“You have said enough, nephew; you’ve shown enough devotion. Your desire to win the girl blinds you. The devil! you mustn’t go at it tooth and nail. Let me sail the ship now; you can haul on the braces. Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as a magistrate in such a — ”
He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins saying to the old cooper as they shook hands, —
“Grandet, we have heard of the frightful misfortunes which have just befallen your family, — the failure of the house of Guillaume Grandet and the death of your brother. We have come to express our grief at these sad events.”
“There is but one sad event,” said the notary, interrupting the banker, — ”the death of Monsieur Grandet, junior; and he would never have killed himself had he thought in time of applying to his brother for help. Our old friend, who is honorable to his finger-nails, intends to liquidate the debts of the Maison Grandet of Paris. To save him the worry of legal proceedings, my nephew, the president, has just offered to go to Paris and negotiate with the creditors for a satisfactory settlement.”
These words, corroborated by Grandet’s attitude as he stood silently nursing his chin, astonished the three des Grassins, who had been leisurely discussing the old man’s avarice as they came along, very nearly accusing him of fratricide.
“Ah! I was sure of it,” cried the banker, looking at his wife. “What did I tell you just now, Madame des Grassins? Grandet is honorable to the backbone, and would never allow his name to remain under the slightest cloud! Money without honor is a disease. There is honor in the provinces! Right, very right, Grandet. I’m an old soldier, and I can’t disguise my thoughts; I speak roughly. Thunder! it is sublime!”
“Th-then s-s-sublime th-things c-c-cost d-dear,” answered the goodman, as the banker warmly wrung his hand.
“But this, my dear Grandet, — if the president will excuse me, — is a purely commercial matter, and needs a consummate business man. Your agent must be some one fully acquainted with the markets, — with disbursements, rebates, interest calculations, and so forth. I am going to Paris on business of my own, and I can take charge of — ”
“We’ll see about t-t-trying to m-m-manage it b-b-between us, under the p-p-peculiar c-c-circumstances, b-b-but without b-b-binding m-m-myself to anything th-that I c-c-could not do,” said Grandet, stuttering; “because, you see, monsieur le president naturally expects me to pay the expenses of his journey.”
The goodman did not stammer over the last words.
“Eh!” cried Madame des Grassins, “why it is a pleasure to go to Paris. I would willingly pay to go myself.”
She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage him in cutting the enemy out of the commission, coute que coute; then she glanced ironically at the two Cruchots, who looked chap-fallen. Grandet seized the banker by a button and drew him into a corner of the room.
“I have a great deal more confidence in you than in the president,” he said; “besides, I’ve other fish to fry,” he added, wriggling his wen. “I want to buy a few thousand francs in the Funds while they are at eighty. They fall, I’m told, at the end of each month. You know all about these things, don’t you?”
“Bless me! then, am I to invest enough to give you a few thousand francs a year?”
“That’s not much to begin with. Hush! I don’t want any one to know I am going to play that game. You can make the investment by the end of the month. Say nothing to the Cruchots; that’ll annoy them. If you are really going to Paris, we will see if there is anything to be done for my poor nephew.”
“Well, it’s all settled. I’ll start to-morrow by the mail-post,” said des Grassins aloud, “and I will come and take your last directions at — what hour will suit you?”
“Five o’clock, just before dinner,” said Grandet, rubbing his hands.
The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said, after a pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder, —
“It is a good thing to have a relation like him.”
“Yes, yes; without making a show,” said Grandet, “I am a g-good relation. I loved my brother, and I will prove it, unless it c-c-costs — ”
“We must leave you, Grandet,” said the banker, interrupting him fortunately before he got to the end of his sentence. “If I hurry my departure, I must attend to some matters at once.”
“Very good, very good! I myself — in c-consequence of what I t-told you — I must retire to my own room and ‘d-d-deliberate,’ as President Cruchot says.”
“Plague take him! I am no longer Monsieur de Bonfons,” thought the magistrate ruefully, his face assuming the expression of a judge bored by an argument.
The heads of the two factions walked off together. Neither gave any further thought to the treachery Grandet had been guilty of in the morning against the whole wine-growing community; each tried to fathom what the other was thinking about the real intentions of the wily old man in this new affair, but in vain.
“Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval’s?” said des Grassins to the notary.
“We will go there later,” answered the president. “I have promised to say good-evening to Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt, and we will go there first, if my uncle is willing.”
“Farewell for the present!” said Madame des Grassins.
When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to his father, —
“Are not they fuming, hein?”
“Hold your tongue, my son!” said his mother; “they might hear you. Besides, what you say is not in good taste, — law-school language.”
“Well, uncle,” cried the president when he saw the des Grassins disappearing, “I began by being de Bonfons, and I have ended as nothing but Cruchot.”
“I saw that that annoyed you; but the wind has set fair for the des Grassins. What a fool you are, with all your cleverness! Let them sail off on Grandet’s ‘We’ll see about it,’ and keep yourself quiet, young man. Eugenie will none the less be your wife.”
In a few moments the news of Grandet’s magnanimous resolve was disseminated in three houses at the same moment, and the whole town began to talk of his fraternal devotion. Every one forgave Grandet for the sale made in defiance of the good faith pledged to the community; they admired his sense of honor, and began to laud a generosity of which they had never thought him capable. It is part of the French nature to grow enthusiastic, or angry, or fervent about some meteor of the moment. Can it be that collective beings, nationalities, peoples, are devoid of memory?
When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.
“Don’t let the dog loose, and don’t go to bed; we have work to do together. At eleven o’clock Cornoiller will be at the door with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his knocking; tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don’t allow nocturnal racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not know that I am starting on a journey.”
So saying, Grandet returned to his private room, where Nanon heard him moving about, rummaging, and walking to and fro, though with much precaution, for he evidently did not wish to wake his wife and daughter, and above all not to rouse the attention of his nephew, whom he had begun to anathematize when he saw a thread of light under his door. About the middle of the night Eugenie, intent on her cousin, fancied she heard a cry like that of a dying person. It must be Charles, she thought; he was so pale, so full of despair when she had seen him last, — could he have killed himself? She wrapped herself quickly in a loose garment, — a sort of pelisse with a hood, — and was about to leave the room when a bright light coming through the chinks of her door made her think of fire. But she recovered herself as she heard Nanon’s heavy steps and gruff voice mingling with the snorting of several horses.
“Can my father be carrying off my cousin?” she said to herself, opening her door with great precaution lest it should creak, and yet enough to let her see into the corridor.
Suddenly her eye encountered that of her father; and his glan
ce, vague and unnoticing as it was, terrified her. The goodman and Nanon were yoked together by a stout stick, each end of which rested on their shoulders; a stout rope was passed over it, on which was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere Grandet still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his leisure hours.
“Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!” said the voice of Nanon.
“What a pity that it is only copper sous!” answered Grandet. “Take care you don’t knock over the candlestick.”
The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two rails of the staircase.
“Cornoiller,” said Grandet to his keeper in partibus, “have you brought your pistols?”
“No, monsieur. Mercy! what’s there to fear for your copper sous?”
“Oh! nothing,” said Pere Grandet.
“Besides, we shall go fast,” added the man; “your farmers have picked out their best horses.”
“Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?”
“I didn’t know where.”
“Very good. Is the carriage strong?”
“Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand weight. How much does that old keg weigh?”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Nanon. “I ought to know! There’s pretty nigh eighteen hundred — ”
“Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I have gone into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive fast, Cornoiller; I must get to Angers before nine o’clock.”
The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose the dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in the neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or the object of his journey. The precautions of the old miser and his reticence were never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in that house, filled as it was with gold. Hearing in the morning, through the gossip of the port, that exchange on gold had doubled in price in consequence of certain military preparations undertaken at Nantes, and that speculators had arrived at Angers to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by the simple process of borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury notes the sum he intended to put into the Funds, having swelled it considerably by the exchange.
VIII
“My father has gone,” thought Eugenie, who heard all that took place from the head of the stairs. Silence was restored in the house, and the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her cousin’s chamber. A line of light, thin as the blade of a sabre, shone through a chink in the door and fell horizontally on the balusters of the rotten staircase.
“He suffers!” she said, springing up the stairs. A second moan brought her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the strained posture suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the room hastily.
“He must be very tired,” she said to herself, glancing at a dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their addresses: “To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, & Co., carriage-makers”; “To Monsieur Buisson, tailor,” etc.
“He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France at once,” she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The words, “My dear Annette,” at the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the floor.
“His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does he say to her?”
These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of fire.
“Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I ought to go away — What if I do read it?”
She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a child which, though asleep, knows its mother’s touch and receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful care. Like a mother Eugenie raised the drooping hand, and like a mother she gently kissed the chestnut hair — ”Dear Annette!” a demon shrieked the words in her ear.
“I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter,” she said. She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she read each sentence her heart swelled more and more, and the keen glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of first love still more precious.
My dear Annette, — Nothing could ever have separated us but the
great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human
foresight could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his
fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age
when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and
yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am
plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my position.
If I wish to leave France an honest man, — and there is no doubt of
that, — I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try my
fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must seek
my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they tell
me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do
so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the affronts,
the neglect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son of a
bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be
killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return
there. Your love — the most tender and devoted love which ever
ennobled the heart of man — cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved,
I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a
last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn
enterprise.
“Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I will give it to him,” thought Eugenie.
She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.
I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have the
hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, I have
not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hundred louis, not
even one louis. I don’t know that anything will be left after I
have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go quietly
to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin in the new
world like other men who have started young without a sou and
brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long day I have
faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me than for
another, because I have been so petted by a mother who adored me,
so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by meeting, on
my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The flowers of
life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could not last.
Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than a careless
young man is supposed to feel, — above all a young man used to the
caressing ways of the dearest woman in all Paris, cradled in
family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home, whose wishes
were a law to his father — oh, my father! Annette, he is dead!
Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I have
grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to keep me
with you in Paris you were
to sacrifice your luxury, your dress,
your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for the
expenses of my extravagant ways of living. Besides, I would never
accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and forever —
“He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!”
Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, he did not wake, and she resumed her reading.
When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West Indies
ages a European, so they say; especially a European who works
hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten years
your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion, your
spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps more
cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment and
ingratitude of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep in the
depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of four years
of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the memory of your
poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness, because, do you
see, dear Annette, I must conform to the exigencies of my new
life; I must take a commonplace view of them and do the best I
can. Therefore I must think of marriage, which becomes one of the
necessities of my future existence; and I will admit to you that I
have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle’s house, a cousin whose
face, manners, mind, and heart would please you, and who, besides,
seems to me —
“He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her,” thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped abruptly in the middle of the last sentence.
Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent girl should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter? To young girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant and pure, all is love from the moment they set their feet within the enchanted regions of that passion. They walk there bathed in a celestial light shed from their own souls, which reflects its rays upon their lover; they color all with the flame of their own emotion and attribute to him their highest thoughts. A woman’s errors come almost always from her belief in good or her confidence in truth. In Eugenie’s simple heart the words, “My dear Annette, my loved one,” echoed like the sweetest language of love; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes of the Venite adoremus, repeated by the organ, caressed her ear. Moreover, the tears which still lingered on the young man’s lashes gave signs of that nobility of heart by which young girls are rightly won. How could she know that Charles, though he loved his father and mourned him truly, was moved far more by paternal goodness than by the goodness of his own heart? Monsieur and Madame Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their son, and lavishing upon him the pleasures of a large fortune, had kept him from making the horrible calculations of which so many sons in Paris become more or less guilty when, face to face with the enjoyments of the world, they form desires and conceive schemes which they see with bitterness must be put off or laid aside during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of the father in this instance had shed into the heart of the son a real love, in which there was no afterthought of self-interest.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 331