Something had certainly happened in the Grandet family, both Cruchotins and Grassinistes were agreed on that head; and “What can be the matter with the Grandets?” became a stock question which people asked each other at every social gathering in Saumur.
Eugénie went regularly to church, escorted by Nanon. If Mme. des Grassins spoke to her in the porch as she came out, the girl would answer evasively, and the lady’s curiosity remained ungratified. But after two months spent in this fashion it was almost impossible to hide the real state of affairs from Mme. des Grassins or from the Cruchots; a time came when all pretexts were exhausted, and Eugénie’s constant absence still demanded an explanation. A little later, though no one could say how or when the secret leaked out, it became common property, and the whole town knew that ever since New Year’s Day Mlle. Grandet had been locked up in her room by her father’s orders, and that there she lived on bread and water in solitary confinement, and without a fire. Nanon, it was reported, cooked dainties for her, and brought food secretly to her room at night. Further particulars were known. It was even said that only when Grandet was out of the house could the young girl nurse her mother, or indeed see her at all.
People blamed Grandet severely. He was regarded as an outlaw, as it were, by the whole town; all his hardness, his bad faith was remembered against him, and everyone shunned him. They whispered and pointed at him as he went by; and as his daughter passed along the crooked street on her way to mass or to vespers, with Nanon at her side, people would hurry to their windows and look curiously at the wealthy heiress’ face—a face so sad and so divinely sweet.
The town gossip reached her ears as slowly as it reached her father’s. Her imprisonment and her father’s displeasure were as nothing to her; had she not her map of the world? And from her window could she not see the little bench, the old wall, and the garden walks? Was not the sweetness of those past kisses still upon her lips? So, sustained by love and by the consciousness of her innocence in the sight of God, she could patiently endure her solitary life and her father’s anger; but there was another sorrow, so deep and so overwhelming that Eugénie could not find a refuge from it. The gentle, patient mother was gradually passing away; it seemed as if the beauty of her soul shone out more and more brightly in those dark days as she drew nearer to the tomb. Eugénie often bitterly blamed herself for this illness, telling herself that she had been the innocent cause of the painful malady that was slowly consuming her mother’s life; and, in spite of all her mother said to comfort her, this remorseful feeling made her cling more closely to the love she was to lose so soon. Every morning, as soon as her father had left the house, she went to sit at her mother’s bedside. Nanon used to bring her breakfast to her there. But for poor Eugénie in her sadness, this suffering was almost more than she could bear; she looked at her mother’s face, and then at Nanon, with tears in her eyes, and was dumb; she did not dare to speak of her cousin now. It was always Mme. Grandet who began to talk of him; it was she who was forced to say, “Where is he? Why does he not write?”
Neither mother nor daughter had any idea of the distance.
“Let us think of him without talking about him, mother,” Eugénie would answer. “You are suffering; you come before everyone;” and when she said, “everyone,” Eugénie meant “him.”
“I have no wish to live any longer, children,” Mme. Grandet used to say. “God in His protecting care has led me to look forward joyfully to death as the end of my sorrows.”
Everything that she said was full of Christian piety. For the first few months of the year her husband breakfasted in her room, and always, as he walked restlessly about, he heard the same words from her, uttered with angelic gentleness, but with firmness; the near approach of death had given her the courage which she had lacked all her life.
“Thank you, sir, for the interest which you take in my health,” she said in response to the merest formality of an inquiry; “but if you really wish to sweeten the bitterness of my last moments, and to alleviate my sufferings, forgive our daughter, and act like a Christian, a husband, and a father.”
At these words Grandet would come and sit down by the bed, much as a man who is threatened by a shower betakes himself resignedly to the nearest sheltering archway. He would say nothing, and his wife might say what she liked. To the most pathetic, loving, and fervent prayers, he would reply, “My poor wife, you are looking a bit pale today.”
His daughter seemed to have passed entirely out of his mind; the mention of her name brought no change over his stony face and hard-set mouth. He always gave the same vague answers to her pleadings, couched in almost the same words, and did not heed his wife’s white face, nor the tears that flowed down her cheeks.
“May God forgive you, as I do, sir,” she said. “You will have need of mercy some day.”
Since his wife’s illness had begun he had not ventured to make use of his formidable “Tut, tut, tut,” but his tyranny was not relaxed one whit by his wife’s angelic gentleness.
Her plain face was growing almost beautiful now as a beautiful nature showed itself more and
