Eugenie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac [the reader ebook TXT] 📗

of Saumur for monsieur so well as madame?"

"Ah! what do you mean by that, monsieur l'abbe?" demanded Monsieur des Grassins.

"I mean it in the best possible sense for you, for madame, for the town of Saumur, and for monsieur," said the wily old man, turning to Charles.

The Abbe Cruchot had guessed the conversation between Charles and Madame des Grassins without seeming to pay attention to it.

"Monsieur," said Adolphe to Charles with an air which he tried to make free and easy, "I don't know whether you remember me, but I had the honor of dancing as your _vis-a-vis_ at a ball given by the Baron de Nucingen, and--"

"Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur," answered Charles, pleased to find himself the object of general attention.

"Monsieur is your son?" he said to Madame des Grassins.

The abbe looked at her maliciously.

"Yes, monsieur," she answered.

"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said Charles, addressing Adolphe.

"You must know, monsieur," said the abbe, "that we send them to Babylon as soon as they are weaned."

Madame des Grassins examined the abbe with a glance of extreme penetration.

"It is only in the provinces," he continued, "that you will find women of thirty and more years as fresh as madame, here, with a son about to take his degree. I almost fancy myself back in the days when the young men stood on chairs in the ball-room to see you dance, madame," said the abbe, turning to his female adversary. "To me, your triumphs are but of yesterday--"

"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed my intentions?"

"It seems that I shall have a good deal of success in Saumur," thought Charles as he unbuttoned his great-coat, put a hand into his waistcoat, and cast a glance into the far distance, to imitate the attitude which Chantrey has given to Lord Byron.

The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more truly, the preoccupation of mind into which the reading of the letter had plunged him, did not escape the vigilance of the notary and the president, who tried to guess the contents of the letter by the almost imperceptible motions of the miser's face, which was then under the full light of the candle. He maintained the habitual calm of his features with evident difficulty; we may, in fact, picture to ourselves the countenance such a man endeavored to preserve as he read the fatal letter which here follows:--

My Brother,--It is almost twenty-three years since we have seen
each other. My marriage was the occasion of our last interview,
after which we parted, and both of us were happy. Assuredly I
could not then foresee that you would one day be the prop of the
family whose prosperity you then predicted.

When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no longer
living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive the disgrace
of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of the gulf until the
last moment, hoping to save myself. The end has come, I must sink
into it. The double bankruptcies of my broker and of Roguin, my
notary, have carried off my last resources and left me nothing. I
have the bitterness of owing nearly four millions, with assets not
more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay them. The wines in
my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices caused by the
abundance and quality of your vintage. In three days Paris will
cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I, an honest man,
shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I deprive my son of
a good name, which I have stained, and the fortune of his mother,
which I have lost. He knows nothing of all this,--my unfortunate
child whom I idolize! We parted tenderly. He was ignorant,
happily, that the last beatings of my heart were spent in that
farewell. Will he not some day curse me? My brother, my brother!
the curses of our children are horrible; they can appeal against
ours, but theirs are irrevocable. Grandet, you are my elder
brother, you owe me your protection; act for me so that Charles
may cast no bitter words upon my grave! My brother, if I were
writing with my blood, with my tears, no greater anguish could I
put into this letter,--nor as great, for then I should weep, I
should bleed, I should die, I should suffer no more, but now I
suffer and look at death with dry eyes.

From henceforth you are my son's father; he has no relations, as
you well know, on his mother's side. Why did I not consider social
prejudices? Why did I yield to love? Why did I marry the natural
daughter of a great lord? Charles has no family. Oh, my unhappy
son! my son! Listen, Grandet! I implore nothing for myself,
--besides, your property may not be large enough to carry a mortgage
of three millions,--but for my son! Brother, my suppliant hands
are clasped as I think of you; behold them! Grandet, I confide my
son to you in dying, and I look at the means of death with less
pain as I think that you will be to him a father. He loved me
well, my Charles; I was good to him, I never thwarted him; he will
not curse me. Ah, you see! he is gentle, he is like his mother, he
will cause you no grief. Poor boy! accustomed to all the
enjoyments of luxury, he knows nothing of the privations to which
you and I were condemned by the poverty of our youth. And I leave
him ruined! alone! Yes, all my friends will avoid him, and it is I
who have brought this humiliation upon him! Would that I had the
force to send him with one thrust into the heavens to his mother's
side! Madness! I come back to my disaster--to his. I send him to
you that you may tell him in some fitting way of my death, of his
future fate. Be a father to him, but a good father. Do not tear
him all at once from his idle life, it would kill him. I beg him
on my knees to renounce all rights that, as his mother's heir, he
may have on my estate. But the prayer is superfluous; he is
honorable, and he will feel that he must not appear among my
creditors. Bring him to see this at the right time; reveal to him
the hard conditions of the life I have made for him: and if he
still has tender thoughts of me, tell him in my name that all is
not lost for him. Yes, work, labor, which saved us both, may give
him back the fortune of which I have deprived him; and if he
listens to his father's voice as it reaches him from the grave, he
will go the Indies. My brother, Charles is an upright and
courageous young man; give him the wherewithal to make his
venture; he will die sooner than not repay you the funds which you
may lend him. Grandet! if you will not do this, you will lay up
for yourself remorse. Ah, should my child find neither tenderness
nor succor in you, I would call down the vengeance of God upon
your cruelty!

If I had been able to save something from the wreck, I might have
had the right to leave him at least a portion of his mother's
property; but my last monthly payments have absorbed everything. I
did not wish to die uncertain of my child's fate; I hoped to feel
a sacred promise in a clasp of your hand which might have warmed
my heart: but time fails me. While Charles is journeying to you I
shall be preparing my assignment. I shall endeavor to show by the
order and good faith of my accounts that my disaster comes neither
from a faulty life nor from dishonesty. It is for my son's sake
that I strive to do this.

Farewell, my brother! May the blessing of God be yours for the
generous guardianship I lay upon you, and which, I doubt not, you
will accept. A voice will henceforth and forever pray for you in
that world where we must all go, and where I am now as you read
these lines.

Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet.

"So you are talking?" said Pere Grandet as he carefully folded the letter in its original creases and put it into his waistcoat-pocket. He looked at his nephew with a humble, timid air, beneath which he hid his feelings and his calculations. "Have you warmed yourself?" he said to him.

"Thoroughly, my dear uncle."

"Well, where are the women?" said his uncle, already forgetting that his nephew was to sleep at the house. At this moment Eugenie and Madame Grandet returned.

"Is the room all ready?" said Grandet, recovering his composure.

"Yes, father."

"Well then, my nephew, if you are tired, Nanon shall show you your room. It isn't a dandy's room; but you will excuse a poor wine-grower who never has a penny to spare. Taxes swallow up everything."

"We do not wish to intrude, Grandet," said the banker; "you may want to talk to your nephew, and therefore we will bid you good-night."

At these words the assembly rose, and each made a parting bow in keeping with his or her own character. The old notary went to the door to fetch his lantern and came back to light it, offering to accompany the des Grassins on their way. Madame des Grassins had not foreseen the incident which brought the evening prematurely to an end, her servant therefore had not arrived.

"Will you do me the honor to take my arm, madame?" said the abbe.

"Thank you, monsieur l'abbe, but I have my son," she answered dryly.

"Ladies cannot compromise themselves with me," said the abbe.

"Take Monsieur Cruchot's arm," said her husband.

The abbe walked off with the pretty lady so quickly that they were soon some distance in advance of the caravan.

"That is a good-looking young man, madame," he said, pressing her arm. "Good-by to the grapes, the vintage is done. It is all over with us. We may as well say adieu to Mademoiselle Grandet. Eugenie will belong to the dandy. Unless this cousin is enamoured of some Parisian woman, your son Adolphe will find another rival in--"

"Not at all, monsieur l'abbe. This young man cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool,--a girl without the least freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a quince."

"Perhaps you