Charles came into the dining-room looking white and sad; there was a pathetic charm about his gestures, his face, his looks, the tones of his voice; his sorrow had given him the interesting look that women like so well, and Eugénie only loved him the more because his features were worn with pain. Perhaps, too, this trouble had brought them nearer in other ways. Charles was no longer the rich and handsome young man who lived in a sphere far beyond her ken; he was a kinsman in deep and terrible distress, and sorrow is a great leveler. Woman has this in common with the angels—all suffering creatures are under her protection.
Charles and Eugénie understood each other without a word being spoken on either side. The poor dandy of yesterday, fallen from his high estate, today was an orphan, who sat in a corner of the room, quiet, composed, and proud; but from time to time he met his cousin’s eyes, her kind and affectionate glance rested on him, and compelled him to shake off his dark and sombre forebodings, and to look forward with her to a future full of hope, in which she loved to think that she might share.
The news of Grandet’s dinner-party caused even greater excitement in Saumur than the sale of his vintage, although this latter proceeding had been a crime of the blackest dye, an act of high treason against the vine-growing interest. If Grandet’s banquet to the Cruchots has been prompted by the same idea which on a memorable occasion cost Alcibiades’ dog its tail, history might perhaps have heard of the miser; but he felt himself to be above public opinion in this town which he exploited; he held Saumur too cheap.
It was not long before the des Grassins heard of Guillaume Grandet’s violent end and impending bankruptcy. They determined to pay a visit to their client that evening, to condole with him in his affliction, and to show a friendly interest; while they endeavored to discover the motives which could have led Grandet to invite the Cruchots to dinner at such a time.
Precisely at five o’clock President C. de Bonfons and his uncle the notary arrived, dressed up to the nines this time. The guests seated themselves at table, and began by attacking their dinner with remarkably good appetites. Grandet was solemn, Charles was silent, Eugénie was dumb, and Mme. Grandet said no more than usual; if it had been a funeral repast, it could not well have been less lively. When they rose from the table, Charles addressed his aunt and uncle—
“Will you permit me to withdraw? I have some long and difficult letters to write.”
“By all means, nephew.”
When Charles had left the room, and his amiable relative could fairly assume that he was out of earshot and deep in his correspondence, Grandet gave his wife a sinister glance.
“Mme. Grandet, what we are going to say will be Greek to you; it is half-past seven o’clock, you ought to be off to bed by this time. Good night, my daughter.” He kissed Eugénie, and mother and daughter left the room.
Then the drama began. Now, if ever in his life, Grandet displayed all the shrewdness which he had acquired in the course of his long experience of men and business, and all the cunning which had gained him the nickname of “old fox” among those who had felt his teeth a little too sharply. Had the ambition of the late Mayor of Saumur soared a little higher; if he had had the luck to rise to a higher social sphere, and destiny had sent him to mingle in some congress in which the fate of nations is at stake, the genius which he was now devoting to his own narrow ends would doubtless have done France glorious service. And yet, after all, the probability is that once away from Saumur the worthy cooper would have cut but a poor figure, and that minds, like certain plants and animals, are sterile when removed to a distant climate and an alien soil.
“M-m-monsieur le P-p-président, you were s-s-saying that b-b-bankruptcy—”
Here the trick of stammering which it had pleased the vinegrower to assume so long ago that everyone believed it to be natural to him (like the deafness of which he was wont to complain in rainy weather), grew so unbearably tedious for the Cruchot pair, that as they strove to catch the syllables, they made unconscious grimaces, moving their lips as if they would fain finish the words in which the cooper entangled both himself and them at his pleasure.
And here, perhaps, is the fitting place to record the history of Grandet’s deafness and the impediment in his speech. No one in Anjou had better hearing or could speak Angevin French more clearly and distinctly than the wily vinegrower—when he chose. Once upon a time, in spite of all his shrewdness, a Jew had got the better of him. In the course of their discussion the Israelite had applied his hand to his ear, in the manner of an ear-trumpet, the better to catch what was said, and had gibbered to such purpose in his search for a word, that Grandet, a victim to his own humanity, felt constrained to suggest to that crafty Hebrew the words and ideas of which the Israelite appeared to be in search, to finish himself the reasonings of the said Hebrew, to say for that accursed alien all that he ought to have said for himself, till Grandet ended by fairly changing places with the Jew.
From this curious contest of wits the vinegrower did not emerge triumphant; indeed, for the first and last time in his business career he made a bad bargain. But loser though he was
