Eugenie Grandet

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

“What is it?” asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.

“I have read those letters.”

Charles colored.

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

“And what?” asked Charles.

“Your plans, your need of a sum – ”

“My dear cousin – ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charles was at last able to express his feelings.

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

“What do you mean?” she said, frightened.

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

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

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

“Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote that – ”

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

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

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

“You are like your mother, – was her voice as soft as yours?”

“Oh! much softer – ”

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

“Ah!” he said, “why am I ruined?”

“What matter? – my father is rich; I think so,” she answered.

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

“But he owns Froidfond.”

“What is Froidfond worth?”

“I don’t know; but he has Noyers.”

“Nothing but a poor farm!”

“He has vineyards and fields.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: “Haven’t you eaten anything since yesterday?”

“Nothing,” answered the old man.

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

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

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

“But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes.”

“Say was worth – ”

“Where the devil have they got any?”

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

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

“Monsieur Grandet,” said the banker to Charles, “I am starting for Paris; if you have any commissions – ”

“None, monsieur, I thank you,” answered Charles.

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

“Is there any hope?” said Charles eagerly.

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

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

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

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

“Get me some black-currant ratafia.”

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

“Dans les gardes francaisesJ’avais un bon papa.”

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

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

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

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

“Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?”

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

“They put too much sugar,” said the master; “you can’t taste anything else.”

IX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“To buy them?” said Grandet, interrupting him.

“No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who – ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I must,” he said, bowing his head.

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

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

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

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

“Oh! I haven’t any secrets,” said Charles.

“Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you’ll soon find out that you must hold your tongue in business.”

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

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

“Do you love me?” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mercy!” cried Nanon, “now they’re saying their prayers.”

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

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