Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door, followed by
her master.
"Grandet! Grandet!" cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse of fear,
and running to the door of the room.
All the players looked at each other.
"Suppose we all go?" said Monsieur des Grassins; "that knock strikes
me as evil-intentioned."
Hardly was Monsieur des Grassins allowed to see the figure of a young
man, accompanied by a porter from the coach-office carrying two large
trunks and dragging a carpet-bag after him, than Monsieur Grandet
turned roughly on his wife and said,--
"Madame Grandet, go back to your loto; leave me to speak with
monsieur."
Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited players returned
to their seats, but did not continue the game.
"Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des Grassins?" asked his
wife.
"No, it is a traveller."
"He must have come from Paris."
"Just so," said the notary, pulling out his watch, which was two
inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war; "it's nine o'clock;
the diligence of the Grand Bureau is never late."
"Is the gentleman young?" inquired the Abbe Cruchot.
"Yes," answered Monsieur des Grassins, "and he has brought luggage
which must weigh nearly three tons."
"Nanon does not come back," said Eugenie.
"It must be one of your relations," remarked the president.
"Let us go on with our game," said Madame Grandet gently. "I know from
Monsieur Grandet's tone of voice that he is annoyed; perhaps he would
not like to find us talking of his affairs."
"Mademoiselle," said Adolphe to his neighbor, "it is no doubt your
cousin Grandet,--a very good-looking young man; I met him at the ball
of Monsieur de Nucingen." Adolphe did not go on, for his mother trod
on his toes; and then, asking him aloud for two sous to put on her
stake, she whispered: "Will you hold your tongue, you great goose!"
At this moment Grandet returned, without la Grande Nanon, whose steps,
together with those of the porter, echoed up the staircase; and he was
followed by the traveller who had excited such curiosity and so filled
the lively imaginations of those present that his arrival at this
dwelling, and his sudden fall into the midst of this assembly, can
only be likened to that of a snail into a beehive, or the introduction
of a peacock into some village poultry-yard.
"Sit down near the fire," said Grandet.
Before seating himself, the young stranger saluted the assembled
company very gracefully. The men rose to answer by a courteous
inclination, and the women made a ceremonious bow.
"You are cold, no doubt, monsieur," said Madame Grandet; "you have,
perhaps, travelled from--"
"Just like all women!" said the old wine-grower, looking up from a
letter he was reading. "Do let monsieur rest himself!"
"But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take something," said
Eugenie.
"He has got a tongue," said the old man sternly.
The stranger was the only person surprised by this scene; all the
others were well-used to the despotic ways of the master. However,
after the two questions and the two replies had been exchanged, the
newcomer rose, turned his back towards the fire, lifted one foot so as
to warm the sole of its boot, and said to Eugenie,--
"Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. And," he added, looking
at Grandet, "I need nothing; I am not even tired."
"Monsieur has come from the capital?" asked Madame des Grassins.
Monsieur Charles,--such was the name of the son of Monsieur Grandet of
Paris,--hearing himself addressed, took a little eye-glass, suspended
by a chain from his neck, applied it to his right eye to examine what
was on the table, and also the persons sitting round it. He ogled
Madame des Grassins with much impertinence, and said to her, after he
had observed all he wished,--
"Yes, madame. You are playing at loto, aunt," he added. "Do not let me
interrupt you, I beg; go on with your game: it is too amusing to
leave."
"I was certain it was the cousin," thought Madame des Grassins,
casting repeated glances at him.
"Forty-seven!" cried the old abbe. "Mark it down, Madame des Grassins.
Isn't that your number?"
Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife's card, who sat
watching first the cousin from Paris and then Eugenie, without
thinking of her loto, a prey to mournful presentiments. From time to
time the young the heiress glanced furtively at her cousin, and the
banker's wife easily detected a _crescendo_ of surprise and curiosity
in her mind.
Monsieur Charles Grandet, a handsome young man of twenty-two,
presented at this moment a singular contrast to the worthy
provincials, who, considerably disgusted by his aristocratic manners,
were all studying him with sarcastic intent. This needs an
explanation. At twenty-two, young people are still so near childhood
that they often conduct themselves childishly. In all probability, out
of every hundred of them fully ninety-nine would have behaved
precisely as Monsieur Charles Grandet was now behaving.
Some days earlier than this his father had told him to go and spend
several months with his uncle at Saumur. Perhaps Monsieur Grandet was
thinking of Eugenie. Charles, sent for the first time in his life into
the provinces, took a fancy to make his appearance with the
superiority of a man of fashion, to reduce the whole arrondissement to
despair by his luxury, and to make his visit an epoch, importing into
those country regions all the refinements of Parisian life. In short,
to explain it in one word, he mean to pass more time at Saumur in
brushing his nails than he ever thought of doing in Paris, and to
assume the extra nicety and elegance of dress which a young man of
fashion often lays aside for a certain negligence which in itself is
not devoid of grace. Charles therefore brought with him a complete
hunting-costume, the finest gun, the best hunting-knife in the
prettiest sheath to be found in all Paris. He brought his whole
collection of waistcoats. They were of all kinds,--gray, black, white,
scarabaeus-colored: some were shot with gold, some spangled, some
_chined_; some were double-breasted and crossed like a shawl, others
were straight in the collar; some had turned-over collars, some
buttoned up to the top with gilt buttons. He brought every variety of
collar and cravat in fashion at that epoch. He brought two of
Buisson's coats and all his finest linen He brought his pretty gold
toilet-set,--a present from his mother. He brought all his dandy
knick-knacks, not forgetting a ravishing little desk presented to him
by the most amiable of women,--amiable for him, at least,--a fine lady
whom he called Annette and who at this moment was travelling,
matrimonially and wearily, in Scotland, a victim to certain suspicions
which required a passing sacrifice of happiness; in the desk was much
pretty note-paper on which to write to her once a fortnight.
In short, it was as complete a cargo of Parisian frivolities as it was
possible for him to get together,--a collection of all the implements
of husbandry with which the youth of leisure tills his life, from the
little whip which helps to begin a duel, to the handsomely chased
pistols which end it. His father having told him to travel alone and
modestly, he had taken the coupe of the diligence all to himself,
rather pleased at not having to damage a delightful
travelling-carriage ordered for a journey on which he was to meet his
Annette, the great lady who, etc.,--whom he intended to rejoin at
Baden in the following June. Charles expected to meet scores of people
at his uncle's house, to hunt in his uncle's forests,--to live, in
short, the usual chateau life; he did not know that his uncle was in
Saumur, and had only inquired about him incidentally when asking the
way to Froidfond. Hearing that he was in town, he supposed that he
should find him in a suitable mansion.
In order that he might make a becoming first appearance before his
uncle either at Saumur or at Froidfond, he had put on his most elegant
travelling attire, simple yet exquisite,--"adorable," to use the word
which in those days summed up the special perfections of a man or a
thing. At Tours a hairdresser had re-curled his beautiful chestnut
locks; there he changed his linen and put on a black satin cravat,
which, combined with a round shirt-collar, framed his fair and smiling
countenance agreeably. A travelling great-coat, only half buttoned up,
nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere waistcoat crossed in
front, beneath which was another waistcoat of white material. His
watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold
chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides,
were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He
gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the
freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, his cap was in
excellent taste. None but a Parisian, and a Parisian of the upper
spheres, could thus array himself without appearing ridiculous; none
other could give the harmony of self-conceit to all these fopperies,
which were carried off, however, with a dashing air,--the air of a
young man who has fine pistols, a sure aim, and Annette.
Now if you wish to understand the mutual amazement of the provincial
party and the young Parisian; if you would clearly see the brilliance
which the traveller's elegance cast among the gray shadows of the room
and upon the faces of this family group,--endeavor to picture to your
minds the Cruchots. All three took snuff, and had long ceased to
repress the habit of snivelling or to remove the brown blotches which
strewed the frills of their dingy shirts and the yellowing creases of
their crumpled collars. Their flabby cravats were twisted into ropes
as soon as they wound them about their throats. The enormous quantity
of linen which allowed these people to have their clothing washed only
once in six months, and to keep it during that time in the depths of
their closets, also enabled time to lay its grimy and decaying stains
upon it. There was perfect unison of ill-grace and senility about
them; their faces, as faded as their threadbare coats, as creased as
their trousers, were worn-out, shrivelled-up, and puckered. As for the
others, the general negligence of their dress, which was incomplete
and wanting in freshness,--like the toilet of all country places,
where insensibly people cease to dress for others and come to think
seriously of the price of a pair of gloves,--was in keeping with the
negligence of the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the only point on
which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines agreed.
When the Parisian took up his eye-glass to examine the strange
accessories of this dwelling,--the joists of the ceiling, the color of
the woodwork, and the specks which the flies had left there in
sufficient number to punctuate the "Moniteur" and the "Encyclopaedia
of Sciences,"--the loto-players lifted their noses and looked at him
with as much curiosity as they might have felt about a giraffe.
Monsieur des Grassins and his son, to whom the appearance of a man of
fashion was not wholly unknown, were nevertheless as much astonished
as their neighbors, whether it was that they fell under the
indefinable influence of the general feeling, or that they really
shared it as with satirical glances they seemed to say to their
compatriots,--
"That is what you see in Paris!"
They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without fearing to
displease the master of the house. Grandet was absorbed in the long
letter which he held in his hand; and to read it he had taken the only
candle upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or their
pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of perfection, whether of dress
or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin
a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the
fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She
would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She
envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and
refinement of his features. In short,--if it is possible to sum up the
effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl
perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father's
clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters,
seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,--this
vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire
like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women
drawn by Westall for the English "Keepsakes," and that engraved by the
Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the
paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew
from his pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now
travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done
in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at her cousin
to see if it were possible that he meant to make use of it. The
manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up
his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance
at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich
heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as
ridiculous,--all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des
Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed
long dreams of her phoenix cousin.
The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and presently the game came
suddenly to an end. La Grand Nanon entered and said aloud: "Madame, I
want the sheets for monsieur's bed."
Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des Grassins said in a low
voice: "Let us keep our sous and stop playing." Each took his or her
two sous from the chipped saucer in which they had been put; then the
party moved in a body toward the fire.
"Have you finished your game?" said Grandet, without looking up from
his letter.
"Yes, yes!" replied Madame des Grassins, taking a seat near Charles.
Eugenie, prompted by a thought often born in the heart of a young girl
when sentiment enters it for the first time, left the room to go and
help her mother and Nanon. Had an able confessor then questioned her
she would, no doubt, have avowed to him that she thought neither of
her mother nor of Nanon, but was pricked by a poignant desire to look
after her cousin's room and concern herself with her cousin; to supply
what might be needed, to remedy any forgetfulness, to see that all was
done to make it, as far as possible, suitable and elegant; and, in
fact, she arrived in time to prove to her mother and Nanon that
everything still remained to be done. She put into Nanon's head the
notion of passing a warming-pan between the sheets. She herself
covered the old table with a cloth and requested Nanon to change it
every morning; she convinced her mother that it was necessary to light
a good fire, and persuaded Nanon to bring up a great pile of wood into
the corridor without saying anything to her father. She ran to get,
from one of the corner-shelves of the hall, a tray of old lacquer
which was part of the inheritance of the late Monsieur de la
Bertelliere, catching up at the same time a six-sided crystal goblet,
a little tarnished gilt spoon, an antique flask engraved with cupids,
all of which she put triumphantly on the corner of her cousin's
chimney-piece. More ideas surged through her head in one quarter of an
hour than she had ever had since she came into the world.
"Mamma," she said, "my cousin will never bear the smell of a tallow
candle; suppose we buy a wax one?" And she darted, swift as a bird, to
get the five-franc piece which she had just received for her monthly
expenses. "Here, Nanon," she cried, "quick!"
"What will your father say?" This terrible remonstrance was uttered by
Madame Grandet as she beheld her daughter armed with an old Sevres
sugar-basin which Grandet had brought home from the chateau of
Froidfond. "And where will you get the sugar? Are you crazy?"
"Mamma, Nanon can buy some sugar as well as the candle."
"But your father?"
"Surely his nephew ought not to go without a glass of _eau sucree_?
Besides, he will not notice it."
"Your father sees everything," said Madame Grandet, shaking her head.
Nanon hesitated; she knew her master.
"Come, Nanon, go,--because it is my birthday."
Nanon gave a loud laugh as she heard the first little jest her young
mistress had ever made, and then obeyed her.
While Eugenie and her mother were trying to embellish the bedroom
assigned by Monsieur Grandet for his nephew, Charles himself was the
object of Madame des Grassins' attentions; to all appearances she was
setting her cap at him.
"You are very courageous, monsieur," she said to the young dandy, "to
leave the pleasures of the capital at this season and take up your
abode in Saumur. But if we do not frighten you away, you will find
there are some amusements even here."
She threw him the ogling glance of the provinces, where women put so
much prudence and reserve into their eyes that they impart to them the
prudish concupiscence peculiar to certain ecclesiastics to whom all
pleasure is either a theft or an error. Charles was so completely out
of his element in this abode, and so far from the vast chateau and the
sumptuous life with which his fancy had endowed his uncle, that as he
looked at Madame des Grassins he perceived a dim likeness to Parisian
faces. He gracefully responded to the species of invitation addressed
to him, and began very naturally a conversation, in which Madame des
Grassins gradually lowered her voice so as to bring it into harmony
with the nature of the confidences she was making. With her, as with
Charles, there was the need of conference; so after a few moments
spent in coquettish phrases and a little serious jesting, the clever
provincial said, thinking herself unheard by the others, who were
discussing the sale of wines which at that season filled the heads of
every one in Saumur,--
"Monsieur if you will do us the honor to come and see us, you will
give as much pleasure to my husband as to myself. Our salon is the
only one in Saumur where you will find the higher business circles
mingling with the nobility. We belong to both societies, who meet at
our house simply because they find it amusing. My husband--I say it
with pride--is as much valued by the one class as by the other. We
will try to relieve the monotony of your visit here. If you stay all
the time with Monsieur Grandet, good heavens! what will become of you?
Your uncle is a sordid miser who thinks of nothing but his vines; your
aunt is a pious soul who can't put two ideas together; and your cousin
is a little fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who
will spend her life in darning towels."
"She is really very nice, this woman," thought Charles Grandet as he
duly responded to Madame des Grassins' coquetries.
"It seems to me, wife, that you are taking possession of monsieur,"
said the stout banker, laughing.
On this remark the notary and the president said a few words that were
more or less significant; but the abbe, looking at them slyly, brought
their thoughts to a focus by taking a pinch of snuff and saying as he
handed round his snuff-box: "Who can do the honors 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 made the cousin notice it?"
"I did not take the trouble--"
"Place yourself always beside Eugenie, madame, and you need never take
the trouble to say anything to the young man against his cousin; he
will make his own comparisons, which--"
"Well, he has promised to dine with me the day after to-morrow."
"Ah! if you only _would_, madame--" said the abbe.
"What is it that you wish me to do, monsieur l'abbe? Do you mean to
offer me bad advice? I have not reached the age of thirty-nine,
without a stain upon my reputation, thank God! to compromise myself
now, even for the empire of the Great Mogul. You and I are of an age
when we both know the meaning of words. For an ecclesiastic, you
certainly have ideas that are very incongruous. Fie! it is worthy of
Faublas!"
"You have read Faublas?"
"No, monsieur l'abbe; I meant to say the _Liaisons dangereuses_."
"Ah! that book is infinitely more moral," said the abbe, laughing.
"But you make me out as wicked as a young man of the present day; I
only meant--"
"Do you dare to tell me you were not thinking of putting wicked things
into my head? Isn't it perfectly clear? If this young man--who I admit
is very good-looking--were to make love to me, he would not think of
his cousin. In Paris, I know, good mothers do devote themselves in
this way to the happiness and welfare of their children; but we live
in the provinces, monsieur l'abbe."
"Yes, madame."
"And," she continued, "I do not want, and Adolphe himself would not
want, a hundred millions brought at such a price."
"Madame, I said nothing about a hundred millions; that temptation
might be too great for either of us to withstand. Only, I do think
that an honest woman may permit herself, in all honor, certain
harmless little coquetries, which are, in fact, part of her social
duty and which--"
"Do you think so?"
"Are we not bound, madame, to make ourselves agreeable to each other?
--Permit me to blow my nose.--I assure you, madame," he resumed, "that
the young gentleman ogled you through his glass in a more flattering
manner than he put on when he looked at me; but I forgive him for
doing homage to beauty in preference to old age--"
"It is quite apparent," said the president in his loud voice, "that
Monsieur Grandet of Paris has sent his son to Saumur with extremely
matrimonial intentions."
"But in that case the cousin wouldn't have fallen among us like a
cannon-ball," answered the notary.
"That doesn't prove anything," said Monsieur des Grassins; "the old
miser is always making mysteries."
"Des Grassins, my friend, I have invited the young man to dinner. You
must go and ask Monsieur and Madame de Larsonniere and the du Hautoys,
with the beautiful demoiselle du Hautoy, of course. I hope she will be
properly dressed; that jealous mother of hers does make such a fright
of her! Gentlemen, I trust that you will all do us the honor to come,"
she added, stopping the procession to address the two Cruchots.
"Here you are at home, madame," said the notary.
After bowing to the three des Grassins, the three Cruchots returned
home, applying their provincial genius for analysis to studying, under
all its aspects, the great event of the evening, which undoubtedly
changed the respective positions of Grassinists and Cruchotines. The
admirable common-sense which guided all the actions of these great
machinators made each side feel the necessity of a momentary alliance
against a common enemy. Must they not mutually hinder Eugenie from
loving her cousin, and the cousin from thinking of Eugenie? Could the
Parisian resist the influence of treacherous insinuations, soft-spoken
calumnies, slanders full of faint praise and artless denials, which
should be made to circle incessantly about him and deceive him?