Chapter Chapter 9 · 第9章

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.”