The Best Works of Balzac. Оноре де Бальзак

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СКАЧАТЬ bedchamber; the room itself was his office. The single window which lighted it, on the side of the court, was protected by a lattice of strong iron bars. No one, not even Madame Grandet, had permission to enter it. The old man chose to be alone, like an alchemist in his laboratory. There, no doubt, some hiding-place had been ingeniously constructed; there the title-deeds of property were stored; there hung the scales on which to weigh the louis; there were devised, by night and secretly, the estimates, the profits, the receipts, so that business men, finding Grandet prepared at all points, imagined that he got his cue from fairies or demons; there, no doubt, while Nanon’s loud snoring shook the rafters, while the wolf-dog watched and yawned in the courtyard, while Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleeping, came the old cooper to cuddle, to con over, to caress and clutch and clasp his gold. The walls were thick, the screens sure. He alone had the key of this laboratory, where—so people declared—he studied the maps on which his fruit-trees were marked, and calculated his profits to a vine, and almost to a twig.

      The door of Eugenie’s chamber was opposite to the walled-up entrance to this room. At the other end of the landing were the appartements of the married pair, which occupied the whole front of the house. Madame Grandet had a room next to that of Eugenie, which was entered through a glass door. The master’s chamber was separated from that of his wife by a partition, and from the mysterious strong-room by a thick wall. Pere Grandet lodged his nephew on the second floor, in the high mansarde attic which was above his own bedroom, so that he might hear him if the young man took it into his head to go and come. When Eugenie and her mother reached the middle of the landing they kissed each other for good-night; then with a few words of adieu to Charles, cold upon the lips, but certainly very warm in the heart of the young girl, they withdrew into their own chambers.

      “Here you are in your room, my nephew,” said Pere Grandet as he opened the door. “If you need to go out, call Nanon; without her, beware! the dog would eat you up without a word. Sleep well. Good-night. Ha! why, they have made you a fire!” he cried.

      At this moment Nanon appeared with the warming pan.

      “Here’s something more!” said Monsieur Grandet. “Do you take my nephew for a lying-in woman? Carry off your brazier, Nanon!”

      “But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gentleman is as delicate as a woman.”

      “Well, go on, as you’ve taken it into your head,” said Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; “but don’t set things on fire.” So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling indistinct sentences.

      Charles stood aghast in the midst of his trunks. After casting his eyes on the attic-walls covered with that yellow paper sprinkled with bouquets so well known in dance-houses, on the fireplace of ribbed stone whose very look was chilling, on the chairs of yellow wood with varnished cane seats that seemed to have more than the usual four angles, on the open night-table capacious enough to hold a small sergeant-at-arms, on the meagre bit of rag-carpet beside the bed, on the tester whose cloth valance shook as if, devoured by moths, it was about to fall, he turned gravely to la Grande Nanon and said,—

      “Look here! my dear woman, just tell me, am I in the house of Monsieur Grandet, formerly mayor of Saumur, and brother to Monsieur Grandet of Paris?”

      “Yes, monsieur; and a very good, a very kind, a very perfect gentleman. Shall I help you to unpack your trunks?”

      “Faith! yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn’t you serve in the marines of the Imperial Guard?”

      “Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Nanon. “What’s that,—the marines of the guard? Is it salt? Does it go in the water?”

      “Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise; there’s the key.”

      Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing-gown made of green silk, brocaded with gold flowers of an antique design.

      “Are you going to put that on to go to bed with?” she asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Holy Virgin! what a beautiful altar-cloth it would make for the parish church! My dear darling monsieur, give it to the church, and you’ll save your soul; if you don’t, you’ll lose it. Oh, how nice you look in it! I must call mademoiselle to see you.”

      “Come, Nanon, if Nanon you are, hold your tongue; let me go to bed. I’ll arrange my things to-morrow. If my dressing-gown pleases you so much, you shall save your soul. I’m too good a Christian not to give it to you when I go away, and you can do what you like with it.”

      Nanon stood rooted to the ground, gazing at Charles and unable to put faith into his words.

      “Good night, Nanon.”

      “What in the world have I come here for?” thought Charles as he went to sleep. “My father is not a fool; my journey must have some object. Pshaw! put off serious thought till the morrow, as some Greek idiot said.”

      “Blessed Virgin! how charming he is, my cousin!” Eugenie was saying, interrupting her prayers, which that night at least were never finished.

      Madame Grandet had no thoughts at all as she went to bed. She heard the miser walking up and down his room through the door of communication which was in the middle of the partition. Like all timid women, she had studied the character of her lord. Just as the petrel foresees the storm, she knew by imperceptible signs when an inward tempest shook her husband; and at such times, to use an expression of her own, she “feigned dead.”

      Grandet gazed at the door lined with sheet-iron which he lately put to his sanctum, and said to himself,—

      “What a crazy idea of my brother to bequeath his son to me! A fine legacy! I have not fifty francs to give him. What are fifty francs to a dandy who looked at my barometer as if he meant to make firewood of it!”

      In thinking over the consequences of that legacy of anguish Grandet was perhaps more agitated than his brother had been at the moment of writing it.

      “I shall have that golden robe,” thought Nanon, who went to sleep tricked out in her altar-cloth, dreaming for the first time in her life of flowers, embroidery, and damask, just as Eugenie was dreaming of love.

      In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of earthly things had come for Eugenie.

      An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,—a business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single eyelet. And then, wishing for СКАЧАТЬ