Eugénie Grandet

Eugénie was sitting on the little bench in the garden where her cousin had sworn eternal love, and where she often took breakfast in summer mornings. The poor girl was almost happy for a few brief moments; she went over all the great and little events of her love before those catastrophes that followed. The morning was fresh and bright, and the garden was full of light; her eyes wandered over the wall with its moss and flowers; it was full of cracks now, and all but in ruins, but no one was allowed to touch it, though Cornoiller was always prophesying to his wife that the whole thing would come down and crush somebody or other one of these days. The postman knocked at the door, and gave a letter into the hands of Mme. Cornoiller, who hurried into the garden, crying, “Mademoiselle! A letter! Is it the letter?” she added, as she handed it to her mistress.

The words rang through Eugénie’s heart as the spoken sounds rang from the ramparts and the old garden wall.

“Paris!⁠ ⁠… It is his writing! Then he has come back.”

Eugénie’s face grew white; for several seconds she kept the seal unbroken, for her heart beat so fast that she could neither move nor see. Big Nanon stood and waited with both hands on her hips; joy seemed to puff like smoke from every wrinkle in her brown face.

“Do read it, mademoiselle!”

“Oh! why does he come back by way of Paris, Nanon, when he went by way of Saumur?”

“Read it; the letter will tell you why.”

Eugénie’s fingers trembled as she opened the envelope; a cheque on the firm of “Mme. des Grassins et Corret, Saumur,” fell out of it and fluttered down. Nanon picked it up.

My dear Cousin⁠ ⁠…

(“I am not ‘Eugénie’ now,” she thought, and her heart stood still.)

You⁠ ⁠…

“He used to say thou!” She folded her arms and dreaded to read any further; great tears gathered in her eyes.

“What is it? Is he dead?” asked Nanon.

“If he were, he could not write,” said Eugénie, and she read the letter through. It ran as follows:⁠—

My dear Cousin⁠—You will, I am sure, hear with pleasure of the success of my enterprise. You brought me luck; I have come back to France a wealthy man, as my uncle advised. I have just heard of his death, together with that of my aunt, from M. des Grassins. Our parents must die in the course of nature, and we ourselves must follow them. I hope that by this time you are consoled for your loss; time cures all trouble, as I know by experience. Yes, my dear cousin, the day of illusions is gone by for me. I am sorry, but it cannot be helped. I have knocked about the world so much, and seen so much, that I have been led to reflect on life. I was a child when I went away; I have come back a man, and I have many things to think about now which I did not even dream of then. You are free, my cousin, and I too am free still; there is apparently nothing to hinder the realization of our youthful hopes; but I am too straightforward to hide my present situation from you. I have not for a moment forgotten that I am bound to you; through all my wanderings I have always remembered the little wooden bench⁠—

Eugénie started up as if she were sitting on burning coals, and sat down on one of the broken stone steps in the yard.

—the little wooden bench where we vowed to love each other forever; the passage, the gray parlor, my attic room, the night when in your thoughtfulness and tact you made my future easier to me. Yes, these memories have been my support; I have said in my heart that you were always thinking of me when I thought of you at the hour we had agreed upon. Did you not look out into the darkness at nine o’clock? Yes, I am sure you did. I would not prove false to so sacred a friendship; I cannot deal insincerely with you.

A marriage has been proposed to me, which is in every way satisfactory to my mind. Love in a marriage is romantic nonsense. Experience has clearly shown me that in marrying we must obey social laws and conform to conventional ideas. There is some difference of age between you and me, which would perhaps be more likely to affect your future than mine, and there are other differences of which I need not speak; your bringing up, your ways of life, and your tastes have not fitted you for Parisian life, nor would they harmonize with the future which I have marked out for myself. For instance, it is part of my plan to maintain a great household, and to see a good deal of society; and you, I am sure, from my recollections of you, would prefer a quiet, domestic life and home-keeping ways. No, I will be open with you; I will abide by your decision; but I must first, however, lay all the facts of the case before you, that you may the better judge.

I possess at the time of writing an income of eighty thousand livres. With this fortune I am able to marry into the d’Aubrion family; I should take their name on my marriage with their only daughter, a girl of nineteen, and secure at the same time a very brilliant position in society and the post of gentleman-of-the-bedchamber. I will assure you at once, my dear cousin, that I have not the slightest affection for Mlle. d’Aubrion, but by this marriage I shall secure for my children a social rank which will be of inestimable value in the future. Monarchical principles are daily gaining ground. A few years hence my son, the Marquis d’Aubrion, would have an entailed estate and a yearly rental of forty thousand livres; with such