You see, my cousin, how candidly I am laying the state of my heart, my hopes, and my fortunes before you. Perhaps after seven years of separation you may yourself have forgotten our childish love affair, but I have never forgotten your goodness or my promise. A less conscientious, a less upright man, with a heart less youthful than mine, might scarcely feel himself bound by it; but for me a promise, however lightly given, is sacred. When I tell you plainly that my marriage is solely a marriage of suitability, and that I have not forgotten the love of our youthful days, am I not putting myself entirely into your hands, and making you the arbitress of my fate? Is it not implied that if I must renounce my social ambitions, I shall willingly content myself with the simple and pure happiness which is always called up by the thought of you …
“Tra-la-la-tan-ta-ti!” sang Charles Grandet to the air of “Non piü andrai,” as he signed himself,
“By Jove! that is acting handsomely,” he said to himself. He looked about him for the cheque, slipped it in, and added a postscript.
P.S.—I enclose a cheque on Mme. des Grassins for eight thousand francs, payable in gold to your order, comprising the capital and interest of the sum you were so kind as to advance me. I am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few things which you must allow me to send you as a token of my unceasing gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the diligence to the Hôtel d’Aubrion, Rue Hillerin-Bertin.
“By the diligence!” cried Eugénie, “when I would have given my life for it a thousand times!”
Terrible and complete shipwreck of hope; the vessel had gone down, there was not a spar, not a plank in the vast ocean. There are women who when their lover forsakes them will drag him from a rival’s arms and murder her, and fly for refuge to the ends of the earth, to the scaffold, or the grave. There is a certain grandeur in this, no doubt; there is something so sublime in the passion of indignation which prompts the crime, that man’s justice is awed into silence; but there are other women who suffer and bow their heads. They go on their way, submissive and brokenhearted, weeping and forgiving, praying till their last sigh for him whom they never forget. And this no less is love, love such as the angels know, love that bears itself proudly in anguish, that lives by the secret pain of which it dies at last. This was to be Eugénie’s love now that she had read that horrible letter.
She raised her eyes to the sky and thought of her mother’s prophetic words, uttered in the moment of clear vision that is sometimes given to dying eyes; and as she thought of her mother’s life and death, it seemed to her that she was looking out over her own future. There was nothing left to her now but to live prayerfully till the day of her deliverance should come and the soul spread its wings for heaven.
“My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer—and die.”
She went slowly from the garden into the house, avoiding the passage; but when she came into the old gray parlor, it was full of memories of her cousin. On the chimneypiece there stood a certain china saucer, which she used every morning, and the old Sèvres sugar basin.
It was to be a memorable and eventful day for Eugénie. Nanon announced the curé of the parish church. He was related to the Cruchots, and therefore in the interests of the President de Bonfons. For some days past, the Abbé had urged the curé to speak seriously to Mlle. Grandet about the duty of marriage from a religious point of view for a woman in her position. Eugénie, seeing her pastor, fancied that he had come for the thousand francs which she gave him every month for the poor of his parish, and sent Nanon for the money; but the curate began with a smile, “Today, mademoiselle, I have come to take counsel with you about a poor girl in whom all Saumur takes an interest, and who, through lack of charity to herself, is not living as a Christian should.”
“Mon Dieu! M. le Curé, just now I can think of nobody but myself. I am very miserable, my only refuge is in the Church; her heart is large enough to hold all human sorrows, her love so inexhaustible that we need never fear to drain it dry.”
“Well, mademoiselle, when we speak of this girl, we shall speak of you. Listen! If you would fain work out your salvation, there are but two ways open to you; you must either leave the world, or live in the world and submit to its laws—you must choose between the earthly and the heavenly vocation.”
“Ah! your voice speaks to me when I need to hear a voice. Yes, God has sent you to me. I will bid the world farewell, and live for God alone, in silence and seclusion.”
“But, my daughter, you should think long and prayerfully before taking so strong a measure. Marriage is life, the veil and the convent is death.”
“Yes, death. Ah! if death would only come quickly, M. le Curé,” she said, with dreadful eagerness.
“Death? But you have great obligations to fulfil towards society, mademoiselle. There is your family of poor, to whom you give clothes and firing in winter and work in summer. Your great fortune is a loan, of which you must give account one day. You have always looked on it as a sacred trust. It would be selfish to bury yourself in a convent, and you ought not to live alone in the world. In
