V

In all situations women have more cause for suffering than men, and they suffer more. Man has strength and the power of exercising it; he acts, moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks ahead, and sees consolation in the future. It was thus with Charles. But the woman stays at home; she is always face to face with the grief from which nothing distracts her; she goes down to the depths of the abyss which yawns before her, measures it, and often fills it with her tears and prayers. Thus did Eugenie. She initiated herself into her destiny. To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself—is not this the sum of woman’s life? Eugenie was to be in all things a woman, except in the one thing that consoles for all. Her happiness, picked up like nails scattered on a wall—to use the fine simile of Bossuet—would never so much as fill even the hollow of her hand. Sorrows are never long in coming; for her they came soon. The day after Charles’s departure the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed its ordinary aspect in the eyes of all, except in those of Eugenie, to whom it grew suddenly empty. She wished, if it could be done unknown to her father, that Charles’s room might be kept as he had left it. Madame Grandet and Nanon were willing accomplices in this statu quo.

“Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?”she said.

“Ah, don’t I wish I could see him back!” answered Nanon. “I took to him! He was such a dear, sweet young man—pretty too, with his curly hair.”

Eugenie looked at Nanon.

“Holy Virgin! don’t look at me that way, mademoiselle; your eyes are like those of a lost soul.”

From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new character. The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her soul, and the dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features an illumination such as painters render by a halo. Before the coming of her cousin, Eugenie might be compared to the Virgin before the conception; after he had gone, she was like the Virgin Mother—she had given birth to love. These two Marys so different, so well represented by Spanish art, embody one of those shining symbols with which Christianity abounds. Returning from Mass on the morning after Charles’s departure—having made a vow to hear it daily—Eugenie bought a map of the world, which she nailed up beside her looking-glass, that she might follow her cousin on his westward way, that she might put herself, were it ever so little, day by day into the ship that bore him, and see him and ask him a thousand questions—

“Art thou well? Dost thou suffer? Dost thou think of me when the star, whose beauty and usefulness thou hast taught me to know, shines upon thee?”

In the mornings she sat pensive beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers might have said, the tissue of life.

When the would-be friends of Pere Grandet came in the evening for their game at cards, she was gay and dissimulating; but all the morning she talked of Charles with her mother and Nanon. Nanon had brought herself to see that she could pity the sufferings of her young mistress without failing in her duty to the old master, and she would say to Eugenie—

“If I had a man for myself I’d—I’d follow him to hell, yes, I’d exterminate myself for him; but I’ve none. I shall die and never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my petticoats for the sake of my money—just for all the world like the rats who come smelling after the master’s cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz’elle, it pleases me, but it isn’t love.”

Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous, was now quickened with the intense interest of a secret that bound these women intimately together. For them Charles lived and moved beneath the grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and morning Eugenie opened the dressing-case and gazed at the portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning her mother surprised her as she stood absorbed in finding her cousin’s features in his mother’s face. Madame Grandet was then for the first time admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made by Charles against her daughter’s treasure.

“You gave him all!” cried the poor mother, terrified. “What will you say to your father on New Year’s Day when he asks to see your gold?”

Eugenie’s eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through mortal terror for more than half the morning. They were so troubled in mind that they missed high Mass, and only went to the military service.

In three days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood; but—as regards the actors in it—more cruel than all the fabled horrors in the family of the Atrides.

“What will become of us?” said Madame Grandet to her daughter, letting her knitting fall upon her knees.

The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for the past two months that the woollen sleeves which she needed for the coming winter were not yet finished. This domestic fact, insignificant as it seems, bore sad results. For want of those sleeves, a chill seized her in the midst of a sweat caused by a terrible explosion of anger on the part of her husband.

“I have been thinking, my poor child, that if you had confided your secret to me we should have had time to write to Monsieur des Grassins in Paris. He might have sent us gold pieces like yours;though Grandet knows them all, perhaps—”

“Where could we have got the money?”

“I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des Grassins would have—”

“It is too late,” said Eugenie in a broken, hollow voice. “To-morrow morning we must go and wish him a happy New Year in his chamber.”

“But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?”

“No, no; it would be delivering me up to them, and putting ourselves in their power. Besides, I have chosen my course. I have done right, I repent of nothing. God will protect me. His will be done! Ah! mother, if you had read his letter, you, too, would have thought only of him.”

The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear to which mother and daughter were a prey suggested to their minds a natural excuse by which to escape the solemn entrance into Grandet’s chamber. The winter of 1819-1820 was one of the coldest of that epoch. The snow encumbered the roofs.

Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him stirring in his chamber, and said—

“Grandet, will you let Nanon light a fire here for me? The cold is so sharp that I am freezing under the bedclothes. At my age I need some comforts. Besides,” she added, after a slight pause, “Eugenie shall come and dress here; the poor child might get an illness from dressing in her cold room in such weather. Then we will go and wish you a happy New Year beside the fire in the hall.”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta, what a tongue! a pretty way to begin the new year, Madame Grandet! You never talked so much before; but you haven’t been sopping your bread in wine, I know that.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Well,” resumed the goodman, who no doubt had some reason of his own for agreeing to his wife’s request, “I’ll do what you ask, Madame Grandet. You are a good woman, and I don’t want any harm to happen to you at your time of life—though as a general thing the Bertellieres are as sound as a roach. Hein! isn’t that so?” he added after a pause. “Well, I forgive them; we got their property in the end.”

And he coughed.

“You are very gay this morning, monsieur,” said the poor woman gravely.

“I’m always gay—

“‘Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier,

Raccommodez votre cuvier!’”

he answered, entering his wife’s room fully dressed. “Yes, on my word, it is cold enough to freeze you solid. We shall have a fine breakfast, wife. Des Grassins has sent me a pate-de-foie-gras truffled! I am going now to get it at the coach-office. There’ll be a double napoleon for Eugenie in the package,” he whispered in Madame Grandet’s ear.

“I have no gold left, wife. I had a few stray pieces—I don’t mind telling you that—but I had to let them go in business.”

Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the forehead.

“Eugenie,” cried the mother, when Grandet was fairly gone, “I don’t know which side of the bed your father got out of, but he is good-tempered this morning. Perhaps we shall come out safe after all?”

“What’s happened to the master?” said Nanon, entering her mistress’s room to light the fire. “First place, he said, ‘Good-morning;happy New Year, you big fool! Go and light my wife’s fire, she’s cold’; and then, didn’t I feel silly when he held out his hand and gave me a six-franc piece, which isn’t worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind man! He is a good man, that’s a fact. There are some people who the older they get the harder they grow; but he—why he’s getting soft and improving with time, like your ratafia! He is a good, good man—”

The secret of Grandet’s joy lay in the complete success of his speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after deducting the amount which the old cooper owed him for the discount on a hundred and fifty thousand francs in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which he had advanced to make up the sum required for the investment in the Funds which was to produce a hundred thousand francs a year, had now sent him, by the diligence, thirty thousand francs in silver coin, the remainder of his first half-year’s interest, informing him at the same time that the Funds had already gone up in value. They were then quoted at eighty-nine; the shrewdest capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months twelve per cent on his capital; he had simplified his accounts, and would in future receive fifty thousand francs interest every six months, without incurring any taxes or costs for repairs. He understood at last what it was to invest money in the public securities—a system for which provincials have always shown a marked repugnance—and at the end of five years he found himself master of a capital of six millions, which increased without much effort of his own, and which, joined to the value and proceeds of his territorial possessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely colossal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps the reward of some great service which the poor servant had rendered to her master unawares.

“Oh! oh! where’s Pere Grandet going? He has been scurrying about since sunrise as if to a fire,” said the tradespeople to each other as they opened their shops for the day.

When they saw him coming back from the wharf, followed by a porter from the coach-office wheeling a barrow which was laden with sacks, they all had their comments to make— “Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after his gold,” said one.

“He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland,” said another.

“He’ll end by buying up Saumur,” cried a third.

“He doesn’t mind the cold, he’s so wrapped up in his gains,”said a wife to her husband.

“Hey! hey! Monsieur Grandet, if that’s too heavy for you,” said a cloth-dealer, his nearest neighbor, “I’ll take it off your hands.”

“Heavy?” said the cooper, “I should think so; it’s all sous!”

“Silver sous,” said the porter in a low voice.

“If you want me to take care of you, keep your tongue between your teeth,” said the goodman to the porter as they reached the door.

“The old fox! I thought he was deaf; seems he can hear fast enough in frosty weather.”

“Here’s twenty sous for your New Year, and mum!” said Grandet. “Be off with you! Nanon shall take back your barrow. Nanon, are the linnets at church?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Then lend a hand! go to work!” he cried, piling the sacks upon her.

In a few moments all were carried up to his inner room, where he shut himself in with them.

“When breakfast is ready, knock on the wall,” he said as he disappeared. “Take the barrow back to the coach-office.”

The family did not breakfast that day until ten o’clock.

“Your father will not ask to see your gold downstairs,” said Madame Grandet as they got back from Mass. “You must pretend to be very chilly. We may have time to replace the treasure before your fete-day.”

Grandet came down the staircase thinking of his splendid speculation in government securities, and wondering how he could metamorphose his Parisian silver into solid gold; he was making up his mind to invest in this way everything he could lay hands on until the Funds should reach a par value. Fatal reverie for Eugenie! As soon as he came in, the two women wished him a happy New Year—his daughter by putting her arms round his neck and caressing him; Madame Grandet gravely and with dignity.

“Ha! Ha! My child,” he said, kissing his daughter on both cheeks. “I work for you, don’t you see? I think of your happiness. Must have money to be happy. Without money there’s not a particle of happiness. Here! There’s a new napoleon for you. I sent to Paris for it. On my word of honor, it’s all the gold I have; you are the only one that has got any gold. I want to see your gold, little one.”

“Oh! it is too cold; let us have breakfast,” answered Eugenie.

“Well, after breakfast, then; it will help the digestion. That fat des Grassins sent me the pate. Eat as much as you like, my children, it costs nothing. Des Grassins is getting along very well. I am satisfied with him. The old fish is doing Charles a good service, and gratis too. He is making a very good settlement of that poor deceased Grandet’s business. Hoo! hoo!” he muttered, with his mouth full, after a pause, “how good it is! Eat some, wife; that will feed you for at least two days.”

“I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know that.”

“Ah, bah! you can stuff yourself as full as you please without danger, you’re a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit yellow, that’s true; but I like yellow, myself.”

The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank within them. The daughter, however, had an inward prop at this crisis—she gathered strength through love.

“For him! for him!” she cried within her, “I would die a thousand deaths.”

At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed with courage.

“Clear away,” said Grandet to Nanon when, about eleven o’clock, breakfast was over, “but leave the table. We can spread your little treasure upon it,” he said, looking at Eugenie. “Little? Faith! no; it isn’t little. You possess, in actual value, five thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine francs and the forty I gave you just now. That makes six thousand francs, less one. Well, now see here, little one! I’ll give you that one franc to make up the round number. Hey! what are you listening for, Nanon? Mind your own business; go and do your work.”

Nanon disappeared.

“Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You won’t refuse your father, my little girl, hein?”

The two women were dumb.

“I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I’ll give you in return six thousand francs in livres, and you are to put them just where I tell you. You mustn’t think anything more about your‘dozen.’ When I marry you (which will be soon) I shall get you a husband who can give you the finest ‘dozen’ ever seen in the provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. There’s a fine chance for you; you can put your six thousand francs into government funds, and you will receive every six months nearly two hundred francs interest, without taxes, or repairs, or frost, or hail, or floods, or anything else to swallow up the money. Perhaps you don’t like to part with your gold, hey, my girl? Never mind, bring it to me all the same. I’ll get you some more like it—like those Dutch coins and the portugaises, the rupees of Mogul, and the genovines—I’ll give you some more on your fete-days, and in three years you’ll have got back half your little treasure. What’s that you say? Look up, now. Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries of the life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold live and swarm like men; they come, and go, and sweat, and multiply—”

Eugenie rose; but after making a few steps towards the door she turned abruptly, looked her father in the face, and said—

“I have not got my gold.”

“You have not got your gold!” cried Grandet, starting up erect, like a horse that hears a cannon fired beside him.

“No, I have not got it.”

“You are mistaken, Eugenie.”

“No.”

“By the shears of my father!”

Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.

“Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale,” cried Nanon.

“Grandet, your anger will kill me,” said the poor mother.

“Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family! Eugenie, what have you done with your gold?” he cried, rushing upon her.

“Monsieur,” said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet’s knees, “my mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her.”

Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his wife’s face, usually so yellow.

“Nanon, help me to bed,” said the poor woman in a feeble voice; “I am dying—”

Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her another; but it was only with infinite difficulty that they could get her upstairs, she fell with exhaustion at every step. Grandet remained alone. However, in a few moments he went up six or eight stairs and called out—

“Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down.”

“Yes, father.”

She soon came, after reassuring her mother.

“My daughter,” said Grandet, “you will now tell me what you have done with your gold.”

“My father, if you make me presents of which I am not the sole mistress, take them back,” she answered coldly, picking up the napoleon from the chimney-piece and offering it to him.

Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches’ pocket.

“I shall certainly never give you anything again. Not so much as that!” he said, clicking his thumb-nail against a front tooth. “Do you dare to despise your father? Have you no confidence in him? Don’t you know what a father is? If he is nothing for you, he is nothing at all. Where is your gold?”

“Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your anger; but I humbly ask you to remember that I am twenty-three years old. You have told me often that I have attained my majority, and I do not forget it. I have used my money as I chose to use it, and you may be sure that it was put to a good use—”

“What use?”

“That is an inviolable secret,” she answered. “Have you no secrets?”

“I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs.”

“And this is mine.”

“It must be something bad if you can’t tell it to your father, Mademoiselle Grandet.”

“It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father.”

“At least you can tell me when you parted with your gold?”

Eugenie made a negative motion with her head.

“You had it on your birthday, hein?”

She grew as crafty through love as her father was through avarice, and reiterated the negative sign.

“Was there ever such obstinacy! It’s a theft,” cried Grandet, his voice going up in a crescendo which gradually echoed through the house. “What! here, in my own home, under my very eyes,somebody has taken your gold—the only gold we have—and I’m not to know who has got it! Gold is a precious thing. Virtuous girls go wrong sometimes, and give—I don’t know what; they do it among the great people, and even among the bourgeoisie. But give their gold! For you have given it to some one, hein?”

Eugenie was silent and impassive.

“Was there ever such a daughter? Is it possible that I am your father? If you have invested it anywhere, you must have a receipt—”

“Was I free—yes or no—to do what I would with my own? Was it not mine?”

“You are a child.”

“Of age.”

Dumbfounded by his daughter’s logic, Grandet turned pale and stamped and swore.

When at last he found words, he cried: “Serpent! Cursed girl! Ah, deceitful creature! You know I love you, and you take advantage of it. She’d cut her father’s throat! Good God! you’ve given our fortune to that ne’er-do-well—that dandy with morocco boots! By the shears of my father! I can’t disinherit you, but I curse you—you and your cousin and your children! Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it was to Charles—but, no; it’s impossible. What! Has that wretched fellow robbed me?”

He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.

“She won’t stir; she won’t flinch! She’s more Grandet than I’m Grandet! Ha! you have not given your gold for nothing? Come, speak the truth!”

Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that stung him.

“Eugenie, you are here, in my house—in your father’s house. If you wish to stay here, you must submit yourself to me. The priests tell you to obey me.”

Eugenie bowed her head.

“You affront me in all I hold most dear. I will not see you again until you submit. Go to your chamber. You will stay there till I give you permission to leave it. Nanon will bring you bread and water. You hear me—go!”

Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother.

Grandet, after marching two or three times round the garden in the snow without heeding the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter had gone to her mother; only too happy to find her disobedient to his orders, he climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and appeared in Madame Grandet’s room just as she was stroking Eugenie’s hair, while the girl’s face was hidden in her motherly bosom.

“Be comforted, my poor child,” she was saying; “your father will get over it.”

“She has no father!” said the old man. “Can it be you and I, Madame Grandet, who have given birth to such a disobedient child? A fine education—religious, too! Well! why are you not in your chamber? Come, to prison, to prison, mademoiselle!”

“Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?” said Madame Grandet, turning towards him a face that was now red with fever.

“If you want to keep her, carry her off! Clear out—out of my house, both of you! Thunder! where is the gold? what’s become of the gold?”

Eugenie rose, looked proudly at her father, and withdrew to her room. Grandet turned the key of the door.

“Nanon,” he cried, “put out the fire in the hall.”

Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife’s fire and said to her—

“Undoubtedly she has given the gold to that miserable seducer, Charles, who only wanted our money.”

“I knew nothing about it,” she answered, turning to the other side of the bed, that she might escape the savage glances of her husband. “I suffer so much from your violence that I shall never leave this room, if I trust my own presentiments, till I am carried out of it in my coffin. You ought to have spared me this suffering, monsieur—you, to whom I have caused no pain; that is, I think so. Your daughter loves you. I believe her to be as innocent as the babe unborn. Do not make her wretched. Revoke your sentence. The cold is very severe; you may give her some serious illness.”

“I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. She shall stay in her room, on bread and water, until she submits to her father. What the devil! shouldn’t a father know where the gold in his house has gone to? She owned the only rupees in France, perhaps, and the Dutch ducats and the genovines—”

“Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had thrown them into the water—”

“Into the water!” cried her husband; “into the water! You are crazy, Madame Grandet! What I have said is said; you know that well enough. If you want peace in this household, make your daughter confess, pump it out of her. Women understand how to do that better than we do. Whatever she has done, I sha’n’t eat her. Is she afraid of me? Even if she has plastered Charles with gold from head to foot, he is on the high seas, and nobody can get at him, hein!”

“But, monsieur—”

Excited by the nervous crisis through which she had passed, and by the fate of her daughter, which brought forth all her tenderness and all her powers of mind, Madame Grandet suddenly observed a frightful movement of her husband’s wen, and, in the very act of replying, she changed her speech without changing the tones of her voice—

“But, monsieur, I have not more influence over her than you have. She has said nothing to me; she takes after you.”

“Tut, tut! Your tongue is hung in the middle this morning. Ta, ta, ta, ta! You are setting me at defiance, I do believe. I daresay you are in league with her.”

He looked fixedly at his wife.

“Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, you have only to go on like this. I tell you, monsieur—and if it were to cost me my life, I would say it—you do wrong by your daughter; she is more in the right than you are. That money belonged to her; she is incapable of making any but a good use of it, and God alone has the right to know our good deeds. Monsieur, I implore you, take Eugenie back into favor; forgive her. If you will do this you will lessen the injury your anger has done me; perhaps you will save my life. My daughter! oh, monsieur, give me back my daughter!”

“I shall decamp,” he said; “the house is not habitable. A mother and daughter talking and arguing like that! Broooouh! Pouah! A fine New Year’s present you’ve made me, Eugenie,” he called out.“Yes, yes, cry away! What you’ve done will bring you remorse, do you hear? What’s the good of taking the sacrament six times every three months, if you give away your father’s gold secretly to an idle fellow who’ll eat your heart out when you’ve nothing else to give him? You’ll find out some day what your Charles is worth, with his morocco boots and supercilious airs. He has got neither heart nor soul if he dared to carry off a young girl’s treasure without the consent of her parents.”

When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out of her room and went to her mother.

“What courage you have had for your daughter’s sake!” she said.

“Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may lead us. You forced me to tell a lie.”

“I will ask God to punish only me.”

“Is it true,” cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, “that mademoiselle is to be kept on bread and water for the rest of her life?”

“What does that signify, Nanon?” said Eugenie tranquilly.

“Goodness! do you suppose I’ll eat frippe when the daughter of the house is eating dry bread? No, no!”

“Don’t say a word about all this, Nanon,” said Eugenie.

“I’ll be as mute as a fish; but you’ll see!”

Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four years.

“So you’re a widower, monsieur,” said Nanon; “it must be disagreeable to be a widower with two women in the house.”

“I did not speak to you. Hold your jaw, or I’ll turn you off! What is that I hear boiling in your saucepan on the stove?”

“It is grease I’m trying out.”

“There will be some company to-night. Light the fire.”

The Cruchots, Madame des Grassins, and her son arrived at the usual hour of eight, and were surprised to see neither Madame Grandet nor her daughter.

“My wife is not very well, and Eugenie is with her,” said the old wine-grower, whose face betrayed no emotion.

At the end of an hour spent in idle conversation, Madame des Grassins, who had gone up to see Madame Grandet, came down, and every one inquired—

“How is Madame Grandet?”

“Not at all well,” she answered; “her condition seems to me really alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution, Papa Grandet.”

“We’ll see about it,” said the old man in an absent way.

They all wished him good-night. When the Cruchots got into the street Madame des Grassins said to them—

“There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is very ill without her knowing it. The girl’s eyes are red, as if she had been crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her against her will?”

When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie’s room in her stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a saucepan.

“See, mademoiselle,” said the good soul, “Cornoiller gave me a hare. You eat so little that this pate will last you full a week; in such frosty weather it won’t spoil. You sha’n’t live on dry bread, I’m determined; it isn’t wholesome.”

“Poor Nanon!” said Eugenie, pressing her hand.

“I’ve made it downright good and dainty, and he never found it out. I bought the lard and the spices out of my six francs: I’m the mistress of my own money;” and she disappeared rapidly, fancying she heard Grandet.

For several months the old wine-grower came constantly to his wife’s room at all hours of the day, without ever uttering his daughter’s name, or seeing her, or making the smallest allusion to her. Madame Grandet did not leave her chamber, and daily grew worse. Nothing softened the old man; he remained unmoved, harsh, and cold as a granite rock. He continued to go and come about his business as usual; but ceased to stutter, talked less, and was more obdurate in business transactions than ever before. Often he made mistakes in adding up his figures.

“Something is going on at the Grandets,” said the Grassinists and the Cruchotines.

“What has happened in the Grandet family?” became a fixed question which everybody asked everybody else at the little evening-parties of Saumur.

Eugenie went to Mass escorted by Nanon. If Madame des Grassins said a few words to her on coming out of church, she answered in an evasive manner, without satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end of two months, it became impossible to hide, either from the three Cruchots or from Madame des Grassins, the fact that Eugenie was in confinement. There came a moment when all pretexts failed to explain her perpetual absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover by whom the secret had been betrayed, all the town became aware that ever since New Year’s day Mademoiselle Grandet had been kept in her room without fire, on bread and water, by her father’s orders, and that Nanon cooked little dainties and took them to her secretly at night. It was even known that the young woman was not able to see or take care of her mother, except at certain times when her father was out of the house.

Grandet’s conduct was severely condemned. The whole town outlawed him, so to speak; they remembered his treachery, his hard-heartedness, and they excommunicated him. When he passed along the streets, people pointed him out and muttered at him.

When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of angelic gentleness and melancholy. Her imprisonment and the condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love’s kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her father.

One deep grief silenced all others. Her mother, that gentle, tender creature, made beautiful by the light which shone from the inner to the outer as she approached the tomb—her mother was perishing from day to day. Eugenie often reproached herself as the innocent cause of the slow, cruel malady that was wasting her away. This remorse, though her mother soothed it, bound her still closer to her love. Every morning, as soon as her father left the house, she went to the bedside of her mother, and there Nanon brought her breakfast. The poor girl, sad, and suffering through the sufferings of her mother, would turn her face to the old servant with a mute gesture, weeping, and yet not daring to speak of her cousin. It was Madame Grandet who first found courage to say—

“Where is he? Why does he not write?”

“Let us think about him, mother, but not speak of him. You are ill—you, before all.”

“All” meant “him.”

“My child,” said Madame Grandet, “I do not wish to live. God protects me and enables me to look with joy to the end of my misery.”

Every utterance of this woman was unfalteringly pious and Christian. Sometimes, during the first months of the year, when her husband came to breakfast with her and tramped up and down the room, she would say to him a few religious words, always spoken with angelic sweetness, yet with the firmness of a woman to whom approaching death lends a courage she had lacked in life.

“Monsieur, I thank you for the interest you take in my health,”she would answer when he made some commonplace inquiry; “but if you really desire to render my last moments less bitter and to ease my grief, take back your daughter: be a Christian, a husband, and a father.”

When he heard these words, Grandet would sit down by the bed with the air of a man who sees the rain coming and quietly gets under the shelter of a gateway till it is over. When these touching, tender, and religious supplications had all been made, he would say—

“You are rather pale to-day, my poor wife.”

Absolute forgetfulness of his daughter seemed graven on his stony brow, on his closed lips. He was unmoved by the tears which flowed down the white cheeks of his unhappy wife as she listened to his meaningless answers.

“May God pardon you,” she said, “even as I pardon you! You will some day stand in need of mercy.”

Since Madame Grandet’s illness he had not dared to make use of his terrible “Ta, ta, ta, ta!” Yet, for all that, his despotic nature was not disarmed by this angel of gentleness, whose ugliness day by day decreased, driven out by the ineffable expression of moral qualities which shone upon her face.

She was all soul. The spirit of prayer seemed to purify her and refine those homely features and make them luminous. Who has not seen the phenomenon of a like transfiguration on sacred faces where the habits of the soul have triumphed over the plainest features, giving them that spiritual illumination whose light comes from the purity and nobility of the inward thought? The spectacle of this transformation wrought by the struggle which consumed the last shreds of the human life of this woman, did somewhat affect the old cooper, though feebly, for his nature was of iron; if his language ceased to be contemptuous, an imperturbable silence, which saved his dignity as master of the household, took its place and ruled his conduct.

When the faithful Nanon appeared in the market, many quips and quirks and complaints about the master whistled in her ears; but however loudly public opinion condemned Monsieur Grandet, the old servant defended him, for the honor of the family.

“Well!” she would say to his detractors, “don’t we all get hard as we grow old? Why shouldn’t he get horny too? Stop telling lies. Mademoiselle lives like a queen. She’s alone, that’s true; but she likes it. Besides, my masters have good reasons.”

At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Grandet, worn out by grief even more than by illness, having failed, in spite of her prayers, to reconcile the father and daughter, confided her secret troubles to the Cruchots.

“Keep a girl of twenty-three on bread and water!” cried Monsieur de Bonfons; “without any reason, too! Why, that constitutes wrongful cruelty; she can contest, as much in as upon—”

“Come, nephew, spare us your legal jargon,” said the notary. “Set your mind at ease, madame; I will put a stop to such treatment to-morrow.”

Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her room.

“Gentlemen,” she said, coming forward with a proud step, “I beg you not to interfere in this matter. My father is master in his own house. As long as I live under his roof I am bound to obey him. His conduct is not subject to the approbation or the disapprobation of the world; he is accountable to God only. I appeal to your friendship to keep total silence in this affair. To blame my father is to attack our family honor. I am much obliged to you for the interest you have shown in me; you will do me an additional service if you will put a stop to the offensive rumors which are current in the town, of which I am accidentally informed.”

“She is right,” said Madame Grandet.

“Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face.

“Well, my daughter, let Monsieur Cruchot manage the matter if he is so sure of success. He understands your father, and how to manage him. If you wish to see me happy for my few remaining days, you must, at any cost, be reconciled to your father.”

On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the obstinacy of his character impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and the sedum—a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden, engaged in watching his daughter.

“What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?” he said, perceiving the notary.

“I came to speak to you on business.”

“Ah! ah! have you brought some gold in exchange for my silver?”

“No, no, I have not come about money; it is about your daughter Eugenie. All the town is talking of her and you.”

“What does the town meddle for? A man’s house is his castle.”

“Very true; and a man may kill himself if he likes, or, what is worse, he may fling his money into the gutter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, your wife is very ill, my friend. You ought to consult Monsieur Bergerin; she is likely to die. If she does die without receiving proper care, you will not be very easy in mind, I take it.”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta! you know a deal about my wife! These doctors, if they once get their foot in your house, will come five and six times a day.”

“Of course you will do as you think best. We are old friends;there is no one in all Saumur who takes more interest than I in what concerns you. Therefore, I was bound to tell you this. However, happen what may, you have the right to do as you please; you can choose your own course. Besides, that is not what brings me here. There is another thing which may have serious results for you. After all, you can’t wish to kill your wife; her life is too important to you. Think of your situation in connection with your daughter if Madame Grandet dies. You must render an account to Eugenie, because you enjoy your wife’s estate only during her lifetime. At her death your daughter can claim a division of property, and she may force you to sell Froidfond. In short, she is her mother’s heir, and you are not.”

These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, who was not as wise about law as he was about business. He had never thought of a legal division of the estate.

“Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly,” added Cruchot, in conclusion.

“But do you know what she has done, Cruchot?”

“What?” asked the notary, curious to hear the truth and find out the cause of the quarrel.

“She has given away her gold!”

“Well, wasn’t it hers?” said the notary.

“They all tell me that!” exclaimed the old man, letting his arms fall to his sides with a movement that was truly tragic.

“Are you going—for a mere nothing,” resumed Cruchot, “to put obstacles in the way of the concessions which you will be obliged to ask from your daughter as soon as her mother dies?”

“Do you call six thousand francs a mere nothing?”

“Hey! my old friend, do you know what the inventory of your wife’s property will cost, if Eugenie demands the division?”

“How much?”

“Two, three, four thousand francs, perhaps! The property would have to be put up at auction and sold, to get at its actual value. Instead of that, if you are on good terms with—”

“By the shears of my father!” cried Grandet, turning pale as he suddenly sat down, “we will see about it, Cruchot.”

After a moment’s silence, full of anguish perhaps, the old man looked at the notary and said—

“Life is very hard! It has many griefs! Cruchot,” he continued solemnly, “you would not deceive me? Swear to me upon your honor that all you’ve told me is legally true. Show me the law; I must see the law!”

“My poor friend,” said the notary, “don’t I know my own business?”

“Then it is true! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, destroyed by my own daughter!”

“It is true that your daughter is her mother’s heir.”

“Why do we have children? Ah! my wife, I love her! Luckily she’s sound and healthy; she’s a Bertelliere.”

“She has not a month to live.”

Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came back, cast a dreadful look on Cruchot, and said—

“What can be done?”

“Eugenie can relinquish her claim to her mother’s property. Should she do this you would not disinherit her, I presume?—but if you want to come to such a settlement, you must not treat her harshly. What I am telling you, old man, is against my own interests. What do I live by, if it isn’t liquidations, inventories, conveyances, divisions of property?—”

“We’ll see, we’ll see! Don’t let’s talk any more about it, Cruchot; it wrings my vitals. Have you received any gold?”

“No; but I have a few old louis, a dozen or so, which you may have. My good friend, make it up with Eugenie. Don’t you know all Saumur is pelting you with stones?”

“The scoundrels!”

“Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satisfied for once in your life.”

“At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, hey! Ninety-nine!” repeated the old man, accompanying the notary to the street-door. Then, too agitated by what he had just heard to stay in the house, he went up to his wife’s room and said—

“Come, mother, you may have your daughter to spend the day with you. I’m going to Froidfond. Enjoy yourselves, both of you. This is our wedding-day, wife. See! here are sixty francs for your altar at the Fete-Dieu; you’ve wanted one for a long time. Come, cheer up, enjoy yourself, and get well! Hurrah for happiness!”

He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon the bed, and took his wife’s head between his hands and kissed her forehead.

“My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?”

“How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house when you refuse to forgive your daughter?” she said with emotion.

“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” said Grandet in a coaxing voice. “We’ll see about that.”

“Merciful heaven! Eugenie,” cried the mother, flushing with joy, “come and kiss your father; he forgives you!”

But the old man had disappeared. He was going as fast as his legs could carry him towards his vineyards, trying to get his confused ideas into order. Grandet had entered his seventy-sixth year. During the last two years his avarice had increased upon him, as all the persistent passions of men increase at a certain age. As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a monomania. His despotic spirit had grown in proportion to his avarice, and to part with the control of the smallest fraction of his property at the death of his wife seemed to him a thing “against nature.” To declare his fortune to his daughter, to give an inventory of his property, landed and personal, for the purposes of division—

“Why,” he cried aloud in the midst of a field where he was pretending to examine a vine, “it would be cutting my throat!”

He came at last to a decision, and returned to Saumur in time for dinner, resolved to unbend to Eugenie, and pet and coax her, that he might die regally, holding the reins of his millions in his own hands so long as the breath was in his body. At the moment when the old man, who chanced to have his pass-key in his pocket, opened the door and climbed with a stealthy step up the stairway to go into his wife’s room, Eugenie had brought the beautiful dressing-case from the oak cabinet and placed it on her mother’s bed. Mother and daughter, in Grandet’s absence, allowed themselves the pleasure of looking for a likeness to Charles in the portrait of his mother.

“It is exactly his forehead and his mouth,” Eugenie was saying as the old man opened the door.

At the look which her husband cast upon the gold, Madame Grandet cried out—

“O God, have pity upon us!”

The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger might spring upon a sleeping child.

“What’s this?” he said, snatching the treasure and carrying it to the window. “Gold, good gold!” he cried. “All gold—it weighs two pounds! Ha, ha! Charles gave you that for your money, did he? Hein! Why didn’t you tell me so? It was a good bargain, little one! Yes, you are my daughter, I see that—”

Eugenie trembled in every limb.

“This came from Charles, of course, didn’t it?” continued the old man.

“Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust.”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it back.”

“Father!”

Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do this, he placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang forward to recover it; but her father, who had his eye on her and on the treasure too, pushed her back so violently with a thrust of his arm that she fell upon her mother’s bed.

“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried the mother, lifting herself up.

Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.

“Father!” cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging herself close to him with clasped hands, “father, in the name of all the saints and the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died upon the cross! in the name of your eternal salvation, father! for my life’s sake, father! Do not touch that! It is neither yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an unhappy relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!”

“If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it is as bad as touching it.”

“Father, don’t destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do you hear?”

“Oh, have a pity!” said the mother.

“Father!” cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran upstairs terrified.

Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at hand.

“Well, what now?” said Grandet coldly, with a callous smile.

“Oh, you are killing me!” said the mother.

“Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that gold, I will stab myself with this one! You have already driven my mother to her death; you will now kill your child! Do as you choose! Wound for wound!”

Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as he looked at his daughter.

“Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?” he said.

“Yes, yes!” said the mother.

“She’ll do it if she says so!” cried Nanon. “Be reasonable, monsieur, for once in your life.”

The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.

“There! don’t you see, monsieur, that madame is dying?” cried Nanon.

“Come, come, my daughter, we won’t quarrel for a box! Here, take it!” he cried hastily, flinging the case upon the bed. “Nanon, go and fetch Monsieur Bergerin! Come, mother,” said he, kissing his wife’s hand, “it’s all over! There! we’ve made up—haven’t we, little one? No more dry bread; you shall have all you want—Ah, she opens her eyes! Well, mother, little mother, come! See, I’m kissing Eugenie! She loves her cousin, and she may marry him if she wants to; she may keep his case. But don’t die, mother; live a long time yet, my poor wife! Come, try to move! Listen! you shall have the finest altar that ever was made in Saumur.”

“Oh, how can you treat your wife and daughter so!” said Madame Grandet in a feeble voice.

“I won’t do so again, never again,” cried her husband; “you shall see, my poor wife!”

He went to his inner room and returned with a handful of louis, which he scattered on the bed.

“Here, Eugenie! see, wife! all these are for you,” he said, fingering the coins. “Come, be happy, wife! feel better, get well; you sha’n’t want for anything, nor Eugenie either. Here’s a hundred louis d’or for her. You won’t give these away, will you, Eugenie, hein?”

Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each other in astonishment.

“Take back your money, father; we ask for nothing but your affection.”

“Well, well, that’s right!” he said, pocketing the coins; “let’s be good friends! We will all go down to dinner to-day, and we’ll play loto every evening for two sous. You shall both be happy. Hey, wife?”

“Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure,” said the dying woman; “but I cannot rise from my bed.”

“Poor mother,” said Grandet, “you don’t know how I love you! and you too, my daughter!”

He took her in his arms and kissed her.

“Oh, how good it is to kiss a daughter when we have been angry with her! There, mother, don’t you see it’s all over now? Go and put that away, Eugenie,” he added, pointing to the case. “Go, don’t be afraid! I shall never speak of it again, never!”

Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, presently arrived. After an examination, he told Grandet positively that his wife was very ill; but that perfect peace of mind, a generous diet, and great care might prolong her life until the autumn.

“Will all that cost much?” said the old man. “Will she need medicines?”

“Not much medicine, but a great deal of care,” answered the doctor, who could scarcely restrain a smile.

“Now, Monsieur Bergerin,” said Grandet, “you are a man of honor, are not you? I trust to you! Come and see my wife how and when you think necessary. Save my good wife! I love her—don’t you see? Though I never talk about it; I keep things to myself. I’m full of trouble. Troubles began when my brother died; I have to spend enormous sums on his affairs in Paris. Why, I’m paying through my nose; there’s no end to it. Adieu, monsieur! If you can save my wife, save her. I’ll spare no expense, not even if it costs me a hundred or two hundred francs.”

In spite of Grandet’s fervent wishes for the health of his wife, whose death threatened more than death to him; in spite of the consideration he now showed on all occasions for the least wish of his astonished wife and daughter; in spite of the tender care which Eugenie lavished upon her mother—Madame Grandet rapidly approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and wasted visibly, as women of her age when attacked by serious illness are wont to do. She was fragile as the foliage in autumn; the radiance of heaven shone through her as the sun strikes athwart the withering leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her life—a Christian death; and is not that sublime?

In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.

“My child,” she said as she expired, “there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day.”

On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new motive for attachment to the house in which she was born, where she had suffered so much, where her mother had just died. She could not see the window and the chair on its castors without weeping. She thought she had mistaken the heart of her old father when she found herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in the morning and gave her his arm to take her to breakfast; he looked at her for hours together with an eye that was almost kind; he brooded over her as though she had been gold. The old man was so unlike himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weakness, attributed it to his great age, and feared that his faculties were giving away. But the day on which the family put on their mourning, and after dinner, to which meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who knew his secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser was explained.

“My dear child,” he said to Eugenie when the table had been cleared and the doors carefully shut, “you are now your mother’s heiress, and we have a few little matters to settle between us. Isn’t that so, Cruchot?”

“Yes.”

“Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?”

“Yes, yes, little one; I can’t bear the uncertainty in which I’m placed. I think you don’t want to give me pain?”

“Oh! Father—”

“Well, then! let us settle it all to-night.”

“What is it you wish me to do?”

“My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her, Cruchot.”

“Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide the property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous taxes on the ready money which he may possess. Therefore, to avoid all this, he must be released from making the inventory of his whole fortune, part of which you inherit from your mother, and which is now undivided between you and your father—”

“Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you tell it to a mere child?”

“Let me tell it my own way, Grandet.”

“Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob me—do you, little one?”

“But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?” said Eugenie impatiently.

“Well,” said the notary, “it is necessary to sign this deed, by which you renounce your rights to your mother’s estate and leave your father the use and disposition, during his lifetime, of all the property undivided between you, of which he guarantees you the capital.”

“I do not understand a word of what you are saying,” returned Eugenie; “give me the deed, and show me where I am to sign it.”

Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did so such violent emotion that he wiped the sweat from his brow.

“My little girl,” he said, “if, instead of signing this deed, which will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to renounce your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother’s property, and would trust to me for the future, I should like it better. In that case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for as many masses as you want for anybody—Hein! a hundred francs a month—in livres?”

“I will do all you wish, father.”

“Mademoiselle,” said the notary, “it is my duty to point out to you that you are despoiling yourself without guarantee—”

“Good heavens! what is all that to me?”

“Hold your tongue, Cruchot! It’s settled, all settled,” cried Grandet, taking his daughter’s hand and striking it with his own.“Eugenie, you won’t go back on your word?—you are an honest girl, hein?”

“Oh! Father!—”

He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms till he almost choked her.

“Go, my good child, you restore your father’s life; but you only return to him that which he gave you: we are quits. This is how business should be done. Life is a business. I bless you! you are a virtuous girl, and you love your father. Do just what you like in future. To-morrow, Cruchot,” he added, looking at the horrified notary, “you will see about preparing the deed of relinquishment, and then enter it on the records of the court.”

The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by which she herself completed her spoliation.

At the end of the first year, however, in spite of his bargain, the old man had not given his daughter one sou of the hundred francs he had so solemnly pledged to her. When Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could not help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding-place, from whence he brought down about a third of the jewels he had taken from his nephew, and gave them to her.

“There, little one,” he said in a sarcastic tone, “do you want those for your twelve hundred francs?”

“Oh! Father, truly? will you really give them to me?”

“I’ll give you as many more next year,” he said, throwing them into her apron. “So before long you’ll get all his gewgaws,” he added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on his daughter’s feelings.

Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust, felt the importance of initiating his daughter into the secrets of his thrift and its management. For two consecutive years he made her order the household meals in his presence and receive the rents, and he taught her slowly and successively the names and remunerative capacity of his vineyards and his farms. About the third year he had so thoroughly accustomed her to his avaricious methods that they had turned into the settled habits of her own life, and he was able to leave the household keys in her charge without anxiety, and to install her as mistress of the house.

Five years passed away without a single event to relieve the monotonous existence of Eugenie and her father. The same actions were performed daily with the automatic regularity of clockwork. The deep sadness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every one; but if others surmised the cause, she herself never uttered a word that justified the suspicions which all Saumur entertained about the state of the rich heiress’s heart. Her only society was made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they came every night for their game.

During the year 1827, her father, feeling the weight of his infirmities, was obliged to initiate her still further into the secrets of his landed property, and told her that in case of difficulty she was to have recourse to Maitre Cruchot, whose integrity was well known to him.

Towards the end of this year the old man, then eighty-two, was seized by paralysis, which made rapid progress. Dr. Bergerin gave him up. Eugenie, feeling that she was about to be left alone in the world, came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped more tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, as in that of all loving women, love was the whole of life. Charles was not there, and she devoted all her care and attention to the old father, whose faculties had begun to weaken, though his avarice remained instinctively acute. The death of this man offered no contrast to his life.

In the morning he made them roll him to a spot between the chimney of his chamber and the door of the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, with gold. He asked for an explanation of every noise he heard, even the slightest; to the great astonishment of the notary, he even heard the watch-dog yawning in the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent stupor at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers,and receipts given. At such times he worked his chair forward on its castors until he faced the door of the inner room. He made his daughter open it, and watched while she placed the bags of money one upon another in his secret receptacles and relocked the door. Then she returned silently to her seat, after giving him the key, which he replaced in his waistcoat pocket and fingered from time to time. His old friend the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress would inevitably marry his nephew the president, if Charles Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions; he came every day to take Grandet’s orders, went on his errands to Froidfond, to the farms and the fields and the vineyards, sold the vintages, and turned everything into gold and silver, which found their way in sacks to the secret hiding-place.

At length the last struggle came, in which the strong frame of the old man slowly yielded to destruction. He was determined to sit at the chimney-corner facing the door of the secret room. He drew off and rolled up all the coverings which were laid over him, saying to Nanon, “Put them away, lock them up, for fear they should be stolen.”

So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole being had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door behind which lay his treasures, saying to his daughter, “Are they there? Are they there?”in a tone of voice which revealed a sort of panic fear.

“Yes, my father,” she would answer.

“Take care of the gold—put gold before me.”

Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before him, and he would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed upon them, like a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a distressful smile would flicker upon his face.

“It warms me!” he would sometimes say, as an expression of beatitude stole across his features.

When the cure of the parish came to administer the last sacraments, the old man’s eyes, sightless, apparently, for some hours, kindled at the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and the holy-water vessel of silver; he gazed at them fixedly, and his wen moved for the last time. When the priest put the crucifix of silver-gilt to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he made a frightful gesture, as if to seize it; and that last effort cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not see, though she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his stiffening hand, which was already cold.

“My father, bless me!” she entreated.

“Take care of it all. You will render me an account yonder!” he said, proving by these last words that Christianity must always be the religion of misers.

Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood—Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble friend.

After her father’s death Eugenie learned from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed an income of three hundred thousand francs from landed and personal property in the arrondissement of Saumur; also six millions invested at three per cent in the Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six francs); also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred thousand francs in silver crown-pieces, besides all the interest which was still to be collected. The sum total of her property reached seventeen millions.

“Where is my cousin?” was her one thought.

The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her cousin drank.

“Nanon, we are alone—”

“Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I’d go on foot to find him.”

“The ocean is between us,” she said.

While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller.

“Fast colors!” said the draper.

“Quite likely to have children,” said the salt merchant. “She’s pickled in brine, saving your presence.”

“She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing for himself,” said a third man.

When she came forth from the old house on her way to the parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood, received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street.

Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a wedding present. Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, spoke of his mistress with tears in his eyes; he would willingly have been hacked in pieces in her behalf. Madame Cornoiller, appointed housekeeper to Mademoiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of her new position as she did from the possession of a husband. She took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master; she ruled over two servants—a cook and a maid whose business it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle’s dresses. Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff. It is unnecessary to say that the women-servants selected by Nanon were “perfect treasures.”Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants, whose devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no change after Monsieur Grandet’s death; the usages and customs he had sternly established were scrupulously carried out by Monsieur and Madame Cornoiller.

家庭的苦难

不论处境如何，女人的痛苦总比男人多，而且程度也更深。男人有他的精力需要发挥：他活动，奔走，忙乱，打主意，眼睛看着将来，觉得安慰。例如查理。但女人是静止的，面对着悲伤无法分心，悲伤替她开了一个窟窿，给她往下钻，一直钻到底，测量窟窿的深度，把她的愿望与眼泪来填满。例如欧也妮。她开始认识了自己的命运。感受，爱，受苦，牺牲，永远是女人生命中应有的文章。欧也妮变得整个儿是女人了，却并无女人应有的安慰。她的幸福，正如鲍舒哀刻画入微的说法，仿佛在墙上找出来的钉子，随你积得怎么多，捧在手里也永远遮不了掌心的。悲苦绝不姗姗来迟地叫人久等，而她的一份就在眼前了。查理动身的下一天，葛朗台的屋子在大家眼里又恢复了本来面目，只有欧也妮觉得突然之间空虚得厉害。瞒着父亲，她要把查理的卧房保存他离开时的模样。葛朗台太太与拿侬，很乐意助成她这个维持现状的愿望。

“谁保得定他不早些回来呢？”她说。

“啊！希望他再来噢，”拿侬回答，“我服侍他惯了！多和气，多好的少爷，脸庞儿又俏，头发卷卷的像一个姑娘。”

欧也妮望着拿侬。

“哎哟，圣母玛利亚！小姐，你这副眼睛要入地狱的！别这样瞧人呀。”

从这天起，葛朗台小姐的美丽又是一番面目。对爱情的深思，慢慢地浸透了她的心，再加上有了爱人以后的那种庄严，使她眉宇之间多添了画家用光轮来表现的那种光辉。堂兄弟未来之前，欧也妮可以跟未受圣胎的童贞女相比；堂兄弟走了之后，她有些像做了圣母的童贞女：她已经感受了爱情。某些西班牙画家把这两个不同的玛利亚表现得那么出神入化，成为基督教艺术中最多而最有光辉的造像。查理走后，她发誓天天要去望弥撒；第一次从教堂回来，她在书店里买了一幅环球全国钉在镜子旁边，为的能一路跟堂兄弟上印度，早晚置身于他的船上，看到他，对他提出无数的问话，对他说：

“你好吗？不难受吗？你教我认识了北极星的美丽和用处，现在你看到了那颗星，想我不想？”

早上，她坐在胡桃树下虫蛀而生满青苔的凳上出神，他们在那里说过多少甜言蜜语，多少疯疯癫癫的废话，也一起做过将来成家以后的美梦。她望着围墙上空的一角青天，想着将来；然后又望望古老的墙壁，与查理卧房的屋顶。总之，这是孤独的爱情，持久的，真正的爱情，渗透所有的思想，变成了生命的本体，或者像我们父辈所说的，变成了生命的素材。

晚上，那些自称为葛朗台老头的朋友来打牌的时候，她装作很高兴，把真情藏起；但整个上午她跟母亲与拿侬谈论查理。拿侬懂得她可以跟小主人表同情，而并不有亏她对老主人的职守，她对欧也妮说：

“要是有个男人真心对我，我会……会跟他入地狱。我会……哦……我会为了他送命；可是……没有呀。人生一世是怎么回事，我到死也不会知道的了。唉，小姐，你知道吗，高诺阿莱那老头，人倒是挺好的，老盯着我打转，自然是为了我的积蓄喽，正好比那些为了来嗅嗅先生的金子，有心巴结你的人。我看得很清，别看我像猪一样胖，我可不傻呢。可是小姐，虽然他那个不是爱情，我也觉得高兴。”

两个月这样过去了。从前那么单调的日常生活，因大家关切欧也妮的秘密而有了生气，三位妇人也因之更加亲密。在她们心目中，查理依旧在堂屋灰暗的楼板上面走来走去。早晨，夜晚，欧也妮都得把那口梳妆匣打开一次，把叔母的肖像端详一番。某星期日早上，她正一心对着肖像揣摩查理的面貌时，被母亲撞见了。于是葛朗台太太知道了侄儿与欧也妮交换宝物的可怕的消息。

“你统统给了他！”母亲惊骇之下说，“到元旦那天，父亲问你要金洋看的时候，你怎么说？”

欧也妮眼睛发直，一个上半天，母女俩吓得半死，糊里糊涂把正场的弥撒都错过了，只能参加读唱弥撒。

三天之内，一八一九年就要告终。三天之内就要发生大事，要演出没有毒药、没有尖刀、没有流血的平凡的悲剧，但对于剧中人的后果，只有比弥赛纳王族里所有的惨剧还要残酷。

“那怎么办？”葛朗台太太把编织物放在了膝上，对女儿说。

可怜的母亲，两个月以来受了那么多的搅扰，甚至过冬必不可少的毛线套袖都还没织好。这件家常小事，表面上无关紧要，对她却发生了不幸的后果。因为没有套袖，后来在丈夫大发雷霆骇得她一身冷汗时，她中了恶寒。

“我想，可怜的孩子，要是你早告诉我，还来得及写信到巴黎给台·格拉桑先生。他有办法收一批差不多的金洋寄给我们；虽然你父亲看得极熟，也许……”

“可是哪儿来这一大笔钱呢？”

“有我的财产做抵押呀。再说台·格拉桑先生可能为我们……”

“太晚啦，”欧也妮声音嘶哑，嗓子异样地打断了母亲的话，“明天早上，我们就得到他卧房里去跟他拜年了。”

“可是孩子，为什么我们不去看看克罗旭他们呢？”

“不行不行，那简直是自投罗网，把我们卖给了他们了。而且我已经拿定主意。我没有做错事，一点儿不后悔。上帝会保佑我的。听凭天意吧。唉！母亲，要是你读到他那些信，你也要心心念念地想他呢。”

下一天早上，一八二〇年一月一日，母女俩恐怖之下，想出了最天然的托词，不像往年一样郑重其事地到他卧房里拜年。一八一九至一八二〇的冬天，在当时是一个最冷的冬天。屋顶上都堆满了雪。

葛朗台太太一听到丈夫在房里有响动，便说：

“葛朗台，叫拿侬在我屋里生个火吧；冷气真厉害，我在被窝里冻僵了。到了这个年纪，不得不保重一点儿。”她停了一会又说，“再说，让欧也妮到我房里来穿衣吧。这种天气，孩子在她屋里梳洗会闹病的。等会儿我们到暖暖和和的堂屋里跟你拜年吧。”

“咄，咄，咄，咄！官话连篇！太太，这算是新年发利市吗？你从来没有这样唠叨过。你总不见得吃了酒浸面包[1]吧？”

说罢大家都不出一声。

“好吧，”老头儿大概听了妻子的话心软了，“就照你的意思办吧，太太。你太好了，我不能让你在这个年纪上有什么三长两短，虽然拉·斐德里埃家里的人多半是铁打的。”他停了一忽又嚷：“嗯！你说是不是？不过咱们得了他们的遗产，我原谅他们。”

说完他咳了几声。

“今天早上你开心得很，老爷。”葛朗台太太的口气很严肃。

“我不是永远开心的吗，我……

开心，开心，真开心，你这箍桶匠，

不修补你的脸盆又怎么样！”

他一边哼一边穿得齐齐整整的进了妻子的卧房。“真，好家伙，冷得要命。早上咱们有好菜吃呢，太太。台·格拉桑从巴黎带了夹香菇的鹅肝来！我得上驿站去拿。”说着他又咬着她的耳朵：

“他还给欧也妮带来一块值两块的拿破仑。我的金子光了，太太。我还有几块古钱，为了做买卖只好花了。这话我只能告诉你一个人。”

然后他吻了吻妻子的前额，表示庆祝新年。

“欧也妮，”母亲叫道，“不知你父亲做了什么好梦，脾气好得很。——得啦，咱们还有希望。”

“先生今天怎么啦？”拿侬到太太屋里生火时说，“他一看见我就说：大胖子，你好，你新年快乐。去给太太生火呀，她好冷呢。——他说着伸出手来给我一块六法郎的钱，精光滴滑，簇崭全新，把我看呆了。太太，你瞧。哦！他多好。他真大方。有的人越老心越硬；他却温和得像你的果子酒一样，越陈越好了。真是一个十足地道的好人……”

老头儿这一天的快乐，是因为投机完全成功的缘故。台·格拉桑把箍桶匠的十五万法郎在荷兰证券上所欠的利息，以及买进十万公债时代垫的尾数除去之后，把一季的利息三万法郎托驿车带给了他，同时又报告他公债上涨的消息。行市已到八十九法郎，那些最有名的资本家，还出九十二法郎的价钱买进正月底的期货。葛朗台两个月中间的投资赚了百分之十二，他业已收支两讫，今后每半年可以坐收五万法郎，既不用付捐税，也没有什么修理费。内地人素来不相信公债的投资，他却终于弄明白了，预算不出五年，不用费多少心，他的本利可以滚到六百万，再加上田产的价值，他的财产势必达到惊人的数字。给拿侬的六法郎，也许是她不自觉地帮了他一次大忙而得到的酬劳。

“噢！噢！葛朗台老头上哪儿去呀，一清早就像救火似的这么奔？”街上做买卖的一边开铺门一边想。

后来，他们看见他从码头上回来，后面跟着驿站上的一个脚夫，独轮车上的袋都是满满的。有的人便说：“水总是往河里流的，老头儿去拿钱哪。”

“巴黎，法劳丰，荷兰，流到他家里来的水可多哩。”另外一个说。

“临了，索漠城都要给他买下来喽。”第三个又道。

“他不怕冷，”一个女人对她的丈夫说，“老忙着他的事。”

“嗨！嗨！葛朗台先生，”跟他最近的邻居，一个布商招呼他，“你觉得累赘的话，我来给你扔了吧。”

“哦！不过是些大钱罢了。”葡萄园主回答。

“是银子呢。”脚夫低声补上一句。

“哼，要我照应吗，闭上你的嘴。”老头儿一边开门一边对脚夫咕噜。

“啊！老狐狸，我拿他当作聋子，”脚夫心里想，“谁知冷天他倒听得清。”

“给你二十个子儿酒钱，得啦！去你的！”葛朗台对他说，“你的独轮车，等会叫拿侬来还你。——娘儿们是不是在望弥撒，拿侬？”

“是的，先生。”

“好，快，快一点儿！”他嚷着把那些袋子交给她。

一眨眼，钱都装进了他的密室，他关上了门，躲在里面。

“早餐预备好了，你来敲我的墙壁。先把独轮车送回驿站。”

到了十点钟，大家才吃早点。

“在堂屋里父亲不会要看你金洋的，”葛朗台太太望弥撒回来对女儿说，“再说，你可以装作怕冷。挨过了今天，到你过生日的时候，我们好想法把你的金子凑起来……”

葛朗台一边下楼一边想着把巴黎送来的钱马上变成黄金，又想着公债上的投机居然这样成功。他决意把所有的收入都投资进去，直到行市涨到一百法郎为止。他这样一盘算，欧也妮便倒了霉。他进了堂屋，两位妇女立刻给他拜年，女儿跳上去搂着他的脖子撒娇，太太却是又庄严又稳重。

“啊！啊！我的孩子，”他吻着女儿的前额，“我为你辛苦呀，你不看见吗？……我要你享福。享福就得有钱。没有钱，什么都完啦。瞧，这儿是一个簇新的拿破仑，特地为你从巴黎弄来的，天！家里一点儿金屑子都没有了，只有你有。小乖乖，把你的金子拿来让我瞧瞧。”

“哦！好冷呀；先吃早点吧。”欧也妮回答。

“行，那么吃过早点再拿，是不是？那好帮助我们消化。——台·格拉桑那胖子居然送了这东西来。喂，大家吃呀，又不花我的钱。他不错，这台·格拉桑，我很满意。好家伙给查理帮忙，而且尽义务。他把我可怜的兄弟的事办得很好。——嗯哼！嗯哼！”他含着一嘴食物嘟囔，停了一下又道，“嗯！好吃！太太，你吃呀！至少好叫你饱两天。”

“我不饿，你知道，我一向病病歪歪的。”

“哎！哎！你把肚子塞饱也不打紧，你是拉·裴德里埃家出身，结实得很。你真像一根小黄草，可是我就喜欢黄颜色。”

一个囚徒在含垢忍辱，当众就戮之前，他没有葛朗台太太母女俩在等待早点以后的大祸时那么害怕。葛朗台老头越讲得高兴，越吃得起劲，母女俩的心抽得越紧。但是做女儿的这时还有一点儿依傍：在爱情中汲取勇气。她心里想：

“为了他，为了他，千刀万剐我也受。”

这么想着，她望着母亲，眼中射出勇敢的火花。

十一点，早餐完了，葛朗台唤拿侬：

“统统拿走，把桌子留下。这样，我们看起你的宝贝来更舒服些，”他望着欧也妮说，“孩子！真的，你十十足足有了五千九百五十九法郎的财产，加上今天早上的四十法郎，一共是六千法郎差一个。好吧，我补你一法郎凑足整数，因为小乖乖，你知道……哎哎，拿侬，你干吗听我们说话？去吧，去做你的事。”

拿侬走了。

“听我说，欧也妮，你得把金子给我。你不会拒绝爸爸吧，嗯，我的小乖乖？”

母女俩都不出一声。

“我吗，我没有金子了。从前有的，现在没有了。我把六千法郎现款跟你换，你照我的办法把这笔款子放出去。别想什么压箱钱了。我把你出嫁的时候——也很快了——我会替你找一个夫婿，给你一笔本省从来没有听见过的，最体面的压箱钱。小乖乖，你听我说，现在有一个好机会：你可以把六千法郎买公债，半年就有近两百法郎利息，没有捐税，没有修理费，不怕冰雹，不怕冻，不怕涨潮，一切跟年成捣乱的玩意儿全没有。也许你不乐意把金子放手，小乖乖？拿来吧，还是拿给我吧。以后我再替你收金洋，什么荷兰的，葡萄牙的，蒙古[2]卢比，热那亚金洋，再加你每年生日我给你的，要不了三年，你那份美丽的小家私就恢复了一半。你怎么说，小乖乖？抬起头来呀。去吧，我的儿，去拿来。我这样地把钱怎么生怎么死的秘密告诉了你，你该吻一吻我的眼睛谢我喽。真的，钱像人一样是活的，会动的，它会来，会去，会流汗，会生产。”

欧也妮站起身子向门口走了几步，忽然转过身来，定睛望着父亲，说：

“我的金子没有了。”

“你的金子没有了！”葛朗台嚷着，两腿一挺，直站起来，仿佛一匹马听见身旁有大炮在轰。

“没有了。”

“不会的，欧也妮。”

“真是没有了。”

“爷爷的锹子！”

每逢箍桶匠赌到这个咒，连楼板都会发抖的。

“哎哟，好天好上帝！太太脸都白了。”拿侬嚷道。

“葛朗台，你这样冒火，把我吓死了。”可怜的妇人说。

“咄，咄，咄，咄！你们，你们家里的人是死不了的！欧也妮，你的金洋怎么啦？”他扑上去大吼。

“父亲，”女儿在葛朗台太太身旁跪了下来，“妈妈难受成这样……你瞧……别把她逼死啊。”

葛朗台看见太太平时那么黄黄的脸完全发白了，也害怕起来。

“拿侬，扶我上去睡，”她声音微弱地说，“我要死了。”

拿侬和欧也妮赶紧过去搀扶，她走一步软一步，两个人费了好大气力才把她扶进卧房。葛朗台独自留在下面。可是过了一会儿，他走上七八级楼梯，直着嗓子喊：

“欧也妮，母亲睡了就下来。”

“是，父亲。”

她把母亲安慰了一番，赶紧下楼。

“欧也妮，”父亲说，“告诉我你的金子哪儿去了？”

“父亲，要是你给我的东西不能完全由我做主，那么你拿回去吧。”欧也妮冷冷地回答，一边在壁炉架上抓起拿破仑还他。

葛朗台气冲冲地一手抢过来，塞在荷包里。

“哼，你想我还会给你什么东西吗！连这个也不给！”说着他把大拇指扳着门牙，的一声。“你瞧不起父亲？居然不相信他？你不知什么叫作父亲？要不是父亲高于一切，也就不称其为父亲了。你的金子哪儿去了？”

“父亲，你尽管生气，我还是爱你，敬重你；可是原谅我大胆提一句，我已经二十三岁了。你常常告诉我，说我已经成年，为的是要我知道。所以我把我的钱照我自己的意思安排了，而且请你放心，我的钱放得很妥当……”

“放在哪里？”

“秘密不可泄露，”她说，“你不是有你的秘密吗？”

“我不是家长吗？我不能有我的事吗？”

“这却是我的事。”

“那一定是坏事，所以你不能对父亲说，小姐！”

“的确是好事，就是不能对父亲说。”

“至少得告诉我，什么时候把金子拿出去的？”

欧也妮摇摇头。

“你生日那天还在呢，是不是？”

欧也妮被爱情训练出来的狡猾，不下于父亲被吝啬训练出来的狡猾，她仍旧摇摇头。

“从来没见过这样的死心眼儿，这样的偷盗，”葛朗台声音越来越大，震动屋子，“怎么！这里，在我自己家里，居然有人拿掉你的金子，家里就是这么一点儿的金子！而我还没法知道是谁拿的！金子是宝贵的东西呀。不错，最老实的姑娘也免不了有过失，甚至于把什么都给了人，上至世家旧族，下至小户人家，都有的是；可是把金子送人！因为你一定是给了什么人的，是不是？”

欧也妮声色不动。

“这样的姑娘倒从来没有见到过！我是不是你的父亲？要是存放出去，你一定有收据……”

“我有支配这笔钱的权利没有？有没有？是不是我的钱？”

“哎，你还是一个孩子呢！”

“成年了。”

给女儿驳倒了，葛朗台脸色发白，跺脚，发誓，终于又想出了话：

“你这个该死的婆娘，你这条毒蛇！唉！坏东西，你知道我疼你，你就胡来。你勒死你的父亲！哼！你会把咱们的家产一齐送给那个穿摩洛哥皮鞋的光棍。爷爷的锹子！我不能取消你的承继权，天哪！可是我要咒你，咒你的堂兄弟，咒你的儿女！他们都不会对你有什么好结果的，听见没有？要是你给了查理……哦，不可能的。怎么！这油头粉脸的坏蛋，胆敢偷我的……”

他望着女儿，她冷冷地一声不出。

“她动也不动！眉头也不皱一皱！比我葛朗台还要葛朗台。至少你不会把金子白送人吧，嗯，你说？”

欧也妮望着父亲，含讥带讽的眼神把他气坏了。

“欧也妮，你是在我家里，在你父亲家里。要留在这儿，就得服从父亲的命令。神父他们也命令你服从我。”

欧也妮低下头去。他接着又说：

“你就拣我最心疼的事伤我的心，你不屈服，我就不要看见你。到房里去。我不许你出来，你就不能出来。只有冷水跟面包，我叫拿侬端给你。听见没有？去！”

欧也妮哭作一团，急忙溜到母亲身边。

葛朗台在园中雪地里忘了冷，绕了好一会儿圈子，之后，忽然疑心女儿在他妻子房里，想到去当场捉住她违抗命令的错儿，不由得高兴起来，他便像猫儿一般轻捷地爬上楼梯，闯进太太的卧房，看见欧也妮的脸埋在母亲怀里，母亲摩着她的头发，说：

“别伤心，可怜的孩子，你父亲的气慢慢会消下去的。”

“她没有父亲了！”老箍桶匠吼道，“这样不听话的女儿是我跟你生的吗，太太？好教育，还是信教的呢！怎么，你不在自己房里？赶快，去坐牢，坐牢，小姐。”

“你硬要把我们娘儿俩拆开吗，老爷？”葛朗台太太发着烧，脸色通红。

“你要留她，你就把她带走，你俩给我一齐离开这儿……天打的！金子呢？金子怎么啦？”

欧也妮站起身子，高傲地把父亲望了一眼，走进自己的卧房。她一进去，老头儿把门锁上了。

“拿侬，把堂屋里的火熄掉。”他嚷道。

然后他坐在太太屋里壁炉旁边的一张安乐椅上：

“她一定给了那个迷人的臭小子查理，他只想我的钱。”

葛朗台太太为了女儿所冒的危险，为了她对女儿的感情，居然鼓足勇气，装聋作哑，冷静得很。

“这些我都不知道。”她一边回答，一边朝床里翻身，躲开丈夫闪闪发光的眼风。“你生这么大的气，我真难受；我预感我只能伸直着腿出去的了。现在你可以饶我一下吧，我从来没有给你受过气，至少我自己这样想。女儿是爱你的，我相信她跟初生的孩子一样没有罪过。别难为她。收回成命吧。天冷得厉害，说不定你会叫她闹场大病的。”

“我不愿意看见她，也不再跟她说话。她得关在屋里，只有冷水面包，直到她使父亲满意为止。见鬼！做家长的不该知道家里的黄金到了哪儿去吗？她的卢比恐怕全法国都找不出来，还有热那亚金洋，荷兰杜加……”

“老爷，我们只生欧也妮一个，即使她把金子扔在水里……”

“扔在水里！扔在水里！”好家伙嚷道，“你疯了，太太。我说得到，做得到，你还不知道吗？你要求家里太平，就该叫女儿招供，逼她老实说出来；女人对女人，比我们男人容易说得通。不管她做了什么事，我绝不会把她吃掉。她是不是怕我？即使她把堂兄弟从头到脚装了金，唉，他早已漂洋出海，我们也追不上了……”

“那么，老爷……”

由于当时的神经过敏，或者是女儿的苦难使她格外慈爱，也格外聪明起来，葛朗台太太犀利的目光发觉丈夫的肉瘤有些可怕的动作，她便马上改变主意，顺着原来的口吻，说：

“那么，老爷，你对女儿没有办法，我倒有办法了吗？她一句话也没有对我说，她像你。”

“嗯，哼！今天你多会说话！咄，咄，咄，咄！你欺侮我。说不定你跟她通气的。”

他定睛瞪着妻子。

“真的，你要我命，就这样说下去吧。我已经告诉你，先生，即使把我的命送掉，我还是要告诉你：你这样对女儿是不应该的，她比你讲理。这笔钱是她的，她不会糟掉，我们做的好事，只有上帝知道。老爷，我求你，饶了欧也妮吧！……你饶了她，我受的打击也可以减轻一些，也许你救了我的命，我的女儿呀，先生，还我女儿啊！”

“我走啦，”他说，“家里待不下去了，娘儿俩的念头，说话，都好像……勃罗……啵！你好狠心，送了我这笔年礼，欧也妮！”他提高了嗓子，“好，好，哭吧！这种行为，你将来要后悔的，听见没有？一个月吃两次好天爷的圣餐有什么用？既然会把你父亲的钱偷偷送给一个游手好闲的光棍！他把你什么都吃完之后，还会吃掉你的心呢！你瞧着吧，你的查理是什么东西，穿着摩洛哥皮鞋目空一切！他没有心肝，没有灵魂，敢把一个姑娘的宝贝，不经她父母允许，带着就跑。”

街门关上了，欧也妮便走出卧房，挨在母亲身边，对她说：

“你为了你女儿真有勇气。”

“孩子，瞧见没有，一个人做了违禁的事落到什么田地！……你逼我撒了一次谎。”

“噢！我求上帝只罚我一个人就是了。”

“真的吗，”拿侬慌张地跑来问，“小姐从此只有冷水面包好吃？”

“那有什么大不了，拿侬？”欧也妮冷静地回答。

“啊！东家的女儿只吃干面包，我还咽得下什么糖酱……噢，不，不！”

“这些话都不用提，拿侬。”欧也妮说。

“我就不开口好啦，可是你等着瞧吧！”

二十四年以来第一次，葛朗台独自用晚餐。

“哎哟，你变了单身汉了，先生，”拿侬说，“家里有了两个妇女还做单身汉，真不是味儿哪。”

“我不跟你说话。闭上你的嘴，要不我就赶你走。你蒸锅里煮的什么，在灶上噗噗噗的？”

“熬油哪……”

“晚上有客，你得生火。”

八点钟，几位克罗旭，台·格拉桑太太和她儿子一齐来了，他们很奇怪没有见到葛朗台太太与欧也妮。

“内人有点儿不舒服，欧也妮陪着她。”老头儿若无其事地回答。

闲扯了一小时，上楼上去问候葛朗台太太的台·格拉桑太太下来了，大家争着问：

“葛朗台太太怎么样？”

“不行，简直不行，”她说，“她的情形真叫人担心。在她的年纪，要特别小心才好呢，葛老头。”

“慢慢瞧吧。”老头儿心不在焉地问答。

大家告辞了。几位克罗旭走到了街上，台·格拉桑太太便告诉他们：

“葛朗台家出了什么事啦。母亲病得很厉害，自己还不知道。女儿红着眼睛，仿佛哭过很久，难道他们硬要把她攀亲吗？”

老头儿睡下了，拿侬穿着软鞋无声无息地走进欧也妮卧房，给她一个用蒸锅做的大肉饼。

“喂，小姐，”好心的用人说，“高诺阿莱给了我一只野兔。你胃口小，这个饼好吃八天；冻紧了，不会坏的。至少你不用吃淡面包了。那多伤身体。”

“可怜的拿侬！”欧也妮握着她的手。

“我做得很好，煮得很嫩，他一点儿不知道。肥肉，香料，都在我的六法郎里面买。这几个钱总是由我做主的了。”

然后她以为听到了葛朗台的声音，马上溜了。

几个月工夫，老头儿拣着白天不同的时间，经常来看太太，绝口不提女儿，也不去看她，也没有间接关涉到她的话。葛朗台太太老睡在房里，病情一天一天地严重，可是什么都不能使老箍桶匠的心软一软。他顽强，严酷，冰冷，像一块石头。他按照平时的习惯上街，回家，可是不再口吃，说话也少了，在买卖上比从前更苛刻，弄错数目的事也常有。

“葛朗台家里出了事啦。”克罗旭党与台·格拉桑党都这么说。

“葛朗台家究竟闹些什么啊？”索漠人在随便哪家的晚会上遇到，总这样地彼此问一声。

欧也妮上教堂，总由拿侬陪着。从教堂出来，倘使台·格拉桑太太跟她说话，她的回答总是躲躲闪闪的，叫人不得要领。虽然如此，两个月之后，欧也妮被幽禁的秘密终于瞒不过三位克罗旭与台·格拉桑太太。她的老不见客，到了某个时候，也没有理由好推托了。后来，不知是谁透露了出去，全城都知道从元旦起，葛朗台小姐被父亲软禁在房里，只有清水面包，没有取暖的火，倒是拿侬替小姐弄些好菜半夜里送进去；大家也知道女儿只能候父亲上街的时间去探望母亲，服侍母亲。

于是葛朗台的行为动了公愤。全城仿佛当他是化外之人，又记起了他的出卖地主和许多刻薄的行为，大有一致唾弃之概。他走在街上，个个人在背后交头接耳。

当女儿由拿侬陪了去望弥撒或做晚祷，在弯弯曲曲的街上走着的时候，所有的人全扑上窗口，好奇地打量那有钱的独养女儿的脸色与态度，发觉她除了满面愁容之外，另有一副天使般温柔的表情。她的幽禁与失宠，对她全不相干。她不是老看着世界地图、花园、围墙、小凳吗？爱情的亲吻留在嘴唇上的甜味，她不是老在回味吗？城里关于她的议论，她好久都不知道，跟她的父亲一样。虔诚的信念，无愧于上帝的纯洁，她的良心与爱情，使她耐心忍受父亲的愤怒与谴责。

但是一宗深刻的痛苦压倒了一切其余的痛苦。——她的母亲一天不如一天了。多么慈祥温柔的人，灵魂发出垂死的光辉，反而显出了她的美。欧也妮常常责备自己无形中促成了母亲的病，慢慢在折磨她的残酷的病。这种悔恨，虽经过了母亲的譬解，使她跟自己的爱情越发分不开。每天早上，父亲一出门，她便来到母亲床前，拿侬把早点端给她。但是可怜的欧也妮，为了母亲的痛苦而痛苦，暗中示意拿侬看看母亲的脸色，然后她哭了，不敢提到堂兄弟。倒是母亲先开口：

“他在哪儿呀？怎么没有信来？”

母女俩都不知道路程的远近。

“我们心里想他就是了，”欧也妮回答，“别提他。你在受难，你比一切都要紧。”

所谓一切，便是指他。

“哎，告诉你们，”葛朗台太太常常说，“我对生命没有一点儿留恋。上帝保佑我，使我看到苦难完了的日子只觉得高兴。”

这女人的说话老是虔诚圣洁，显出基督徒的本色。在那年最初几个月之内，当丈夫到她房里踱来踱去用午餐的时候，她翻来覆去地对他说着一篇同样的话，虽然说得极其温柔，却也极其坚决，因为知道自己不久人世，所以反而有了平时没有的勇气。他极平淡地问了她一句身体怎样，她总是回答说：

“谢谢你关心我的病；我是不久的了，要是你肯把我的苦恼减轻一些，把我的悲痛去掉一些，请你饶了女儿吧；希望你以身作则，表示你是基督徒，是贤夫，是慈父。”

一听到这些话，葛朗台便坐在床边，仿佛一个人看见阵雨将临而安安静静躲在门洞里避雨的神气。他静静地听着，一言不答。要是太太用最动人、最温柔、最虔诚的话恳求他，他便说：

“你今天脸色不大好啊，可怜的太太。”

他脑门硬绷绷的，咬紧了嘴唇，表示他已经把女儿忘得干干净净。甚至他那一成不变的，支吾其词的答话使妻子惨白的脸上流满了泪，他也不动心。

“但愿上帝原谅你，老爷，”她说，“像我原谅你一样。有朝一日，你也得求上帝开恩的。”

自从妻子病后，他不敢再叫出那骇人的咄、咄、咄、咄的声音。这个温柔的天使，面貌的丑恶一天天地消失，脸上映照着精神的美，可是葛朗台专制的淫威并没因之软化。

她只剩下一个赤裸裸的灵魂了。由于祷告的力量，脸上最粗俗的线条都似乎净化，变得细腻，有了光彩。有些圣洁的脸庞，灵魂的活动会改变生得最丑的相貌，思想的崇高纯洁，会印上特别生动的气息：这种脱胎换骨的现象大概谁都见识过。在这位女子身上，痛苦把肉体煎熬完了以后换了一副相貌的景象，对心如铁石的老箍桶匠也有了作用，虽是极微弱的作用。他说话不再盛气凌人，却老是不出一声，用静默来保全他做家长的面子。

他的忠心的拿侬一到菜市上，立刻就有对她主人开玩笑或者谴责的话传到她耳里。虽然公众的舆论一致讨伐葛朗台，女仆为了替家里争面子，还在替他辩护。

“嗨，”她回答那些说葛朗台坏话的人，“咱们老起来，不是心肠都要硬一点儿吗？为什么他就不可以？你们别胡说八道。小姐日子过得挺舒服，像王后一样呢。她不见客，那是她自己喜欢。再说，我东家自有道理。”

葛朗台太太给苦恼折磨得比疾病还难受，尽管祷告也没法把父女俩劝和，终于在暮春时节的某天晚上，她把心中的隐痛告诉了两位克罗旭。

“罚一个二十三岁的女儿吃冷水面包！……”特·篷风所长嚷道，“而且毫无理由；这是妨害自由，侵害身体，虐待家属，她可以控告，第一点……”

“哎，哎，老侄，”公证人插嘴道，“说那些法庭上的调调儿干吗？——太太，你放心，我明天就来想法，把软禁的事结束。”

听见人家讲起她的事，欧也妮走出卧房，很高傲地说：

“诸位先生，请你们不要管这件事。我父亲是一家之主。只要我住在他家里，我就得服从他。他的行为用不到大家赞成或反对，他只向上帝负责。我要求你们的友谊是绝口不提这件事。责备我的父亲，等于侮辱我们。诸位，你们对我的关切，我很感激；可是我更感激，要是你们肯阻止城里那些难听的闲话，那是我偶然知道的。”

“她说得有理。”葛朗台太太补上一句。

欧也妮因幽居、悲伤与相思而增添的美，把老公证人看呆了，不觉肃然起敬地答道：

“小姐，阻止流言最好的办法，便是恢复你的自由。”

“好吧，孩子，这件事交给克罗旭先生去办吧，既然他有把握。他识得你父亲的脾气，知道怎么对付他。我没有几天好活了，要是你愿意我最后的日子过得快活一些，无论如何你得跟你父亲讲和。”

下一天，照葛朗台把欧也妮软禁以后的习惯，他到小园里来绕几个圈子。他散步的时间总是欧也妮梳头的时间。老头儿一走到大胡桃树旁边，便躲在树干背后，把女儿的长头发打量一会儿，这时他的心大概就在固执的性子与想去亲吻女儿的欲望中间摇摆不定。他往往坐在查理与欧也妮海誓山盟的那条破凳上，而欧也妮也在偷偷地，或者在镜子里看父亲。要是他起身继续散步，她便凑趣地坐在窗前瞧着围墙，墙上挂着最美丽的花，裂缝中间透出仙女萝，昼颜花，和一株肥肥的、又黄又白的景天草，在索漠和都尔各地的葡萄藤中最常见的植物。

克罗旭公证人很早就来了，发现老头儿在晴好的六月天坐在小凳上，背靠了墙望着女儿。

“有什么事好替你效劳呢，公证人？”他招呼客人。

“我来跟你谈正经。”

“啊！啊！有什么金洋换给我吗？”

“不，不，不关钱的事，是令爱欧也妮的问题。为了你和她，大家都在议论纷纷。”

“他们管得着？区区煤炭匠，也是个家长。”

“对啊，煤炭匠在家里什么都能做，他可以自杀，或者更进一步，把钱往窗外扔。”

“你这是什么意思？”

“哎！你太太的病不轻呀，朋友。你该请裴日冷先生来瞧一瞧，她有性命之忧哪。不好好地把她医治，她死后我相信你不会安心的。”

“咄，咄，咄，咄！你知道我女人闹什么病呀。那些医生一朝踏进了你家大门，一天会来五六次。”

“得啦，葛朗台，随你。咱们是老朋友；你的事，索漠城里没有一个人比我更关切，所以我应当告诉你。好吧，反正没多大关系，你又不是一个孩子，自然知道怎样做人，不用提啦。而且我也不是为这件事来的。还有些别的事情恐怕对你严重多哩。到底你也不想把太太害死吧，她对你太有用了。要是葛朗台太太不在了，你在女儿面前处的什么地位，你想想吧。你应当向欧也妮报账，因为你们夫妇的财产没有分过。你的女儿有权利要求分家，叫你把法劳丰卖掉。总而言之，她承继她的母亲，你不能承继你的太太。”

这些话对好家伙宛如晴天霹雳，他在法律上就不像生意上那么内行。他从没想到共有财产的拍卖。

“所以我劝你对女儿宽和一点儿。”克罗旭末了又说。

“可是你知道她做的什么事吗，克罗旭？”

“什么事？”公证人很高兴听听葛朗台的心腹话，好知道这次吵架的原因。

“她把她的金子送了人。”

“那不是她的东西吗？”公证人问。

“哎，他们说的都是一样的话！”老头儿做了一个悲壮的姿势，把手臂掉了下去。

“难道为了芝麻大的事，”公证人接着说，“你就不想在太太死后，要求女儿放弃权利吗？”

“嘿！你把六千法郎的金洋叫作芝麻大的事？”

“哎！老朋友，把太太的遗产编造清册，分起家来，要是欧也妮这样主张的话，你得破费多少，你知道没有？”

“怎么呢？”

“二十万，三十万，四十万法郎都说不定！为了要知道实际的财产价值，不是要把共有财产拍卖，变现款吗？倘使你能取得她同意……”

“爷爷的锹子！”老箍桶匠脸孔发白地坐了下来，“慢慢再说吧，克罗旭。”

沉默了一会儿，或者是痛苦地挣扎了一会儿，老头儿瞪着公证人说：

“人生残酷，太痛苦了。”他又换了庄严的口吻，“克罗旭，你不会骗我吧，你得发誓刚才你说的那一套都是根据法律的。把民法给我看，我要看民法！”

“朋友，我自己的本行还不清楚吗？”

“那么是真的了？我就得给女儿抢光，欺骗，杀死，吞掉的了。”

“她承继她的母亲哪。”

“那么养儿女有什么用？啊！我的太太，我是爱她的。幸亏她硬朗得很：她是拉·斐德里埃家里的种。”

“她活不了一个月了。”

老箍桶匠敲着自己的脑袋，走过去，走回来，射出一道可怕的目光盯着克罗旭，问道：

“怎么办？”

“欧也妮可以把母亲的遗产无条件地抛弃。你总不愿意剥夺她的承继权吧，你？既然要她做这种让步，就不能亏待她。朋友，我告诉你这些，都是对我自己不利的。我靠的是什么，嗯？……不是清算，登记，拍卖，分家等等吗？”

“慢慢瞧吧，慢慢瞧吧。不谈这些了，克罗旭。你把我的肠子都搅乱了。你收到什么金子没有？”

“没有；可是有十来块古钱，可以让给你。好朋友，跟欧也妮讲和了吧。你瞧，全索漠都对你丢石子呢。”

“那些浑蛋！”

“得啦，公债涨到九十九法郎哪。人生一世总该满意一次吧。”

“九十九，克罗旭？”

“是啊。”

“嗨！嗨！九十九！”老头儿说着把老公证人一直送到街门。

然后，刚才听到的一篇话使他心中七上八下的，在家里待不住了，上楼对妻子说：

“喂，妈妈，你可以跟你女儿混一天了，我上法劳丰去。你们都乖乖的啊。今天是咱们的结婚纪念日，好太太：这儿是十块钱给你在圣体节做路祭用。你不是想了好久吗？得啦，你玩儿吧！你们就乐一下，痛快一下吧，你得保重身体。噢，我多开心噢！”

他把十块六法郎的银币丢在女人床上，捧着她的头吻她的前额。

“好太太，你好一些了，是不是？”

“你心中连女儿都容不下，怎么能在家里接待大慈大悲的上帝呢？”她激动地说。

“咄，咄，咄，咄！”他的声音变得柔和婉转了，“慢慢瞧吧。”

“谢天谢地！欧也妮，快来拥抱你父亲，”她快活的脸孔通红地叫着，“他饶了你啦！”

可是老头儿已经不见了。他连奔带跑地赶到庄园上，急于要把他搅乱了的思想整理一下。那时葛朗台刚刚跨到七十六个年头。两年以来，他更加吝啬了，正如一个人一切年深月久的痴情与癖好一样。根据观察的结果，凡是吝啬鬼，野心家，所有执着一念的人，他们的感情总特别灌注在象征他们痴情的某一件东西上面。看到金子，占有金子，便是葛朗台的执着狂。他专制的程度也随着吝啬而增长；妻子死后要把财产放手一部分，哪怕是极小极小的一部分，只要他管不着，他就觉得逆情悖理。怎么！要对女儿报告财产的数目，把动产不动产一股脑儿登记起来拍卖？……

“那简直是抹自己的脖子。”他在庄园里检视着葡萄藤，高声对自己说。

终于他主意拿定了，晚饭时分回到索漠，决意向欧也妮屈服，巴结她，诱哄她，以便到死都能保持家长的威风，抓着几百万家财的大权，直到咽最后一口气为止。老头儿无意中身边带着百宝钥匙，便自己开了大门，轻手蹑脚地上楼到妻子房里，那时欧也妮正捧了那口精美的梳妆箱放在母亲床上。趁葛朗台不在家，母女俩很高兴地在查理母亲的肖像上咂摸一下查理的面貌。

“这明明是他的额角，他的嘴！”老头儿开门进去，欧也妮正这么说着。

一看见丈夫瞪着金子的眼光，葛朗台太太便叫起来：“上帝呀，救救我们！”

老头儿身子一纵，扑上梳妆匣，好似一头老虎扑上一个睡着的婴儿。

“什么东西？”他拿着宝匣往窗前走去。“噢，是真金！金子！”他连声叫嚷，“这么多的金子！有两斤重。啊！啊！查理把这个跟你换了美丽的金洋，是不是？为什么不早告诉我？这交易划得来，小乖乖！你真是我的女儿，我明白了。”

欧也妮四肢发抖。老头儿接着说：

“不是吗，这是查理的东西？”

“是的，父亲，不是我的。这匣子是神圣不可侵犯的，是寄存的东西。”

“咄，咄，咄，咄！他拿了你的家私，正应该补偿你。”

“父亲……”

好家伙想掏出刀子撬一块金板下来，先把匣子往椅上一放。欧也妮扑过去想抢回；可是箍桶匠的眼睛老盯着女儿跟梳妆匣，他手臂一摆，使劲一推，她便倒在母亲床上。

“老爷！老爷！”母亲嚷着，在床上直坐起来。

葛朗台拔出刀子预备撬了。欧也妮立刻跪下，爬到父亲身旁，高举着两手，嚷道：

“父亲，父亲，看在圣母面上，看在十字架上的基督面上，看在所有的圣灵面上，看在你灵魂得救面上，看在我的性命面上，你不要动它！这口梳妆匣不是你的，也不是我的，是一个受难的亲属的，他托我保管，我得原封不动地还他。”

“为什么拿来看呢，要是寄存的话？看比动手更要不得。”

“父亲，不能动呀，你叫我见不得人啦！父亲，听见没有？”

“老爷，求你！”母亲跟着说。

“父亲！”欧也妮大叫一声，吓得拿侬也赶到了楼上。

欧也妮在手边抓到了一把刀子，当作武器。

“怎么样？”葛朗台冷笑着，静静地说。

“老爷，老爷，你要我命了！”母亲嚷着。

“父亲，你的刀把金子碰掉一点儿，我就把这刀结果我性命。你已经把母亲害到只剩一口气，你还要杀死你的女儿。好吧，大家拼掉算了！”

葛朗台把刀子对着梳妆匣，望着女儿，迟疑不决。

“你敢吗，欧也妮？”他说。

“她会的，老爷。”母亲说。

“她说得到做得到，”拿侬嚷道，“先生，你一生一世总得讲一次理吧。”

箍桶匠看看金子，看看女儿，愣了一会儿。葛朗台太太晕过去了。

“哎，先生，你瞧，太太死过去了！”拿侬嚷道。

“哦，孩子，咱们别为了一口箱子生气啦。拿去吧！”箍桶匠马上把梳妆匣扔在了床上。“——拿侬，你去请裴日冷先生。——得啦，太太，”他吻着妻子的手，“没有事啦，咱们讲和啦。——不是吗，小乖乖？不吃干面包了，爱吃什么就吃什么吧……啊！她眼睛睁开了。——啊！她眼睛睁开了。——哎哎，妈妈，小妈妈，好妈妈，得啦！哎，你瞧我拥抱欧也妮了。她爱她的堂兄弟，她要嫁给他就嫁给他吧，让她把小箱子藏起来吧。可是你得长命百岁地活下去啊，可怜的太太。哎哎，你身子动一下给我看哪！告诉你，圣体节你可以拿出最体面的祭桌，索漠从来没有过的祭桌。”

“天哪，你怎么可以这样对你的妻子跟孩子！”葛朗台太太的声音很微弱。

“下次绝不了，绝不了！”箍桶匠叫着，“你瞧就是，可怜的太太。”

他到密室去拿了一把路易来摔在床上。

“喂，欧也妮，喂，太太，这是给你们的，”他一边说一边把钱拈着玩，“哎哎，太太，你开开心；快快好起来吧，你要什么有什么，欧也妮也是的。瞧，这一百金路易是给她的。你不会把这些再送人了吧，欧也妮，是不是？”

葛朗台太太和女儿面面相觑，莫名其妙。

“父亲，把钱收起来吧，我们只需要你的感情。”

“对啦，这才对啦，”他把金路易装进口袋，“咱们和和气气过日子吧。大家下楼，到堂屋去吃晚饭，天天晚上来两个铜子的摸彩。你们痛快玩吧，嗯，太太，好不好？”

“唉！怎么不好，既然这样你觉得快活，”奄奄一息的病人回答，“可是我起不来啊。”

“可怜的妈妈，”箍桶匠说，“你不知道我多爱你。——还有你，我的女儿！”

他搂着她，把她拥抱。

“噢！吵过了架再搂着女儿多开心，小乖乖！……嗨，你瞧，小妈妈，现在咱们两个变了一个了。”他又指着梳妆盒对欧也妮说，“把这个藏起来吧。去吧，不用怕。我再也不提了，永远不提了。”

不久，索漠最有名的医生裴日冷先生来了。诊察完毕，他老实告诉葛朗台，说他太太病得厉害，只有给她精神上绝对安静，悉心调养，服侍周到，可能拖到秋末。

“要不要花很多的钱？要不要吃药呢？”

“不用多少药，调养要紧。”医生不由得微微一笑。

“哎，裴日冷先生，你是有地位的人。我完全相信你，你认为什么时候应该来看她，尽管来，求你救救我的女人；我多爱她，虽然表面上看不出，因为我家里什么都藏在骨子里的，那些事把我心都搅乱了。我有我的伤心事。兄弟一死，伤心事就进了我的门，我为他在巴黎花钱……花了数不清的钱！而且还没得完。再会吧，先生。要是我女人还有救，请你救救她，即使要我一百两百法郎也行。”

虽然葛朗台热烈盼望太太病好，因为她一死就得办遗产登记，而这就要了他的命；虽然他对母女俩百依百顺，一心讨好的态度使她们出惊；虽然欧也妮竭尽孝心地侍奉；葛朗台太太还是很快地往死路上走。像所有在这年纪上得了重病的女人一样，她一天憔悴一天。她像秋天的树叶一般脆弱。天国的光辉照着她，仿佛太阳照着树叶发出金光。有她那样的一生，才有她那样的死，恬退隐忍，完全是一个基督徒的死，死得崇高，伟大。

到了一八二二年十月，她的贤德，她的天使般的耐心和对女儿的怜爱，表现得格外显著；她没有一句怨言地死了，像洁白的羔羊一般上了天。在这个世界上她只舍不得一个人，她凄凉的一生的温柔的伴侣——她最后的几眼似乎暗示女儿将来的苦命。想到把这头和她自己一样洁白的羔羊，孤零零地留在自私自利的世界上任人宰割，她就发抖。

“孩子，”她断气以前对她说，“幸福只有在天上，你将来会知道。”

下一天早上，欧也妮更有一些新的理由，觉得和她出生的、受过多少痛苦的、母亲刚在里面咽气的这所屋子分不开。她望着堂屋里的窗棂与草垫的椅子不能不落泪。她以为错看了老父的心，因为他对她多么温柔多么体贴：他来搀了她去用午饭，几小时地望着她，眼睛的神气差不多是慈祥了；他瞅着女儿，仿佛她是金铸的一般。

老箍桶匠变得厉害，常在女儿前面哆嗦，眼见他这种老态的拿侬与克罗旭他们，认为是他年纪太大的缘故，甚至担心他有些器官已经衰退。可是到了全家戴孝那天，吃过了晚饭，当唯一知道这老人秘密的公证人在座的时候，老头儿古怪的行为就有了答案。

饭桌收拾完了，门都关严了，他对欧也妮说：

“好孩子，现在你承继了你母亲啦，咱们中间可有些小小的事得办一办。——对不对，克罗旭？”

“对。”

“难道非赶在今天办不行吗，父亲？”

“是呀，是呀，小乖乖。我不能让事情搁在那儿牵肠挂肚。你总不至于要我受罪吧。”

“噢！父亲……”

“好吧，那么今天晚上一切都得办了。”

“你要我干什么呢？”

“乖乖，这可不关我的事。——克罗旭，你告诉她吧。”

“小姐，令尊既不愿意把产业分开，也不愿意出卖，更不愿因为变卖财产，有了现款而付大笔的捐税，所以你跟令尊共有的财产，你得放弃登记……”

“克罗旭，你这些话保险没有错吗，可以对一个孩子说吗？”

“让我说呀，葛朗台。”

“好，好，朋友。你跟我的女儿都不会抢我的家私。——对不对，小乖乖？”

“可是，克罗旭先生，究竟要我干什么呢？”欧也妮不耐烦地问。

“哦，你得在这张文书上签个字，表示你抛弃对令堂财产的继承权，把你跟令尊共有的财产，全部交给令尊管理，收入归他，光给你保留虚有权……”

“你对我说的，我一点儿不明白，”欧也妮回答，“把文书给我，告诉我签字应该签在哪儿。”

葛朗台老头的眼睛从文书转到女儿，从女儿转到文书，紧张得脑门上尽是汗，一刻不停地抹着。

“小乖乖，这张文书送去备案的时候要花很多钱，要是对你可怜的母亲，你肯无条件抛弃继承权，把你的前途完全交托给我的话，我觉得更满意。我按月付你一百法郎的大利钱。这样，你爱做多少台弥撒给谁都可以了！……嗯！按月一百法郎，一块钱作六法郎，行吗？”

“你爱怎么办就怎么办吧，父亲。”

“小姐，”公证人说，“以我的责任，应当告诉你，这样你自己是一无所有了……”

“嗨！上帝，”她回答，“那有什么关系！”

“别多嘴，克罗旭。——一言为定，”葛朗台抓起女儿的手放在自己手中一拍，“欧也妮，你绝不翻悔，你是有信用的姑娘，是不是？”

“噢！父亲……”

他热烈地拥抱着她，把她紧紧地搂得几乎喘不过气来。

“得啦，孩子，你给了我生路，我有了命啦，不过这是你把欠我的还了我：咱们两讫了。这才叫作公平交易。人生就是一件交易。我祝福你！你是一个贤德的姑娘，孝顺爸爸的姑娘。你现在爱做什么都可以。”

“明儿见，克罗旭，”他望着骇呆了的公证人说，“请你招呼法院书记官预备一份抛弃文书，麻烦你给照顾一下。”

下一天中午时分，声明书签了字，欧也妮自动地抛弃了财产。

可是到第一年年终，老箍桶匠庄严地许给女儿的一百法郎月费，连一个子儿都没有给。欧也妮说笑之间提到的时候，他不由得脸上一红，奔进密室，把他从侄儿那里三钱不值两文买来的金饰，捧了三分之一下来。

“哎，孩子，”他的语调很有点儿挖苦意味，“要不要把这些抵充你的一千二百法郎？”

“噢，父亲，真的吗，你把这些给我？”

“明年我再给你这么些，”他说着把金饰倒在她围裙兜里，“这样，不用多少时候，他的首饰都到你手里了。”他搓着手，因为能够利用女儿的感情占了便宜，觉得很高兴。

话虽如此，老头儿尽管还硬朗，也觉得需要让女儿学一学管家的诀窍了。连着两年，他教欧也妮当他的面吩咐饭菜，收人家的欠账。他慢慢地，把庄园田地的名称内容，陆续告诉她。第三年上，他的吝啬作风把女儿训练成熟，变成了习惯，于是他放心大胆地，把伙食房的钥匙交给她，让她正式当家。

五年这样地过去了，在欧也妮父女单调的生活中无事可述，老是些同样的事情，做得像一座老钟那样准确。葛朗台小姐的愁闷忧苦已经是公开的秘密，但是尽管大家感觉到她忧苦的原因，她从没说过一句话，给索漠人对她感情的猜想有所证实。她唯一来往的人，只有几位克罗旭与他们无意中带来走熟的一些朋友。他们教会了她打韦斯脱牌，每天晚上都来玩一局。

一八二七那一年，她的父亲感到衰老的压迫，不得不让女儿参与田产的秘密，遇到什么难题，就叫她跟克罗旭公证人商量——他的忠实，老头儿是深信不疑的。然后，到这一年年终，在八十二岁上，好家伙患了风瘫，很快地加重。裴日冷先生断定他的病是不治的了。

想到自己不久就要一个人在世界上了，欧也妮便跟父亲格外接近，把这感情的最后一环握得更紧。像一切动了爱情的女子一样，在她心目中，爱情便是整个的世界，可是查理不在眼前。她对老父的照顾服侍，可以说是鞠躬尽瘁。他开始显得老态龙钟，可是守财奴的脾气依旧由本能支持在那里。所以这个人从生到死没有一点儿改变。

从清早起，他叫人家把他的转椅，在卧室的壁炉与密室的门中间推来推去，密室里头不用说是堆满了金子的。他一动不动地待在那儿，极不放心地把看他的人，和装了铁皮的门，轮流瞧着。听到一点儿响动，他就要人家报告原委；而且使公证人大为吃惊的是，他连狗在院子里打呵欠都听得见。他好像迷迷糊糊的神志不清，可是一到人家该送田租来，跟管庄园的算账，或者出立收据的日子与时间，他会立刻清醒。于是他推动转椅，直到密室门口。他叫女儿把门打开，监督她亲自把一袋袋的钱秘密地堆好，把门关严。然后他又一声不出地回到原来的位置，只要女儿把那个宝贵的钥匙交还了他，藏在背心袋里，不时用手摸一下。他的老朋友公证人，觉得倘使查理·葛朗台不回来，这个有钱的独养女儿稳是嫁给他当所长的侄儿的了，所以他招呼得加倍殷勤，天天来听葛朗台差遣，奉命到法劳丰，到各处的田地、草原、葡萄园去，代葛朗台卖掉收成，把暗中积在密室里的成袋的钱，兑成金子。

末了，终于到了弥留时期，那几日老头儿结实的身子进入了毁灭的阶段。他要坐在火炉旁边，密室之前。他把身上的被一齐拉紧，裹紧，嘴里对拿侬说着：

“裹紧，裹紧，别给人家偷了我的东西。”

他所有的生命力都退守在眼睛里了，他能够睁开眼的时候，立刻转到满屋财宝的密室门上：

“在那里吗？在那里吗？”问话的声音显出他惊慌得厉害。

“在那里呢，父亲。”

“你看住金子！……拿来放在我面前！”

欧也妮把金路易铺在桌上，他几小时地用眼睛盯着，好像一个才知道观看的孩子呆望着同一件东西；也像孩子一般，他露出一点儿很吃力的笑意。有时他说一句：

“这样好叫我心里暖和！”脸上的表情仿佛进了极乐世界。

本区的教士来给他做临终法事的时候，十字架、烛台和银镶的圣水壶一出现，似乎已经死去几小时的眼睛立刻复活了，目不转睛地瞧着那些法器，他的肉瘤也最后地动了一动。神父把镀金的十字架送到他唇边，给他亲吻基督的圣像，他却做了一个骇人的姿势想把十字架抓在手里，这一下最后的努力送了他的命。他唤着欧也妮，欧也妮跪在前面，流着泪吻着他已经冰冷的手，可是他看不见。

“父亲，祝福我啊。”

“把一切照顾得好好的！到那边来向我交账！”这最后一句证明基督教应该是守财奴的宗教。

于是欧也妮在这座屋子里完全孤独了；只有拿侬，主人对她递一个眼神就会懂得，只有拿侬为爱她而爱她，只有跟拿侬才能谈谈心中的悲苦。为欧也妮，拿侬简直是一个保护人，她不再是一个女仆，而是卑恭的朋友。

父亲死后，欧也妮从克罗旭公证人那里知道，她在索漠地界的田产每年有三十万法郎收入；有六十法郎买进的三厘公债六百万，现在已经涨到每股七十七法郎；还有价值二百万的金子，十万现款，其他零星的收入还不计在内。她财产的总值大概有一千七百万。

“可是堂兄弟在哪里啊？”她咕哝着。

克罗旭公证人把遗产清册交给欧也妮的那天，她和拿侬两个在壁炉架两旁各据一方地坐着，在这间空荡荡的堂屋内，一切都是回忆，从母亲坐惯的草垫椅子起，到堂兄弟喝过的玻璃杯为止。

“拿侬，我们孤独了！”

“是的，小姐；哎，要是我知道他在哪里，我会走着去把他找来，这俏冤家。”

“汪洋大海隔着我们呢。”

正当可怜的承继人，在这所包括了她整个天地的又冷又暗的屋里，跟老女仆两个相对饮泣的时候，从南德到奥莱昂，大家议论纷纷，只谈着葛朗台小姐的一千七百万家私。她的第一批行事中间，一桩便是给了拿侬一千二百法郎终身年金。拿侬原来有六百法郎，加上这一笔，立刻变成一门有陪嫁的好亲事。不到一个月，她从闺女一变而为人家的媳妇，嫁给替葛朗台小姐看守田地产业的安东纳·高诺阿莱了。高诺阿莱太太比当时旁的妇女占很大的便宜。五十九岁的年纪看上去不超过四十。粗糙的线条不怕时间的侵蚀。一向过着修道院式的生活，她的鲜红的皮色，铁一般硬棒的身体，根本不知衰老为何物。也许她从没有结婚那天好看过。生得丑倒是沾了光，她高大，肥胖，结实；毫不见老的脸上，有一股幸福的神气，叫有些人羡慕高诺阿莱的福分。

“她气色很好。”那个开布店的说。

“她还能够生孩子呢，”盐商说，“说句你不爱听的话，她好像在盐卤里腌过，不会坏的。”

“她很有钱，高诺阿莱这小子眼力倒不错。”另外一个街坊说。

人缘很好的拿侬从老屋里出来，走下弯弯曲曲的街，上教堂去的时候，一路受到人家祝贺。

欧也妮送的贺礼是三打餐具。高诺阿莱想不到主人这样慷慨，一提到小姐便流眼泪：他甚至肯为她丢掉脑袋。成为欧也妮的心腹之后，高诺阿莱太太在嫁了丈夫的快乐以外，又添了一桩快乐：因为终于轮到她来把伙食房打开，关上，早晨去分配粮食，好似她去世的老主人一样。其次，归她调度的还有两名仆役，一个是厨娘，一个是收拾屋子、修补衣裳被服、缝制小姐衣衫的女仆。高诺阿莱兼做看守与总管。不消说，拿侬挑选来的厨娘与女仆都是上选之才。这样，葛朗台小姐有了四个忠心的仆役。老头儿生前管理田产的办法早已成为老例章程，现在再由高诺阿莱夫妇小心翼翼地继续下去，那些庄稼人简直不觉得老主人已经去世。

注：

[1]　酒浸面包：系莫里哀喜剧中语，说鹦鹉吃了酒浸的面包，才会说话。

[2]　原文作Mogol，应译为莫卧儿。（本书责任编辑注）