When the faithful Nanon appeared in the market, many quips and quirks and complaints about the master whistled in her ears; but however loudly public opinion condemned Monsieur Grandet, the old servant defended him, for the honor of the family.
“Well!” she would say to his detractors, “don’t we all get hard as we grow old? Why shouldn’t he get horny too? Stop telling lies. Mademoiselle lives like a queen. She’s alone, that’s true; but she likes it. Besides, my masters have good reasons.”
At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Grandet, worn out by grief even more than by illness, having failed, in spite of her prayers, to reconcile the father and daughter, confided her secret troubles to the Cruchots.
“Keep a girl of twenty-three on bread and water!” cried Monsieur de Bonfons; “without any reason, too! Why, that constitutes wrongful cruelty; she can contest, as much in as upon–“
“Come, nephew, spare us your legal jargon,” said the notary. “Set your mind at ease, madame; I will put a stop to such treatment to-morrow.”
Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her room.
“Gentlemen,” she said, coming forward with a proud step, “I beg you not to interfere in this matter. My father is master in his own house. As long as I live under his roof I am bound to obey him. His conduct is not subject to the approbation or the disapprobation of the world; he is accountable to God only. I appeal to your friendship to keep total silence in this affair. To blame my father is to attack our family honor. I am much obliged to you for the interest you have shown in me; you will do me an additional service if you will put a stop to the offensive rumors which are current in the town, of which I am accidentally informed.”
“She is right,” said Madame Grandet.
“Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face.
“Well, my daughter, let Monsieur Cruchot manage the matter if he is so sure of success. He understands your father, and how to manage him. If you wish to see me happy for my few remaining days, you must, at any cost, be reconciled to your father.”
On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the obstinacy of his character impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and the sedum,–a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden, engaged in watching his daughter.
“What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?” he said, perceiving the notary.
“I came to speak to you on business.”
“Ah! ah! have you brought some gold in exchange for my silver?”
“No, no, I have not come about money; it is about your daughter Eugenie. All the town is talking of her and you.”
“What does the town meddle for? A man’s house is his castle.”
“Very true; and a man may kill himself if he likes, or, what is worse, he may fling his money into the gutter.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, your wife is very ill, my friend. You ought to consult Monsieur Bergerin; she is likely to die. If she does die without receiving proper care, you will not be very easy in mind, I take it.”
“Ta, ta, ta, ta! you know a deal about my wife! These doctors, if they once get their foot in your house, will come five and six times a day.”
“Of course you will do as you think best. We are old friends; there is no one in all Saumur who takes more interest than I in what concerns you. Therefore, I was bound to tell you this. However, happen what may, you have the right to do as you please; you can choose your own course. Besides, that is not what brings me here. There is another thing which may have serious results for you. After all, you can’t wish to kill your wife; her life is too important to you. Think of your situation in connection with your daughter if Madame Grandet dies. You must render an account to Eugenie, because you enjoy your wife’s estate only during her lifetime. At her death your daughter can claim a division of property, and she may force you to sell Froidfond. In short, she is her mother’s heir, and you are not.”
These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, who was not as wise about law as he was about business. He had never thought of a legal division of the estate.
“Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly,” added Cruchot, in conclusion.
“But do you know what she has done, Cruchot?”
“What?” asked the notary, curious to hear the truth and find out the cause of the quarrel.
“She has given away her gold!”
“Well, wasn’t it hers?” said the notary.
“They all tell me that!” exclaimed the old man, letting his arms fall to his sides with a movement that was truly tragic.
“Are you going–for a mere nothing,”–resumed Cruchot, “to put obstacles in the way of the concessions which you will be obliged to ask from your daughter as soon as her mother dies?”
“Do you call six thousand francs a mere nothing?”
“Hey! my old friend, do you know what the inventory of your wife’s property will cost, if Eugenie demands the division?”
“How much?”
“Two, three, four thousand francs, perhaps! The property would have to be put up at auction and sold, to get at its actual value. Instead of that, if you are on good terms with–“
“By the shears of my father!” cried Grandet, turning pale as he suddenly sat down, “we will see about it, Cruchot.”
After a moment’s silence, full of anguish perhaps, the old man looked at the notary and said,–
“Life is very hard! It has many griefs! Cruchot,” he continued solemnly, “you would not deceive me? Swear to me upon your honor that all you’ve told me is legally true. Show me the law; I must see the law!”
“My poor friend,” said the notary, “don’t I know my own business?”
“Then it is true! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, destroyed by my own daughter!”
“It is true that your daughter is her mother’s heir.”
“Why do we have children? Ah! my wife, I love her! Luckily she’s sound and healthy; she’s a Bertelliere.”
“She has not a month to live.”
Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came back, cast a dreadful look on Cruchot, and said,–
“What can be done?”
“Eugenie can relinquish her claim to her mother’s property. Should she do this you would not disinherit her, I presume?–but if you want to come to such a settlement, you must not treat her harshly. What I am telling you, old man, is against my own interests. What do I live by, if it isn’t liquidations, inventories, conveyances, divisions of property?–“
“We’ll see, we’ll see! Don’t let’s talk any more about it, Cruchot; it wrings my vitals. Have you received any gold?”
“No; but I have a few old louis, a dozen or so, which you may have. My good friend, make it up with Eugenie. Don’t you know all Saumur is pelting you with stones?”
“The scoundrels!”
“Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satisfied for once in your life.”
“At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, hey! Ninety-nine!” repeated the old man, accompanying the notary to the street-door. Then, too agitated by what he had just heard to stay in the house, he went up to his wife’s room and said,–
“Come, mother, you may have your daughter to spend the day with you. I’m going to Froidfond. Enjoy yourselves, both of you. This is our wedding-day, wife. See! here are sixty francs for your altar at the Fete-Dieu; you’ve wanted one for a long time. Come, cheer up, enjoy yourself, and get well! Hurrah for happiness!”
He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon the bed, and took his wife’s head between his hands and kissed her forehead.
“My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?”
“How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house when you refuse to forgive your daughter?” she said with emotion.
“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” said Grandet in a coaxing voice. “We’ll see about that.”
“Merciful heaven! Eugenie,” cried the mother, flushing with joy, “come and kiss your father; he forgives you!”
But the old man had disappeared. He was going as fast as his legs could carry him towards his vineyards, trying to get his confused ideas into order. Grandet had entered his seventy-sixth year. During the last two years his avarice had increased upon him, as all the persistent passions of men increase at a certain age. As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a monomania. His despotic spirit had grown in proportion to his avarice, and to part with the control of the smallest fraction of his property at the death of his wife seemed to him a thing “against nature.” To declare his fortune to his daughter, to give an inventory of his property, landed and personal, for the purposes of division–
“Why,” he cried aloud in the midst of a field where he was pretending to examine a vine, “it would be cutting my throat!”
He came at last to a decision, and returned to Saumur in time for dinner, resolved to unbend to Eugenie, and pet and coax her, that he might die regally, holding the reins of his millions in his own hands so long as the breath was in his body. At the moment when the old man, who chanced to have his pass-key in his pocket, opened the door and climbed with a stealthy step up the stairway to go into his wife’s room, Eugenie had brought the beautiful dressing-case from the oak cabinet and placed it on her mother’s bed. Mother and daughter, in Grandet’s absence, allowed themselves the pleasure of looking for a likeness to Charles in the portrait of his mother.
“It is exactly his forehead and his mouth,” Eugenie was saying as the old man opened the door. At the look which her husband cast upon the gold, Madame Grandet cried out,–
“O God, have pity upon us!”
The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger might spring upon a sleeping child.
“What’s this?” he said, snatching the treasure and carrying it to the window. “Gold, good gold!” he cried. “All gold,–it weighs two pounds! Ha, ha! Charles gave you that for your money, did he? Hein! Why didn’t you tell me so? It was a good bargain, little one! Yes, you are my daughter, I see that–” Eugenie trembled in every limb. “This came from Charles, of course, didn’t it?” continued the old man.
“Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust.”
“Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it back.”
“Father!”
Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do this, he placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang forward to recover it; but her father, who had his eye on her and on the treasure too, pushed her back so violently with a thrust of his arm that she fell upon her mother’s bed.
“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried the mother, lifting herself up.
Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.
“Father!” cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging herself close to him with clasped hands, “father, in the name of all the saints and the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died upon the cross! in the name of your eternal salvation, father! for my life’s sake, father!–do not touch that! It is neither yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an unhappy relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!”
“If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it is as bad as touching it.”
“Father, don’t destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do you hear?”
“Oh, have pity!” said the mother.
“Father!” cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran upstairs terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at hand.
“Well, what now?” said Grandet coldly, with a callous smile.
“Oh, you are killing me!” said the mother.
“Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that gold, I will stab myself with this one! You have already driven my mother to her death; you will now kill your child! Do as you choose! Wound for wound!”
Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as he looked at his daughter.
“Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?” he said.
“Yes, yes!” said the mother.
“She’ll do it if she says so!” cried Nanon. “Be reasonable, monsieur, for once in your life.”
The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.
“There! don’t you see, monsieur, that madame is dying?” cried Nanon.
“Come, come, my daughter, we won’t quarrel for a box! Here, take it!” he cried hastily, flinging the case upon the bed. “Nanon, go and fetch Monsieur Bergerin! Come, mother,” said he, kissing his wife’s hand, “it’s all over! There! we’ve made up–haven’t we, little one? No more dry bread; you shall have all you want–Ah, she opens her eyes! Well, mother, little mother, come! See, I’m kissing Eugenie! She loves her cousin, and she may marry him if she wants to; she may keep his case. But don’t die, mother; live a long time yet, my poor wife! Come, try to move! Listen! you shall have the finest altar that ever was made in Saumur.”
“Oh, how can you treat your wife and daughter so!” said Madame Grandet in a feeble voice.
“I won’t do so again, never again,” cried her husband; “you shall see, my poor wife!” He went to his inner room and returned with a handful of louis, which he scattered on the bed. “Here, Eugenie! see, wife! all these are for you,” he said, fingering the coins. “Come, be happy, wife! feel better, get well; you sha’n’t want for anything, nor Eugenie either. Here’s a hundred /louis d’or/ for her. You won’t give these away, will you, Eugenie, hein?”
Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each other in astonishment.
“Take back your money, father; we ask for nothing but your affection.”
“Well, well, that’s right!” he said, pocketing the coins; “let’s be good friends! We will all go down to dinner to-day, and we’ll play loto every evening for two sous. You shall both be happy. Hey, wife?”
“Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure,” said the dying woman; “but I cannot rise from my bed.”
“Poor mother,” said Grandet, “you don’t know how I love you! and you too, my daughter!” He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Oh, how good it is to kiss a daughter when we have been angry with her! There, mother, don’t you see it’s all over now? Go and put that away, Eugenie,” he added, pointing to the case. “Go, don’t be afraid! I shall never speak of it again, never!”
Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, presently arrived. After an examination, he told Grandet positively that his wife was very ill; but that perfect peace of mind, a generous diet, and great care might prolong her life until the autumn.
“Will all that cost much?” said the old man. “Will she need medicines?”
“Not much medicine, but a great deal of care,” answered the doctor, who could scarcely restrain a smile.
“Now, Monsieur Bergerin,” said Grandet, “you are a man of honor, are not you? I trust to you! Come and see my wife how and when you think necessary. Save my good wife! I love her,–don’t you see?–though I never talk about it; I keep things to myself. I’m full of trouble. Troubles began when my brother died; I have to spend enormous sums on his affairs in Paris. Why, I’m paying through my nose; there’s no end to it. Adieu, monsieur! If you can save my wife, save her. I’ll spare no expense, not even if it costs me a hundred or two hundred francs.”
In spite of Grandet’s fervent wishes for the health of his wife, whose death threatened more than death to him; in spite of the consideration he now showed on all occasions for the least wish of his astonished wife and daughter; in spite of the tender care which Eugenie lavished upon her mother,–Madame Grandet rapidly approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and wasted visibly, as women of her age when attacked by serious illness are wont to do. She was fragile as the foliage in autumn; the radiance of heaven shone through her as the sun strikes athwart the withering leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her life,–a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.
“My child,” she said as she expired, “there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day.”
XII
On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new motive for attachment to the house in which she was born, where she had suffered so much, where her mother had just died. She could not see the window and the chair on its castors without weeping. She thought she had mistaken the heart of her old father when she found herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in the morning and gave her his arm to take her to breakfast; he looked at her for hours together with an eye that was almost kind; he brooded over her as though she had been gold. The old man was so unlike himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weakness, attributed it to his great age, and feared that his faculties were giving away. But the day on which the family put on their mourning, and after dinner, to which meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who knew his secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser was explained.
“My dear child,” he said to Eugenie when the table had been cleared and the doors carefully shut, “you are now your mother’s heiress, and we have a few little matters to settle between us. Isn’t that so, Cruchot?”
“Yes.”
“Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?”
“Yes, yes, little one; I can’t bear the uncertainty in which I’m placed. I think you don’t want to give me pain?”
“Oh! father–“
“Well, then! let us settle it all to-night.”
“What is it you wish me to do?”
“My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her, Cruchot.”
“Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide the property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous taxes on the ready money which he may possess. Therefore, to avoid all this, he must be released from making the inventory of his whole fortune, part of which you inherit from your mother, and which is now undivided between you and your father–“
“Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you tell it to a mere child?”
“Let me tell it my own way, Grandet.”
“Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob me,–do you, little one?”
“But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?” said Eugenie impatiently.
“Well,” said the notary, “it is necessary to sign this deed, by which you renounce your rights to your mother’s estate and leave your father the use and disposition, during his lifetime, of all the property undivided between you, of which he guarantees you the capital.”
“I do not understand a word of what you are saying,” returned Eugenie; “give me the deed, and show me where I am to sign it.”
Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did so such violent emotion that he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“My little girl,” he said, “if, instead of signing this deed, which will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to renounce your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother’s property, and would trust to me for the future, I should like it better. In that case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for as many masses as you want for anybody– Hein! a hundred francs a month–in /livres/?”
“I will do all you wish, father.”
“Mademoiselle,” said the notary, “it is my duty to point out to you that you are despoiling yourself without guarantee–“
“Good heavens! what is all that to me?”
“Hold your tongue, Cruchot! It’s settled, all settled,” cried Grandet, taking his daughter’s hand and striking it with his own. “Eugenie, you won’t go back on your word?–you are an honest girl, hein?”
“Oh! father!–“
He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms till he almost choked her.
“Go, my good child, you restore your father’s life; but you only return to him that which he gave you: we are quits. This is how business should be done. Life is a business. I bless you! you are a virtuous girl, and you love your father. Do just what you like in future. To-morrow, Cruchot,” he added, looking at the horrified notary, “you will see about preparing the deed of relinquishment, and then enter it on the records of the court.”
The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by which she herself completed her spoliation. At the end of the first year, however, in spite of his bargain, the old man had not given his daughter one sou of the hundred francs he had so solemnly pledged to her. When Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could not help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding-place, from whence he brought down about a third of the jewels he had taken from his nephew, and gave them to her.
“There, little one,” he said in a sarcastic tone, “do you want those for your twelve hundred francs?”
“Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to me?”
“I’ll give you as many more next year,” he said, throwing them into her apron. “So before long you’ll get all his gewgaws,” he added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on his daughter’s feelings.
Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust, felt the importance of initiating his daughter into the secrets of his thrift and its management. For two consecutive years he made her order the household meals in his presence and receive the rents, and he taught her slowly and successively the names and remunerative capacity of his vineyards and his farms. About the third year he had so thoroughly accustomed her to his avaricious methods that they had turned into the settled habits of her own life, and he was able to leave the household keys in her charge without anxiety, and to install her as mistress of the house.
*****
Five years passed away without a single event to relieve the monotonous existence of Eugenie and her father. The same actions were performed daily with the automatic regularity of clockwork. The deep sadness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every one; but if others surmised the cause, she herself never uttered a word that justified the suspicions which all Saumur entertained about the state of the rich heiress’s heart. Her only society was made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they came every night for their game. During the year 1827 her father, feeling the weight of his infirmities, was obliged to initiate her still further into the secrets of his landed property, and told her that in case of difficulty she was to have recourse to Maitre Cruchot, whose integrity was well known to him.
Towards the end of this year the old man, then eighty-two, was seized by paralysis, which made rapid progress. Dr. Bergerin gave him up. Eugenie, feeling that she was about to be left alone in the world, came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped more tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, as in that of all loving women, love was the whole of life. Charles was not there, and she devoted all her care and attention to the old father, whose faculties had begun to weaken, though his avarice remained instinctively acute. The death of this man offered no contrast to his life. In the morning he made them roll him to a spot between the chimney of his chamber and the door of the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, with gold. He asked for an explanation of every noise he heard, even the slightest; to the great astonishment of the notary, he even heard the watch-dog yawning in the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent stupor at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers, and receipts given. At such times he worked his chair forward on its castors until he faced the door of the inner room. He made his daughter open it, and watched while she placed the bags of money one upon another in his secret receptacles and relocked the door. Then she returned silently to her seat, after giving him the key, which he replaced in his waistcoat pocket and fingered from time to time. His old friend the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress would inevitably marry his nephew the president, if Charles Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions; he came every day to take Grandet’s orders, went on his errands to Froidfond, to the farms and the fields and the vineyards, sold the vintages, and turned everything into gold and silver, which found their way in sacks to the secret hiding-place.
At length the last struggle came, in which the strong frame of the old man slowly yielded to destruction. He was determined to sit at the chimney-corner facing the door of the secret room. He drew off and rolled up all the coverings which were laid over him, saying to Nanon, “Put them away, lock them up, for fear they should be stolen.”
So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole being had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door behind which lay his treasures, saying to his daughter, “Are they there? are they there?” in a tone of voice which revealed a sort of panic fear.
“Yes, my father,” she would answer.
“Take care of the gold–put gold before me.”
Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before him, and he would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed upon them, like a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a distressful smile would flicker upon his face.
“It warms me!” he would sometimes say, as an expression of beatitude stole across his features.
When the cure of the parish came to administer the last sacraments, the old man’s eyes, sightless, apparently, for some hours, kindled at the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and the holy-water vessel of silver; he gazed at them fixedly, and his wen moved for the last time. When the priest put the crucifix of silver-gilt to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he made a frightful gesture, as if to seize it; and that last effort cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not see, though she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his stiffening hand, which was already cold.
“My father, bless me!” she entreated.
“Take care of it all. You will render me an account yonder!” he said, proving by these last words that Christianity must always be the religion of misers.
*****
Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood,–Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble friend. After her father’s death Eugenie learned from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed an income of three hundred thousand francs from landed and personal property in the arrondissement of Saumur; also six millions invested at three per cent in the Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six francs); also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred thousand francs in silver crown-pieces, besides all the interest which was still to be collected. The sum total of her property reached seventeen millions.
“Where is my cousin?” was her one thought.
The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her cousin drank.
“Nanon, we are alone–“
“Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I’d go on foot to find him.”
“The ocean is between us,” she said.
While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller.
“Fast colors!” said the draper.
“Quite likely to have children,” said the salt merchant. “She’s pickled in brine, saving your presence.”
“She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing for himself,” said a third man.
When she came forth from the old house on her way to the parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood, received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street. Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a wedding present. Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, spoke of his mistress with tears in his eyes; he would willingly have been hacked in pieces in her behalf. Madame Cornoiller, appointed housekeeper to Mademoiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of her new position as she did from the possession of a husband. She took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master; she ruled over two servants,–a cook, and a maid whose business it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle’s dresses. Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff. It is unnecessary to say that the women-servants selected by Nanon were “perfect treasures.” Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants, whose devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no change after Monsieur Grandet’s death; the usages and customs he had sternly established were scrupulously carried out by Monsieur and Madame Cornoiller.
At thirty years of age Eugenie knew none of the joys of life. Her pale, sad childhood had glided on beside a mother whose heart, always misunderstood and wounded, had known only suffering. Leaving this life joyfully, the mother pitied the daughter because she still must live; and she left in her child’s soul some fugitive remorse and many lasting regrets. Eugenie’s first and only love was a wellspring of sadness within her. Meeting her lover for a few brief days, she had given him her heart between two kisses furtively exchanged; then he had left her, and a whole world lay between them. This love, cursed by her father, had cost the life of her mother and brought her only sorrow, mingled with a few frail hopes. Thus her upward spring towards happiness had wasted her strength and given her nothing in exchange for it. In the life of the soul, as in the physical life, there is an inspiration and a respiration; the soul needs to absorb the sentiments of another soul and assimilate them, that it may render them back enriched. Were it not for this glorious human phenomenon, there would be no life for the heart; air would be wanting; it would suffer, and then perish. Eugenie had begun to suffer. For her, wealth was neither a power nor a consolation; she could not live except through love, through religion, through faith in the future. Love explained to her the mysteries of eternity. Her heart and the Gospel taught her to know two worlds; she bathed, night and day, in the depths of two infinite thoughts, which for her may have had but one meaning. She drew back within herself, loving, and believing herself beloved. For seven years her passion had invaded everything. Her treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up; they were Charles’s dressing- case, the portraits hanging above her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,–a Penelope’s web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that gold so rich in memories.
It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle Grandet’s house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond) outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every evening.
Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the heiress.
“Do you know, mademoiselle,” said an habitual visitor, “that the Cruchots have an income of forty thousand francs among them!”
“And then, their savings!” exclaimed an elderly female Cruchotine, Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.
“A gentleman from Paris has lately offered Monsieur Cruchot two hundred thousand francs for his practice,” said another. “He will sell it if he is appointed /juge de paix/.”
“He wants to succeed Monsieur de Bonfons as president of the Civil courts, and is taking measures,” replied Madame d’Orsonval. “Monsieur le president will certainly be made councillor.”
“Yes, he is a very distinguished man,” said another,–“don’t you think so, mademoiselle?”
Monsieur de Bonfons endeavored to put himself in keeping with the role he sought to play. In spite of his forty years, in spite of his dusky and crabbed features, withered like most judicial faces, he dressed in youthful fashions, toyed with a bamboo cane, never took snuff in Mademoiselle de Froidfond’s house, and came in a white cravat and a shirt whose pleated frill gave him a family resemblance to the race of turkeys. He addressed the beautiful heiress familiarly, and spoke of her as “Our dear Eugenie.” In short, except for the number of visitors, the change from loto to whist, and the disappearance of Monsieur and Madame Grandet, the scene was about the same as the one with which this history opened. The pack were still pursuing Eugenie and her millions; but the hounds, more in number, lay better on the scent, and beset the prey more unitedly. If Charles could have dropped from the Indian Isles, he would have found the same people and the same interests. Madame des Grassins, to whom Eugenie was full of kindness and courtesy, still persisted in tormenting the Cruchots. Eugenie, as in former days, was the central figure of the picture; and Charles, as heretofore, would still have been the sovereign of all. Yet there had been some progress. The flowers which the president formerly presented to Eugenie on her birthdays and fete-days had now become a daily institution. Every evening he brought the rich heiress a huge and magnificent bouquet, which Madame Cornoiller placed conspicuously in a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the court-yard when the visitors had departed.
Early in the spring, Madame des Grassins attempted to trouble the peace of the Cruchotines by talking to Eugenie of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose ancient and ruined family might be restored if the heiress would give him back his estates through marriage. Madame des Grassins rang the changes on the peerage and the title of marquise, until, mistaking Eugenie’s disdainful smile for acquiescence, she went about proclaiming that the marriage with “Monsieur Cruchot” was not nearly as certain as people thought.
“Though Monsieur de Froidfond is fifty,” she said, “he does not look older than Monsieur Cruchot. He is a widower, and he has children, that’s true. But then he is a marquis; he will be peer of France; and in times like these where you will find a better match? I know it for a fact that Pere Grandet, when he put all his money into Froidfond, intended to graft himself upon that stock; he often told me so. He was a deep one, that old man!”
“Ah! Nanon,” said Eugenie, one night as she was going to bed, “how is it that in seven years he has never once written to me?”
XIII
While these events were happening in Saumur, Charles was making his fortune in the Indies. His commercial outfit had sold well. He began by realizing a sum of six thousand dollars. Crossing the line had brushed a good many cobwebs out of his brain; he perceived that the best means of attaining fortune in tropical regions, as well as in Europe, was to buy and sell men. He went to the coast of Africa and bought Negroes, combining his traffic in human flesh with that of other merchandise equally advantageous to his interests. He carried into this business an activity which left him not a moment of leisure. He was governed by the desire of reappearing in Paris with all the prestige of a large fortune, and by the hope of regaining a position even more brilliant than the one from which he had fallen.
By dint of jostling with men, travelling through many lands, and studying a variety of conflicting customs, his ideas had been modified and had become sceptical. He ceased to have fixed principles of right and wrong, for he saw what was called a crime in one country lauded as a virtue in another. In the perpetual struggle of selfish interests his heart grew cold, then contracted, and then dried up. The blood of the Grandets did not fail of its destiny; Charles became hard, and eager for prey. He sold Chinamen, Negroes, birds’ nests, children, artists; he practised usury on a large scale; the habit of defrauding custom-houses soon made him less scrupulous about the rights of his fellow men. He went to the Island of St. Thomas and bought, for a mere song, merchandise that had been captured by pirates, and took it to ports where he could sell it at a good price. If the pure and noble face of Eugenie went with him on his first voyage, like that image of the Virgin which Spanish mariners fastened to their masts, if he attributed his first success to the magic influence of the prayers and intercessions of his gentle love, later on women of other kinds,– blacks, mulattoes, whites, and Indian dancing-girls,–orgies and adventures in many lands, completely effaced all recollection of his cousin, of Saumur, of the house, the bench, the kiss snatched in the dark passage. He remembered only the little garden shut in with crumbling walls, for it was there he learned the fate that had overtaken him; but he rejected all connection with his family. His uncle was an old dog who had filched his jewels; Eugenie had no place in his heart nor in his thoughts, though she did have a place in his accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand francs.
Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet’s silence. In the Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon, and in the United States the adventurer had taken the pseudonym of Shepherd, that he might not compromise his own name. Charles Shepherd could safely be indefatigable, bold, grasping, and greedy of gain, like a man who resolves to snatch his fortune /quibus cumque viis/, and makes haste to have done with villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as an honest man.
With such methods, prosperity was rapid and brilliant; and in 1827 Charles Grandet returned to Bordeaux on the “Marie Caroline,” a fine brig belonging to a royalist house of business. He brought with him nineteen hundred thousand francs worth of gold-dust, from which he expected to derive seven or eight per cent more at the Paris mint. On the brig he met a gentleman-in-ordinary to His Majesty Charles X., Monsieur d’Aubrion, a worthy old man who had committed the folly of marrying a woman of fashion with a fortune derived from the West India Islands. To meet the costs of Madame d’Aubrion’s extravagance, he had gone out to the Indies to sell the property, and was now returning with his family to France.
Monsieur and Madame d’Aubrion, of the house of d’Aubrion de Buch, a family of southern France, whose last /captal/, or chief, died before 1789, were now reduced to an income of about twenty thousand francs, and they possessed an ugly daughter whom the mother was resolved to marry without a /dot/,–the family fortune being scarcely sufficient for the demands of her own life in Paris. This was an enterprise whose success might have seemed problematical to most men of the world, in spite of the cleverness with which such men credit a fashionable woman; in fact, Madame d’Aubrion herself, when she looked at her daughter, almost despaired of getting rid of her to any one, even to a man craving connection with nobility. Mademoiselle d’Aubrion was a long, spare, spindling demoiselle, like her namesake the insect; her mouth was disdainful; over it hung a nose that was too long, thick at the end, sallow in its normal condition, but very red after a meal,–a sort of vegetable phenomenon which is particularly disagreeable when it appears in the middle of a pale, dull, and uninteresting face. In one sense she was all that a worldly mother, thirty-eight years of age and still a beauty with claims to admiration, could have wished. However, to counterbalance her personal defects, the marquise gave her daughter a distinguished air, subjected her to hygienic treatment which provisionally kept her nose at a reasonable flesh-tint, taught her the art of dressing well, endowed her with charming manners, showed her the trick of melancholy glances which interest a man and make him believe that he has found a long-sought angel, taught her the manoeuvre of the foot,–letting it peep beneath the petticoat, to show its tiny size, at the moment when the nose became aggressively red; in short, Madame d’Aubrion had cleverly made the very best of her offspring. By means of full sleeves, deceptive pads, puffed dresses amply trimmed, and high-pressure corsets, she had obtained such curious feminine developments that she ought, for the instruction of mothers, to have exhibited them in a museum.
Charles became very intimate with Madame d’Aubrion precisely because she was desirous of becoming intimate with him. Persons who were on board the brig declared that the handsome Madame d’Aubrion neglected no means of capturing so rich a son-in-law. On landing at Bordeaux in June, 1827, Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle d’Aubrion, and Charles lodged at the same hotel and started together for Paris. The hotel d’Aubrion was hampered with mortgages; Charles was destined to free it. The mother told him how delighted she would be to give up the ground-floor to a son-in-law. Not sharing Monsieur d’Aubrion’s prejudices on the score of nobility, she promised Charles Grandet to obtain a royal ordinance from Charles X. which would authorize him, Grandet, to take the name and arms of d’Aubrion and to succeed, by purchasing the entailed estate for thirty-six thousand francs a year, to the titles of Captal de Buch and Marquis d’Aubrion. By thus uniting their fortunes, living on good terms, and profiting by sinecures, the two families might occupy the hotel d’Aubrion with an income of over a hundred thousand francs.
“And when a man has a hundred thousand francs a year, a name, a family, and a position at court,–for I will get you appointed as gentleman-of-the-bedchamber,–he can do what he likes,” she said to Charles. “You can then become anything you choose,–master of the rolls in the council of State, prefect, secretary to an embassy, the ambassador himself, if you like. Charles X. is fond of d’Aubrion; they have known each other from childhood.”
Intoxicated with ambition, Charles toyed with the hopes thus cleverly presented to him in the guise of confidences poured from heart to heart. Believing his father’s affairs to have been settled by his uncle, he imagined himself suddenly anchored in the Faubourg Saint- Germain,–that social object of all desire, where, under shelter of Mademoiselle Mathilde’s purple nose, he was to reappear as the Comte d’Aubrion, very much as the Dreux reappeared in Breze. Dazzled by the prosperity of the Restoration, which was tottering when he left France, fascinated by the splendor of aristocratic ideas, his intoxication, which began on the brig, increased after he reached Paris, and he finally determined to take the course and reach the high position which the selfish hopes of his would-be mother-in-law pointed out to him. His cousin counted for no more than a speck in this brilliant perspective; but he went to see Annette. True woman of the world, Annette advised her old friend to make the marriage, and promised him her support in all his ambitious projects. In her heart she was enchanted to fasten an ugly and uninteresting girl on Charles, whose life in the West Indies had rendered him very attractive. His complexion had bronzed, his manners had grown decided and bold, like those of a man accustomed to make sharp decisions, to rule, and to succeed. Charles breathed more at his ease in Paris, conscious that he now had a part to play.
Des Grassins, hearing of his return, of his approaching marriage and his large fortune, came to see him, and inquired about the three hundred thousand francs still required to settle his father’s debts. He found Grandet in conference with a goldsmith, from whom he had ordered jewels for Mademoiselle d’Aubrion’s /corbeille/, and who was then submitting the designs. Charles had brought back magnificent diamonds, and the value of their setting, together with the plate and jewelry of the new establishment, amounted to more than two hundred thousand francs. He received des Grassins, whom he did not recognize, with the impertinence of a young man of fashion conscious of having killed four men in as many duels in the Indies. Monsieur des Grassins had already called several times. Charles listened to him coldly, and then replied, without fully understanding what had been said to him,–
“My father’s affairs are not mine. I am much obliged, monsieur, for the trouble you have been good enough to take,–by which, however, I really cannot profit. I have not earned two millions by the sweat of my brow to fling them at the head of my father’s creditors.”
“But suppose that your father’s estate were within a few days to be declared bankrupt?”
“Monsieur, in a few days I shall be called the Comte d’Aubrion; you will understand, therefore, that what you threaten is of no consequence to me. Besides, you know as well as I do that when a man has an income of a hundred thousand francs his father has /never failed/.” So saying, he politely edged Monsieur des Grassins to the door.
*****
At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes which had followed it. The sun had just reached the angle of the ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a caprice of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though Cornoiller often remarked to his wife that “it would fall and crush somebody one of these days.” At this moment the postman knocked, and gave a letter to Madame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying out:
“Mademoiselle, a letter!” She gave it to her mistress, adding, “Is it the one you expected?”
The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as they echoed in sound from wall to wall of the court and garden.
“Paris–from him–he has returned!”
Eugenie turned pale and held the letter for a moment. She trembled so violently that she could not break the seal. La Grande Nanon stood before her, both hands on her hips, her joy puffing as it were like smoke through the cracks of her brown face.
“Read it, mademoiselle!”
“Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went from Saumur.”
“Read it, and you’ll find out.”
Eugenie opened the letter with trembling fingers. A cheque on the house of “Madame des Grassins and Coret, of Saumur,” fluttered down. Nanon picked it up.
My dear Cousin,–
“No longer ‘Eugenie,'” she thought, and her heart quailed.
You–
“He once said ‘thou.'” She folded her arms and dared not read another word; great tears gathered in her eyes.
“Is he dead?” asked Nanon.
“If he were, he could not write,” said Eugenie.
She then read the whole letter, which was as follows:
My dear Cousin,–You will, I am sure, hear with pleasure of the success of my enterprise. You brought me luck; I have come back rich, and I have followed the advice of my uncle, whose death, together with that of my aunt, I have just learned from Monsieur des Grassins. The death of parents is in the course of nature, and we must succeed them. I trust you are by this time consoled. Nothing can resist time, as I am well aware. Yes, my dear cousin, the day of illusions is, unfortunately, gone for me. How could it be otherwise? Travelling through many lands, I have reflected upon life. I was a child when I went away,–I have come back a man. To-day, I think of many I did not dream of then. You are free, my dear cousin, and I am free still. Nothing apparently hinders the realization of our early hopes; but my nature is too loyal to hide from you the situation in which I find myself. I have not forgotten our relations; I have always remembered, throughout my long wanderings, the little wooden seat–
Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and went away and sat down on the stone steps of the court.
–the little wooden seat where we vowed to love each other forever, the passage, the gray hall, my attic chamber, and the night when, by your delicate kindness, you made my future easier to me. Yes, these recollections sustained my courage; I said in my heart that you were thinking of me at the hour we had agreed upon. Have you always looked at the clouds at nine o’clock? Yes, I am sure of it. I cannot betray so true a friendship,–no, I must not deceive you. An alliance has been proposed to me which satisfies all my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a delusion. My present experience warns me that in marrying we are bound to obey all social laws and meet the conventional demands of the world. Now, between you and me there are differences which might affect your future, my dear cousin, even more than they would mine. I will not here speak of your customs and inclinations, your education, nor yet of your habits, none of which are in keeping with Parisian life, or with the future which I have marked out for myself. My intention is to keep my household on a stately footing, to receive much company,–in short, to live in the world; and I think I remember that you love a quiet and tranquil life. I will be frank, and make you the judge of my situation; you have the right to understand it and to judge it.
I possess at the present moment an income of eighty thousand francs. This fortune enables me to marry into the family of Aubrion, whose heiress, a young girl nineteen years of age, brings me a title, a place of gentleman-of-the-bed-chamber to His Majesty, and a very brilliant position. I will admit to you, my dear cousin, that I do not love Mademoiselle d’Aubrion; but in marrying her I secure to my children a social rank whose advantages will one day be incalculable: monarchical principles are daily coming more and more into favor. Thus in course of time my son, when he becomes Marquis d’Aubrion, having, as he then will have, an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand francs a year, can obtain any position in the State which he may think proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children.
You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state of my heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possibly, after seven years’ separation, you have yourself forgotten our youthful loves; but I have never forgotten either your kindness or my own words. I remember all, even words that were lightly uttered,–words by which a man less conscientious than I, with a heart less youthful and less upright, would scarcely feel himself bound. In telling you that the marriage I propose to make is solely one of convenience, that I still remember our childish love, am I not putting myself entirely in your hands and making you the mistress of my fate? am I not telling you that if I must renounce my social ambitions, I shall willingly content myself with the pure and simple happiness of which you have shown me so sweet an image?
“Tan, ta, ta–tan, ta, ti,” sang Charles Grandet to the air of /Non piu andrai/, as he signed himself,–
Your devoted cousin,
Charles.
“Thunder! that’s doing it handsomely!” he said, as he looked about him for the cheque; having found it, he added the words:–
P.S.–I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank for eight thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which includes the capital and interest of the sum you were kind enough to lend me. I am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few things which you must allow me to offer you as a mark of my unceasing gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the diligence to the hotel d’Aubrion, rue Hillerin-Bertin.
“By the diligence!” said Eugenie. “A thing for which I would have laid down my life!”
Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,–to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine; the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is love,–true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s love after she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven, thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny. Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of her deliverance.
“My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer–and die!”
XIV
Eugenie came slowly back from the garden to the house, and avoided passing, as was her custom, through the corridor. But the memory of her cousin was in the gray old hall and on the chimney-piece, where stood a certain saucer and the old Sevres sugar-bowl which she used every morning at her breakfast.
This day was destined to be solemn throughout and full of events. Nanon announced the cure of the parish church. He was related to the Cruchots, and therefore in the interests of Monsieur de Bonfons. For some time past the old abbe had urged him to speak to Mademoiselle Grandet, from a purely religious point of view, about the duty of marriage for a woman in her position. When she saw her pastor, Eugenie supposed he had come for the thousand francs which she gave monthly to the poor, and she told Nanon to go and fetch them; but the cure only smiled.
“To-day, mademoiselle,” he said, “I have come to speak to you about a poor girl in whom the whole town of Saumur takes an interest, who, through lack of charity to herself, neglects her Christian duties.”
“Monsieur le cure, you have come to me at a moment when I cannot think of my neighbor, I am filled with thoughts of myself. I am very unhappy; my only refuge is in the Church; her bosom is large enough to hold all human woe, her love so full that we may draw from its depths and never drain it dry.”
“Mademoiselle, in speaking of this young girl we shall speak of you. Listen! If you wish to insure your salvation you have only two paths to take,–either leave the world or obey its laws. Obey either your earthly destiny or your heavenly destiny.”
“Ah! your voice speaks to me when I need to hear a voice. Yes, God has sent you to me; I will bid farewell to the world and live for God alone, in silence and seclusion.”
“My daughter, you must think long before you take so violent a step. Marriage is life, the veil is death.”
“Yes, death,–a quick death!” she said, with dreadful eagerness.
“Death? but you have great obligations to fulfil to society, mademoiselle. Are you not the mother of the poor, to whom you give clothes and wood in winter and work in summer? Your great fortune is a loan which you must return, and you have sacredly accepted it as such. To bury yourself in a convent would be selfishness; to remain an old maid is to fail in duty. In the first place, can you manage your vast property alone? May you not lose it? You will have law-suits, you will find yourself surrounded by inextricable difficulties. Believe your pastor: a husband is useful; you are bound to preserve what God has bestowed upon you. I speak to you as a precious lamb of my flock. You love God too truly not to find your salvation in the midst of his world, of which you are noble ornament and to which you owe your example.”
At this moment Madame des Grassins was announced. She came incited by vengeance and the sense of a great despair.
“Mademoiselle,” she said–“Ah! here is monsieur le cure; I am silent. I came to speak to you on business; but I see that you are conferring with–“
“Madame,” said the cure, “I leave the field to you.”
“Oh! monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie, “come back later; your support is very necessary to me just now.”
“Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child!” said Madame des Grassins.
“What do you mean?” asked Eugenie and the cure together.
“Don’t I know about your cousin’s return, and his marriage with Mademoiselle d’Aubrion? A woman doesn’t carry her wits in her pocket.”
Eugenie blushed, and remained silent for a moment. From this day forth she assumed the impassible countenance for which her father had been so remarkable.
“Well, madame,” she presently said, ironically, “no doubt I carry my wits in my pocket, for I do not understand you. Speak, say what you mean, before monsieur le cure; you know he is my director.”
“Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins writes me. Read it.”
Eugenie read the following letter:–
My dear Wife,–Charles Grandet has returned from the Indies and has been in Paris about a month–
“A month!” thought Eugenie, her hand falling to her side. After a pause she resumed the letter,–
I had to dance attendance before I was allowed to see the future Vicomte d’Aubrion. Though all Paris is talking of his marriage and the banns are published–
“He wrote to me after that!” thought Eugenie. She did not conclude the thought; she did not cry out, as a Parisian woman would have done, “The villain!” but though she said it not, contempt was none the less present in her mind.
The marriage, however, will not come off. The Marquis d’Aubrion will never give his daughter to the son of a bankrupt. I went to tell Grandet of the steps his uncle and I took in his father’s business, and the clever manoeuvres by which we had managed to keep the creditor’s quiet until the present time. The insolent fellow had the face to say to me–to me, who for five years have devoted myself night and day to his interests and his honor!–that /his father’s affairs were not his/! A solicitor would have had the right to demand fees amounting to thirty or forty thousand francs, one per cent on the total of the debts. But patience! there are twelve hundred thousand francs legitimately owing to the creditors, and I shall at once declare his father a bankrupt.
I went into this business on the word of that old crocodile Grandet, and I have made promises in the name of his family. If Monsieur de vicomte d’Aubrion does not care for his honor, I care for mine. I shall explain my position to the creditors. Still, I have too much respect for Mademoiselle Eugenie (to whom under happier circumstances we once hoped to be allied) to act in this matter before you have spoken to her about it–
There Eugenie paused, and coldly returned the letter without finishing it.
“I thank you,” she said to Madame des Grassins.
“Ah! you have the voice and manner of your deceased father,” Madame des Grassins replied.
“Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay us,” said Nanon, producing Charles’s cheque.
“That’s true; have the kindness to come with me now, Madame Cornoiller.”
“Monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie with a noble composure, inspired by the thought she was about to express, “would it be a sin to remain a virgin after marriage?”
“That is a case of conscience whose solution is not within my knowledge. If you wish to know what the celebrated Sanchez says of it in his treatise ‘De Matrimonio,’ I shall be able to tell you to-morrow.”
The cure went away; Mademoiselle Grandet went up to her father’s secret room and spent the day there alone, without coming down to dinner, in spite of Nanon’s entreaties. She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news of Charles’s return and his foolish treachery had spread through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her misery behind a veil of courtesy. Towards nine o’clock the games ended and the players left the tables, paying their losses and discussing points of the game as they joined the rest of the company. At the moment when the whole party rose to take leave, an unexpected and striking event occurred, which resounded through the length and breadth of Saumur, from thence through the arrondissement, and even to the four surrounding prefectures.
“Stay, monsieur le president,” said Eugenie to Monsieur de Bonfons as she saw him take his cane.
There was not a person in that numerous assembly who was unmoved by these words. The president turned pale, and was forced to sit down.
“The president gets the millions,” said Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt.
“It is plain enough; the president marries Mademoiselle Grandet,” cried Madame d’Orsonval.
“All the trumps in one hand,” said the abbe.
“A love game,” said the notary.
Each and all said his say, made his pun, and looked at the heiress mounted on her millions as on a pedestal. The drama begun nine years before had reached its conclusion. To tell the president, in face of all Saumur, to “stay,” was surely the same thing as proclaiming him her husband. In provincial towns social conventionalities are so rigidly enforced than an infraction like this constituted a solemn promise.
“Monsieur le president,” said Eugenie in a voice of some emotion when they were left alone, “I know what pleases you in me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is yours. Oh!” she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, “I have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor to violate the laws of my own heart. But you can possess my hand and my fortune only at the cost of doing me an inestimable service.”
“I am ready for all things,” said the president.
“Here are fifteen hundred thousand francs,” she said, drawing from her bosom a certificate of a hundred shares in the Bank of France. “Go to Paris,–not to-morrow, but instantly. Find Monsieur des Grassins, learn the names of my uncle’s creditors, call them together, pay them in full all that was owing, with interest at five per cent from the day the debt was incurred to the present time. Be careful to obtain a full and legal receipt, in proper form, before a notary. You are a magistrate, and I can trust this matter in your hands. You are a man of honor; I will put faith in your word, and meet the dangers of life under shelter of your name. Let us have mutual indulgence. We have known each other so long that we are almost related; you would not wish to render me unhappy.”
The president fell at the feet of the rich heiress, his heart beating and wrung with joy.
“I will be your slave!” he said.
“When you obtain the receipts, monsieur,” she resumed, with a cold glance, “you will take them with all the other papers to my cousin Grandet, and you will give him this letter. On your return I will keep my word.”
The president understood perfectly that he owed the acquiescence of Mademoiselle Grandet to some bitterness of love, and he made haste to obey her orders, lest time should effect a reconciliation between the pair.
When Monsieur de Bonfons left her, Eugenie fell back in her chair and burst into tears. All was over.
The president took the mail-post, and reached Paris the next evening. The morning after his arrival he went to see des Grassins, and together they summoned the creditors to meet at the notary’s office where the vouchers had been deposited. Not a single creditor failed to be present. Creditors though they were, justice must be done to them, –they were all punctual. Monsieur de Bonfons, in the name of Mademoiselle Grandet, paid them the amount of their claims with interest. The payment of interest was a remarkable event in the Parisian commerce of that day. When the receipts were all legally registered, and des Grassins had received for his services the sum of fifty thousand francs allowed to him by Eugenie, the president made his way to the hotel d’Aubrion and found Charles just entering his own apartment after a serious encounter with his prospective father-in- law. The old marquis had told him plainly that he should not marry his daughter until all the creditors of Guillaume Grandet had been paid in full.
The president gave Charles the following letter:–
My Cousin,–Monsieur le president de Bonfons has undertaken to place in your hands the aquittance for all claims upon my uncle, also a receipt by which I acknowledge having received from you the sum total of those claims. I have heard of a possible failure, and I think that the son of a bankrupt may not be able to marry Mademoiselle d’Aubrion. Yes, my cousin, you judged rightly of my mind and of my manners. I have, it is true, no part in the world; I understand neither its calculations nor its customs; and I could not give you the pleasures that you seek in it. Be happy, according to the social conventions to which you have sacrificed our love. To make your happiness complete I can only offer you your father’s honor. Adieu! You will always have a faithful friend in your cousin
Eugenie.
The president smiled at the exclamation which the ambitious young man could not repress as he received the documents.
“We shall announce our marriages at the same time,” remarked Monsieur de Bonfons.
“Ah! you marry Eugenie? Well, I am delighted; she is a good girl. But,” added Charles, struck with a luminous idea, “she must be rich?”
“She had,” said the president, with a mischievous smile, “about nineteen millions four days ago; but she has only seventeen millions to-day.”
Charles looked at him thunderstruck.
“Seventeen mil–“
“Seventeen millions; yes, monsieur. We shall muster, Mademoiselle Grandet and I, an income of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs when we marry.”
“My dear cousin,” said Charles, recovering a little of his assurance, “we can push each other’s fortunes.”
“Agreed,” said the president. “Here is also a little case which I am charged to give into your own hands,” he added, placing on the table the leather box which contained the dressing-case.
“Well, my dear friend,” said Madame d’Aubrion, entering the room without noticing the president, “don’t pay any attention to what poor Monsieur d’Aubrion has just said to you; the Duchesse de Chaulieu has turned his head. I repeat, nothing shall interfere with the marriage–“
“Very good, madame. The three millions which my father owed were paid yesterday.”
“In money?” she asked.
“Yes, in full, capital and interest; and I am about to do honor to his memory–“
“What folly!” exclaimed his mother-in-law. “Who is this?” she whispered in Grandet’s ear, perceiving the president.
“My man of business,” he answered in a low voice.
The marquise bowed superciliously to Monsieur de Bonfons.
“We are pushing each other’s fortunes already,” said the president, taking up his hat. “Good-by, cousin.”
“He is laughing at me, the old cockatoo! I’d like to put six inches of iron into him!” muttered Charles.
The president was out of hearing. Three days later Monsieur de Bonfons, on his return to Saumur, announced his marriage with Eugenie. Six months after the marriage he was appointed councillor in the Cour royale at Angers. Before leaving Saumur Madame de Bonfons had the gold of certain jewels, once so precious to her, melted up, and put, together with the eight thousand francs paid back by her cousin, into a golden pyx, which she gave to the parish church where she had so long prayed for /him/. She now spent her time between Angers and Saumur. Her husband, who had shown some public spirit on a certain occasion, became a judge in the superior courts, and finally, after a few years, president of them. He was anxiously awaiting a general election, in the hope of being returned to the Chamber of deputies. He hankered after a peerage; and then–
“The king will be his cousin, won’t he?” said Nanon, la Grande Nanon, Madame Cornoiller, bourgeoise of Saumur, as she listened to her mistress, who was recounting the honors to which she was called.
Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur. God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with which, /accurante Cruchot/, he had drawn up his marriage contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, “in case they should have no children, their entire property of every kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation, dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc., etc.” This clause of the contract will explain the profound respect which monsieur le president always testified for the wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons. Women cited him as the most considerate and delicate of men, pitied him, and even went so far as to find fault with the passion and grief of Eugenie, blaming her, as women know so well how to blame, with cruel but discreet insinuation.
“Madame de Bonfons must be very ill to leave her husband entirely alone. Poor woman! Is she likely to get well? What is it? Something gastric? A cancer?”–“She has grown perfectly yellow. She ought to consult some celebrated doctor in Paris.”–“How can she be happy without a child? They say she loves her husband; then why not give him an heir?–in his position, too!”–“Do you know, it is really dreadful! If it is the result of mere caprice, it is unpardonable. Poor president!”
Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president. Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life to a child would give death to his hopes,–the hopes of selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished as he looked into the future.
God thus flung piles of gold upon this prisoner to whom gold was a matter of indifference, who longed for heaven, who lived, pious and good, in holy thoughts, succoring the unfortunate in secret, and never wearying of such deeds. Madame de Bonfons became a widow at thirty- six. She is still beautiful, but with the beauty of a woman who is nearly forty years of age. Her face is white and placid and calm; her voice gentle and self-possessed; her manners are simple. She has the noblest qualities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled her soul by contact with the world; but she has also the rigid bearing of an old maid and the petty habits inseparable from the narrow round of provincial life. In spite of her vast wealth, she lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth. Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed, bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.
“I have none but you to love me,” she says to Nanon.
The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of her education and the petty habits of her early life.
Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother, has neither husband nor children nor family. Lately there has been some question of her marrying again. The Saumur people talk of her and of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose family are beginning to beset the rich widow just as, in former days, the Cruchots laid siege to the rich heiress. Nanon and Cornoiller are, it is said, in the interests of the marquis. Nothing could be more false. Neither la Grande Nanon nor Cornoiller has sufficient mind to understand the corruptions of the world.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Chaulieu, Eleonore, Duchesse de
Letters of Two Brides
Grandet, Victor-Ange-Guillaume
The Firm of Nucingen
Grandet, Charles
The Firm of Nucingen
Keller, Francois
Domestic Peace
Cesar Birotteau
The Government Clerks
The Member for Arcis
Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
The Muse of the Department
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Ursule Mirouet
Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Government Clerks
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Ursule Mirouet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
The Unconscious Humorists
Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
Father Goriot
The Thirteen
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Commission in Lunacy
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Modeste Mignon
The Firm of Nucingen
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Roguin
Cesar Birotteau
Eugenie Grandet
A Bachelor’s Establishment
The Vendetta