英语听力 学英语,练听力,上听力课堂! 注册 登录
> 在线听力 > 有声读物 > 世界名著 > 译林版·欧也妮·葛朗台 >  内容

双语·欧也妮·葛朗台 中产阶级的面目

所属教程:译林版·欧也妮·葛朗台

浏览:

2022年05月11日

手机版
扫描二维码方便学习和分享

I

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street—now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain sections—is remarkable for the resonance of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped by the ramparts.

Houses three centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the attention of artists and antiquaries. It is difficult to pass these houses without admiring the enormous oaken beams, their ends carved into fantastic figures, which crown with a black bas-relief the lower floor of most of them.

In one place these transverse timbers are covered with slate and mark a bluish line along the frail wall of a dwelling covered by a roof en colombage which bends beneath the weight of years, and whose rotting shingles are twisted by the alternate action of sun and rain. In another place blackened, worn-out window-sills, with delicate sculptures now scarcely discernible, seem too weak to bear the brown clay pots from which springs the heart's-ease or the rose-bush of some poor working-woman. Farther on are doors studded with enormous nails, where the genius of our forefathers has traced domestic hieroglyphics, of which the meaning is now lost forever. Here a Protestant attested his belief; there a Leaguer cursed Henry IV.; elsewhere some bourgeois has carved the insignia of his noblesse de cloches, symbols of his long-forgotten magisterial glory. The whole history of France is there. Next to a tottering house with roughly plastered walls, where an artisan enshrines his tools, rises the mansion of a country gentleman, on the stone arch of which above the door vestiges of armorial bearings may still be seen, battered by the many revolutions that have shaken France since 1789.

In this hilly street the ground-floors of the merchants are neither shops nor warehouses; lovers of the Middle Ages will here find the ouvrouere of our forefathers in all its naive simplicity. These low rooms, which have no shop-frontage, no show-windows, in fact no glass at all, are deep and dark and without interior or exterior decoration. Their doors open in two parts, each roughly iron-bound;the upper half is fastened back within the room, the lower half, fitted with a spring-bell, swings continually to and fro. Air and light reach the damp den within, either through the upper half of the door, or through an open space between the ceiling and a low front wall, breast-high, which is closed by solid shutters that are taken down every morning, put up every evening, and held in place by heavy iron bars.This wall serves as a counter for the merchandise. No delusive display is there; only samples of the business, whatever it may chance to be—such, for instance, as three or four tubs full of codfish and salt, a few bundles of sail-cloth, cordage, copper wire hanging from the joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged along the wall, or a few pieces of cloth upon the shelves.

Enter. A neat girl, glowing with youth, wearing a white kerchief, her arms red and bare, drops her knitting and calls her father or her mother, one of whom comes forward and sells you what you want, phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly, according to his or her individual character, whether it be a matter of two sous’ or twenty thousand francs’ worth of merchandise.

You may see a cooper, for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns nothing more than a few miserable boat-ribs and two or three bundles of laths; but below in the port his teeming wood-yard supplies all the cooperage trade of Anjou. He knows to a plank how many casks are needed if the vintage is good. A hot season makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single morning puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six.

In this country, as in Touraine, atmospheric vicissitudes control commercial life. Wine-growers, proprietors, wood-merchants, coopers, inn-keepers, mariners, all keep watch of the sun. They tremble when they go to bed lest they should hear in the morning of a frost in the night; they dread rain, wind, drought, and want water, heat, and clouds to suit their fancy. A perpetual duel goes on between the heavens and their terrestrial interests. The barometer smooths, saddens, or makes merry their countenances, turn and turn about.

From end to end of this street, formerly the Grand’Rue de Saumur, the words: “Here’s golden weather,” are passed from door to door; or each man calls to his neighbor: “It rains louis,” knowing well what a sunbeam or the opportune rainfall is bringing him. On Saturdays after midday, in the fine season, not one sou’s worth of merchandise can be bought from these worthy traders. Each has his vineyard, his enclosure of fields, and all spend two days in the country. This being foreseen, and purchases, sales, and profits provided for, the merchants have ten or twelve hours to spend in parties of pleasure, in making observations, in criticisms, and in continual spying. A housewife cannot buy a partridge without the neighbors asking the husband if it were cooked to a turn. A young girl never puts her head near a window that she is not seen by idling groups in the street. Consciences are held in the light; and the houses, dark, silent, impenetrable as they seem, hide no mysteries.

Life is almost wholly in the open air; every household sits at its own threshold, breakfasts, dines, and quarrels there. No one can pass along the street without being examined; in fact formerly, when a stranger entered a provincial town he was bantered and made game of from door to door. From this came many good stories, and the nickname copieux, which was applied to the inhabitants of Angers, who excelled in such urban sarcasms.

The ancient mansions of the old town of Saumur are at the top of this hilly street, and were formerly occupied by the nobility of the neighborhood. The melancholy dwelling where the events of the following history took place is one of these mansions—venerable relics of a century in which men and things bore the characteristics of simplicity which French manners and customs are losing day by day.

Follow the windings of the picturesque thoroughfare, whose irregularities awaken recollections that plunge the mind mechanically into reverie, and you will see a somewhat dark recess, in the centre of which is hidden the door of the house of Monsieur Grandet.

It is impossible to understand the force of this provincial expression—the house of Monsieur Grandet—without giving the biography of Monsieur Grandet himself.

Monsieur Grandet enjoyed a reputation in Saumur whose causes and effects can never be fully understood by those who have not, at one time or another, lived in the provinces. In 1789, Monsieur Grandet—still called by certain persons le Pere Grandet, though the number of such old persons has perceptibly diminished—was a master-cooper, able to read, write, and cipher. At the period when the French Republic offered for sale the church property in the arrondissement of Saumur, the cooper, then forty years of age, had just married the daughter of a rich wood-merchant. Supplied with the ready money of his own fortune and his wife’s dot, in all about two thousand louis-d’or, Grandet went to the newly established“district,” where, with the help of two hundred double louis given by his father-in-law to the surly republican who presided over the sales of the national domain, he obtained for a song, legally if not legitimately, one of the finest vineyards in the arrondissement, an old abbey, and several farms.

The inhabitants of Saumur were so little revolutionary that they thought Pere Grandet a bold man, a republican, and a patriot with a mind open to all the new ideas; though in point of fact it was open only to vineyards. He was appointed a member of the administration of Saumur, and his pacific influence made itself felt politically and commercially.

Politically, he protected the ci-devant nobles, and prevented, to the extent of his power, the sale of the lands and property of the emigres; commercially, he furnished the Republican armies with two or three thousand puncheons of white wine, and took his pay in splendid fields belonging to a community of women whose lands had been reserved for the last lot.

Under the Consulate Grandet became mayor, governed wisely, and harvested still better pickings. Under the Empire he was called Monsieur Grandet. Napoleon, however, did not like republicans, and superseded Monsieur Grandet (who was supposed to have worn the Phrygian cap) by a man of his own surroundings, a future baron of the Empire. Monsieur Grandet quitted office without regret. He had constructed in the interests of the town certain fine roads which led to his own property; his house and lands, very advantageously assessed, paid moderate taxes; and since the registration of his various estates, the vineyards, thanks to his constant care, had become the “head of the country,”—a local term used to denote those that produced the finest quality of wine. He might have asked for the cross of the Legion of honor.

This event occurred in 1806. Monsieur Grandet was then fifty-seven years of age, his wife thirty-six, and an only daughter, the fruit of their legitimate love, was ten years old.

Monsieur Grandet, whom Providence no doubt desired to compensate for the loss of his municipal honors, inherited three fortunes in the course of this year—that of Madame de la Gaudiniere, born de la Bertelliere, the mother of Madame Grandet;that of old Monsieur de la Bertelliere, her grandfather; and, lastly, that of Madame Gentillet, her grandmother on the mother’s side:three inheritances, whose amount was not known to any one. The avarice of the deceased persons was so keen that for a long time they had hoarded their money for the pleasure of secretly looking at it. Old Monsieur de la Bertelliere called an investment an extravagance, and thought he got better interest from the sight of his gold than from the profits of usury. The inhabitants of Saumur consequently estimated his savings according to “the revenues of the sun’s wealth,” as they said.

Monsieur Grandet thus obtained that modern title of nobility which our mania for equality can never rub out. He became the most imposing personage in the arrondissement. He worked a hundred acres of vineyard, which in fruitful years yielded seven or eight hundred hogsheads of wine. He owned thirteen farms, an old abbey, whose windows and arches he had walled up for the sake of economy—a measure which preserved them—also a hundred and twenty-seven acres of meadow-land, where three thousand poplars, planted in 1793, grew and flourished; and finally, the house in which he lived.

Such was his visible estate; as to his other property, only two persons could give even a vague guess at its value: one was Monsieur Cruchot, a notary employed in the usurious investments of Monsieur Grandet; the other was Monsieur des Grassins, the richest banker in Saumur, in whose profits Grandet had a certain covenanted and secret share.Although old Cruchot and Monsieur des Grassins were both gifted with the deep discretion which wealth and trust beget in the provinces, they publicly testified so much respect to Monsieur Grandet that observers estimated the amount of his property by the obsequious attention which they bestowed upon him.

In all Saumur there was no one not persuaded that Monsieur Grandet had a private treasure, some hiding-place full of louis, where he nightly took ineffable delight in gazing upon great masses of gold. Avaricious people gathered proof of this when they looked at the eyes of the good man, to which the yellow metal seemed to have conveyed its tints. The glance of a man accustomed to draw enormous interest from his capital acquires, like that of the libertine, the gambler, or the sycophant, certain indefinable habits—furtive, eager, mysterious movements, which never escape the notice of his co-religionists. This secret language is in a certain way the freemasonry of the passions.

Monsieur Grandet inspired the respectful esteem due to one who owed no man anything, who, skilful cooper and experienced wine-grower that he was, guessed with the precision of an astronomer whether he ought to manufacture a thousand puncheons for his vintage, or only five hundred, who never failed in any speculation, and always had casks for sale when casks were worth more than the commodity that filled them, who could store his whole vintage in his cellars and bide his time to put the puncheons on the market at two hundred francs, when the little proprietors had been forced to sell theirs for five louis. His famous vintage of 1811, judiciously stored and slowly disposed of, brought him in more than two hundred and forty thousand francs. Financially speaking, Monsieur Grandet was something between a tiger and a boa-constrictor. He could crouch and lie low, watch his prey a long while, spring upon it, open his jaws, swallow a mass of louis, and then rest tranquilly like a snake in process of digestion, impassible, methodical, and cold.

No one saw him pass without a feeling of admiration mingled with respect and fear; had not every man in Saumur felt the rending of those polished steel claws? For this one, Maitre Cruchot had procured the money required for the purchase of a domain, but at eleven per cent. For that one, Monsieur des Grassins discounted bills of exchange, but at a frightful deduction of interest. Few days ever passed that Monsieur Grandet’s name was not mentioned either in the markets or in social conversations at the evening gatherings. To some the fortune of the old wine-grower was an object of patriotic pride. More than one merchant, more than one innkeeper, said to strangers with a certain complacency: “Monsieur, we have two or three millionaire establishments; but as for Monsieur Grandet, he does not himself know how much he is worth.”

In 1816 the best reckoners in Saumur estimated the landed property of the worthy man at nearly four millions; but as, on an average, he had made yearly, from 1793 to 1817, a hundred thousand francs out of that property, it was fair to presume that he possessed in actual money a sum nearly equal to the value of his estate. So that when, after a game of boston or an evening discussion on the matter of vines, the talk fell upon Monsieur Grandet, knowing people said:“Le Pere Grandet? Le Pere Grandet must have at least five or six millions.”

“You are cleverer than I am; I have never been able to find out the amount,” answered Monsieur Cruchot or Monsieur des Grassins, when either chanced to overhear the remark.If some Parisian mentioned Rothschild or Monsieur Lafitte, the people of Saumur asked if he were as rich as Monsieur Grandet. When the Parisian, with a smile, tossed them a disdainful affirmative, they looked at each other and shook their heads with an incredulous air.

So large a fortune covered with a golden mantle all the actions of this man. If in early days some peculiarities of his life gave occasion for laughter or ridicule, laughter and ridicule had long since died away. His least important actions had the authority of results repeatedly shown. His speech, his clothing, his gestures, the blinking of his eyes, were law to the country-side, where every one, after studying him as a naturalist studies the result of instinct in the lower animals, had come to understand the deep mute wisdom of his slightest actions.

“It will be a hard winter,” said one; “Pere Grandet has put on his fur gloves.”

“Pere Grandet is buying quantities of staves; there will be plenty of wine this year.”

Monsieur Grandet never bought either bread or meat. His farmers supplied him weekly with a sufficiency of capons, chickens, eggs, butter, and his tithe of wheat. He owned a mill; and the tenant was bound, over and above his rent, to take a certain quantity of grain and return him the flour and bran. La Grande Nanon, his only servant, though she was no longer young, baked the bread of the household herself every Saturday. Monsieur Grandet arranged with kitchen-gardeners who were his tenants to supply him with vegetables. As to fruits, he gathered such quantities that he sold the greater part in the market. His fire-wood was cut from his own hedgerows or taken from the half-rotten old sheds which he built at the corners of his fields, and whose planks the farmers carted into town for him, all cut up, and obligingly stacked in his wood-house, receiving in return his thanks. His only known expenditures were for the consecrated bread, the clothing of his wife and daughter, the hire of their chairs in church, the wages of la Grand Nanon, the tinning of the saucepans, lights, taxes, repairs on his buildings, and the costs of his various industries. He had six hundred acres of woodland, lately purchased, which he induced a neighbor’s keeper to watch, under the promise of an indemnity. After the acquisition of this property he ate game for the first time.

Monsieur Grandet’s manners were very simple. He spoke little. He usually expressed his meaning by short sententious phrases uttered in a soft voice. After the Revolution, the epoch at which he first came into notice, the good man stuttered in a wearisome way as soon as he was required to speak at length or to maintain an argument. This stammering, the incoherence of his language, the flux of words in which he drowned his thought, his apparent lack of logic, attributed to defects of education, were in reality assumed, and will be sufficiently explained by certain events in the following history. Four sentences, precise as algebraic formulas, sufficed him usually to grasp and solve all difficulties of life and commerce: “I don’t know; I cannot; I will not; I will see about it.”

He never said yes, or no, and never committed himself to writing. If people talked to him he listened coldly, holding his chin in his right hand and resting his right elbow in the back of his left hand, forming in his own mind opinions on all matters, from which he never receded. He reflected long before making any business agreement. When his opponent, after careful conversation, avowed the secret of his own purposes, confident that he had secured his listener’s assent, Grandet answered: “I can decide nothing without consulting my wife.”

His wife, whom he had reduced to a state of helpless slavery, was a useful screen to him in business. He went nowhere among friends; he neither gave nor accepted dinners; he made no stir or noise, seeming to economize in everything, even movement. He never disturbed or disarranged the things of other people, out of respect for the rights of property.

Nevertheless, in spite of his soft voice, in spite of his circumspect bearing, the language and habits of a coarse nature came to the surface, especially in his own home, where he controlled himself less than elsewhere.

Physically, Grandet was a man five feet high, thick-set, square-built, with calves twelve inches in circumference, knotted knee-joints, and broad shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and pitted by the small-pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead, full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety of making a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His nose, thick at the end, bore a veined wen, which the common people said, not without reason, was full of malice. The whole countenance showed a dangerous cunning, an integrity without warmth, the egotism of a man long used to concentrate every feeling upon the enjoyments of avarice and upon the only human being who was anything whatever to him—his daughter and sole heiress, Eugenie. Attitude, manners, bearing, everything about him, in short, testified to that belief in himself which the habit of succeeding in all enterprises never fails to give to a man.

Thus, though his manners were unctuous and soft outwardly, Monsieur Grandet’s nature was of iron. His dress never varied;and those who saw him to-day saw him such as he had been since 1791. His stout shoes were tied with leathern thongs; he wore, in all weathers, thick woollen stockings, short breeches of coarse maroon cloth with silver buckles, a velvet waistcoat, in alternate stripes of yellow and puce, buttoned squarely, a large maroon coat with wide flaps, a black cravat, and a quaker’s hat. His gloves, thick as those of a gendarme, lasted him twenty months; to preserve them, he always laid them methodically on the brim of his hat in one particular spot.

Saumur knew nothing further about this personage.

Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur Grandet’s house. The most important of the first three was a nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons. Any litigant so ill-advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot, a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.

Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser, and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their faithful allies.

On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the president.This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur Adolphe des Grassins?

To this problem some replied that Monsieur Grandet would never give his daughter to the one or to the other. The old cooper, eaten up with ambition, was looking, they said, for a peer of France, to whom an income of three hundred thousand francs would make all the past, present, and future casks of the Grandets acceptable. Others replied that Monsieur and Madame des Grassins were nobles, and exceedingly rich; that Adolphe was a personable young fellow;and that unless the old man had a nephew of the pope at his beck and call, such a suitable alliance ought to satisfy a man who came from nothing—a man whom Saumur remembered with an adze in his hand, and who had, moreover, worn the bonnet rouge. Certain wise heads called attention to the fact that Monsieur Cruchot de Bonfons had the right of entry to the house at all times, whereas his rival was received only on Sundays. Others, however, maintained that Madame des Grassins was more intimate with the women of the house of Grandet than the Cruchots were, and could put into their minds certain ideas which would lead, sooner or later, to success. To this the former retorted that the Abbe Cruchot was the most insinuating man in the world: pit a woman against a monk, and the struggle was even. “It is diamond cut diamond,” said a Saumur wit.

The oldest inhabitants, wiser than their fellows, declared that the Grandets knew better than to let the property go out of the family, and that Mademoiselle Eugenie Grandet of Saumur would be married to the son of Monsieur Grandet of Paris, a wealthy wholesale wine-merchant. To this the Cruchotines and the Grassinists replied: “In the first place, the two brothers have seen each other only twice in thirty years; and next, Monsieur Grandet of Paris has ambitious designs for his son. He is mayor of an arrondissement, a deputy, colonel of the National Guard, judge in the commercial courts; he disowns the Grandets of Saumur, and means to ally himself with some ducal family—ducal under favor of Napoleon.”

In short, was there anything not said of an heiress who was talked of through a circumference of fifty miles, and even in the public conveyances from Angers to Blois, inclusively!

At the beginning of 1811, the Cruchotines won a signal advantage over the Grassinists. The estate of Froidfond, remarkable for its park, its mansion, its farms, streams, ponds, forests, and worth about three millions, was put up for sale by the young Marquis de Froidfond, who was obliged to liquidate his possessions. Maitre Cruchot, the president, and the abbe, aided by their adherents, were able to prevent the sale of the estate in little lots. The notary concluded a bargain with the young man for the whole property, payable in gold, persuading him that suits without number would have to be brought against the purchasers of small lots before he could get the money for them; it was better, therefore, to sell the whole to Monsieur Grandet, who was solvent and able to pay for the estate in ready money. The fine marquisate of Froidfond was accordingly conveyed down the gullet of Monsieur Grandet, who, to the great astonishment of Saumur, paid for it, under proper discount, with the usual formalities.This affair echoed from Nantes to Orleans.

Monsieur Grandet took advantage of a cart returning by way of Froidfond to go and see his chateau. Having cast a master’s eye over the whole property, he returned to Saumur, satisfied that he had invested his money at five per cent, and seized by the stupendous thought of extending and increasing the marquisate of Froidfond by concentrating all his property there. Then, to fill up his coffers, now nearly empty, he resolved to thin out his woods and his forests, and to sell off the poplars in the meadows.

It is now easy to understand the full meaning of the term, “the house of Monsieur Grandet,”—that cold, silent, pallid dwelling, standing above the town and sheltered by the ruins of the ramparts.

The two pillars and the arch, which made the porte-cochere on which the door opened, were built, like the house itself, of tufa—a white stone peculiar to the shores of the Loire, and so soft that it lasts hardly more than two centuries. Numberless irregular holes, capriciously bored or eaten out by the inclemency of the weather, gave an appearance of the vermiculated stonework of French architecture to the arch and the side walls of this entrance, which bore some resemblance to the gateway of a jail. Above the arch was a long bas-relief, in hard stone, representing the four seasons, the faces already crumbling away and blackened. This bas-relief was surmounted by a projecting plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had sprung up—yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, nettles, plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already grown to some height.

The door of the archway was made of solid oak, brown, shrunken, and split in many places; though frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors calledjaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an antiquary who examined it attentively might have found indications of the figure, essentially burlesque, which it once represented, and which long usage had now effaced.

Through this little grating—intended in olden times for the recognition of friends in times of civil war—inquisitive persons could perceive, at the farther end of the dark and slimy vault, a few broken steps which led to a garden, picturesquely shut in by walls that were thick and damp, and through which oozed a moisture that nourished tufts of sickly herbage. These walls were the ruins of the ramparts, under which ranged the gardens of several neighboring houses.

The most important room on the ground-floor of the house was a large hall, entered directly from beneath the vault of the porte-cochere. Few people know the importance of a hall in the little towns of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry. The hall is at one and the same time antechamber, salon, office, boudoir, and dining-room; it is the theatre of domestic life, the common living-room. There the barber of the neighborhood came, twice a year, to cut Monsieur Grandet’s hair; there the farmers, the cure, the under-prefect, and the miller’s boy came on business. This room, with two windows looking on the street, was entirely of wood. Gray panels with ancient mouldings covered the walls from top to bottom; the ceiling showed all its beams, which were likewise painted gray, while the space between them had been washed over in white, now yellow with age.

An old brass clock, inlaid with arabesques, adorned the mantel of the ill-cut white stone chimney-piece, above which was a greenish mirror, whose edges, bevelled to show the thickness of the glass, reflected a thread of light the whole length of a gothic frame in damascened steel-work. The two copper-gilt candelabra which decorated the corners of the chimney-piece served a double purpose:by taking off the side-branches, each of which held a socket, the main stem—which was fastened to a pedestal of bluish marble tipped with copper—made a candlestick for one candle, which was sufficient for ordinary occasions.

The chairs, antique in shape, were covered with tapestry representing the fables of La Fontaine; it was necessary, however, to know that writer well to guess at the subjects, for the faded colors and the figures, blurred by much darning, were difficult to distinguish.At the four corners of the hall were closets, or rather buffets, surmounted by dirty shelves. An old card-table in marquetry, of which the upper part was a chess-board, stood in the space between the two windows. Above this table was an oval barometer with a black border enlivened with gilt bands, on which the flies had so licentiously disported themselves that the gilding had become problematical.

On the panel opposite to the chimney-piece were two portraits in pastel, supposed to represent the grandfather of Madame Grandet, old Monsieur de la Bertelliere, as a lieutenant in the French guard, and the deceased Madame Gentillet in the guise of a shepherdess. The windows were draped with curtains of red gros de Tours held back by silken cords with ecclesiastical tassels. This luxurious decoration, little in keeping with the habits of Monsieur Grandet, had been, together with the steel pier-glass, the tapestries, and the buffets, which were of rose-wood, included in the purchase of the house.

By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it.

In this spot the lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round of constant work from the month of April to the month of November. On the first day of the latter month they took their winter station by the chimney. Not until that day did Grandet permit a fire to be lighted; and on the thirty-first of March it was extinguished, without regard either to the chills of the early spring or to those of a wintry autumn. A foot-warmer, filled with embers from the kitchen fire, which la Grande Nanon contrived to save for them, enabled Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet to bear the chilly mornings and evenings of April and October.

Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and other necessaries for the daily consumption.

La Grande Nanon was perhaps the only human being capable of accepting willingly the despotism of her master. The whole town envied Monsieur and Madame Grandet the possession of her. La Grande Nanon, so called on account of her height, which was five feet eight inches, had lived with Monsieur Grandet for thirty-five years. Though she received only sixty francs a year in wages, she was supposed to be one of the richest serving-women in Saumur. Those sixty francs, accumulating through thirty-five years, had recently enabled her to invest four thousand francs in an annuity with Maitre Cruchot. This result of her long and persistent economy seemed gigantic. Every servant in the town, seeing that the poor sexagenarian was sure of bread for her old age, was jealous of her, and never thought of the hard slavery through which it had been won.

At twenty-two years of age the poor girl had been unable to find a situation, so repulsive was her face to almost every one. Yet the feeling was certainly unjust: the face would have been much admired on the shoulders of a grenadier of the guard; but all things, so they say, should be in keeping. Forced to leave a farm where she kept the cows, because the dwelling-house was burned down, she came to Saumur to find a place, full of the robust courage that shrinks from no labor.

Le Pere Grandet was at that time thinking of marriage and about to set up his household. He espied the girl, rejected as she was from door to door. A good judge of corporeal strength in his trade as a cooper, he guessed the work that might be got out of a female creature shaped like a Hercules, as firm on her feet as an oak sixty years old on its roots, strong in the hips, square in the back, with the hands of a cartman and an honesty as sound as her unblemished virtue. Neither the warts which adorned her martial visage, nor the red-brick tints of her skin, nor the sinewy arms, nor the ragged garments of la Grande Nanon, dismayed the cooper, who was at that time still of an age when the heart shudders. He fed, shod, and clothed the poor girl, gave her wages, and put her to work without treating her too roughly.

Seeing herself thus welcomed, la Grande Nanon wept secretly tears of joy, and attached herself in all sincerity to her master, who from that day ruled her and worked her with feudal authority. Nanon did everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd exactions. In the famous year of 1811, when the grapes were gathered with unheard-of difficulties, Grandet resolved to give Nanon his old watch—the first present he had made her during twenty years of service. Though he turned over to her his old shoes (which fitted her), it is impossible to consider that quarterly benefit as a gift, for the shoes were always thoroughly worn-out. Necessity had made the poor girl so niggardly that Grandet had grown to love her as we love a dog, and Nanon had let him fasten a spiked collar round her throat, whose spikes no longer pricked her.

If Grandet cut the bread with rather too much parsimony, she made no complaint; she gaily shared the hygienic benefits derived from the severe regime of the household, in which no one was ever ill. Nanon was, in fact, one of the family; she laughed when Grandet laughed, felt gloomy or chilly, warmed herself, and toiled as he did. What pleasant compensations there were in such equality! Never did the master have occasion to find fault with the servant for pilfering the grapes, nor for the plums and nectarines eaten under the trees.

“Come, fall to, Nanon!” he would say in years when the branches bent under the fruit and the farmers were obliged to give it to the pigs.

To the poor peasant who in her youth had earned nothing but harsh treatment, to the pauper girl picked up by charity, Grandet’s ambiguous laugh was like a sunbeam. Moreover, Nanon’s simple heart and narrow head could hold only one feeling and one idea. For thirty-five years she had never ceased to see herself standing before the wood-yard of Monsieur Grandet, ragged and barefooted, and to hear him say: “What do you want, young one?” Her gratitude was ever new.

Sometimes Grandet, reflecting that the poor creature had never heard a flattering word, that she was ignorant of all the tender sentiments inspired by women, that she might some day appear before the throne of God even more chaste than the Virgin Mary herself—Grandet, struck with pity, would say as he looked at her,“Poor Nanon!”

The exclamation was always followed by an undefinable look cast upon him in return by the old servant. The words, uttered from time to time, formed a chain of friendship that nothing ever parted, and to which each exclamation added a link. Such compassion arising in the heart of the miser, and accepted gratefully by the old spinster, had something inconceivably horrible about it. This cruel pity, recalling, as it did, a thousand pleasures to the heart of the old cooper, was for Nanon the sum total of happiness. Who does not likewise say, “Poor Nanon!” God will recognize his angels by the inflexions of their voices and by their secret sighs.

There were very many households in Saumur where the servants were better treated, but where the masters received far less satisfaction in return. Thus it was often said: “What have the Grandets ever done to make their Grande Nanon so attached to them? She would go through fire and water for their sake!”

Her kitchen, whose barred windows looked into the court, was always clean, neat, cold—a true miser’s kitchen, where nothing went to waste. When Nanon had washed her dishes, locked up the remains of the dinner, and put out her fire, she left the kitchen, which was separated by a passage from the living-room, and went to spin hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle sufficed the family for the evening. The servant slept at the end of the passage in a species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there she could hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which reigned night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.

A description of the other parts of the dwelling will be found connected with the events of this history, though the foregoing sketch of the hall, where the whole luxury of the household appears, may enable the reader to surmise the nakedness of the upper floors.

In 1819, at the beginning of an evening in the middle of November, la Grande Nanon lighted the fire for the first time. The autumn had been very fine. This particular day was a fete-day well known to the Cruchotines and the Grassinists. The six antagonists, armed at all points, were making ready to meet at the Grandets and surpass each other in testimonials of friendship.

That morning all Saumur had seen Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet, accompanied by Nanon, on their way to hear Mass at the parish church, and every one remembered that the day was the anniversary of Mademoiselle Eugenie’s birth. Calculating the hour at which the family dinner would be over, Maitre Cruchot, the Abbe Cruchot, and Monsieur C. de Bonfons hastened to arrive before the des Grassins, and be the first to pay their compliments to Mademoiselle Eugenie. All three brought enormous bouquets, gathered in their little green-houses. The stalks of the flowers which the president intended to present were ingeniously wound round with a white satin ribbon adorned with gold fringe.

In the morning Monsieur Grandet, following his usual custom on the days that commemorated the birth and the fete of Eugenie, went to her bedside and solemnly presented her with his paternal gift—which for the last thirteen years had consisted regularly of a curious gold-piece.

Madame Grandet gave her daughter a winter dress or a summer dress, as the case might be. These two dresses and the gold-pieces, of which she received two others on New Year’s day and on her father’s fete-day, gave Eugenie a little revenue of a hundred crowns or thereabouts, which Grandet loved to see her amass. Was it not putting his money from one strong-box to another, and, as it were, training the parsimony of his heiress? from whom he sometimes demanded an account of her treasure (formerly increased by the gifts of the Bertellieres), saying: “It is to be your marriage dozen.”

The “marriage dozen” is an old custom sacredly preserved and still in force in many parts of central France. In Berry and in Anjou,when a young girl marries, her family, or that of the husband, must give her a purse, in which they place, according to their means, twelve pieces, or twelve dozen pieces, or twelve hundred pieces of gold. The poorest shepherd-girl never marries without her dozen, be it only a dozen coppers. They still tell in Issoudun of a certain“dozen” presented to a rich heiress, which contained a hundred and forty-four portugaises d’or. Pope Clement VII., uncle of Catherine de’ Medici, gave her when he married her to Henri II. a dozen antique gold medals of priceless value.

During dinner the father, delighted to see his Eugenie looking well in a new gown, exclaimed: “As it is Eugenie’s birthday let us have a fire; it will be a good omen.”

“Mademoiselle will be married this year, that’s certain,” said la Grande Nanon, carrying away the remains of the goose—the pheasant of tradesmen.

“I don’t see any one suitable for her in Saumur,” said Madame Grandet, glancing at her husband with a timid look which, considering her years, revealed the conjugal slavery under which the poor woman languished.

Grandet looked at his daughter and exclaimed gaily—

“She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child; we must soon begin to think of it.”

Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance of intelligence.

Madame Grandet was a dry, thin woman, as yellow as a quince, awkward, slow, one of those women who are born to be down-trodden. She had big bones, a big nose, a big forehead, big eyes, and presented at first sight a vague resemblance to those mealy fruits that have neither savor nor succulence. Her teeth were black and few in number, her mouth was wrinkled, her chin long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, a true la Bertelliere. L’abbe Cruchot found occasional opportunity to tell her that she had not done ill;and she believed him. Angelic sweetness, the resignation of an insect tortured by children, a rare piety, a good heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made her universally pitied and respected.

Her husband never gave her more than six francs at a time for her personal expenses. Ridiculous as it may seem, this woman, who by her own fortune and her various inheritances brought Pere Grandet more than three hundred thousand francs, had always felt so profoundly humiliated by her dependence and the slavery in which she lived, against which the gentleness of her spirit prevented her from revolting, that she had never asked for one penny or made a single remark on the deeds which Maitre Cruchot brought for her signature. This foolish secret pride, this nobility of soul perpetually misunderstood and wounded by Grandet, ruled the whole conduct of the wife.

Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown of greenish levantine silk, endeavoring to make it last nearly a year; with it she wore a large kerchief of white cotton cloth, a bonnet made of plaited straws sewn together, and almost always a black-silk apron. As she seldom left the house she wore out very few shoes. She never asked anything for herself.

Grandet, seized with occasional remorse when he remembered how long a time had elapsed since he gave her the last six francs, always stipulated for the “wife’s pin-money” when he sold his yearly vintage. The four or five louis presented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who purchased the wine were the chief visible signs of Madame Grandet’s annual revenues.

But after she had received the five louis, her husband would often say to her, as though their purse were held in common: “Can you lend me a few sous?” and the poor woman, glad to be able to do something for a man whom her confessor held up to her as her lord and master, returned him in the course of the winter several crowns out of the “pin-money.”

When Grandet drew from his pocket the five-franc piece which he allowed monthly for the minor expenses—thread, needles, and toilet—of his daughter, he never failed to say as he buttoned his breeches’ pocket: “And you, mother, do you want anything?”

“My friend,” Madame Grandet would answer, moved by a sense of maternal dignity, “we will see about that later.”

Wasted dignity! Grandet thought himself very generous to his wife. Philosophers who meet the like of Nanon, of Madame Grandet, of Eugenie, have surely a right to say that irony is at the bottom of the ways of Providence.

After the dinner at which for the first time allusion had been made to Eugenie’s marriage, Nanon went to fetch a bottle of black-currant ratafia from Monsieur Grandet’s bed-chamber, and nearly fell as she came down the stairs.

“You great stupid!” said her master; “are you going to tumble about like other people, hey?”

“Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which has given way.”

“She is right,” said Madame Grandet; “it ought to have been mended long ago. Yesterday Eugenie nearly twisted her ankle.”

“Here,” said Grandet to Nanon, seeing that she looked quite pale, “as it is Eugenie’s birthday, and you came near falling, take a little glass of ratafia to set you right.”

“Faith! I’ve earned it,” said Nanon; “most people would have broken the bottle; but I’d sooner have broken my elbow holding it up high.”

“Poor Nanon!” said Grandet, filling a glass.

“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Eugenie, looking kindly at her.

“No, I didn’t fall; I threw myself back on my haunches.”

“Well! as it is Eugenie’s birthday,” said Grandet, “I’ll have the step mended. You people don’t know how to set your foot in the corner where the wood is still firm.”

Grandet took the candle, leaving his wife, daughter, and servant without any other light than that from the hearth, where the flames were lively, and went into the bakehouse to fetch planks, nails, and tools.

“Can I help you?” cried Nanon, hearing him hammer on the stairs.

“No, no! I’m an old hand at it,” answered the former cooper.

At the moment when Grandet was mending his worm-eaten staircase and whistling with all his might, in remembrance of the days of his youth, the three Cruchots knocked at the door.

“Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?” asked Nanon, peeping through the little grating.

“Yes,” answered the president.

Nanon opened the door, and the light from the hearth, reflected on the ceiling, enabled the three Cruchots to find their way into the room.

“Ha! you’ve come a-greeting,” said Nanon, smelling the flowers.

“Excuse me, messieurs,” cried Grandet, recognizing their voices; “I’ll be with you in a moment. I’m not proud; I am patching up a step on my staircase.”

“Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man’s house is his castle,”said the president sententiously.

Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting by the darkness, said to Eugenie:

“Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the day of your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of the health which you now enjoy?”

He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were rare in Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed her on each side of her neck with a complacency that made her blush. The president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his courtship was progressing.

“Don’t stand on ceremony,” said Grandet, entering. “How well you do things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!”

“When it concerns mademoiselle,” said the abbe, armed with his own bouquet, “every day is a fete-day for my nephew.”

The abbe kissed Eugenie’s hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he boldly kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: “How we sprout up, to be sure! Every year is twelve months.”

As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who never forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he thought them funny, said—

“As this is Eugenie’s birthday let us illuminate.”

He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a socket on each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with paper twisted round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made it firm, lit it, and then sat down beside his wife, looking alternately at his friends, his daughter, and the two candles. The Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little man, with a red wig plastered down and a face like an old female gambler, said as he stretched out his feet, well shod in stout shoes with silver buckles: “The des Grassins have not come?”

“Not yet,” said Grandet.

“But are they coming?” asked the old notary, twisting his face, which had as many holes as a collander, into a queer grimace.

“I think so,” answered Madame Grandet.

“Are your vintages all finished?” said Monsieur de Bonfons to Grandet.

“Yes, all of them,” said the old man, rising to walk up and down the room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the words, “all of them.”

Through the door of the passage which led to the kitchen he saw la Grande Nanon sitting beside her fire with a candle and preparing to spin there, so as not to intrude among the guests.

“Nanon,” he said, going into the passage, “put out that fire and that candle, and come and sit with us. Pardieu! the hall is big enough for all.”

“But monsieur, you are to have the great people.”

“Are not you as good as they? They are descended from Adam, and so are you.”

Grandet came back to the president and said—

“Have you sold your vintage?”

“No, not I; I shall keep it. If the wine is good this year, it will be better two years hence. The proprietors, you know, have made an agreement to keep up the price; and this year the Belgians won’t get the better of us. Suppose they are sent off empty-handed for once, faith! they’ll come back.”

“Yes, but let us mind what we are about,” said Grandet in a tone which made the president tremble.

“Is he driving some bargain?” thought Cruchot.

At this moment the knocker announced the des Grassins family, and their arrival interrupted a conversation which had begun between Madame Grandet and the abbe.

Madame des Grassins was one of those lively, plump little women, with pink-and-white skins, who, thanks to the claustral calm of the provinces and the habits of a virtuous life, keep their youth until they are past forty. She was like the last rose of autumn—pleasant to the eye, though the petals have a certain frostiness, and their perfume is slight. She dressed well, got her fashions from Paris, set the tone to Saumur, and gave parties.

Her husband, formerly a quartermaster in the Imperial guard, who had been desperately wounded at Austerlitz, and had since retired, still retained, in spite of his respect for Grandet, the seeming frankness of an old soldier.

“Good evening, Grandet,” he said, holding out his hand and affecting a sort of superiority, with which he always crushed the Cruchots. “Mademoiselle,” he added, turning to Eugenie, after bowing to Madame Grandet, “you are always beautiful and good, and truly I do not know what to wish you.”

So saying, he offered her a little box which his servant had brought and which contained a Cape heather—a flower lately imported into Europe and very rare.

Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately, pressed her hand, and said: “Adolphe wishes to make you my little offering.”

A tall, blond young man, pale and slight, with tolerable manners and seemingly rather shy, although he had just spent eight or ten thousand francs over his allowance in Paris, where he had been sent to study law, now came forward and kissed Eugenie on both cheeks, offering her a workbox with utensils in silver-gilt—mere show-case trumpery, in spite of the monogram E.G. in gothic letters rather well engraved, which belonged properly to something in better taste.

As she opened it, Eugenie experienced one of those unexpected and perfect delights which make a young girl blush and quiver and tremble with pleasure. She turned her eyes to her father as if to ask permission to accept it, and Monsieur Grandet replied: “Take it, my daughter,” in a tone which would have made an actor illustrious.

The three Cruchots felt crushed as they saw the joyous, animated look cast upon Adolphe des Grassins by the heiress, to whom such riches were unheard-of. Monsieur des Grassins offered Grandet a pinch of snuff, took one himself, shook off the grains as they fell on the ribbon of the Legion of honor which was attached to the button-hole of his blue surtout; then he looked at the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say, “Parry that thrust if you can!”

Madame des Grassins cast her eyes on the blue vases which held the Cruchot bouquets, looking at the enemy’s gifts with the pretended interest of a satirical woman. At this delicate juncture the Abbe Cruchot left the company seated in a circle round the fire and joined Grandet at the lower end of the hall. As the two men reached the embrasure of the farthest window the priest said in the miser’s ear: “Those people throw money out of the windows.”

“What does that matter if it gets into my cellar?” retorted the old wine-grower.

“If you want to give gilt scissors to your daughter, you have the means,” said the abbe.

“I give her something better than scissors,” answered Grandet.

“My nephew is a blockhead,” thought the abbe as he looked at the president, whose rumpled hair added to the ill grace of his brown countenance. “Couldn’t he have found some little trifle which cost money?”

“We will join you at cards, Madame Grandet,” said Madame des Grassins.

“We might have two tables, as we are all here.”

“As it is Eugenie’s birthday you had better play loto all together,” said Pere Grandet: “the two young ones can join”; and the old cooper, who never played any game, motioned to his daughter and Adolphe. “Come, Nanon, set the tables.”

“We will help you, Mademoiselle Nanon,” said Madame des Grassins gaily, quite joyous at the joy she had given Eugenie.

“I have never in my life been so pleased,” the heiress said to her; “I have never seen anything so pretty.”

“Adolphe brought it from Paris, and he chose it,” Madame des Grassins whispered in her ear.

“Go on! go on! damned intriguing thing!” thought the president.“If you ever have a suit in court, you or your husband, it shall go hard with you.”

The notary, sitting in his corner, looked calmly at the abbe, saying to himself: “The des Grassins may do what they like; my property and my brother’s and that of my nephew amount in all to eleven hundred thousand francs. The des Grassins, at the most, have not half that; besides, they have a daughter. They may give what presents they like; heiress and presents too will be ours one of these days.”

At half-past eight in the evening the two card-tables were set out. Madame des Grassins succeeded in putting her son beside Eugenie. The actors in this scene, so full of interest, commonplace as it seems, were provided with bits of pasteboard striped in many colors and numbered, and with counters of blue glass, and they appeared to be listening to the jokes of the notary, who never drew a number without making a remark, while in fact they were all thinking of Monsieur Grandet’s millions.

The old cooper, with inward self-conceit, was contemplating the pink feathers and the fresh toilet of Madame des Grassins, the martial head of the banker, the faces of Adolphe, the president, the abbe, and the notary, saying to himself—

“They are all after my money. Hey! neither the one nor the other shall have my daughter; but they are useful—useful as harpoons to fish with.”

This family gaiety in the old gray room dimly lighted by two tallow candles; this laughter, accompanied by the whirr of Nanon’s spinning-wheel, sincere only upon the lips of Eugenie or her mother;this triviality mingled with important interests; this young girl, who, like certain birds made victims of the price put upon them, was now lured and trapped by proofs of friendship of which she was the dupe—all these things contributed to make the scene a melancholy comedy. Is it not, moreover, a drama of all times and all places, though here brought down to its simplest expression? The figure of Grandet, playing his own game with the false friendship of the two families and getting enormous profits from it, dominates the scene and throws light upon it. The modern god—the only god in whom faith is preserved—money, is here, in all its power, manifested in a single countenance.

The tender sentiments of life hold here but a secondary place;only the three pure, simple hearts of Nanon, of Eugenie, and of her mother were inspired by them. And how much of ignorance there was in the simplicity of these poor women! Eugenie and her mother knew nothing of Grandet’s wealth; they could only estimate the things of life by the glimmer of their pale ideas, and they neither valued nor despised money, because they were accustomed to do without it. Their feelings, bruised, though they did not know it,but ever-living, were the secret spring of their existence, and made them curious exceptions in the midst of these other people whose lives were purely material. Frightful condition of the human race! there is no one of its joys that does not come from some species of ignorance.

At the moment when Madame Grandet had won a loto of sixteen sous—the largest ever pooled in that house—and while la Grande Nanon was laughing with delight as she watched madame pocketing her riches, the knocker resounded on the house-door with such a noise that the women all jumped in their chairs.

“There is no man in Saumur who would knock like that,” said the notary.

“How can they bang in that way!” exclaimed Nanon; “Do they want to break in the door?”

“Who the devil is it?” cried Grandet.

Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door, followed by her master.

“Grandet! Grandet!” cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse of fear, and running to the door of the room.

All the players looked at each other.

“Suppose we all go?” said Monsieur des Grassins; “that knock strikes me as evil-intentioned.”

Hardly was Monsieur des Grassins allowed to see the figure of a young man, accompanied by a porter from the coach-office carrying two large trunks and dragging a carpet-bag after him, than Monsieur Grandet turned roughly on his wife and said—

“Madame Grandet, go back to your loto; leave me to speak with monsieur.”

Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited players returned to their seats, but did not continue the game.

“Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des Grassins?”asked his wife.

“No. He is a traveller.”

“He must have come from Paris.”

“Just so,” said the notary, pulling out his watch, which was two inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war; “it’s nine o’clock;the diligence of the Grand Bureau is never late.”

“Is the gentleman young?” inquired the Abbe Cruchot.

“Yes,” answered Monsieur des Grassins, “and he has brought luggage which must weigh nearly three tons.”

“Nanon does not come back,” said Eugenie.

“It must be one of your relations,” remarked the president.

“Let us go on with our game,” said Madame Grandet gently.“I know from Monsieur Grandet’s tone of voice that he is annoyed;perhaps he would not like to find us talking of his affairs.”

“Mademoiselle,” said Adolphe to his neighbor, “it is no doubt your cousin Grandet—a very good-looking young man; I met him at the ball of Monsieur de Nucingen.”

Adolphe did not go on, for his mother trod on his toes; and then, asking him aloud for two sous to put on her stake, she whispered:“Will you hold your tongue, you great goose!”

At this moment Grandet returned, without la Grande Nanon, whose steps, together with those of the porter, echoed up the staircase; and he was followed by the traveller who had excited such curiosity and so filled the lively imaginations of those present that his arrival at this dwelling, and his sudden fall into the midst of this assembly, can only be likened to that of a snail into a beehive, or the introduction of a peacock into some village poultry-yard.

“Sit down near the fire,” said Grandet.

Before seating himself, the young stranger saluted the assembled company very gracefully. The men rose to answer by a courteous inclination, and the women made a ceremonious bow.

“You are cold, no doubt, monsieur,” said Madame Grandet; “you have, perhaps, travelled from—”

“Just like all women!” said the old wine-grower, looking up from a letter he was reading. “Do let monsieur rest himself!”

“But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take something,”said Eugenie.

“He has got a tongue,” said the old man sternly.

The stranger was the only person surprised by this scene; all the others were well-used to the despotic ways of the master. However, after the two questions and the two replies had been exchanged, the newcomer rose, turned his back towards the fire, lifted one foot so as to warm the sole of its boot, and said to Eugenie—

“Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. And,” he added, looking at Grandet, “I need nothing; I am not even tired.”

“Monsieur has come from the capital?” asked Madame des Grassins.

Monsieur Charles—such was the name of the son of Monsieur Grandet of Paris—hearing himself addressed, took a little eye-glass, suspended by a chain from his neck, applied it to his right eye to examine what was on the table, and also the persons sitting round it. He ogled Madame des Grassins with much impertinence, and said to her, after he had observed all he wished—

“Yes, madame. You are playing at loto, aunt,” he added. “Do not let me interrupt you, I beg; go on with your game: it is too amusing to leave.”

“I was certain it was the cousin,” thought Madame des Grassins, casting repeated glances at him.

“Forty-seven!” cried the old abbe. “Mark it down, Madame des Grassins. Isn’t that your number?”

Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife’s card, who sat watching first the cousin from Paris and then Eugenie, without thinking of her loto, a prey to mournful presentiments. From time to time the young heiress glanced furtively at her cousin, and the banker’s wife easily detected acrescendo of surprise and curiosity in her mind.

中产阶级的面目

某些内地城市里面,有些屋子看上去像最阴沉的修道院,最荒凉的旷野,最凄凉的废墟,令人悒郁不欢。修道院的静寂,旷野的枯燥,和废墟的衰败零落,也许这类屋子都有一点。里面的生活起居是那么幽静,要不是街上一有陌生的脚步声,窗口会突然探出一个脸孔像僧侣般的人,一动不动的,黯淡而冰冷的目光把生客瞪上一眼的话,外地客人可能把那些屋子当作没有人住的空屋。

索漠城里有一所住宅,外表就有这些凄凉的成分。一条起伏不平的街,直达城市高处的古堡,那所屋子便在街的尽头。现在已经不大有人来往的那条街,夏天热,冬天冷,有些地方暗得很,可是颇有些特点:小石子铺成的路面,传出清脆的回声,永远清洁,干燥;街面窄而多曲折;两旁的屋子非常幽静,坐落在城脚下,属于老城的部分。

上了三百年的屋子,虽是木造的,还很坚固,各种不同的格式别有风光,使索漠城的这一个区域特别引起考古学家与艺术家的注意。你走过这些屋子,不能不欣赏那些粗大的梁木,两头雕出古怪的形象,盖在大多数的底层上面,成为一条黝黑的浮雕。

有些地方,屋子的横木盖着石板,在不大结实的墙上勾勒出蓝色的图案,木料支架的屋顶,年深月久,往下弯了;日晒雨淋,椽子已经腐烂,翘曲。有些地方,露出破旧黝黑的窗槛,细巧的雕刻已经看不大清,穷苦的女工放上一盆石竹或蔷薇,窗槛似乎就承受不住那棕色的瓦盆。再往前走,有的门上钉着粗大的钉子,我们的祖先异想天开地刻上些奇形怪状的文字,意义是永远没法知道的了;或者是一个新教徒在此表明自己的信仰,或者是一个旧教徒为反对新教而诅咒亨利四世。也有一般布尔乔亚刻些徽号,表示他们是旧乡绅,掌握过当地的行政。这一切中间就有整部法兰西历史的影子。一边是墙壁粉得很粗糙的、摇摇欲坠的屋子,还是工匠卖弄手艺的遗物;贴邻便是一座乡绅的住宅,半圆形门框上的贵族徽号,受过了一七八九年以来历次革命的摧残,还看得出遗迹。

这条街上,做买卖的底层既不是小铺子,也不是大商店,喜欢中世纪文物的人,在此可以遇到一派朴素简陋的气象,完全像我们上代里的习艺工场[1]。宽大低矮的店堂,没有铺面,没有摆在廊下的货摊,没有橱窗,可是很深,黑洞洞的,里里外外没有一点儿装潢。满板的大门分作上下两截,简陋地钉了铁皮;上半截往里打开,下半截装有弹簧的门铃,老是有人开进开出。门旁半人高的墙上,一排厚实的护窗板,白天卸落,夜晚装上,外加铁闩好落锁。这间地窖式的潮湿的屋子,就靠大门的上半截或者窗洞与屋顶之间的空间,透进一些空气与阳光。半人高的墙壁下面,是陈列商品的位置。招徕顾客的玩意儿,这儿是绝对没有的。货色的种类要看铺子的性质:或者摆着两三桶盐和鳕鱼,或者是几捆帆布与绳索,楼板的椽木上挂着黄铜索,靠墙放一排桶箍,再不然架上放些布匹。

你进门吧,一个年轻漂亮的姑娘,干干净净的,戴着白围巾,手臂通红,立刻放下编织物,叫唤她的父亲或母亲来招呼你,也许是两个铜子也许是两万法郎的买卖,对你或者冷淡,或者殷勤,或者傲慢,那得看店主的性格了。

你也可看到一个做酒桶木材的商人,两只大拇指绕来绕去的,坐在门口跟邻居谈天。表面上他只有些起码的酒瓶架或两三捆薄板;但是安育地区所有的箍桶匠,都是向他码头上存货充足的工场购料的。他知道如果葡萄的收成好,他能卖掉多少桶板,估计的准确最多是一两块板上下。一天的好太阳叫他发财,一场雨水叫他亏本:酒桶的市价,一个上午可以从十一法郎跌到六法郎。

这个地方像都兰区域一样,市面是由天气做主的。种葡萄的,有田产的,木材商,箍桶匠,旅店主人,船夫,都眼巴巴地盼望太阳;晚上睡觉,就怕明朝起来听说隔夜结了冰;他们怕风,怕雨,怕旱,一忽儿要雨水,一忽儿要天时转暖,一忽儿又要满天的云。在天公与尘世的利益之间,争执是没得完的。晴雨表能够轮流地叫人愁,叫人笑,叫人高兴。

这条街从前是索漠城的大街,从这一头到那一头,“黄金一般的好天气”这句话,对每份人家都代表一个收入的数目。而且每个人会对邻居说:“是啊,天上落金子下来了。”因为他们知道一道阳光和一场时雨带来多少利益。在天气美好的季节,到了星期六中午,就没法买到一个铜子的东西。做生意的人也有一个葡萄园,一方小园地,全要下乡去忙他两天。买进,卖出,赚头,一切都是预先计算好的,生意人尽可以花大半日的工夫打哈哈,说长道短,刺探旁人的私事。某家的主妇买了一只竹鸡,邻居就要问她的丈夫是否煮得恰到好处。一个年轻的姑娘从窗口探出头来,绝没有办法不让所有的闲人瞧见。因此大家的良心是露天的,那些无从窥测的、又暗又静的屋子,藏不了什么秘密。

一般人差不多老在露天过活:每对夫妇坐在大门口,在那里吃中饭,吃晚饭,吵架拌嘴。街上的行人,没有一个不经过他们研究的。所以从前一个外乡人到内地,免不了到处给人家取笑。许多有趣的故事便是这样来的,安越人的爱寻开心也是这样出名的,因为编这一类的市井笑料是他们的拿手好戏。

早先本地的乡绅全住在这条街上,街的高头都是古城里的老宅子,世道人心都还朴实的时代——这种古风现在是一天天地消灭了——的遗物。我们这个故事中的那所凄凉的屋子,就是其中之一。

古色古香的街上,连偶然遇到的小事都足以唤起你的回忆,全部的气息使你不由自主地沉入遐想。拐弯抹角地走过去,你可以看到一处黑魆魆的凹进去的地方,葛朗台府上的大门便藏在这凹坑中间。

在内地把一个人的家称作府上是有分量的;不知道葛朗台先生的身世,就没法掂出这称呼的分量。

葛朗台先生在索漠城的名望,自有它的前因后果,那是从没在内地耽留过的人不能完全了解的。葛朗台先生,有些人还称他作葛朗台老头,可是这样称呼他的老人越来越少了。他在一七八九年上是一个很富裕的箍桶匠,识得字,能写能算。共和政府在索漠地区标卖教会产业的时候,他正好四十岁,才娶了一个有钱的木板商的女儿。他拿自己的现款和女人的陪嫁,凑成两千金路易,跑到区公所。标卖监督官是一个强凶霸道的共和党人,葛朗台把丈人给的四百路易往他那里一送,就三钱不值两钱地,即使不能算正当,至少是合法地买到了区里最好的葡萄园、一座老修道院和几块分种田。

索漠的市民很少有革命气息,在他们眼里,葛朗台老头是一个激烈的家伙,前进分子,共和党人,关切新潮流的人物;其实箍桶匠只关心葡萄园。上面派他当索漠区的行政委员,于是地方上的政治与商业都受到他温和的影响。

在政治方面,他包庇从前的贵族,想尽方法使流亡乡绅的产业不致被公家标卖;商业方面,他向革命军队承包了一两千桶白酒,代价是把某个女修道院上好的草原,本来留作最后一批标卖的产业,弄到了手。

拿破仑执政的时代,好家伙葛朗台做了区长,把地方上的公事应付得很好,可是他葡萄的收获更好;拿破仑称帝的时候,他变了光杆儿的葛朗台先生。拿破仑不喜欢共和党人,另外派了一个乡绅兼大地主,一个后来晋封为男爵的人来代替葛朗台,因为他有红帽子嫌疑。葛朗台丢掉区长的荣衔,毫不惋惜。在他任内,为了本城的利益,已经造好几条出色的公路直达他的产业。他的房产与地产登记的时候,占了不少便宜,只交很轻的税。自从他各处的庄园登记之后,靠他不断地经营,他的葡萄园变成地方上的顶尖儿,这个专门的形容词是说这种园里的葡萄能够酿成极品的好酒。总而言之,他简直有资格得荣誉团的勋章。

免职的事发生在一八〇六年。那时葛朗台五十七岁,他的女人三十六,他们的独养女儿才十岁。

大概是老天看见他丢了官,想安慰安慰他吧,这一年上葛朗台接连得了三笔遗产,先是他丈母特·拉·古地尼埃太太的,接着是太太的外公特·拉·裴德里埃先生的,最后是葛朗台自己的外婆香蒂埃太太的:这些遗产数目之大,没有一个人知道。三个老人爱钱如命,一生一世都在积聚金钱,以便私下里摩挲把玩。特·拉·裴德里埃老先生把放债叫作挥霍,觉得对黄金看上几眼比放高利贷还实惠。所以他们积蓄的多少,索漠人只能以看得见的收入估计。

于是葛朗台先生得了新的贵族头衔,那是尽管我们爱讲平等也消灭不了的,他成为一州里“纳税最多”的人物。他的葡萄园有一百阿尔邦[2],收成好的年份可以出产七八百桶酒。他还有十三处分种田,一座老修道院,修院的窗子、门洞、彩色玻璃,一齐给他从外面堵死了,既可不付捐税,又可保存那些东西。此外还有一百二十七阿尔邦的草原,上面的三千株白杨是一七九三年种下的。他住的屋子也是自己的产业。

这是他看得见的家私。至于他现金的数目,只有两个人知道一个大概。一个是公证人克罗旭,替葛朗台放债的;另外一个是台·格拉桑,索漠城中最有钱的银行家。葛朗台认为合适的时候跟他暗中合作一下,分些好处。在内地要得人信任,要挣家业,行事非机密不可;老克罗旭与台·格拉桑虽然机密透顶,仍免不了当众对葛朗台毕恭毕敬,使旁观的人看出前任区长的资力何等雄厚。

索漠城里个个人相信葛朗台家里有一个私库,一个堆满金路易的秘窟,说他半夜里瞧着累累的黄金,快乐得无可形容。一般吝啬鬼认为这是千真万确的事,因为看见那好家伙连眼睛都是黄澄澄的,染上了金子的光彩。一个靠资金赚惯大利钱的人,像色鬼、赌徒或帮闲的清客一样,眼风自有那种说不出的神气,一派躲躲闪闪的、馋痨的、神秘的模样,决计瞒不过他的同道。凡是对什么东西着了迷的人,这些暗号无异帮派里的切口。

葛朗台先生从来不欠人家什么,又是老箍桶匠,又是种葡萄的老手,什么时候需要为自己的收成准备一千只桶,什么时候只要五百只桶,他预算得像天文学家一样准确。投机事业从没失败过一次,酒桶的市价比酒还贵的时候,他老是有酒桶出卖。他能够把酒藏起来,等每桶涨到两百法郎才抛出去,一般小地主却早已在一百法郎的时候脱手了。这样一个人物当然博得大家的敬重。那有名的一八一一年的收成,他乖乖地囤在家里,一点一滴地慢慢卖出去,挣了二十四万多法郎。讲起理财的本领,葛朗台先生是只老虎,是条巨蟒:他会躺在那里,蹲在那里,把俘虏打量个半天再扑上去,张开血盆大口的钱袋,倒进大堆的金银,然后安安宁宁地去睡觉,好像一条蛇吃饱了东西,不动声色,冷静非凡,什么事情都按部就班的。

他走过的时候,没有一个人看见了不觉得又钦佩,又敬重,又害怕。索漠城中,不是个个人都给他钢铁般的利爪干净利落地抓过一下的吗?某人为了买田,从克罗旭那里弄到一笔借款,利率要一分一,某人拿期票向台·格拉桑贴现,给先扣了一大笔利息。市场上,或是夜晚的闲谈中间,不提到葛朗台先生大名的日子很少。有些人认为,这个种葡萄老头的财富简直是地方上的一宝,值得夸耀。不少做买卖的,开旅店的,得意扬扬地对外客说:

“嘿,先生,上百万的咱们有两三家;可是葛朗台先生哪,连他自己也不知道究竟有多少家私!”

一八一六年的时候,索漠城里顶会计算的人,估计那好家伙的地产大概值到四百万;但在一七九三到一八一七年中间,平均每年的收入该有十万法郎,由此推算,他所有的现金大约和不动产的价值差不多。因此,打完了一场牌,或是谈了一会儿葡萄的情形,提到葛朗台的时候,一般自作聪明的人就说:“葛朗台老头吗?……总该有五六百万吧。”要是克罗旭或台·格拉桑听到了,就会说:

“你好厉害,我倒从来不知道他的总数呢!”

遇到什么巴黎客人提到洛岂尔特或拉斐德那般大银行家,索漠人就要问,他们是不是跟葛朗台先生一样有钱。如果巴黎人付之一笑,回答说是的,他们便把脑袋一侧,互相瞪着眼,满脸不相信的神气。

偌大一笔财产把这个富翁的行为都镀了金。假使他的生活起居本来有什么可笑、给人家当话柄的地方,那些话柄也早已消灭得无影无踪了。葛朗台的一举一动都像是钦定的,到处行得通;他的说话,衣着,姿势,瞪眼睛,都是地方上的金科玉律;大家把他仔细研究,像自然科学家要把动物的本能研究出它的作用似的,终于发现他最琐屑的动作,也有深邃而不可言传的智慧。譬如,人家说:

“今年冬天一定很冷,葛朗台老头已经戴起皮手套了:咱们该收割葡萄了吧。”

或者说:

“葛朗台老头买了许多桶板,今年的酒一定不少的。”

葛朗台先生从来不买肉,不买面包。每个星期,那些佃户给他送来一份足够的食物:阉鸡,母鸡,鸡子,牛油,麦子,都是抵租的。他有一所磨坊租给人家,磨坊司务除了缴付租金以外,还得亲自来拿麦子去磨,再把面粉跟麸皮送回来。他的独一无二的老妈子,叫作长脚拿侬的,虽然上了年纪,还是每星期六替他做面包。房客之中有种菜的,葛朗台便派定他们供应菜蔬。至于水果,收获之多,可以大部分出售。烧火炉用的木材,是把田地四周的篱垣或烂了一半的老树砍下来,由佃户锯成一段一段的,用小车装进城,他们还有心巴结,替他送进柴房,讨得几声谢。他的开支,据人家知道的,只有教堂里座椅的租费,圣餐费,太太和女儿的衣着,家里的灯烛,拿侬的工钱,锅子的镀锡,国家的赋税,庄园的修理和种植的费用。他新近买了六百阿尔邦的一片树林,托一个近邻照顾,答应给一些津贴。自从他置了这个产业之后,他才吃野味。

这家伙动作非常简单,说话不多,发表意见总是用柔和的声音、简短的句子,搬弄一些老生常谈。从他出头露面的大革命时代起,逢到要长篇大论说一番,或者跟人家讨论什么,他便马上结结巴巴的,弄得对方头昏脑涨。这种口齿不清,理路不明,前言不对后语,以及废话连篇把他的思想弄糊涂了的情形,人家当作是他缺少教育,其实完全是假装的;等会故事中有些情节,就足以解释明白。而且逢到要应付,要解决什么生活上或买卖上的难题,他就搬出四句口诀,像代数公式一样准确,叫作:“我不知道,我不能够,我不愿意,慢慢瞧吧。”

他从来不说一声是或不是,也从来不把黑笔落在白纸上。人家跟他说话,他冷冷地听着,右手托着下巴颏儿,肘子靠在左手背上;无论什么事,他一朝拿定了主意,就永远不变。一点点儿小生意,他也得盘算半天。经过一番钩心斗角的谈话之后,对方自以为心中的秘密保守得密不透风,其实早已吐出了真话。他却回答道:

“我没有跟太太商量过,什么都不能决定。”

给他压得像奴隶般的太太,却是他生意上最方便的遮身牌。他从来不到别人家里去,不吃人家,也不请人家;他没有一点儿声响,似乎什么都要节省,连动作在内。因为没有一刻不尊重旁人的主权,他绝对不动人家的东西。

可是,尽管他声音柔和,态度持重,仍不免露出箍桶匠的谈吐与习惯,尤其在家里,不像在旁的地方那么顾忌。

至于体格,他身高五尺,臃肿,横阔,腿肚子的圆周有一尺,多节的膝盖骨,宽大的肩膀;脸是圆的,乌油油的,有痘瘢;下巴笔直,嘴唇没有一点儿曲线,牙齿雪白;冷静的眼睛好像要吃人,是一般所谓的蛇眼;脑门上布满褶皱,一块块隆起的肉颇有些奥妙;青年人不知轻重,背后开葛朗台先生玩笑,把他黄而灰白的头发叫作金子里掺白银;鼻尖肥大,顶着一颗布满血筋的肉瘤,一般人不无理由地说,这颗瘤里全是刁钻促狭的玩意儿。这副脸相显出他那种阴险的狡猾,显出他有计划的诚实,显出他的自私自利,所有的感情都集中在吝啬的乐趣和他唯一真正关切的独养女儿欧也妮身上。而且姿势、举动、走路的功架,他身上的一切都表示他只相信自己,这是生意上左右逢源养成的习惯。所以表面上虽然性情和易,很好对付,骨子里他却硬似铁石。

他老是同样的装束,从一七九一年以来始终是那身打扮。笨重的鞋子,鞋带也是皮做的;四季都穿一双呢袜,一条栗色的粗呢短裤,用银箍在膝盖下面扣紧;上身穿一件方襟的闪光丝绒背心,颜色一忽儿黄一忽儿古铜色;外面罩一件衣裾宽大的栗色外套,戴一条黑领带,一顶阔边帽子。他的手套跟警察的一样结实,要用到一年零八个月,为保持清洁起见,他有一个一定的手势,把手套放在帽子边缘上一定的位置。

关于这个人物,索漠人所知道的不过这一些。

城里的居民有资格在他家出入的只有六个。前三个中顶重要的是克罗旭先生的侄子。这个年轻人,自从当了索漠初级裁判所所长之后,在本姓克罗旭之上又加了一个篷风的姓氏,并且极力想叫篷风出名。他的签名已经变作克·特·篷风了。倘使有什么冒失的律师仍旧称他“克罗旭先生”,包管在出庭的时候要后悔他的糊涂。凡是称“所长先生”的,就可博得法官的庇护。对于称他“特·篷风先生”的马屁鬼,他更不惜满面春风地报以微笑。所长先生三十三岁,有一处名叫篷风的田庄,每年有七千法郎进款;他还在那里等两个叔父的遗产,一个是克罗旭公证人,一个是克罗旭神父,属于都尔城圣马丁大教堂的教士会的;据说这两人都相当有钱。三位克罗旭,房族既多,城里的亲戚也有一二十家,俨然结成一个党,好像从前佛罗伦萨的那些美第奇一样;而且正如美第奇有巴齐一族跟他们对垒似的,克罗旭也有他们的敌党。

台·格拉桑太太有一个二十三岁的儿子。她很热心地来陪葛朗台太太打牌,希望她亲爱的阿道夫能够和欧也妮小姐结婚。银行家台·格拉桑先生,拿出全副精神从旁协助,对吝啬的老头儿不断地暗中帮忙,逢到攸关大局的紧要关头,从来不落人后。这三位台·格拉桑也有他们的帮手、房族和忠实的盟友。

在克罗旭方面,神父是智囊,加上那个当公证人的兄弟做后援,他竭力跟银行家太太竞争,想把葛朗台的大笔遗产留给自己的侄儿。克罗旭和台·格拉桑两家暗中为争夺欧也妮的斗法,成为索漠城中大家小户热心关切的题目。葛朗台小姐将来嫁给谁呢?所长先生呢还是阿道夫·台·格拉桑?

对于这个问题,有的人的答案是两个都不会到手。据他们说,老箍桶匠野心勃勃,想找一个贵族院议员做女婿,凭他岁收三十万法郎的陪嫁,谁还计较葛朗台过去、现在、将来的那些酒桶?另外一批人却回答说,台·格拉桑是世家,极有钱,阿道夫又是一个俊俏后生,这样一门亲事,一定能叫出身低微,索漠城里都眼见拿过斧头凿子,而且还当过革命党的人心满意足,除非他夹袋里有什么教皇的侄子之流。可是老于世故的人提醒你说,克罗旭·特·篷风先生随时可以在葛朗台家进出,而他的敌手只能在星期日受招待。有的人认为,台·格拉桑太太跟葛朗台家的太太们,比克罗旭一家接近得多,久而久之,一定能说动她们,达到她的目的。有的人却认为克罗旭神父的花言巧语是天下第一,拿女人跟出家人对抗,正好势均力敌。所以索漠城中有一个才子说:

“他们正是旗鼓相当,各有一手。”

据地方上熟知内幕的老辈的看法,像葛朗台那么精明的人家,绝不肯把家私落在外人手里。索漠的葛朗台还有一个兄弟在巴黎,非常有钱的酒商;欧也妮小姐将来是嫁给巴黎葛朗台的儿子的。对这种意见,克罗旭和台·格拉桑两家的党羽都表示异议,说:

“一则两兄弟三十年来没有见过两次面;二则巴黎的葛朗台先生对儿子的期望大得很。他自己是巴黎某区的区长,兼国会议员、禁卫军旅长、商事裁判所推事,自称为跟拿破仑提拔的某公爵有姻亲,早已不承认索漠的葛朗台是本家。”

周围七八十里,甚至在安越到勃洛阿的驿车里,都在谈到这个有钱的独养女儿,七嘴八舌,议论纷纷,当然是应有之事。

一八一七年初,有一桩事情使克罗旭党彰明较著地占了台·格拉桑党上风。法劳丰田产素来以美丽的别庄、园亭、小溪、池塘、森林出名,值到三百万法郎。年轻的法劳丰侯爵急需现款,不得不把这块产业出卖。克罗旭公证人,克罗旭所长,克罗旭神父,再加上他们的党羽,居然把侯爵分段出售的意思打消了。公证人告诉他,分成小块的标卖,势必要跟投标落选的人打不知多少场官司,才能拿到田价;还不如整块儿让给葛朗台先生,既买得起,又能付现钱。公证人这番话把卖主说服了,做成一桩特别便宜的好买卖。侯爵的那块良田美产,就这样地给张罗着送到了葛朗台嘴里。他出乎索漠人意料之外,竟打了些折扣当场把田价付清。这件新闻一直传播到南德与奥莱昂。

葛朗台先生搭着人家回乡的小车,到别庄上视察,以主人的身份对产业瞥了一眼。回到城里,觉得这一次的投资足足有五厘利,他又马上得了一个好主意,预备把全部的田产和法劳丰并在一起。随后,他要把差不多出空了的金库重新填满,决意把他的树木、森林,一齐砍下,再把草原上的白杨也出卖。

葛朗台先生的府上这个称呼,现在你们该明白它的分量了吧。那是一所灰暗、阴森、静寂的屋子,坐落在城区上部,靠着坍毁的城脚。

门框的穹隆与两根支柱,像正屋一样用的混凝土,洛阿河岸特产的一种白石,质地松软,用不到两百年以上的。寒暑的酷烈,把柱头、门洞、门顶,都磨出无数古怪的洞眼,像法国建筑的那种虫蛀样儿,也有几分像监狱的大门。门顶上面,有一长条硬石刻成的浮雕,代表四季的形象已经剥蚀,变黑。浮雕的础石突出在外面,横七竖八地长着野草,黄色的苦菊、五爪龙、旋覆花、车前草,一株小小的樱桃树已经长得很高了。

褐色的大门是独幅的橡木做的,没有油水,到处开裂,看上去很单薄,其实很坚固,因为有一排对花的钉子支持。一边的门上有扇小门,中间开一个小方洞,装了铁栅,排得很密的铁梗锈得发红,铁栅上挂着一个环,上面吊一个敲门用的铁锤,正好敲在一颗奇形怪状的大钉子上。铁锤是长方形的,像古时的钟锤,又像一个肥大的惊叹号;一个玩古董的人仔细打量之下,可以发现锤子当初是一个小丑的形状,但是年深月久,已经磨平了。

那个小铁栅,当初在宗教战争的时代,原是预备给屋内的人探望来客的。现在喜欢东张西望的人,可以从铁栅中间望到黑魆魆的半绿不绿的环洞,环洞底上有几级七零八落的磴级,通上花园:厚实而潮湿的围墙,到处渗出水迹,生满垂头丧气的杂树,倒也另有一番景致。这片墙原是城墙的一部分,邻近人家都利用它布置花园。

楼下最重要的房间是那间“堂屋”,从大门内的环洞进出的。在安育、都兰、裴里各地的小城中间,一间堂屋的重要,外方人是不大懂得的。它同时是穿堂、客厅、书房、上房、饭厅;它是日常生活的中心,全家公用的起居室。本区的理发匠替葛朗台先生一年理两次发是在这里,佃户、教士、县长、磨坊伙计上门的时候,也是在这间屋里。室内铺着地板,有两扇临街的窗;古式嵌线的灰色护壁板从上铺到下,顶上的梁木都露在外面,也漆成灰色;梁木中间的楼板涂着白粉,已经发黄了。

壁炉架上面挂着一面耀出青光的镜子,两旁的边划成斜面,显出玻璃的厚度,一丝丝的闪光照在哥特式的镂花钢框上。壁炉架是粗糙的白石面子,摆着一座黄铜的老钟,壳子上有螺钿嵌成的图案。左右放两盏黄铜的两用烛台,座子是铜镶边的蓝色大理石,矗立着好几枝玫瑰花瓣形的灯芯盘;把这些盘子拿掉,座子又可成为一个单独的烛台,在平常日子应用。

古式的座椅,花绸面子上织着拉封丹的寓言,但不是博学之士,休想认出它们的内容:颜色褪尽,到处是补丁,人物已经看不清楚。四边壁角里放着三角形的酒橱,顶上有几格放零星小件的搁板,全是油腻。两扇窗子中间的板壁下面,有一张嵌木细工的旧牌桌,桌面上画着棋盘。牌桌后面的壁上挂一只椭圆形的晴雨表,黑框子四周有金漆的丝带形花边,苍蝇肆无忌惮地叮在上面张牙舞爪,恐怕不会有多少金漆留下的了。

壁炉架对面的壁上,挂两幅水粉画的肖像,据说一个是葛朗台太太的外公,特·拉·裴德里埃老人,穿着王家禁卫军连长的制服;一个是故香蒂埃太太,绾着一个古式的髻。窗帘用的是都尔红绸,两旁用系有大坠子的丝带吊起。这种奢华的装饰,跟葛朗台一家的习惯很不调和,原来是买进这所屋子的时候就有的,连镜框、座钟、花绸面的家具、红木酒橱等等都是。

靠门的窗洞下面,一张草坐垫的椅子放在一个木座上,使葛朗台太太坐了可以望见街上的行人。另外一张褪色樱桃木的女红台,把窗洞的空间填满了,近旁还有欧也妮的小靠椅。

十五年以来,从四月到十一月,母女俩就在这个位置上安安静静地消磨日子,手里永远拿着活计。十一月初一,她们可以搬到壁炉旁边过冬了。只有到那一天,葛朗台才答应在堂屋里生火,到三月三十一日就得熄掉,不管春寒不管早秋的凉意。四月和十月里最冷的日子,长脚拿侬想法从厨房里腾出些柴炭,安排一只脚炉,给太太和小姐挡挡早晚的寒气。

全家的内衣被服都归母女俩负责,她们专心一意,像女工一样整天劳作,甚至欧也妮想替母亲绣一方挑花领,也只能腾出睡眠的时间来做,还得想出借口来骗取父亲的蜡烛。多年来女儿与拿侬用的蜡烛,吝啬鬼总是亲自分发的,正如每天早上分发面包和食物一样。

也许只有长脚拿侬受得了她主人的那种专制。索漠城里都羡慕葛朗台夫妇有这样一个老妈子。大家叫她长脚拿侬,因为她身高五尺八寸。她在葛朗台家已经做了三十五年。虽然一年的工薪只有六十法郎,大家已经认为她是城里最有钱的女仆了。一年六十法郎,积了三十五年,最近居然有四千法郎存在公证人克罗旭那儿做终身年金。这笔长期不断的积蓄,似乎是一个了不得的数目。每个女佣看见这个上了六十岁的老妈子有了老年的口粮,都十分眼热,却没有想到这份口粮是辛辛苦苦做牛马换来的。

二十二岁的时候,这可怜的姑娘到处没有人要,她的脸丑得叫人害怕;其实这么说是过分的,把她的脸放在一个掷弹兵的脖子上,还可受到人家称赞哩;可是据说什么东西都要相称。她先是替农家放牛,农家遭了火灾,她就凭着天不怕地不怕的勇气,进城来找事。

那时葛朗台正想自立门户,预备娶亲。他瞥见了这到处碰壁的女孩子。以箍桶匠的眼光判断一个人的体力是准没有错:她体格像大力士,站在那儿仿佛一株六十年的橡树,根牢蒂固;粗大的腰围,四方的背脊,一双手像个赶车的;诚实不欺的德行,正如她的贞操一般纯洁无瑕。在这样一个女人身上可以榨取多少利益,他算得清清楚楚。雄赳赳的脸上生满了疣,紫膛膛的皮色,青筋隆起的胳膊,褴褛的衣衫,拿侬这些外表并没吓退箍桶匠,虽然他那时还在能够动心的年纪。他给这个可怜的姑娘衣着、鞋袜、膳宿,出了工钱雇用她,也不过分地虐待、糟蹋。

长脚拿侬受到这样的待遇暗中快活得哭了,就一片忠心地服侍箍桶匠。而箍桶匠当她家奴一般利用。拿侬包办一切:煮饭,蒸洗东西,拿衣服到洛阿河边去洗,担在肩上回来;天一亮就起身,深夜才睡觉;收成时节,所有短工的饭食都归她料理,还不让人家捡取掉在地下的葡萄;她像一条忠心的狗一样保护主人的财产。总之,她对他信服得五体投地,无论他什么想入非非的念头,她都不哼一声地服从。一八一一那有名的一年[3]收获季节特别辛苦,这时拿侬已经服务了二十年,葛朗台才发狠赏了她一只旧表,那是她到手的唯一礼物。固然他一向把穿旧的鞋子给她(她正好穿得上),但是每隔三个月得来的鞋子,已经那么破烂,不能叫作礼物了。可怜的姑娘因为一无所有,变得吝啬不堪,终于使葛朗台像喜欢一条狗一样地喜欢她,而拿侬也甘心情愿让人家把链条套上脖子,链条上的刺,她已经不觉得痛了。

要是葛朗台把面包割得过分小气了一点,她绝不抱怨;这份人家饮食严格,从来没有人闹病,拿侬也乐于接受这卫生的好处。而且她跟主人家已经打成一片:葛朗台笑,她也笑;葛朗台发愁、挨冷、取暖、工作,她也跟着发愁、挨冷、取暖、工作。这样不分彼此的平等,还不算甜蜜的安慰吗?她在树底下吃些杏子、桃子、枣子,主人从来不埋怨。

有些年份的果子把树枝都压弯了,佃户拿去喂猪,于是葛朗台对拿侬说:“吃呀,拿侬,尽吃。”

这个穷苦的乡下女人,从小只受到虐待,人家为了善心才把她收留下来;对于她,葛朗台老头那种叫人猜不透意思的笑,真像一道阳光似的。而且拿侬单纯的心、简单的头脑,只容得下一种感情、一个念头。三十五年如一日,她老是看到自己站在葛朗台先生的工场前面,赤着脚,穿着破烂衣衫,听见箍桶匠对她说:“你要什么呀,好孩子?”她心中的感激永远是那么新鲜。

有时候,葛朗台想到这个可怜虫从没听见一句奉承的话,完全不懂女人所能获得的那些温情;将来站在上帝前面受审,她比圣母玛利亚还要贞洁。葛朗台想到这些,不禁动了怜悯,望着她说:

“可怜的拿侬!”

老用人听了,总是用一道难以形容的目光瞧他一下。时常挂在嘴边的这句感叹,久已成为他们之间不断的友谊的链锁,而每说一遍,链锁总多加上一环。出于葛朗台的心坎,而使老姑娘感激的这种怜悯,不知怎样总有一点儿可怕的气息。这种吝啬鬼的残酷的怜悯,在老箍桶匠是因为想起在用人身上刮到了多少好处而得意,在拿侬却是全部的快乐。“可怜的拿侬!”这样的话谁不会说?但是说话的音调、语气之间莫测高深的惋惜,可以使上帝认出谁才是真正的慈悲。

索漠有许多家庭待用人好得多,用人却仍然对主人不满意。于是又有这样的话流传了:

“葛朗台他们对长脚拿侬怎么的,她会这样的忠心?简直肯替他们拼命!”

厨房临着院子,窗上装有铁栅,老是干净,整齐,冷冰冰的,真是守财奴的灶屋,没有一点儿糟蹋的东西。拿侬晚上洗过碗盏,收起剩菜,熄了灶火,便到跟厨房隔着一条过道的堂屋里绩麻,跟主人们在一块。这样,一个黄昏全家只消点一支蜡烛了。老妈子睡的是过道底上的一个小房间,只消有一个墙洞漏进一些日光;躺在这样一个窝里,她结实的身体居然毫无亏损。她可以听见日夜都静悄悄的屋子里的任何响动,像一条看家狗似的,她竖着耳朵睡觉,一边休息一边守夜。

屋子其余的部分,等故事发展下去的时候再来描写;但全家精华所在的堂屋的景象,已可令人想见楼上的寒碜了。

一八一九年,秋季的天气特别好;到十一月中旬某一天傍晚时分,长脚拿侬才第一次生火。那一天是克罗旭与台·格拉桑两家记得清清楚楚的节日。双方六位人马,预备全副武装,到堂屋里交一交手,比一比谁表示得更亲热。

早上,索漠的人看见葛朗台太太和葛朗台小姐,后边跟着拿侬,到教堂去望弥撒,于是大家记起了这一天是欧也妮小姐的生日。克罗旭公证人,克罗旭神父,克·特·篷风先生,算准了葛朗台家该吃完晚饭的时候,急急忙忙赶来,要抢在台·格拉桑一家之前,向葛朗台小姐拜寿。三个人都捧着从小花坛中摘来的大束的花。所长那束,花梗上很巧妙地裹着金色穗子的白缎带。

每逢欧也妮的生日和本名节日[4],照例葛朗台清早就直闯到女儿床边,郑重其事地把他为父的礼物亲手交代,十三年来的老规矩,都是一枚稀罕的金洋。

葛朗台太太总给女儿一件衣衫,或是冬天穿的,或是夏天穿的,看什么节而定。这两件衣衫,加上父亲在新年跟他自己的节日所赏赐的金洋,她每年小小的收入大概有五六百法郎,葛朗台很高兴地看她慢慢地积起来。这不过是把自己的钱换一只口袋罢了,而且可以从小培养女儿的吝啬。他不时盘问一下她财产的数目——其中一部分是从葛朗台太太的外婆那里来的——盘问的时候总说:

“这是你陪嫁的压箱钱呀。”

所谓压箱钱是一种古老的风俗,法国中部有些地方至今还很郑重地保存在那里。裴里、安育那一带,一个姑娘出嫁的时候,不是娘家便是婆家,总得给她一笔金洋或银洋,或是十二枚,或是一百四十四枚,或是一千二百枚,看家境而定。最穷的牧羊女出嫁,压箱钱也非有不可,就是拿大铜钱充数也是好的。伊苏屯地方,至今还谈论曾经有一个有钱的独养女儿,压箱钱是一百四十四枚葡萄牙金洋。凯塞琳·特·美第奇嫁给亨利二世,她的叔叔教皇克雷门七世送给她一套古代的金勋章,价值连城。

吃晚饭的时候,父亲看见女儿穿了新衣衫格外漂亮,便喜欢得什么似的,嚷道:

“既然是欧也妮的生日,咱们生起火来,取个吉利吧!”

长脚拿侬撤下饭桌上吃剩的鹅,箍桶匠家里的珍品,一边说:

“小姐今年一定要大喜了。”

“索漠城里没有合适的人家啊。”葛朗台太太接口道,她一眼望着丈夫的那种胆怯的神气,以她的年龄而论,活现出可怜的女人是一向对丈夫服从惯的。

葛朗台端详着女儿,快活地叫道:

“今天她刚好二十三了,这孩子。是咱们操心的时候了。”

欧也妮和她的母亲心照不宣地彼此瞧了一眼。

葛朗台太太是一个干枯的瘦女人,皮色黄黄的像木瓜,举动迟缓,笨拙,就像那些生来受磨折的女人。大骨骼,大鼻子,大额角,大眼睛,一眼望去,好像既无味道又无汁水的干瘪果子。黝黑的牙齿已经不多几颗,嘴巴全是皱裥,长长的下巴颏儿往上钩起,像只木底靴。可是她为人极好,真有裴德里埃家风。克罗旭神父常常有心借机会告诉她,她当初并不怎样难看,她居然会相信。性情柔和得像天使,忍耐功夫不下于给孩子们捉弄的虫蚁,少有的虔诚,平静的心境绝对不会骚乱,一片好心,每个人可怜她,敬重她。

丈夫给她的零用,每次从不超过六法郎。虽然相貌奇丑,她的陪嫁与承继的遗产,给葛朗台先生带来三十多万法郎。然而她始终诚惶诚恐,仿佛寄人篱下似的;天性的柔和,使她摆脱不了这种奴性,她既没要求过一个钱,也没对克罗旭公证人叫她签字的文件表示过异议。支配这个女人的,只有闷在肚里的那股愚不可及的傲气,以及葛朗台非但不了解还要加以伤害的慷慨的心胸。

葛朗台太太永远穿一件淡绿绸衫,照例得穿上一年;戴一条棉料的白围巾,头上一顶草帽,差不多永远系一条黑纱围身。难得出门,鞋子很省。总之,她自己从来不想要一点儿什么。

有时,葛朗台想起自从上次给了她六法郎以后已经有好久,觉得过意不去,便在出售当年收成的契约上添注一笔,要买主掏出些中佣金给他太太。向葛朗台买酒的荷兰商人或比国商人,总得破费上百法郎,这就是葛朗台太太一年之中最可观的进款。

可是,她一朝拿到了上百法郎,丈夫往往对她说(仿佛他们用的钱一向是公账似的):“借几个子儿给我,好不好?”可怜的女人,老是听到忏悔师说男人是她的夫君,是她的主人,所以觉得能够帮他忙是最快活不过的,一个冬天也就还了他好些佣金。

葛朗台掏出了做零用、买针线、付女儿衣着的六法郎月费,把钱袋扣上之后,总不忘了向他女人问一声:

“喂,妈妈,你想要一点儿什么吗?”

“哦,那个,慢慢再说吧。”葛朗台太太回答,她觉得做母亲的应该保持她的尊严。

这种伟大真是白费!葛朗台自以为对太太慷慨得很呢。像拿侬、葛朗台太太、欧也妮小姐这等人物,倘使给哲学家碰到了,不是很有理由觉得上帝的本性是喜欢跟人开玩笑吗?

在初次提到欧也妮婚事的那餐晚饭之后,拿侬到楼上葛朗台先生房里拿一瓶果子酒,下来的时候几乎摔了一跤。

“蠢东西,”葛朗台先生叫道,“你也会栽斤斗吗,你?”

“哎哟,先生,那是你的楼梯不行呀。”

“不错,”葛朗台太太接口,“你早该修理了,昨天晚上,欧也妮也险些儿扭坏了脚。”葛朗台看见拿侬脸色发白,便说:

“好,既然是欧也妮的生日,你又几乎摔跤,就请你喝一杯果子酒压压惊吧。”

“真是,这杯酒是我把命拼来的。换了别人,瓶子早已摔掉了;我哪怕碰断肘子,也要把酒瓶擎得老高,不让它砸破呢。”

“可怜的拿侬!”葛朗台一边说一边替她斟酒。

“跌痛没有?”欧也妮很关切地望着她问。

“没有,我挺一挺腰就站住了。”

“得啦,既然是欧也妮的生日,”葛朗台说,“我就去替你们修理踏级吧。你们这般人,就不会拣结实的地方落脚。”

葛朗台拿了烛台,走到烤面包的房里去拿木板、钉子和工具,让太太、女儿、用人坐在暗里,除了壁炉的活泼的火焰之外,没有一点儿光亮。拿侬听见他在楼梯上敲击的声音,便问:

“要不要帮忙?”

“不用,不用!我会对付。”老箍桶匠回答。

葛朗台一边修理虫蛀的楼梯,一边想起少年时代的事情,直着喉咙打呼哨。这时候,三位克罗旭来敲门了。

“是你吗,克罗旭先生?”拿侬凑在铁栅上张了一张。

“是的。”所长回答。

拿侬打开大门,壁炉的火光照在环洞里,三位克罗旭才看清了堂屋的门口。拿侬闻到花香,便说:

“啊!你们是来拜寿的。”

“对不起,诸位,”葛朗台听出了客人的声音,嚷道,“我马上就来!不瞒你们说,楼梯的踏级坏了,我自己在修呢。”

“不招呼,不招呼!葛朗台先生。区区煤炭匠,在家也好当市长。”所长引经据典地说完,独自笑开了,却没有人懂得他把成语改头换面,影射葛朗台当过区长。

葛朗台母女俩站了起来。所长趁堂屋里没有灯光,便对欧也妮说道:

“小姐,今天是你的生日,我祝贺你年年快乐,岁岁康强!”

说着他献上一大束索漠城里少有的鲜花;然后抓着独养女儿的肘子,把她脖子两边各亲了一下,那副得意的神气把欧也妮羞得什么似的。所长像一颗生锈的大铁钉,自以为这样就是追求女人。

“所长先生,不用拘束啊,”葛朗台走进来说,“过节的日子,照例得痛快一下。”

克罗旭神父也捧着他的一束花,接口说:

“跟令爱在一块儿,舍侄觉得天天都是过节呢。”

说完话,神父吻了吻欧也妮的手。公证人克罗旭却老实不客气亲了她的腮帮,说:

“哎,哎,岁月催人,又是一年了。”

葛朗台有了一句笑话,轻易不肯放弃,只要自己觉得好玩,会三番四次地说个不休;他把烛台往座钟前面一放,说道:

“既然是欧也妮的生日,咱们就大放光明吧!”

他很小心地摘下灯台上的管子,每根按上了灯芯盘,从拿侬手里接过一根纸卷的新蜡烛,放入洞眼,插妥了,点上了,然后走去坐在太太旁边,把客人、女儿和两支蜡烛,轮流打量过来。克罗旭神父矮小肥胖,浑身是肉,茶红的假头发,像是压扁了的,脸孔像个爱开玩笑的老太婆,套一双银搭扣的结实的鞋子。他把脚一伸,问道:

“台·格拉桑他们没有来吗?”

“还没有。”葛朗台回答。

“他们会来吗?”老公证人扭动着那张脚炉盖似的脸问。

“我想会来的。”葛朗台太太回答。

“府上的葡萄收割完了吗?”特·篷风所长问葛朗台。

“统统完了!”葛朗台老头说着,站起身来在堂屋里踱步,他把胸脯一挺的那股劲儿,跟“统统完了”四个字一样骄傲。

长脚拿侬不敢闯入过节的场面,便在厨房内点起蜡烛,坐在灶旁预备绩麻。葛朗台从过道的门里瞥见了,踱过去嚷道:

“拿侬,你能不能灭了灶火,熄了蜡烛,上我们这儿来?嘿!这里地方大得很,怕挤不下吗?”

“可是先生,你们那里有贵客哪。”

“怕什么?他们不跟你一样是上帝造的吗?”

葛朗台说完又走过来问所长:“府上的收成脱手没有?”

“没有。老实说,我不想卖。现在的酒固然好,过两年更好。你知道,地主都发誓要坚持公议的价格。那些比国人这次休想占便宜了。他们这回不买,下回还是要来的。”

“不错,可是咱们要齐心啊。”葛朗台的语调,叫所长打了一个寒噤。

“他会不会跟他们暗中谈判呢?”克罗旭心里想。

这时大门上锤子响了一下,报告台·格拉桑一家来了。葛朗台太太和克罗旭神父才开始的话题,只得搁过一边。

台·格拉桑太太是那种矮小活泼的女人,身材肥胖,皮肤白里泛红,过着修道院式的内地生活,律身谨严,所以在四十岁上还显得年轻。这等女子仿佛过时的最后几朵蔷薇,叫人看了舒服,但它们的花瓣有种说不出的冰冷的感觉,香气也淡薄得很了。她穿着相当讲究,行头都从巴黎带来,索漠的时装就把她做标准,而且家里经常举行晚会。

她的丈夫在拿破仑的禁卫军中当过连长,在奥斯丹列兹一役受了重伤,退伍了,对葛朗台虽然尊敬,但是爽直非凡,不失军人本色。

“你好,葛朗台。”他说着向葡萄园主伸出手来,一副俨然的气派是他一向用来压倒克罗旭的。向葛朗台太太行过礼,他又对欧也妮说:“小姐,你老是这样美,这样贤惠,简直想不出祝贺你的话。”

然后他从跟班手里接过一口匣子递过去,里面装着一株好望角的铁树,这种花还是最近带到欧洲而极少见的。

台·格拉桑太太非常亲热地拥抱了欧也妮,握着她的手说:

“我的一点儿小意思,叫阿道夫代献吧。”

一个头发金黄、个子高大的青年,苍白,娇弱,举动相当文雅,外表很羞怯,可是最近到巴黎念法律,膳宿之外,居然花掉上万法郎。这时他走到欧也妮前面,亲了亲她的腮帮,献上一个针线匣子,所有的零件都是镀金的;匣面上哥特式的花体字,把欧也妮姓名的缩写刻得不坏,好似做工很精巧,其实全部是骗人的起码货。

欧也妮揭开匣子,感到一种出乎意外的快乐,那是使所有的少女脸红、寒战、高兴得发抖的快乐。她望着父亲,似乎问他可不可以接受。葛朗台说一声:“收下吧,孩子!”那强劲有力的音调竟可以使一个角儿成名呢。

这样贵重的礼物,独养女儿还是第一遭看见,她的快活与兴奋的目光,使劲盯住了阿道夫·台·格拉桑,把三位克罗旭看呆了。台·格拉桑先生掏出鼻烟壶,让了一下主人,自己闻了一下,把蓝外套纽孔上“荣誉团”丝带上的烟末抖干净了,转过头去望着几位克罗旭,神气之间仿佛说:“嘿,瞧我这一手!”

台·格拉桑太太就像一个喜欢讥笑人家的女子,装作特意寻找克罗旭他们的礼物,把蓝瓶里的鲜花瞅了一眼。在这番微妙的比赛中,大家围坐在壁炉前面;克罗旭神父却丢下众人,径自和葛朗台踱到堂屋那一头,离台·格拉桑最远的窗洞旁边,咬着守财奴的耳朵说:

“这些人简直把钱往窗外扔。”

“没有关系,反正是扔在我的地窖里。”葛朗台回答。

“你给女儿打把金剪刀也打得起呢。”神父又道。

“金剪刀有什么稀罕,我给她的东西名贵得多哩。”

克罗旭所长那猪肝色的脸本来就不体面,加上乱蓬蓬的头发,愈显得难看了。神父望着他,心里想:

“这位老侄真是一个傻瓜,一点儿讨人喜欢的小玩意儿都想不出来!”

这时台·格拉桑太太嚷道:

“咱们陪你玩一会儿牌吧,葛朗台太太。”

“这么多人,好来两局呢……”

“既然是欧也妮的生日,你们不妨来个摸彩的玩意儿,让两个孩子也参加。”老箍桶匠一边说一边指着欧也妮和阿道夫,他自己是对什么游戏都从不参加的。

“来,拿侬,摆桌子。”

“我们来帮忙,拿侬。”台·格拉桑太太很高兴地说,她因为得了欧也妮的欢心,快活得不得了。那位独养女儿对她说:

“我一辈子都没有这么快乐过,我从没见过这样漂亮的东西。”

台·格拉桑太太便咬着她的耳朵:

“那是阿道夫从巴黎捎来的,他亲自挑的呢。”

“好,好,你去灌迷汤吧,刁钻促狭的鬼女人!”所长心里想,“一朝你家有什么官司落在我手中,不管是你的还是你丈夫的,哼,看你有好结果吧。”

公证人坐在一旁,神色泰然地望着神父,想道:

“台·格拉桑他们是白费心的。我的家私,我兄弟的,侄子的,合在一起有一百一十万。台·格拉桑最多也不过抵得一半,何况他们还有一个女儿要嫁!好吧,他们爱送礼就送吧!终有一天,独养女儿跟他们的礼物,会一股脑儿落在咱们手里的。”

八点半,两张牌桌端整好了。俊俏的台·格拉桑太太居然能够把儿子安排在欧也妮旁边。各人拿着一块有数目字与格子的纸板,抓着蓝玻璃的码子,开始玩了。这聚精会神的一幕,虽然表面上平淡无奇,所有的角儿装作听着老公证人的笑话——他摸一颗码子,念一个数目,总要开一次玩笑——其实都念念不忘地想着葛朗台的几百万家私。

老箍桶匠踌躇满志地把台·格拉桑太太时髦的打扮、粉红的帽饰,银行家威武的脸相,还有阿道夫、所长、神父、公证人的脑袋,一个个地打量过来,暗自想道:

“他们都看中我的钱,为了我女儿到这儿来受罪。哼!我的女儿,休想;我就利用这般人替我钓鱼!”

灰色的老客厅里,黑魆魆地只点两支蜡烛,居然也有家庭的欢乐;拿侬的纺车声,替众人的笑声当着伴奏,可是只有欧也妮和她母亲的笑才是真心的;小人的心胸都在关切重大的利益;这位姑娘受到奉承、包围,以为他们的友谊都是真情实意,仿佛一只小鸟全不知道给人家标着高价作为赌注。这种种使那天晚上的情景显得又可笑又可叹。这原是古往今来到处在搬演的活剧,这儿不过表现得最简单罢了。利用两家的假殷勤而占足便宜的葛朗台,是这一幕的主角,有了他,这一幕才有意义。单凭这个人的脸,不是就象征了法力无边的财神,现代人的上帝吗?

人生的温情在此只居于次要地位;它只能激动拿侬、欧也妮和她母亲三颗纯洁的心。而且她们能有这么一点儿天真,还是因为她们蒙在鼓里,一无所知!葛朗台的财富,母女俩全不知道;她们对人生的看法,只凭一些渺茫的观念,对金钱既不看重也不看轻,她们一向就用不到它。她们的情感虽然无形中受了伤害,依旧很强烈,而且是她们生命的真谛,使她们在这一群唯利是图的人中间别具一格。人类的处境就是这一点可怕!没有一宗幸福不是靠糊涂得来的。

葛朗台太太中了十六个铜子的彩,在这儿是破天荒第一遭的大彩;长脚拿侬看见太太有这许多钱落袋,快活地笑了。正在这时候,大门上“砰”的一声,锤子敲得那么响,把太太们吓得从椅子里直跳起来。

“这种敲门的气派绝不是本地人。”公证人说。

“哪有这样敲法的!”拿侬说,“难道想砸破大门吗?”

“哪个混账东西!”葛朗台咕噜着。

拿侬在两支蜡烛中拿了一支去开门,葛朗台跟着她。

“葛朗台!葛朗台!”他太太莫名其妙地害怕起来,往堂屋门口追上去叫。

牌桌上的人都面面相觑。

“咱们一块儿去怎么样?”台·格拉桑说,“这种敲门有点儿来意不善。”

台·格拉桑才看见一个青年人的模样,后面跟着驿站上的脚夫,扛了两口大箱子,拖了几个铺盖卷,葛朗台便突然转过身来对太太说:

“玩你们的,太太,让我来招呼客人。”

说着他把客厅的门使劲一拉。那些骚动的客人都归了原位,却并没玩下去。台·格拉桑太太问她的丈夫:

“是不是索漠城里的人?”

“不,外地来的。”

“一定是巴黎来的了。”

公证人掏出一只两指厚的老表,形式像荷兰战舰,瞧了瞧说:“不错,整九点。该死,驿车倒从来不脱班。”

“客人还年轻吗?”克罗旭神父问。

“年轻,”台·格拉桑答道,“带来的行李至少有三百斤。”

“拿侬还不进来?”欧也妮说。

“大概是府上的亲戚吧。”所长插了句嘴。

“咱们下注吧,”葛朗台太太轻声轻气地叫道,“听葛朗台的声音,他很不高兴;也许他不愿意我们谈论他的事。”

“小姐,”阿道夫对坐在隔壁的欧也妮说,“一定是你的堂兄弟葛朗台,一个挺漂亮的青年,我在纽沁根先生家的跳舞会上见过的。”

阿道夫停住不说了,他给母亲踩了一脚;她高声叫他拿出两个铜子来押,又咬着他的耳朵:

“别多嘴,你这个傻瓜!”

这时大家听见拿侬和脚夫走上楼梯的声音;葛朗台带着客人进了堂屋。几分钟以来,个个人都给不速之客提足了精神,好奇得不得了,所以他的到场,他的出现,在这些人中间,犹如蜂房里掉进了一只蜗牛,或是乡下黝黑的鸡场里闯进了一只孔雀。

“到壁炉这边来坐吧。”葛朗台招呼他。

年轻的陌生人就座之前,对众人客客气气鞠了一躬。男客都起身还礼,太太们都深深地福了一福。

“你冷了吧,先生?”葛朗台太太说,“你大概从……”

葛朗台捧着一封信在念,马上停下来截住了太太的话:

“嘿!娘儿腔!不用烦,让他歇歇再说。”

“可是父亲,也许客人需要什么呢。”欧也妮说。

“他会开口的。”老头厉声回答。

这种情形只有那位生客觉得奇怪。其余的人都看惯了这个家伙的霸道。客人听了这两句问答,不禁站起身子,背对着壁炉,提起一双脚烘烤靴底,一面对欧也妮说:

“大姊,谢谢你,我在都尔吃过晚饭了。”他又望着葛朗台说,“什么都不用费心,我也一点儿不觉得累。”

“先生是从京里来的吧?”台·格拉桑太太问。

查理(这是巴黎葛朗台的儿子的名字)听见有人插嘴,便拈起用金链挂在项下的小小的手眼镜,凑在右眼上瞧了瞧桌上的东西和周围的人物,非常放肆地把眼镜向台·格拉桑太太一照,他把一切都看清楚了,才回答说:

“是的,太太。”他又回头对葛朗台太太说,“哦,你们在摸彩,伯母。请呀,请呀,玩下去吧,多有趣的玩意儿,怎么好歇手呢!……”

“我早知道他就是那个堂兄弟。”台·格拉桑太太对他做着媚眼,心里想。

“四十七,”老神父嚷道,“哎,台·格拉桑太太,放呀,这不是你的号数吗?”

台·格拉桑先生抓起一个码子替太太放上了纸板。她却觉得预兆不好,一忽儿望望巴黎来的堂兄弟,一忽儿望望欧也妮,想不起摸彩的事了。年轻的独养女儿不时对堂兄弟瞟上几眼,银行家太太不难看出她越来越惊讶、越来越好奇的情绪。

注:

[1] 习艺工场:当初教会设立来救济贫苦妇女的地方。——译注(本书未特别注明的,都是译注。)

[2] 阿尔邦:每个阿尔邦约等于三十至五十一亩,视地域而定。每亩约等于六百六十七平方米。

[3] 一八一一年制成的酒为法国史上有名的佳酿,是年有彗星出现,经济恐慌,工商业破产者累累。所谓有名的一年是总括上列各项事件而言。

[4] 本名节日:西俗教徒皆以圣者之名命名。凡自己取名的纪念日,称为本名节日。

用户搜索

疯狂英语 英语语法 新概念英语 走遍美国 四级听力 英语音标 英语入门 发音 美语 四级 新东方 七年级 赖世雄 zero是什么意思台州市盂溪风情英语学习交流群

  • 频道推荐
  • |
  • 全站推荐
  • 推荐下载
  • 网站推荐