In the morning M. Grandet had gone to Eugénie’s room before she had left her bed, and had solemnly presented her with a rare gold coin. It was her father’s wont to surprise her in this way twice every year—once on her birthday, once on the equally memorable day of her patron saint. Mme. Grandet usually gave her daughter a winter or a summer dress, according to circumstances. The two dresses and two gold coins, which she received on her father’s birthday and on New Year’s Day, altogether amounted to an annual income of nearly a hundred crowns; Grandet loved to watch the money accumulating in her hands. He did not part with his money; he felt that it was only like taking it out of one box and putting it into another; and besides, was it not, so to speak, fostering a proper regard for gold in his heiress? she was being trained in the way in which she should go. Now and then he asked for an account of her wealth (formerly swelled by gifts from the La Bertellières), and each time he did so he used to tell her, “This will be your ‘dozen’ when you are married.”
The “dozen” is an old-world custom which has lost none of its force, and is still religiously adhered to in several midland districts in France. In Berri or Anjou when a daughter is married, it is incumbent upon her parents, or upon her bridegroom’s family, to give her a purse containing either a dozen, or twelve dozen, or twelve hundred gold or silver coins, the amount varying with the means of the family. The poorest herd-girl would not be content without her dozen when she married, even if she could only bring twelve pence as a dower. They talk even yet at Issoudun of a fabulous dozen once given to a rich heiress, which consisted of a hundred and forty-four Portuguese moidores; and when Catherine de Medicis was married to Henry II, her uncle, Clement VII, gave the bride a dozen antique gold medals of priceless value.
Eugénie wore her new dress at dinner, and looked prettier than usual in it; her father was in high good humor.
“Let us have a fire,” he cried, “as it is Eugénie’s birthday! It will be a good omen!”
“Mademoiselle will be married within the year, that’s certain,” said big Nanon, as she removed the remains of a goose, that pheasant of the coopers of Saumur.
“There is no one that I know of in Saumur who would do for Eugénie,” said Mme. Grandet, with a timid glance at her husband, a glance that revealed how completely her husband’s tyranny had broken the poor woman’s spirit.
Grandet looked at his daughter, and said merrily, “We must really begin to think about her; the little girl is twenty-three years old today.”
Neither Eugénie nor her mother said a word, but they exchanged glances; they understood each other.
Mme. Grandet’s face was thin and wrinkled and yellow as saffron; she was awkward and slow in her movements, one of those beings who seem born to be tyrannized over. She was a large-boned woman, with a large nose, large eyes, and a prominent forehead; there seemed to be, at first sight, some dim suggestion of a resemblance between her and some shriveled, spongy, dried-up fruit. The few teeth that remained to her were dark and discolored; there were deep lines fretted about her mouth, and her chin was something after the “nutcracker” pattern. She was a good sort of woman, and a La Bertellière to the backbone. The Abbé Cruchot had more than once found occasion to tell her that she had not been so bad looking when she was young, and she did not disagree with him. An angelic sweetness of disposition, the helpless meekness of an insect in the hands of cruel children, a sincere piety, a kindly heart, and an even temper that nothing could ruffle or sour, had gained universal respect and pity for her.
Her appearance might provoke a smile, but she had brought her husband more than three hundred thousand francs, partly as her dowry, partly through bequests. Yet Grandet never gave his wife more than six francs at a time for pocket money; and she always regarded herself as dependent upon her husband. The meek gentleness of her nature forbade any revolt against his tyranny; but so deeply did she feel the humiliation of her position, that she had never asked him for a sou, and when M. Cruchot demanded her signature to any document, she always gave it without a word. This foolish sensitive pride, which Grandet constantly and unwittingly hurt, this magnanimity which he was quite incapable of understanding, were Mme. Grandet’s dominant characteristics.
Her dress never varied. Her gown was always of the same dull, greenish shade of laventine, and usually lasted her nearly a twelvemonth; the large handkerchief at her throat was of some kind of cotton material; she wore a straw bonnet, and was seldom seen
