“Mme. Grandet, have you finished?” asked the cooper.
“I am praying for you, dear.”
“Very well, good night. Tomorrow morning I shall have something to say to you.”
Poor woman! she betook herself to sleep like a schoolboy who has not learned his lessons, and sees before him the angry face of the master when he wakes. Sheer terror led her to wrap the sheets about her head to shut out all sounds, but just at that moment she felt a kiss on her forehead; it was Eugénie who had slipped into the room in the darkness, and stood there barefooted in her nightdress.
“Oh! mother, my kind mother,” she said, “I shall tell him tomorrow morning that it was all my doing.”
“No, don’t; if you do, he will send you away to Noyers. Let me manage it; he will not eat me, after all.”
“Oh! mamma, do you hear?”
“What?”
“He is crying still.”
“Go back to bed, dear. The floor is damp, it will strike cold to your feet.”
So ended the solemn day, which had brought for the poor wealthy heiress a lifelong burden of sorrow; never again would Eugénie Grandet sleep as soundly or as lightly as heretofore. It not seldom happens that at some time in their lives this or that human being will act literally “unlike himself,” and yet in very truth in accordance with his nature. Is it not rather that we form our hasty conclusions of him without the aid of such light as psychology affords, without attempting to trace the mysterious birth and growth of the causes which led to these unforeseen results? And this passion, which had its roots in the depths of Eugénie’s nature, should perhaps be studied as if it were the delicate fibre of some living organism to discover the secret of its growth. It was a passion that would influence her whole life, so that one day it would be sneeringly called a malady. Plenty of people would prefer to consider a catastrophe improbable rather than undertake the task of tracing the sequence of the events that led to it, to discovering how the links of the chain were forged one by one in the mind of the actor. In this case Eugénie’s past life will suffice to keen observers of human nature; her artless impulsiveness, her sudden outburst of tenderness will be no surprise to them. Womanly pity, that treacherous feeling, had filled her soul but the more completely because her life had been so uneventful that it had never been so called forth before.
So the trouble and excitement of the day disturbed her rest; she woke again and again to listen for any sound from her cousin’s room, thinking that she still heard the moans that all day long had vibrated through her heart. Sometimes she seemed to see him lying up there, dying of grief; sometimes she dreamed that he was being starved to death. Towards morning she distinctly heard a terrible cry. She dressed herself at once, and in the dim light of the dawn fled noiselessly up the stairs to her cousin’s room. The door stood open, the wax candle had burned itself down to the socket. Nature had asserted herself; Charles, still dressed, was sleeping in the armchair, with his head fallen forward on the bed; he had been dreaming as famished people dream. Eugénie admired the fair young face. It was flushed and tear-stained; the eyelids were swollen with weeping; he seemed to be still crying in his sleep, and Eugénie’s own tears fell fast. Some dim feeling that his cousin was present awakened Charles; he opened his eyes, and saw her distress.
“Pardon me, cousin,” he said dreamily. Evidently he had lost all reckoning of time, and did not know where he was.
“There are hearts here that feel for you, cousin, and we thought that you might perhaps want something. You should go to bed; you will tire yourself out if you sleep like that.”
“Yes,” he said, “that is true.”
“Goodbye,” she said, and fled, half in confusion, half glad that she had come. Innocence alone dares to be thus bold, and virtue armed with knowledge weighs its actions as carefully as vice.
Eugénie had not trembled in her cousin’s presence, but when she reached her own room again she could scarcely stand. Her ignorant life had suddenly come to an end; she remonstrated with herself, and blamed herself again and again. “What will he think of me? He will believe that I love him.” Yet she knew that this was exactly what she wished him to believe. Love spoke plainly within her, knowing by instinct how love calls forth love. The moment when she stole into her cousin’s room became a memorable event in the girl’s lonely life. Are there not thoughts and deeds which, in love, are for some souls like a solemn betrothal?
An hour later she went to her mother’s room, to help her to dress, as she always did. Then the two women went downstairs and took their places by the window, and waited for Grandet’s coming in the anxiety which freezes or burns. Some natures cower, and others grow reckless, when a scene or painful agitation is in prospect; the feeling of
