
I wish to pay your passage because--d’ye see, my boy?--in valuing
your jewels I estimated only the weight of the gold; very likely the
workmanship is worth something. So let us settle it that I am to give
you fifteen hundred francs--in _livres_; Cruchot will lend them to me. I
haven’t got a copper farthing here,--unless Perrotet, who is behindhand
with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I’ll go and see him.”
He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.
“Then you are really going?” said Eugenie to her cousin, with a sad
look, mingled with admiration.
“I must,” he said, bowing his head.
For some days past, Charles’s whole bearing, manners, and speech had
become those of a man who, in spite of his profound affliction, feels
the weight of immense obligations and has the strength to gather courage
from misfortune. He no longer repined, he became a man. Eugenie never
augured better of her cousin’s character than when she saw him come
down in the plain black clothes which suited well with his pale face and
sombre countenance. On that day the two women put on their own mourning,
and all three assisted at a Requiem celebrated in the parish church for
the soul of the late Guillaume Grandet.
At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris and began to
read them.
“Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your affairs?”
said Eugenie in a low voice.
“Never ask such questions, my daughter,” said Grandet. “What the devil!
do I tell you my affairs? Why do you poke your nose into your cousin’s?
Let the lad alone!”
“Oh! I haven’t any secrets,” said Charles.
“Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you’ll soon find out that you must hold your
tongue in business.”
When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie,
drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,--
“I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my
affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my
things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice
of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial
outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the
Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San
Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell--perhaps
forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which
two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to
return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the
scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to
you--”
“Do you love me?” she said.
“Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed
an equal depth of feeling.
“I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at his window,”
she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.
She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she
saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the
swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached
the corner near Nanon’s den, in the darkest end of the passage. There
Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about
her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted;
she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the
most unreserved of kisses.
“Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,”
said Charles.
“So be it!” cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.
The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her
work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame
Grandet’s prayer-book.
“Mercy!” cried Nanon, “now they’re saying their prayers.”
As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet bestirred
himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He became very liberal
of all that cost him nothing; took pains to find a packer; declared the
man asked too much for his cases; insisted on making them himself out
of old planks; got up early in the morning to fit and plane and nail
together the strips, out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some
strong cases, in which he packed all Charles’s effects; he also took
upon himself to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and
get them to Nantes in proper time.
After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with
frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin.
Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,--the one whose
duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by
human chances and fatalities,--they will understand the poor girl’s
tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her,
as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in
thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse.
At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence
of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two
portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet
which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This
deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When
Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the
kiss with which Charles sealed the act.
“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.
“Then my heart will be always there.”
“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.
“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,--then take mine.”
“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice
over.
No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity
of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man’s love.
On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite of the
gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by Charles, had
tears in her eyes.
“The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God guide
him!”
At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to the
diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the door, and
insisted on carrying the young man’s carpet-bag. All the tradesmen in
the tortuous old street were on the sill of their shop-doors to watch
the procession, which was joined in the market-place by Maitre Cruchot.
“Eugenie, be sure you don’t cry,” said her mother.
“Nephew,” said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which the coach
started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, “depart poor, return rich;
you will find the honor of your father safe. I answer for that myself,
I--Grandet; for it will only depend on you to--”
“Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is it not the
best gift that you could make me?”
Not understanding his uncle’s words which he had thus interrupted,
Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned cheeks of the old miser,
while Eugenie pressed the hand of her cousin and that of her father with
all her strength. The notary smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old
man, which he alone had understood. The family stood about the coach
until it started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble
grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:
“Good-by to you!”
Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation. Eugenie and her
mother had gone to a corner of the quay from which they could still see
the diligence and wave their white handkerchiefs, to which Charles made
answer by displaying his.
“Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single moment,”
said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover’s handkerchief.
* * * * *
Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take place in
the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast a forestalling
eye upon the various operations which the goodman carried on in Paris
by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month after the latter’s departure
from Saumur, Grandet, became possessed of a certificate of a hundred
thousand francs a year from his investment in the Funds, bought
at eighty francs net. The particulars revealed at his death by the
inventory of his property threw no light upon the means which his
suspicious nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive
the certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon,
unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money was
transported; for about this time she was absent five days, under a
pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond,--as if the goodman
were capable of leaving anything lying about or out of order!
In all that concerned the business of the house of Guillaume Grandet
the old cooper’s intentions were fulfilled to the letter. The Bank of
France, as everybody knows, affords exact information about all the
large fortunes in Paris and the provinces. The names of des Grassins
and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well known there, and they enjoyed the
esteem bestowed on financial celebrities whose wealth comes from immense
and unencumbered territorial possessions. The arrival of the Saumur
banker for the purpose, it was said, of honorably liquidating the
affairs of Grandet of Paris, was enough to avert the shame of protested
notes from the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the property
were taken off in presence of the creditors, and the notary employed by
Grandet went to work at once on the inventory of the assets. Soon after
this, des Grassins called a meeting of the creditors, who unanimously
elected him, conjointly with Francois Keller, the head of a rich
banking-house and one of those principally interested in the affair, as
liquidators, with full power to protect both the honor of the family
and the interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet of Saumur,
the hopes he diffused by means of des Grassins in the minds of all
concerned, facilitated the transactions. Not a single creditor proved
recalcitrant; no one thought of passing his claim to his profit-and-loss
account; each and all said confidently, “Grandet of Saumur will pay.”
Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed the notes in circulation
as they fell due, and held them under lock and key in their desks. First
result aimed at by the old cooper! Nine months after this preliminary
meeting, the two liquidators distributed forty-seven per cent to each
creditor on his claim. This amount was obtained by the sale of the
securities, property, and possessions of all kinds belonging to the
late Guillaume Grandet, and was paid over with scrupulous fidelity.
Unimpeachable integrity was shown in the transaction. The creditors
gratefully acknowledged the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed
by the Grandets. When these praises had circulated for a certain length
of time, the creditors asked for the rest of their money. It became
necessary to write a collective letter to Grandet of Saumur.
“Here it comes!” said the old man as he threw the letter into the fire.
“Patience, my good friends!”
In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, Grandet of Saumur
demanded that all vouchers for claims against the estate of his brother
should be deposited with a notary, together with acquittances for the
forty-seven per cent already paid; he made this demand under pretence of
sifting the accounts and finding out the exact condition of the estate.
It roused at once a variety of difficulties. Generally speaking, the
creditor is a species of maniac, ready to agree to anything one day, on
the next breathing fire and slaughter; later on, he grows amicable and
easy-going. To-day his wife is good-humored, his last baby has cut its
first tooth, all is well at home, and he is determined not to lose a
sou; on the morrow it rains, he can’t go out, he is gloomy, he says yes
to any proposal that is made to him, so long as it will put an end to
the affair; on the third day he declares he must have guarantees; by
the end of the month he wants his debtor’s head, and becomes at heart an
executioner. The creditor is a good deal like the sparrow on whose tail
confiding children are invited to put salt,--with this difference, that
he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds of which he is never
able to lay hold of. Grandet had studied the atmospheric variations
of creditors, and the creditors of his brother justified all his
calculations. Some were angry, and flatly refused to give in their
vouchers.
“Very good; so much the better,” said Grandet, rubbing his hands over
the letter in which des Grassins announced the fact.
Others agreed to the demand, but only on condition that their rights
should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even reserved
the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this began a long
correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur agreeing to all
conditions. By means of this concession the placable creditors were
able to bring the dissatisfied creditors to reason. The deposit was then
made, but not without sundry complaints.
“Your goodman,” they said to des Grassins, “is tricking us.”
Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume Grandet many of the
creditors, carried away by more pressing business in the markets of
Paris, had forgotten their Grandet claims, or only thought of them to
say:
“I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall ever get
out of that affair.”
The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, which, as he used to
say, is a pretty good devil after all. By the end of the third year des
Grassins wrote to Grandet that he had brought the creditors to agree to
give up their claims for ten per cent on the two million four hundred
thousand francs still due by the house of Grandet. Grandet answered that
the notary and the broker whose shameful failures had caused the death
of his brother were still living, that they might now have recovered
their credit, and that they ought to be sued, so as to get something out
of them towards lessening the total of the deficit.
By the end of the fourth year the liabilities were definitely estimated
at a sum of twelve hundred thousand francs. Many negotiations, lasting
over six months, took place between the creditors and the liquidators,
and between the liquidators and Grandet. To make a long story short,
Grandet of Saumur, anxious by this time to get out of the affair, told
the liquidators, about the ninth month of the fourth year, that his
nephew had made a fortune in the Indies and was disposed to pay his
father’s debts in full; he therefore could not take upon himself to make
any settlement without previously consulting him; he had written to him,
and was expecting an answer. The creditors were held in check until the
middle of the fifth year by the words, “payment in full,” which the wily
old miser threw out from time to time as he laughed in his beard, saying
with a smile and an oath, “Those Parisians!”
But the creditors were reserved for a fate unexampled in the annals
of commerce. When the events of this history bring them once more into
notice, they will be found still in the position Grandet had resolved to
force them into from the first.
As soon as the Funds reached a hundred and fifteen, Pere Grandet sold
out his interests and withdrew two million four hundred thousand francs
in gold, to which he added, in his coffers, the six hundred thousand
francs compound interest which he had derived from the capital. Des
Grassins now lived in Paris. In the first place he had been made a
deputy; then he became infatuated (father of a family as he was, though
horribly bored by the provincial life of Saumur) with a pretty actress
at the Theatre de Madame, known as Florine, and he presently relapsed
into the old habits of his army life. It is useless to speak of his
conduct; Saumur considered it profoundly immoral. His wife was fortunate
in the fact of her property being settled upon herself, and in having
sufficient ability to keep up the banking-house in Saumur, which was
managed in her name and repaired the breach in her fortune caused by the
extravagance of her husband. The Cruchotines made so much talk about
the false position of the quasi-widow that she married her daughter very
badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between Eugenie
Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris and became, it
was said, a worthless fellow. The Cruchots triumphed.
“Your husband hasn’t common sense,” said Grandet as he lent Madame des
Grassins some money on a note securely endorsed. “I am very sorry for
you, for you are a good little woman.”
“Ah, monsieur,” said the poor lady, “who could have believed that when
he left Saumur to go to Paris on your business he was going to his
ruin?”
“Heaven is my witness, madame, that up to the last moment I did all I
could to prevent him from going. Monsieur le president was most anxious
to take his place; but he was determined to go, and now we all see why.”
In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no obligation
to des Grassins.
* * * * *
In all situations women have more cause for suffering than men, and they
suffer more. Man has strength and the power of exercising it; he acts,
moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks ahead, and sees consolation in
the future. It was thus with Charles. But the woman stays at home; she
is always face to face with the grief from which nothing distracts
her; she goes down to the depths of the abyss which yawns before her,
measures it, and often fills it with her tears and prayers. Thus did
Eugenie. She initiated herself into her destiny. To feel, to love, to
suffer, to devote herself,--is not this the sum of woman’s life? Eugenie
was to be in all things a woman, except in the one thing that consoles
for all. Her happiness, picked up like nails scattered on a wall--to use
the fine simile of Bossuet--would never so much as fill even the hollow
of her hand. Sorrows are never long in coming; for her they came soon.
The day after Charles’s departure the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed
its ordinary aspect in the eyes of all, except in those of Eugenie, to
whom it grew suddenly empty. She wished, if it could be done unknown to
her father, that Charles’s room might be kept as he had left it. Madame
Grandet and Nanon were willing accomplices in this _statu quo_.
“Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?” she said.
“Ah, don’t I wish I could see him back!” answered Nanon. “I took to him!
He was such a dear, sweet young man,--pretty too, with his curly hair.”
Eugenie looked at Nanon. “Holy Virgin! don’t look at me that way,
mademoiselle; your eyes are like those of a lost soul.”
From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new character.
The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her soul, and the
dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features an illumination such
as painters render by a halo. Before the coming of her cousin, Eugenie
might be compared to the Virgin before the conception; after he had
gone, she was like the Virgin Mother,--she had given birth to love.
These two Marys so different, so well represented by Spanish art, embody
one of those shining symbols with which Christianity abounds.
Returning from Mass on the morning after Charles’s departure,--having
made a vow to hear it daily,--Eugenie bought a map of the world, which
she nailed up beside her looking-glass, that she might follow her cousin
on his westward way, that she might put herself, were it ever so little,
day by day into the ship that bore him, and see him and ask him a
thousand questions,--“Art thou well? Dost thou suffer? Dost thou think
of me when the star, whose beauty and usefulness thou hast taught me
to know, shines upon thee?” In the mornings she sat pensive beneath the
walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where
they had said to each other so many precious things, so many trifles,
where they had built the pretty castles of their future home. She
thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of sky which
was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned her eyes
to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above the room in
which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love,
which glides into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our
fathers might have said, the tissue of life. When the would-be friends
of Pere Grandet came in the evening for their game at cards, she was gay
and dissimulating; but all the morning she talked of Charles with her
mother and Nanon. Nanon had brought herself to see that she could pity
the sufferings of her young mistress without failing in her duty to the
old master, and she would say to Eugenie,--
“If I had a man for myself I’d--I’d follow him to hell, yes, I’d
exterminate myself for him; but I’ve none. I shall die and never know
what life is. Would you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good
fellow all the same) is always round my petticoats for the sake of my
money,--just for all the world like the rats who come smelling after the
master’s cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a shrewd
eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz’elle, it pleases me,
but it isn’t love.”
X
Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous, was now
quickened with the intense interest of a secret that bound these women
intimately together. For them Charles lived and moved beneath the
grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and morning Eugenie opened the
dressing-case and gazed at the portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning
her mother surprised her as she stood absorbed in finding her cousin’s
features in his mother’s face. Madame Grandet was then for the first
time admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made by Charles
against her daughter’s treasure.
“You gave him all!” cried the poor mother, terrified. “What will you say
to your father on New Year’s Day when he asks to see your gold?”
Eugenie’s eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through mortal terror
for more than half the morning. They were so troubled in mind that they
missed high Mass, and only went to the military service. In three days
the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a terrible drama would
begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling
of blood; but--as regards the actors in it--more cruel than all the
fabled horrors in the family of the Atrides.
“What will become of us?” said Madame Grandet to her daughter, letting
her knitting fall upon her knees.
The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for the past two months
that the woollen sleeves which she needed for the coming winter were not
yet finished. This domestic fact, insignificant as it seems, bore sad
results. For want of those sleeves, a chill seized her in the midst of
a sweat caused by a terrible explosion of anger on the part of her
husband.
“I have been thinking, my poor child, that if you had confided your
secret to me we should have had time to write to Monsieur des Grassins
in Paris. He might have sent us gold pieces like yours; though Grandet
knows them all, perhaps--”
“Where could we have got the money?”
“I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des Grassins
would have--”
“It is too late,” said Eugenie in a broken, hollow voice. “To-morrow
morning we must go and wish him a happy New Year in his chamber.”
“But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?”
“No, no; it would be delivering me up to them, and putting ourselves
in their power. Besides, I have chosen my course. I have done right, I
repent of nothing. God will protect me. His will be done! Ah! mother, if
you had read his letter, you, too, would have thought only of him.”
The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear to which mother and
daughter were a prey suggested to their minds a natural excuse by which
to escape the solemn entrance into Grandet’s chamber. The winter of
1819-1820 was one of the coldest of that epoch. The snow encumbered the
roofs.
Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him stirring
in his chamber, and said,--
“Grandet, will you let Nanon light a fire here for me? The cold is so
sharp that I am freezing under the bedclothes. At my age I need some
comforts. Besides,” she added, after a slight pause, “Eugenie shall come
and dress here; the poor child might get an illness from dressing in her
cold room in such weather. Then we will go and wish you a happy New Year
beside the fire in the hall.”
“Ta, ta, ta, ta, what a tongue! a pretty way to begin the new year,
Madame Grandet! You never talked so much before; but you haven’t been
sopping your bread in wine, I know that.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Well,” resumed the goodman, who no doubt had some reason of his own for
agreeing to his wife’s request, “I’ll do what you ask, Madame Grandet.
You are a good woman, and I don’t want any harm to happen to you at your
time of life,--though as a general thing the Bertellieres are as sound
as a roach. Hein! isn’t that so?” he added after a pause. “Well, I
forgive them; we got their property in the end.” And he coughed.
“You are very gay this morning, monsieur,” said the poor woman gravely.
“I’m always gay,--
“‘Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier,
Raccommodez votre cuvier!’”
he answered, entering his wife’s room fully dressed. “Yes, on my word,
it is cold enough to freeze you solid. We shall have a fine breakfast,
wife. Des Grassins has sent me a pate-de-foie-gras truffled! I am going
now to get it at the coach-office. There’ll be a double napoleon for
Eugenie in the package,” he whispered in Madame Grandet’s ear. “I have
no gold left, wife. I had a few stray pieces--I don’t mind telling you
that--but I had to let them go in business.”
Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the forehead.
“Eugenie,” cried the mother, when Grandet was fairly gone, “I don’t know
which side of the bed your father got out of, but he is good-tempered
this morning. Perhaps we shall come out safe after all?”
“What’s happened to the master?” said Nanon, entering her mistress’s
room to light the fire. “First place, he said, ‘Good-morning; happy New
Year, you big fool! Go and light my wife’s fire, she’s cold’; and then,
didn’t I feel silly when he held out his hand and gave me a six-franc
piece, which isn’t worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind
man! He is a good man, that’s a fact. There are some people who the
older they get the harder they grow; but he,--why he’s getting soft and
improving with time, like your ratafia! He is a good, good man--”
The secret of Grandet’s joy lay in the complete success of his
speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after deducting the amount which
the old cooper owed him for the discount on a hundred and fifty thousand
francs in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which he had advanced to make
up the sum required for the investment in the Funds which was to produce
a hundred thousand francs a year, had now sent him, by the diligence,
thirty thousand francs in silver coin, the remainder of his first
half-year’s interest, informing him at the same time that the Funds
had already gone up in value. They were then quoted at eighty-nine;
the shrewdest capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at
ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months twelve per cent on
his capital; he had simplified his accounts, and would in future receive
fifty thousand francs interest every six months, without incurring any
taxes or costs for repairs. He understood at last what it was to invest
money in the public securities,--a system for which provincials have
always shown a marked repugnance,--and at the end of five years he found
himself master of a capital of six millions, which increased without
much effort of his own, and which, joined to the value and proceeds
of his territorial possessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely
colossal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps the reward of
some great service which the poor servant had rendered to her master
unawares.
“Oh! oh! where’s Pere Grandet going? He has been scurrying about since
sunrise as if to a fire,” said the tradespeople to each other as they
opened their shops for the day.
When they saw him coming back from the wharf, followed by a porter from
the coach-office wheeling a barrow which was laden with sacks, they all
had their comments to make:--
“Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after his gold,”
said one.
“He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland,” said another.
“He’ll end by buying up Saumur,” cried a third.
“He doesn’t mind the cold, he’s so wrapped up in his gains,” said a wife
to her husband.
“Hey! hey! Monsieur Grandet, if that’s too heavy for you,” said a
cloth-dealer, his nearest neighbor, “I’ll take it off your hands.”
“Heavy?” said the cooper, “I should think so; it’s all sous!”
“Silver sous,” said the porter in a low voice.
“If you want me to take care of you, keep your tongue between your
teeth,” said the goodman to the porter as they reached the door.
“The old fox! I thought he was deaf; seems he can hear fast enough in
frosty weather.”
“Here’s twenty sous for your New Year, and _mum_!” said Grandet. “Be off
with you! Nanon shall take back your barrow. Nanon, are the linnets at
church?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Then lend a hand! go to work!” he cried, piling the sacks upon her.
In a few moments all were carried up to his inner room, where he shut
himself in with them. “When breakfast is ready, knock on the wall,” he
said as he disappeared. “Take the barrow back to the coach-office.”
The family did not breakfast that day until ten o’clock.
“Your father will not ask to see your gold downstairs,” said Madame
Grandet as they got back from Mass. “You must pretend to be very chilly.
We may have time to replace the treasure before your fete-day.”
Grandet came down the staircase thinking of his splendid speculation
in government securities, and wondering how he could metamorphose his
Parisian silver into solid gold; he was making up his mind to invest in
this way everything he could lay hands on until the Funds should reach
a par value. Fatal reverie for Eugenie! As soon as he came in, the two
women wished him a happy New Year,--his daughter by putting her arms
round his neck and caressing him; Madame Grandet gravely and with
dignity.
“Ha! ha! my child,” he said, kissing his daughter on both cheeks. “I
work for you, don’t you see? I think of your happiness. Must have money
to be happy. Without money there’s not a particle of happiness. Here!
there’s a new napoleon for you. I sent to Paris for it. On my word of
honor, it’s all the gold I have; you are the only one that has got any
gold. I want to see your gold, little one.”
“Oh! it is too cold; let us have breakfast,” answered Eugenie.
“Well, after breakfast, then; it will help the digestion. That fat des
Grassins sent me the pate. Eat as much as you like, my children, it
costs nothing. Des Grassins is getting along very well. I am satisfied
with him. The old fish is doing Charles a good service, and gratis too.
He is making a very good settlement of that poor deceased Grandet’s
business. Hoo! hoo!” he muttered, with his mouth full, after a pause,
“how good it is! Eat some, wife; that will feed you for at least two
days.”
“I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know that.”
“Ah, bah! you can stuff yourself as full as you please without danger,
you’re a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit yellow, that’s
true; but I like yellow, myself.”
The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps less horrible
to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of what was coming after
breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully the old man
talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank within them. The daughter,
however, had an inward prop at this crisis,--she gathered strength
through love.
“For him! for him!” she cried within her, “I would die a thousand
deaths.”
At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed with
courage.
“Clear away,” said Grandet to Nanon when, about eleven o’clock,
breakfast was over, “but leave the table. We can spread your little
treasure upon it,” he said, looking at Eugenie. “Little? Faith! no; it
isn’t little. You possess, in actual value, five thousand nine hundred
and fifty-nine francs and the forty I gave you just now. That makes six
thousand francs, less one. Well, now see here, little one! I’ll give you
that one franc to make up the round number. Hey! what are you listening
for, Nanon? Mind your own business; go and do your work.”
Nanon disappeared.
“Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You won’t refuse
your father, my little girl, hein?”
The two women were dumb.
“I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I’ll give you
in return six thousand francs in _livres_, and you are to put them just
where I tell you. You mustn’t think anything more about your ‘dozen.’
When I marry you (which will be soon) I shall get you a husband who can
give you the finest ‘dozen’ ever seen in the provinces. Now attend to
me, little girl. There’s a fine chance for you; you can put your six
thousand francs into government funds, and you will receive every six
months nearly two hundred francs interest, without taxes, or repairs,
or frost, or hail, or floods, or anything else to swallow up the money.
Perhaps you don’t like to part with your gold, hey, my girl? Never mind,
bring it to me all the same. I’ll get you some more like it,--like
those Dutch coins and the _portugaises_, the rupees of Mogul, and the
_genovines_,--I’ll give you some more on your fete-days, and in three
years you’ll have got back half your little treasure. What’s that you
say? Look up, now. Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to
kiss me on the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries of
the life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold live and swarm like
men; they come, and go, and sweat, and multiply--”
Eugenie rose; but after making a few steps towards the door she turned
abruptly, looked her father in the face, and said,--
“I have not got _my_ gold.”
“You have not got your gold!” cried Grandet, starting up erect, like a
horse that hears a cannon fired beside him.
“No, I have not got it.”
“You are mistaken, Eugenie.”
“No.”
“By the shears of my father!”
Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.
“Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale,” cried Nanon.
“Grandet, your anger will kill me,” said the poor mother.
“Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family! Eugenie, what
have you done with your gold?” he cried, rushing upon her.
“Monsieur,” said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet’s knees, “my
mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her.”
Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his wife’s face,
usually so yellow.
“Nanon, help me to bed,” said the poor woman in a feeble voice; “I am
dying--”
Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her another; but it was
only with infinite difficulty that they could get her upstairs, she fell
with exhaustion at every step. Grandet remained alone. However, in a few
moments he went up six or eight stairs and called out,--
“Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down.”
“Yes, father.”
She soon came, after reassuring her mother.
“My daughter,” said Grandet, “you will now tell me what you have done
with your gold.”
“My father, if you make me presents of which I am not the sole mistress,
take them back,” she answered coldly, picking up the napoleon from the
chimney-piece and offering it to him.
Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches’ pocket.
“I shall certainly never give you anything again. Not so much as that!”
he said, clicking his thumb-nail against a front tooth. “Do you dare to
despise your father? have you no confidence in him? Don’t you know what
a father is? If he is nothing for you, he is nothing at all. Where is
your gold?”
“Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your anger; but I humbly
ask you to remember that I am twenty-three years old. You have told me
often that I have attained my majority, and I do not forget it. I have
used my money as I chose to use it, and you may be sure that it was put
to a good use--”
“What use?”
“That is an inviolable secret,” she answered. “Have you no secrets?”
“I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs.”
“And this is mine.”
“It must be something bad if you can’t tell it to your father,
Mademoiselle Grandet.”
“It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father.”
“At least you can tell me when you parted with your gold?”
Eugenie made a negative motion with her head.
“You had it on your birthday, hein?”
She grew as crafty through love as her father was through avarice, and
reiterated the negative sign.
“Was there ever such obstinacy! It’s a theft,” cried Grandet, his voice
going up in a crescendo which gradually echoed through the house.
“What! here, in my own home, under my very eyes, somebody has taken your
gold!--the only gold we have!--and I’m not to know who has got it! Gold
is a precious thing. Virtuous girls go wrong sometimes, and give--I
don’t know what; they do it among the great people, and even among the
bourgeoisie. But give their gold!--for you have given it to some one,
hein?--”
Eugenie was silent and impassive.
“Was there ever such a daughter? Is it possible that I am your father?
If you have invested it anywhere, you must have a receipt--”
“Was I free--yes or no--to do what I would with my own? Was it not
mine?”
“You are a child.”
“Of age.”
Dumbfounded by his daughter’s logic, Grandet turned pale and stamped and
swore. When at last he found words, he cried: “Serpent! Cursed girl! Ah,
deceitful creature! You know I love you, and you take advantage of it.
She’d cut her father’s throat! Good God! you’ve given our fortune to
that ne’er-do-well,--that dandy with morocco boots! By the shears of my
father! I can’t disinherit you, but I curse you,--you and your cousin
and your children! Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it was
to Charles--but, no; it’s impossible. What! has that wretched fellow
robbed me?--”
He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.
“She won’t stir; she won’t flinch! She’s more Grandet than I’m Grandet!
Ha! you have not given your gold for nothing? Come, speak the truth!”
Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that stung him.
“Eugenie, you are here, in my house,--in your father’s house. If you
wish to stay here, you must submit yourself to me. The priests tell you
to obey me.” Eugenie bowed her head. “You affront me in all I hold most
dear. I will not see you again until you submit. Go to your chamber. You
will stay there till I give you permission to leave it. Nanon will bring
you bread and water. You hear me--go!”
Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. Grandet, after
marching two or three times round the garden in the snow without heeding
the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter had gone to her mother;
only too happy to find her disobedient to his orders, he climbed the
stairs with the agility of a cat and appeared in Madame Grandet’s room
just as she was stroking Eugenie’s hair, while the girl’s face was
hidden in her motherly bosom.
“Be comforted, my poor child,” she was saying; “your father will get
over it.”
“She has no father!” said the old man. “Can it be you and I, Madame
Grandet, who have given birth to such a disobedient child? A fine
education,--religious, too! Well! why are you not in your chamber? Come,
to prison, to prison, mademoiselle!”
“Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?” said Madame Grandet,
turning towards him a face that was now red with fever.
“If you want to keep her, carry her off! Clear out--out of my house,
both of you! Thunder! where is the gold? what’s become of the gold?”
Eugenie rose, looked proudly at her father, and withdrew to her room.
Grandet turned the key of the door.
“Nanon,” he cried, “put out the fire in the hall.”
Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife’s fire and said to
her,--
“Undoubtedly she has given the gold to that miserable seducer, Charles,
who only wanted our money.”
“I knew nothing about it,” she answered, turning to the other side of
the bed, that she might escape the savage glances of her husband. “I
suffer so much from your violence that I shall never leave this room, if
I trust my own presentiments, till I am carried out of it in my coffin.
You ought to have spared me this suffering, monsieur,--you, to whom I
have caused no pain; that is, I think so. Your daughter loves you.
I believe her to be as innocent as the babe unborn. Do not make her
wretched. Revoke your sentence. The cold is very severe; you may give
her some serious illness.”
“I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. She shall stay in
her room, on bread and water, until she submits to her father. What the
devil! shouldn’t a father know where the gold in his house has gone to?
She owned the only rupees in France, perhaps, and the Dutch ducats and
the _genovines_--”
“Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had thrown them
into the water--”
“Into the water!” cried her husband; “into the water! You are crazy,
Madame Grandet! What I have said is said; you know that well enough. If
you want peace in this household, make your daughter confess, pump it
out of her. Women understand how to do that better than we do. Whatever
she has done, I sha’n’t eat her. Is she afraid of me? Even if she has
plastered Charles with gold from head to foot, he is on the high seas,
and nobody can get at him, hein!”
“But, monsieur--” Excited by the nervous crisis through which she had
passed, and by the fate of her daughter, which brought forth all her
tenderness and all her powers of mind, Madame Grandet suddenly observed
a frightful movement of her husband’s wen, and, in the very act of
replying, she changed her speech without changing the tones of her
voice,--“But, monsieur, I have not more influence over her than you
have. She has said nothing to me; she takes after you.”
“Tut, tut! Your tongue is hung in the middle this morning. Ta, ta, ta,
ta! You are setting me at defiance, I do believe. I daresay you are in
league with her.”
He looked fixedly at his wife.
“Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, you have only to go on like
this. I tell you, monsieur,--and if it were to cost me my life, I would
say it,--you do wrong by your daughter; she is more in the right than
you are. That money belonged to her; she is incapable of making any but
a good use of it, and God alone has the right to know our good deeds.
Monsieur, I implore you, take Eugenie back into favor; forgive her.
If you will do this you will lessen the injury your anger has done me;
perhaps you will save my life. My daughter! oh, monsieur, give me back
my daughter!”
“I shall decamp,” he said; “the house is not habitable. A mother and
daughter talking and arguing like that! Broooouh! Pouah! A fine New
Year’s present you’ve made me, Eugenie,” he called out. “Yes, yes, cry
away! What you’ve done will bring you remorse, do you hear? What’s the
good of taking the sacrament six times every three months, if you give
away your father’s gold secretly to an idle fellow who’ll eat your heart
out when you’ve nothing else to give him? You’ll find out some day what
your Charles is worth, with his morocco boots and supercilious airs. He
has got neither heart nor soul if he dared to carry off a young girl’s
treasure without the consent of her parents.”
When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out of her room and went to
her mother.
“What courage you have had for your daughter’s sake!” she said.
“Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may lead us. You forced me to
tell a lie.”
“I will ask God to punish only me.”
“Is it true,” cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, “that mademoiselle is to
be kept on bread and water for the rest of her life?”
“What does that signify, Nanon?” said Eugenie tranquilly.
“Goodness! do you suppose I’ll eat _frippe_ when the daughter of the
house is eating dry bread? No, no!”
“Don’t say a word about all this, Nanon,” said Eugenie.
“I’ll be as mute as a fish; but you’ll see!”
* * * * *
Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four years.
“So you’re a widower, monsieur,” said Nanon; “it must be disagreeable to
be a widower with two women in the house.”
“I did not speak to you. Hold your jaw, or I’ll turn you off! What is
that I hear boiling in your saucepan on the stove?”
“It is grease I’m trying out.”
“There will be some company to-night. Light the fire.”
The Cruchots, Madame des Grassins, and her son arrived at the usual
hour of eight, and were surprised to see neither Madame Grandet nor her
daughter.
“My wife is not very well, and Eugenie is with her,” said the old
wine-grower, whose face betrayed no emotion.
At the end of an hour spent in idle conversation, Madame des Grassins,
who had gone up to see Madame Grandet, came down, and every one
inquired,--
“How is Madame Grandet?”
“Not at all well,” she answered; “her condition seems to me really
alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution, Papa Grandet.”
“We’ll see about it,” said the old man in an absent way.
They all wished him good-night. When the Cruchots got into the street
Madame des Grassins said to them,--
“There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is very ill
without her knowing it. The girl’s eyes are red, as if she had been
crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her against her will?”
* * * * *
When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie’s room in her
stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a saucepan.
“See, mademoiselle,” said the good soul, “Cornoiller gave me a hare. You
eat so little that this pate will last you full a week; in such frosty
weather it won’t spoil. You sha’n’t live on dry bread, I’m determined;
it isn’t wholesome.”
“Poor Nanon!” said Eugenie, pressing her hand.
“I’ve made it downright good and dainty, and _he_ never found it out. I
bought the lard and the spices out of my six francs: I’m the mistress of
my own money”; and she disappeared rapidly, fancying she heard Grandet.