“Good!” said Grandet; “that is all right!” He rubbed his hands as he read the letters which des Grassins wrote to him on the subject.
Yet others refused to consent to the aforesaid deposit unless their position was clearly defined in the first place; it was to be made without prejudice, and they reserved the right to declare the estate bankrupt should they deem it advisable. This opened a fresh correspondence, and occasioned a further delay, after which Grandet finally agreed to all the conditions, and as a consequence the more tractable creditors brought the recalcitrant to hear reason, and the deposit was made, not, however, without some grumbling.
“That old fellow is laughing in his sleeve at you and at us too,” said they to des Grassins.
Twenty-three months after Guillaume Grandet’s death, many of the merchants had forgotten all about their claims in the course of events in a business life in Paris, or they only thought of them to say to themselves—
“It begins to look as though the forty-seven percent is about all I shall get out of that business.”
The cooper had reckoned on the aid of Time, who, so he was wont to say, is a good fellow. By the end of the third year, des Grassins wrote to Grandet saying that he had induced most of the creditors to give up their bills, and that the amount now owing was only about ten percent of the outstanding two million four hundred thousand francs. Grandet replied that there yet remained the notary and the stockbroker, whose failures had been the death of his brother; they were still alive. They might be solvent again by this time, and proceedings ought to be taken against them; something might be recovered in this way which would still further reduce the sum-total of the deficit.
When the fourth year drew to a close the deficit had been duly brought down to the sum of twelve hundred thousand francs; the limit appeared to have been reached. Six months were further spent in parleyings between the trustees and the creditors, and between Grandet and the trustees. In short, strong pressure being brought to bear upon Grandet of Saumur, he announced, somewhere about the ninth month of the same year, that his nephew, who had made a fortune in the East Indies, had signified his intention of settling in full all claims on his father’s estate; and that meantime he could not take it upon himself to act, nor to defraud the creditors by winding up the affair before he had consulted his nephew; he added that he had written to him, and was now awaiting an answer.
The middle of the fifth year had been reached, and still the creditors were held in check by the magic words in full, let fall judiciously from time to time by the sublime cooper, who was laughing at them in his sleeve; “those Parisians,” he would say to himself, with a mild oath, and a cunning smile would steal across his features.
In fact, a martyrdom unknown to the calendars of commerce was in store for the creditors. When next they appear in the course of this story, they will be found in exactly the same position that they were in now when Grandet had done with them. Consols went up to a hundred and fifteen, old Grandet sold out, and received from Paris about two million four hundred thousand francs in gold, which went into his wooden kegs to keep company with the six hundred thousand francs of interest which his investment had brought in.
Des Grassins stayed on in Paris, and for the following reasons. In the first place, he had been appointed a deputy; and in the second, he, the father of a family, bored by the exceeding dullness of existence in Saumur, was smitten with the charms of Mlle. Florine, one of the prettiest actresses of the Théâtre de Madame, and there was a recrudescence of the quartermaster in the banker. It is useless to discuss his conduct; at Saumur it was pronounced to be profoundly immoral. It was very lucky for his wife that she had brains enough to carry on the concern at Saumur in her own name, and could extricate the remains of her fortune, which had suffered not a little from M. des Grassins’ extravagance and folly. But the quasi-widow was in a false position, and the Cruchotins did all that in them lay to make matters worse; she had to give up all hope of a match between her son and Eugénie Grandet, and married her daughter very badly. Adolphe des Grassins went to join his father in Paris, and there acquired, so it was said, an unenviable reputation. The triumph of the Cruchotins was complete.
“Your husband has taken leave of his senses,” Grandet took occasion to remark as he accommodated Mme. des Grassins with a loan (on good security). “I am very sorry for you; you are a nice little woman.”
“Ah!” sighed the poor lady, “who could have believed that day when he set out for Paris to see after that business of yours that he was hurrying to his own ruin?”
“Heaven is my witness, madame, that to the very last I did all I could to prevent him, and M. le Président was dying to go; but we know now why your husband
