He broke off suddenly, for he heard M. des Grassins saying to the old cooper, as he held out his hand—
“Grandet, we have heard of the dreadful misfortunes which have befallen your family—the ruin of the firm of Guillaume Grandet and your brother’s death; we have come to express our sympathy with you in this sad calamity.”
“There is only one misfortune,” the notary interrupted at this point—“the death of the younger M. Grandet; and if he had thought to ask his brother for assistance, he would not have taken his own life. Our old friend here, who is a man of honor to his finger tips, is prepared to discharge the debts contracted by the firm of Grandet in Paris. In order to spare our friend the worry of what is, after all, a piece of lawyer’s business, my nephew the president offers to start immediately for Paris, so as to arrange with the creditors, and duly satisfy their claims.”
The three des Grassins were thoroughly taken aback by these words; Grandet appeared to acquiesce in what had been said, for he was pensively stroking his chin. On their way to the house the family had commented very freely upon Grandet’s niggardliness, and indeed had almost gone so far as to accuse him of fratricide.
“Ah! just what I expected!” cried the banker, looking at his wife, “What was I saying to you only just now as we came along, Mme. des Grassins? Grandet, I said, is a man who will never swerve a hair’s-breadth from the strict course of honor; he will not endure the thought of the slightest spot on his name! Money without honor is a disease. Oh! we have a keen sense of honor in the provinces! This is noble—really noble of you, Grandet. I am an old soldier, and I do not mince matters, I say what I think straight out; and mille tonnerres! this is sublime!”
“Then the s-s-sub-sublime costs a great d-d-deal,” stuttered the cooper, as the banker shook him warmly by the hand.
“But this, my good Grandet (no offence to you, M. le Président), is simply a matter of business,” des Grassins went on, “and requires an experienced man of business to deal with it. There will have to be accounts kept of sales and outgoing expenses; you ought to have tables of interest at your finger ends. I must go to Paris on business of my own, and I could undertake—”
“Then we must s-s-see about it, and t-t-t-try to arrange between us to p-p-provide for anything that m-may t-t-turn up, but I d-d-don’t want to be d-d-drawn into anything that I would rather not d-d-d-do,’ ” continued Grandet, “because, you see, M. le Président naturally wants me to pay his expenses.” The good man did not stammer over these last words.
“Eh?” said Mme. des Grassins. “Why, it is a pleasure to stay in Paris! For my part, I should be glad to go there at my own expense.”
She made a sign to her husband, urging him to seize this opportunity of discomfiting their enemies and cheat them of their mission. Then she flung a withering glance at the now crestfallen and miserable Cruchots. Grandet seized the banker by the buttonhole and drew him aside.
“I should feel far more confidence in you than in the president,” he remarked; “and besides that,” he added (and the wen twitched a little), “there are other fish to fry. I want to make an investment. I have several thousand francs to put into consols, and I don’t mean to pay more than eighty for them. Now, from all I can hear, that machine always runs down at the end of the month. You know all about these things, I expect?”
“Pardieu! I should think I did. Well, then, I shall have to buy several thousand livres worth of consols for you?”
“Just by way of a beginning. But mum, I want to play at this game without letting anyone know about it. You will buy them for me at the end of the month, and say nothing to the Cruchots; it would only annoy them. Since you are going to Paris, we might as well see at the same time what trumps are for my poor nephew’s sake.”
“That is an understood thing. I shall travel post to Paris tomorrow,” said des Grassins aloud, “and I will come round to take your final instructions at—when shall we say?”
“At five o’clock, before dinner,” said the vinegrower, rubbing his hands.
The two factions for a little while remained facing each other. Des Grassins broke the silence again, clapping Grandet on the shoulder, and saying—
“It is a fine thing to have a good uncle like—”
“Yes, yes,” returned Grandet, falling into the stammer again, “without m-making any p-p-parade about it; I am a good uncle; I l-l-loved my brother; I will give p-p-p-proof of it, if-if-if it d-doesn’t cost—”
Luckily the banker interrupted him at this point.
“We must go, Grandet. If I am to set out sooner than I intended, I shall have to see after some business at once before I go.”
“Right, quite right. I myself, in connection with you know what, must p-p-put on my cons-s-sidering cap, as P-President Cruchot s-s-says.”
“Plague take it! I am no longer M. de Bonfons,” thought the magistrate moodily, and his face fell; he looked like a judge who is bored by the cause before him.
The heads of the rival clans went out together. Both had completely forgotten Grandet’s treacherous crime of that morning; his disloyal behavior had faded from their minds. They sounded each other, but to no purpose, as to the goodman’s real intentions (if intentions he had) in this new turn that matters had taken.
“Are you coming with us to Mme. Dorsonval’s?” des Grassins asked the notary.
“We are going there later on,” replied
