Eugenie Grandet

“Where you like.”

“How do you feel?”

“Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry.”

This conversation, held through the closed door, was like an episode in a poem to Eugenie.

“Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so as not to annoy my father.”

She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a bird.

“Nanon, go and do his room!”

That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to the slightest noise, now lost its decaying aspect in the eyes of Eugenie. It grew luminous; it had a voice and spoke to her; it was young like herself, – young like the love it was now serving. Her mother, her kind, indulgent mother, lent herself to the caprices of the child’s love, and after the room was put in order, both went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him company. Does not Christian charity make consolation a duty? The two women drew a goodly number of little sophistries from their religion wherewith to justify their conduct. Charles was made the object of the tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart felt the sweetness of the gentle friendship, the exquisite sympathy which these two souls, crushed under perpetual restraint, knew so well how to display when, for an instant, they were left unfettered in the regions of suffering, their natural sphere.

Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to fold the linen and put in order the toilet articles which Charles had brought; thus she could marvel at her ease over each luxurious bauble and the various knick-knacks of silver or chased gold, which she held long in her hand under a pretext of examining them. Charles could not see without emotion the generous interest his aunt and cousin felt in him; he knew society in Paris well enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, he would find all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie thus appeared to him in the splendor of a special beauty, and from thenceforth he admired the innocence of life and manners which the previous evening he had been inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took from Nanon the bowl of coffee and cream, and began to pour it out for her cousin with the simplicity of real feeling, giving him a kindly glance, the eyes of the Parisian filled with tears; he took her hand and kissed it.

“What troubles you?” she said.

“Oh! these are tears of gratitude,” he answered.

Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the candlesticks.

“Here, Nanon, carry them away!” she said.

When she looked again towards her cousin she was still blushing, but her looks could at least deceive, and did not betray the excess of joy which innundated her heart; yet the eyes of both expressed the same sentiment as their souls flowed together in one thought, – the future was theirs. This soft emotion was all the more precious to Charles in the midst of his heavy grief because it was wholly unexpected. The sound of the knocker recalled the women to their usual station. Happily they were able to run downstairs with sufficient rapidity to be seated at their work when Grandet entered; had he met them under the archway it would have been enough to rouse his suspicions. After breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the keeper from Froidfond, to whom the promised indemnity had never yet been paid, made his appearance, bearing a hare and some partridges shot in the park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the millers.

“Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is all that fit to eat?”

“Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed two days.”

“Come, Nanon, bestir yourself,” said Grandet; “take these things, they’ll do for dinner. I have invited the two Cruchots.”

Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and looked at everybody in the room.

“Well!” she said, “and how am I to get the lard and the spices?”

“Wife,” said Grandet, “give Nanon six francs, and remind me to get some of the good wine out of the cellar.”

“Well, then, Monsieur Grandet,” said the keeper, who had come prepared with an harangue for the purpose of settling the question of the indemnity, “Monsieur Grandet – ”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” said Grandet; “I know what you want to say. You are a good fellow; we will see about it to-morrow, I’m too busy to-day. Wife, give him five francs,” he added to Madame Grandet as he decamped.

The poor woman was only too happy to buy peace at the cost of eleven francs. She knew that Grandet would let her alone for a fortnight after he had thus taken back, franc by franc, the money he had given her.

“Here, Cornoiller,” she said, slipping ten francs into the man’s hand, “some day we will reward your services.”

Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.

“Madame,” said Nanon, who had put on her black coif and taken her basket, “I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it’ll go fast enough somehow.”

“Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down,” said Eugenie.

“Something very extraordinary is going on, I am certain of it,” said Madame Grandet. “This is only the third time since our marriage that your father has given a dinner.”

About four o’clock, just as Eugenie and her mother had finished setting the table for six persons, and after the master of the house had brought up a few bottles of the exquisite wine which provincials cherish with true affection, Charles came down into the hall. The young fellow was pale; his gestures, the expression of his face, his glance, and the tones of his voice, all had a sadness which was full of grace. He was not pretending grief, he truly suffered; and the veil of pain cast over his features gave him an interesting air dear to the heart of women. Eugenie loved him the more for it. Perhaps she felt that sorrow drew him nearer to her. Charles was no longer the rich and distinguished young man placed in a sphere far above her, but a relation plunged into frightful misery. Misery begets equality. Women have this in common with the angels, – suffering humanity belongs to them. Charles and Eugenie understood each other and spoke only with their eyes; for the poor fallen dandy, orphaned and impoverished, sat apart in a corner of the room, and was proudly calm and silent. Yet, from time to time, the gentle and caressing glance of the young girl shone upon him and constrained him away from his sad thoughts, drawing him with her into the fields of hope and of futurity, where she loved to hold him at her side.

VII

At this moment the town of Saumur was more excited about the dinner given by Grandet to the Cruchots than it had been the night before at the sale of his vintage, though that constituted a crime of high-treason against the whole wine-growing community. If the politic old miser had given his dinner from the same idea that cost the dog of Alcibiades his tail, he might perhaps have been called a great man; but the fact is, considering himself superior to a community which he could trick on all occasions, he paid very little heed to what Saumur might say.

The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure and the violent death of Guillaume Grandet, and they determined to go to their client’s house that very evening to commiserate his misfortune and show him some marks of friendship, with a view of ascertaining the motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots to dinner. At precisely five o’clock Monsieur C. de Bonfons and his uncle the notary arrived in their Sunday clothes. The party sat down to table and began to dine with good appetites. Grandet was grave, Charles silent, Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did not say more than usual; so that the dinner was, very properly, a repast of condolence. When they rose from table Charles said to his aunt and uncle, —

“Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a long and painful correspondence.”

“Certainly, nephew.”

As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles could hear nothing and was probably deep in his letter-writing, he said, with a dissimulating glance at his wife, —

“Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will be Latin to you; it is half-past seven; you can go and attend to your household accounts. Good-night, my daughter.”

He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. A scene now took place in which Pere Grandet brought to bear, more than at any other moment of his life, the shrewd dexterity he had acquired in his intercourse with men, and which had won him from those whose flesh he sometimes bit too sharply the nickname of “the old dog.” If the mayor of Saumur had carried his ambition higher still, if fortunate circumstances, drawing him towards the higher social spheres, had sent him into congresses where the affairs of nations were discussed, and had he there employed the genius with which his personal interests had endowed him, he would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his native land. Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside of Saumur the goodman would have cut a very sorry figure. Possibly there are minds like certain animals which cease to breed when transplanted from the climates in which they are born.

“M-m-mon-sieur le p-p-president, you said t-t-that b-b-bankruptcy – ”

The stutter which for years the old miser had assumed when it suited him, and which, together with the deafness of which he sometimes complained in rainy weather, was thought in Saumur to be a natural defect, became at this crisis so wearisome to the two Cruchots that while they listened they unconsciously made faces and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here it may be well to give the history of this impediment of the speech and hearing of Monsieur Grandet. No one in Anjou heard better, or could pronounce more crisply the French language (with an Angevin accent) than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite of his shrewdness, he had been taken in by an Israelite, who in the course of the discussion held his hand behind his ear to catch sounds, and mangled his meaning so thoroughly in trying to utter his words that Grandet fell a victim to his humanity and was compelled to prompt the wily Jew with the words and ideas he seemed to seek, to complete himself the arguments of the said Jew, to say what that cursed Jew ought to have said for himself; in short, to be the Jew instead of being Grandet. When the cooper came out of this curious encounter he had concluded the only bargain of which in the course of a long commercial life he ever had occasion to complain. But if he lost at the time pecuniarily, he gained morally a valuable lesson; later, he gathered its fruits. Indeed, the goodman ended by blessing that Jew for having taught him the art of irritating his commercial antagonist and leading him to forget his own thoughts in his impatience to suggest those over which his tormentor was stuttering. No affair had ever needed the assistance of deafness, impediments of speech, and all the incomprehensible circumlocutions with which Grandet enveloped his ideas, as much as the affair now in hand. In the first place, he did not mean to shoulder the responsibility of his own scheme; in the next, he was determined to remain master of the conversation and to leave his real intentions in doubt.

“M-m-monsieur de B-B-Bonfons,” – for the second time in three years Grandet called the Cruchot nephew Monsieur de Bonfons; the president felt he might consider himself the artful old fellow’s son-in-law, – “you-ou said th-th-that b-b-bankruptcy c-c-could, in some c-c-cases, b-b-be p-p-prevented b-b-by – ”

“By the courts of commerce themselves. It is done constantly,” said Monsieur C. de Bonfons, bestriding Grandet’s meaning, or thinking he guessed it, and kindly wishing to help him out with it. “Listen.”

“Y-yes,” said Grandet humbly, with the mischievous expression of a boy who is inwardly laughing at his teacher while he pays him the greatest attention.

“When a man so respected and important as, for example, your late brother – ”

“M-my b-b-brother, yes.”

“ – is threatened with insolvency – ”

“They c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency?”

“Yes; when his failure is imminent, the court of commerce, to which he is amenable (please follow me attentively), has the power, by a decree, to appoint a receiver. Liquidation, you understand, is not the same as failure. When a man fails, he is dishonored; but when he merely liquidates, he remains an honest man.”

“T-t-that’s very d-d-different, if it d-d-doesn’t c-c-cost m-m-more,” said Grandet.

“But a liquidation can be managed without having recourse to the courts at all. For,” said the president, sniffing a pinch of snuff, “don’t you know how failures are declared?”

“N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought,” answered Grandet.

“In the first place,” resumed the magistrate, “by filing the schedule in the record office of the court, which the merchant may do himself, or his representative for him with a power of attorney duly certified. In the second place, the failure may be declared under compulsion from the creditors. Now if the merchant does not file his schedule, and if no creditor appears before the courts to obtain a decree of insolvency against the merchant, what happens?”

“W-w-what h-h-happens?”

“Why, the family of the deceased, his representatives, his heirs, or the merchant himself, if he is not dead, or his friends if he is only hiding, liquidate his business. Perhaps you would like to liquidate your brother’s affairs?”

“Ah! Grandet,” said the notary, “that would be the right thing to do. There is honor down here in the provinces. If you save your name – for it is your name – you will be a man – ”

“A noble man!” cried the president, interrupting his uncle.

“Certainly,” answered the old man, “my b-b-brother’s name was G-G-Grandet, like m-m-mine. Th-that’s c-c-certain; I d-d-don’t d-d-deny it. And th-th-this l-l-liquidation might be, in m-m-many ways, v-v-very advan-t-t-tageous t-t-to the interests of m-m-my n-n-nephew, whom I l-l-love. But I must consider. I don’t k-k-know the t-t-tricks of P-P-Paris. I b-b-belong to Sau-m-mur, d-d-don’t you see? M-m-my vines, my d-d-drains – in short, I’ve my own b-b-business. I never g-g-give n-n-notes. What are n-n-notes? I t-t-take a good m-m-many, but I have never s-s-signed one. I d-d-don’t understand such things. I have h-h-heard say that n-n-notes c-c-can be b-b-bought up.”

“Of course,” said the president. “Notes can be bought in the market, less so much per cent. Don’t you understand?”

Grandet made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and the president repeated his words.

“Well, then,” replied the man, “there’s s-s-something to be g-g-got out of it? I k-know n-nothing at my age about such th-th-things. I l-l-live here and l-l-look after the v-v-vines. The vines g-g-grow, and it’s the w-w-wine that p-p-pays. L-l-look after the v-v-vintage, t-t-that’s my r-r-rule. My c-c-chief interests are at Froidfond. I c-c-can’t l-l-leave my h-h-house to m-m-muddle myself with a d-d-devilish b-b-business I kn-know n-n-nothing about. You say I ought to l-l-liquidate my b-b-brother’s af-f-fairs, to p-p-prevent the f-f-failure. I c-c-can’t be in two p-p-places at once, unless I were a little b-b-bird, and – ”

“I understand,” cried the notary. “Well, my old friend, you have friends, old friends, capable of devoting themselves to your interests.”

“All right!” thought Grandet, “make haste and come to the point!”

“Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your brother Guillaume’s chief creditor and said to him – ”

“One m-m-moment,” interrupted the goodman, “said wh-wh-what? Something l-l-like this. Monsieur Gr-Grandet of Saumur this, Monsieur Grandet of Saumur that. He l-loves his b-b-brother, he loves his n-nephew. Grandet is a g-g-good uncle; he m-m-means well. He has sold his v-v-vintage. D-d-don’t declare a f-f-failure; c-c-call a meeting; l-l-liquidate; and then Gr-Gr-Grandet will see what he c-c-can do. B-b-better liquidate than l-let the l-l-law st-st-stick its n-n-nose in. Hein? isn’t it so?”

“Exactly so,” said the president.

“B-because, don’t you see, Monsieur de B-Bonfons, a man must l-l-look b-b-before he l-leaps. If you c-c-can’t, you c-c-can’t. M-m-must know all about the m-m-matter, all the resources and the debts, if you d-d-don’t want to be r-r-ruined. Hein? isn’t it so?”

“Certainly,” said the president. “I’m of opinion that in a few months the debts might be bought up for a certain sum, and then paid in full by an agreement. Ha! ha! you can coax a dog a long way if you show him a bit of lard. If there has been no declaration of failure, and you hold a lien on the debts, you come out of the business as white as the driven snow.”

“Sn-n-now,” said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear, “wh-wh-what about s-now?”

“But,” cried the president, “do pray attend to what I am saying.”

“I am at-t-tending.”

“A note is merchandise, – an article of barter which rises and falls in prices. That is a deduction from Jeremy Bentham’s theory about usury. That writer has proved that the prejudice which condemned usurers to reprobation was mere folly.”

“Whew!” ejaculated the goodman.

“Allowing that money, according to Bentham, is an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally merchandise,” resumed the president; “allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing at another, the courts decide – ah! how stupid I am, I beg your pardon – I am inclined to think you could buy up your brother’s debts for twenty-five per cent.”

“D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jeremy B-Ben?”

“Bentham, an Englishman.’

“That’s a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamentations in business,” said the notary, laughing.

“Those Englishmen s-sometimes t-t-talk sense,” said Grandet. “So, ac-c-cording to Ben-Bentham, if my b-b-brother’s n-notes are worth n-n-nothing; if Je-Je – I’m c-c-correct, am I not? That seems c-c-clear to my m-m-mind – the c-c-creditors would be – No, would not be; I understand.”

“Let me explain it all,” said the president. “Legally, if you acquire a title to all the debts of the Maison Grandet, your brother or his heirs will owe nothing to any one. Very good.”

“Very g-good,” repeated Grandet.

“In equity, if your brother’s notes are negotiated – negotiated, do you clearly understand the term? – negotiated in the market at a reduction of so much per cent in value, and if one of your friends happening to be present should buy them in, the creditors having sold them of their own free-will without constraint, the estate of the late Grandet is honorably released.”

“That’s t-true; b-b-business is b-business,” said the cooper. “B-b-but, st-still, you know, it is d-d-difficult. I h-have n-no m-m-money and n-no t-t-time.”

“Yes, but you need not undertake it. I am quite ready to go to Paris (you may pay my expenses, they will only be a trifle). I will see the creditors and talk with them and get an extension of time, and everything can be arranged if you will add something to the assets so as to buy up all title to the debts.”

“We-we’ll see about th-that. I c-c-can’t and I w-w-won’t bind myself without – He who c-c-can’t, can’t; don’t you see?”

“That’s very true.”

“I’m all p-p-put ab-b-bout by what you’ve t-t-told me. This is the f-first t-t-time in my life I have b-been obliged to th-th-think – ”

“Yes, you are not a lawyer.”

“I’m only a p-p-poor wine-g-grower, and know n-nothing about wh-what you have just t-told me; I m-m-must th-think about it.”

“Very good,” said the president, preparing to resume his argument.

“Nephew!” said the notary, interrupting him in a warning tone.

“Well, what, uncle?” answered the president.

“Let Monsieur Grandet explain his own intentions. The matter in question is of the first importance. Our good friend ought to define his meaning clearly, and – ”

A loud knock, which announced the arrival of the des Grassins family, succeeded by their entrance and salutations, hindered Cruchot from concluding his sentence. The notary was glad of the interruption, for Grandet was beginning to look suspiciously at him, and the wen gave signs of a brewing storm. In the first place, the notary did not think it becoming in a president of the Civil courts to go to Paris and manipulate creditors and lend himself to an underhand job which clashed with the laws of strict integrity; moreover, never having known old Grandet to express the slightest desire to pay anything, no matter what, he instinctively feared to see his nephew taking part in the affair. He therefore profited by the entrance of the des Grassins to take the nephew by the arm and lead him into the embrasure of the window, —

“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?”