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双语·欧也妮·葛朗台 内地的爱情

所属教程:译林版·欧也妮·葛朗台

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2022年05月15日

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III

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 the first time in her life to appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well made, which rendered her attractive.

As she finished her toilet the clock of the parish church struck the hour; to her astonishment, it was only seven. The desire of having plenty of time for dressing carefully had led her to get up too early. Ignorant of the art of retouching every curl and studying every effect, Eugenie simply crossed her arms, sat down by the window, and looked at the court-yard, the narrow garden, and the high terraced walls that over-topped it: a dismal, hedged-in prospect, yet not wholly devoid of those mysterious beauties which belong to solitary or uncultivated nature.

Near the kitchen was a well surrounded by a curb, with a pulley fastened to a bent iron rod clasped by a vine whose leaves were withered, reddened, and shrivelled by the season. From thence the tortuous shoots straggled to the wall, clutched it, and ran the whole length of the house, ending near the wood-pile, where the logs were ranged with as much precision as the books in a library. The pavement of the court-yard showed the black stains produced in time by lichens, herbage, and the absence of all movement or friction. The thick walls wore a coating of green moss streaked with waving brown lines, and the eight stone steps at the bottom of the court-yard which led up to the gate of the garden were disjointed and hidden beneath tall plants, like the tomb of a knight buried by his widow in the days of the Crusades. Above a foundation of moss-grown, crumbling stones was a trellis of rotten wood, half fallen from decay;over them clambered and intertwined at will a mass of clustering creepers. On each side of the latticed gate stretched the crooked arms of two stunted apple-trees. Three parallel walks, gravelled and separated from each other by square beds, where the earth was held in by box-borders, made the garden, which terminated, beneath a terrace of the old walls, in a group of lindens. At the farther end were raspberry-bushes; at the other, near the house, an immense walnut-tree drooped its branches almost into the window of the miser’s sanctum. A clear day and the beautiful autumnal sun common to the banks of the Loire was beginning to melt the hoar-frost which the night had laid on these picturesque objects, on the walls, and on the plants which swathed the court-yard.

Eugenie found a novel charm in the aspect of things lately so insignificant to her. A thousand confused thoughts came to birth in her mind and grew there, as the sunbeams grew without along the wall. She felt that impulse of delight, vague, inexplicable, which wraps the moral being as a cloud wraps the physical body. Her thoughts were all in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, and the harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies of nature.

When the sun reached an angle of the wall where the “Venus-hair” of southern climes drooped its thick leaves, lit with the changing colors of a pigeon’s breast, celestial rays of hope illumined the future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze upon that piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue harebells, its wilting herbage, with which she mingled memories as tender as those of childhood. The noise made by each leaf as it fell from its twig in the void of that echoing court gave answer to the secret questionings of the young girl, who could have stayed there the livelong day without perceiving the flight of time.

Then came tumultuous heavings of the soul. She rose often, went to her glass, and looked at herself, as an author in good faith looks at his work to criticise it and blame it in his own mind.

“I am not beautiful enough for him!”

Such was Eugenie’s thought—a humble thought, fertile in suffering. The poor girl did not do herself justice; but modesty, or rather fear, is among the first of love’s virtues. Eugenie belonged to the type of children with sturdy constitutions, such as we see among the lesser bourgeoisie, whose beauties always seem a little vulgar;and yet, though she resembled the Venus of Milo, the lines of her figure were ennobled by the softer Christian sentiment which purifies womanhood and gives it a distinction unknown to the sculptors of antiquity. She had an enormous head, with the masculine yet delicate forehead of the Jupiter of Phidias, and gray eyes, to which her chaste life, penetrating fully into them, carried a flood of light. The features of her round face, formerly fresh and rosy, were at one time swollen by the small-pox, which destroyed the velvet texture of the skin, though it kindly left no other traces, and her cheek was still so soft and delicate that her mother’s kiss made a momentary red mark upon it. Her nose was somewhat too thick, but it harmonized well with the vermilion mouth, whose lips, creased in many lines, were full of love and kindness. The throat was exquisitely round. The bust, well curved and carefully covered, attracted the eye and inspired reverie. It lacked, no doubt, the grace which a fitting dress can bestow; but to a connoisseur the non-flexibility of her figure had its own charm. Eugenie, tall and strongly made, had none of the prettiness which pleases the masses; but she was beautiful with a beauty which the spirit recognizes, and none but artists truly love. A painter seeking here below for a type of Mary’s celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often due to chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life alone can bestow or keep unchanged—such a painter, in love with his ideal, would have found in the face of Eugenie the innate nobleness that is ignorant of itself; he would have seen beneath the calmness of that brow a world of love; he would have felt, in the shape of the eyes, in the fall of the eyelids, the presence of the nameless something that we call divine. Her features, the contour of her head, which no expression of pleasure had ever altered or wearied, were like the lines of the horizon softly traced in the far distance across the tranquil lakes. That calm and rosy countenance, margined with light like a lovely full-blown flower, rested the mind, held the eye, and imparted the charm of the conscience that was there reflected.

Eugenie was standing on the shore of life where young illusions flower, where daisies are gathered with delights ere long to be unknown; and thus she said, looking at her image in the glass, unconscious as yet of love: “I am too ugly; he will not notice me.”

Then she opened the door of her chamber which led to the staircase, and stretched out her neck to listen for the household noises. “He is not up,” she thought, hearing Nanon’s morning cough as the good soul went and came, sweeping out the halls, lighting her fire, chaining the dog, and speaking to the beasts in the stable.

Eugenie at once went down and ran to Nanon, who was milking the cow.

“Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for my cousin’s breakfast.”

“Why, mademoiselle, you should have thought of that yesterday,” said Nanon, bursting into a loud peal of laughter. “I can’t make cream. Your cousin is a darling, a darling! oh, that he is! You should have seen him in his dressing-gown, all silk and gold! I saw him, I did! He wears linen as fine as the surplice of monsieur le cure.”

“Nanon, please make us a galette.”

“And who’ll give me wood for the oven, and flour and butter for the cakes?” said Nanon, who in her function of prime-minister to Grandet assumed at times enormous importance in the eyes of Eugenie and her mother. “Mustn’t rob the master to feast the cousin. You ask him for butter and flour and wood: he’s your father, perhaps he’ll give you some. See! there he is now, coming to give out the provisions.”

Eugenie escaped into the garden, quite frightened as she heard the staircase shaking under her father’s step. Already she felt the effects of that virgin modesty and that special consciousness of happiness which lead us to fancy, not perhaps without reason, that our thoughts are graven on our foreheads and are open to the eyes of all. Perceiving for the first time the cold nakedness of her father’s house, the poor girl felt a sort of rage that she could not put it in harmony with her cousin’s elegance. She felt the need of doing something for him—what, she did not know. Ingenuous and truthful, she followed her angelic nature without mistrusting her impressions or her feelings. The mere sight of her cousin had wakened within her the natural yearnings of a woman—yearnings that were the more likely to develop ardently because, having reached her twenty-third year, she was in the plenitude of her intelligence and her desires. For the first time in her life her heart was full of terror at the sight of her father; in him she saw the master of the fate, and she fancied herself guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his knowledge certain thoughts. She walked with hasty steps, surprised to breathe a purer air, to feel the sun’s rays quickening her pulses, to absorb from their heat a moral warmth and a new life.

As she turned over in her mind some stratagem by which to get the cake, a quarrel—an event as rare as the sight of swallows in winter—broke out between la Grande Nanon and Grandet. Armed with his keys, the master had come to dole out provisions for the day’s consumption.

“Is there any bread left from yesterday?” he said to Nanon.

“Not a crumb, monsieur.”

Grandet took a large round loaf, well floured and moulded in one of the flat baskets which they use for baking in Anjou, and was about to cut it, when Nanon said to him—

“We are five, to-day, monsieur.”

“That’s true,” said Grandet, “but your loaves weigh six pounds;there’ll be some left. Besides, these young fellows from Paris don’t eat bread, you’ll see.”

“Then they must eat frippe?” said Nanon.

Frippe is a word of the local lexicon of Anjou, and means any accompaniment of bread, from butter which is spread upon it, the commonest kind of frippe, to peach preserve, the most distinguished of all the frippes; those who in their childhood have licked the frippe and left the bread, will comprehend the meaning of Nanon’s speech.

“No,” answered Grandet, “they eat neither bread nor frippe;they are something like marriageable girls.”

After ordering the meals for the day with his usual parsimony, the goodman, having locked the closets containing the supplies, was about to go towards the fruit-garden, when Nanon stopped him to say—

“Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, and I’ll make a galette for the young ones.”

“Are you going to pillage the house on account of my nephew?”

“I wasn’t thinking any more of your nephew than I was of your dog—not more than you think yourself; for, look here, you’ve only forked out six bits of sugar. I want eight.”

“What’s all this, Nanon? I have never seen you like this before. What have you got in your head? Are you the mistress here? You sha’n’t have more than six pieces of sugar.”

“Well, then, how is your nephew to sweeten his coffee?”

“With two pieces; I’ll go without myself.”

“Go without sugar at your age! I’d rather buy you some out of my own pocket.”

“Mind your own business.”

In spite of the recent fall in prices, sugar was still in Grandet’s eyes the most valuable of all the colonial products; to him it was always six francs a pound. The necessity of economizing it, acquired under the Empire, had grown to be the most inveterate of his habits.

All women, even the greatest ninnies, know how to dodge and dodge to get their ends; Nanon abandoned the sugar for the sake of getting the galette.

“Mademoiselle!” she called through the window, “Do you want some galette?”

“No, no,” answered Eugenie.

“Come, Nanon,” said Grandet, hearing his daughter’s voice.“See here.”

He opened the cupboard where the flour was kept, gave her a cupful, and added a few ounces of butter to the piece he had already cut off.

“I shall want wood for the oven,” said the implacable Nanon.

“Well, take what you want,” he answered sadly; “but in that case you must make us a fruit-tart, and you’ll cook the whole dinner in the oven. In that way you won’t need two fires.”

“Goodness!” cried Nanon, “You needn’t tell me that.”

Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his faithful deputy.

“Mademoiselle,” she cried, when his back was turned, “we shall have the galette.”

Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and arranged a plateful on the kitchen-table.

“Just see, monsieur,” said Nanon, “what pretty boots your nephew has. What leather! Why it smells good! What does he clean it with, I wonder? Am I to put your egg-polish on it?”

“Nanon, I think eggs would injure that kind of leather. Tell him you don’t know how to black morocco; yes, that’s morocco. He will get you something himself in Saumur to polish those boots with. I have heard that they put sugar into the blacking to make it shine.”

“They look good to eat,” said the cook, putting the boots to her nose. “Bless me! if they don’t smell like madame’s eau-de-cologne. Ah! how funny!”

“Funny!” said her master. “Do you call it funny to put more money into boots than the man who stands in them is worth?”

“Monsieur,” she said, when Grandet returned the second time, after locking the fruit-garden, “won’t you have the pot-au-feu put on once or twice a week on account of your nephew?”

“Yes.”

“Am I to go to the butcher’s?”

“Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls; the farmers will bring them. I shall tell Cornoiller to shoot some crows; they make the best soup in the world.”

“Isn’t it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?”

“You are a fool, Nanon. They eat what they can get, like the rest of the world. Don’t we all live on the dead? What are legacies?”

Monsieur Grandet, having no further orders to give, drew out his watch, and seeing that he had half an hour to dispose of before breakfast, he took his hat, went and kissed his daughter, and said to her:

“Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, down by the Loire? I have something to do there.”

Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink taffeta; then the father and daughter went down the winding street to the shore.

“Where are you going at this early hour?” said Cruchot, the notary, meeting them.

“To see something,” answered Grandet, not duped by the matutinal appearance of his friend.

When Pere Grandet went to “see something,” the notary knew by experience there was something to be got by going with him; so he went.

“Come, Cruchot,” said Grandet, “you are one of my friends. I’ll show you what folly it is to plant poplar-trees on good ground.”

“Do you call the sixty thousand francs that you pocketed for those that were in your fields down by the Loire, folly?” said Maitre Cruchot, opening his eyes with amazement. “What luck you have had! To cut down your trees at the very time they ran short of white-wood at Nantes, and to sell them at thirty francs!”

Eugenie listened, without knowing that she approached the most solemn moment of her whole life, and that the notary was about to bring down upon her head a paternal and supreme sentence.

Grandet had now reached the magnificent fields which he owned on the banks of the Loire, where thirty workmen were employed in clearing away, filling up, and levelling the spots formerly occupied by the poplars.

“Maitre Cruchot, see how much ground this tree once took up! Jean,” he cried to a laborer, “m-m-measure with your r-r-rule, b-both ways.”

“Four times eight feet,” said the man.

“Thirty-two feet lost,” said Grandet to Cruchot. “I had three hundred poplars in this one line, isn’t that so? Well, then, three h-h-hundred times thir-thirty-two lost m-m-me five hundred in h-h-hay;add twice as much for the side rows—fifteen hundred; the middle rows as much more. So we may c-c-call it a th-thousand b-b-bales of h-h-hay—”

“Very good,” said Cruchot, to help out his friend; “a thousand bales are worth about six hundred francs.”

“Say t-t-twelve hundred, be-c-cause there’s three or four hundred francs on the second crop. Well, then, c-c-calculate that t-twelve thousand francs a year for f-f-forty years with interest c-c-comes to—”

“Say sixty thousand francs,” said the notary.

“I am willing; c-c-comes t-t-to sixty th-th-thousand. Very good,” continued Grandet, without stuttering: “two thousand poplars forty years old will only yield me fifty thousand francs. There’s a loss. I have found that myself,” said Grandet, getting on his high horse. “Jean, fill up all the holes except those at the bank of the river;there you are to plant the poplars I have bought. Plant ‘em there, and they’ll get nourishment from the government,” he said, turning to Cruchot, and giving a slight motion to the wen on his nose, which expressed more than the most ironical of smiles.

“True enough; poplars should only be planted on poor soil,”said Cruchot, amazed at Grandet’s calculations.

“Y-y-yes, monsieur,” answered the old man satirically.

Eugenie, who was gazing at the sublime scenery of the Loire, and paying no attention to her father’s reckonings, presently turned an ear to the remarks of Cruchot when she heard him say—

“So you have brought a son-in-law from Paris. All Saumur is talking about your nephew. I shall soon have the marriage-contract to draw up, hey! Pere Grandet?”

“You g-g-got up very early to t-t-tell me that,” said Grandet, accompanying the remark with a motion of his wen. “Well, old c-c-comrade, I’ll be frank, and t-t-tell you what you want t-t-to know. I would rather, do you see, f-f-fling my daughter into the Loire than g-g-give her to her c-c-cousin. You may t-t-tell that everywhere—no, never mind; let the world t-t-talk.”

This answer dazzled and blinded the young girl with sudden light. The distant hopes upspringing in her heart bloomed suddenly, became real, tangible, like a cluster of flowers, and she saw them cut down and wilting on the earth. Since the previous evening she had attached herself to Charles by those links of happiness which bind soul to soul; from henceforth suffering was to rivet them. Is it not the noble destiny of women to be more moved by the dark solemnities of grief than by the splendors of fortune? How was it that fatherly feeling had died out of her father’s heart? Of what crime had Charles been guilty? Mysterious questions! Already her dawning love, a mystery so profound, was wrapping itself in mystery. She walked back trembling in all her limbs; and when she reached the gloomy street, lately so joyous to her, she felt its sadness, she breathed the melancholy which time and events had printed there. None of love’s lessons lacked.

A few steps from their own door she went on before her father and waited at the threshold. But Grandet, who saw a newspaper in the notary’s hand, stopped short and asked—

“How are the Funds?”

“You never listen to my advice, Grandet,” answered Cruchot.“Buy soon; you will still make twenty per cent in two years, besides getting an excellent rate of interest—five thousand a year for eighty thousand francs fifty centimes.”

“We’ll see about that,” answered Grandet, rubbing his chin.

“Good God!” exclaimed the notary.

“Well, what?” cried Grandet; and at the same moment Cruchot put the newspaper under his eyes and said: “Read that!”

“Monsieur Grandet, one of the most respected merchants in Paris, blew his brains out yesterday, after making his usual appearance at the Bourse. He had sent his resignation to the president of the Chamber of Deputies, and had also resigned his functions as a judge of the commercial courts. The failures of Monsieur Roguin and Monsieur Souchet, his broker and his notary, had ruined him.The esteem felt for Monsieur Grandet and the credit he enjoyed were nevertheless such that he might have obtained the necessary assistance from other business houses. It is much to be regretted that so honorable a man should have yielded to momentary despair,” etc.

“I knew it,” said the old wine-grower to the notary.

The words sent a chill of horror through Maitre Cruchot, who, notwithstanding his impassibility as a notary, felt the cold running down his spine as he thought that Grandet of Paris had possibly implored in vain the millions of Grandet of Saumur.

“And his son, so joyous yesterday—”

“He knows nothing as yet,” answered Grandet, with the same composure.

“Adieu! Monsieur Grandet,” said Cruchot, who now understood the state of the case, and went off to reassure Monsieur de Bonfons.

On entering, Grandet found breakfast ready. Madame Grandet, round whose neck Eugenie had flung her arms, kissing her with the quick effusion of feeling often caused by secret grief, was already seated in her chair on castors, knitting sleeves for the coming winter.

“You can begin to eat,” said Nanon, coming downstairs four steps at a time; “the young one is sleeping like a cherub. Isn’t he a darling with his eyes shut? I went in and I called him: no answer.”

“Let him sleep,” said Grandet; “he’ll wake soon enough to hear ill-tidings.”

“What is it?” asked Eugenie, putting into her coffee the two little bits of sugar weighing less than half an ounce which the old miser amused himself by cutting up in his leisure hours. Madame Grandet, who did not dare to put the question, gazed at her husband.

“His father has blown his brains out.”

“My uncle?” said Eugenie.

“Poor young man!” exclaimed Madame Grandet.

“Poor indeed!” said Grandet; “he isn’t worth a sou!”

“Eh! poor boy, and he’s sleeping like the king of the world!”said Nanon in a gentle voice.

Eugenie stopped eating. Her heart was wrung, as the young heart is wrung when pity for the suffering of one she loves overflows, for the first time, the whole being of a woman. The poor girl wept.

“What are you crying about? You didn’t know your uncle,” said her father, giving her one of those hungry tigerish looks he doubtless threw upon his piles of gold.

“But, monsieur,” said Nanon, “who wouldn’t feel pity for the poor young man, sleeping there like a wooden shoe, without knowing what’s coming?”

“I didn’t speak to you, Nanon. Hold your tongue!”

Eugenie learned at that moment that the woman who loves must be able to hide her feelings. She did not answer.

“You will say nothing to him about it, Ma’ame Grandet, till I return,” said the old man. “I have to go and straighten the line of my hedge along the high-road. I shall be back at noon, in time for the second breakfast, and then I will talk with my nephew about his affairs. As for you, Mademoiselle Eugenie, if it is for that dandy you are crying, that’s enough, child. He’s going off like a shot to the Indies. You will never see him again.”

The father took his gloves from the brim of his hat, put them on with his usual composure, pushed them in place by shoving the fingers of both hands together, and went out.

“Mamma, I am suffocating!” cried Eugenie when she was alone with her mother; “I have never suffered like this.”

Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened the window and let her breathe fresh air.

“I feel better!” said Eugenie after a moment.

This nervous excitement in a nature hitherto, to all appearance, calm and cold, reacted on Madame Grandet; she looked at her daughter with the sympathetic intuition with which mothers are gifted for the objects of their tenderness, and guessed all. In truth the life of the Hungarian sisters, bound together by a freak of nature, could scarcely have been more intimate than that of Eugenie and her mother—always together in the embrasure of that window, and sleeping together in the same atmosphere.

“My poor child!” said Madame Grandet, taking Eugenie’s head and laying it upon her bosom.

At these words the young girl raised her head, questioned her mother by a look, and seemed to search out her inmost thought.

“Why send him to the Indies?” she said. “If he is unhappy, ought he not to stay with us? Is he not our nearest relation?”

“Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father has his reasons:we must respect them.”

The mother and daughter sat down in silence, the former upon her raised seat, the latter in her little armchair, and both took up their work. Swelling with gratitude for the full heart-understanding her mother had given her, Eugenie kissed the dear hand, saying—

“How good you are, my kind mamma!”

The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn and blighted as it was by many sorrows.

“You like him?” asked Eugenie.

Madame Grandet only smiled in reply. Then, after a moment’s silence, she said in a low voice: “Do you love him already? That is wrong.”

“Wrong?” said Eugenie. “Why is it wrong? You are pleased with him, Nanon is pleased with him; why should he not please me? Come, mamma, let us set the table for his breakfast.”

She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying,“Foolish child!”

But she sanctioned the child’s folly by sharing it.

Eugenie called Nanon.

“What do you want now, mademoiselle?”

“Nanon, can we have cream by midday?”

“Ah! midday, to be sure you can,” answered the old servant.

“Well, let him have his coffee very strong; I heard Monsieur des Grassins say that they make the coffee very strong in Paris. Put in a great deal.”

“Where am I to get it?”

“Buy some.”

“Suppose monsieur meets me?”

“He has gone to his fields.”

“I’ll run, then. But Monsieur Fessard asked me yesterday if the Magi had come to stay with us when I bought the wax candle. All the town will know our goings-on.”

“If your father finds it out,” said Madame Grandet, “he is capable of beating us.”

“Well, let him beat us; we will take his blows on our knees.”

Madame Grandet for all answer raised her eyes to heaven. Nanon put on her hood and went off. Eugenie got out some clean table-linen, and went to fetch a few bunches of grapes which she had amused herself by hanging on a string across the attic; she walked softly along the corridor, so as not to waken her cousin, and she could not help listening at the door to his quiet breathing.

“Sorrow is watching while he sleeps,” she thought.

She took the freshest vine-leaves and arranged her dish of grapes as coquettishly as a practised house-keeper might have done, and placed it triumphantly on the table. She laid hands on the pears counted out by her father, and piled them in a pyramid mixed with leaves. She went and came, and skipped and ran. She would have liked to lay under contribution everything in her father’s house; but the keys were in his pocket. Nanon came back with two fresh eggs. At sight of them Eugenie almost hugged her round the neck.

“The farmer from Lande had them in his basket. I asked him for them, and he gave them to me, the darling, for nothing, as an attention!”

After two hours’ thought and care, during which Eugenie jumped up twenty times from her work to see if the coffee were boiling, or to go and listen to the noise her cousin made in dressing, she succeeded in preparing a simple little breakfast, very inexpensive, but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from the inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast was always taken standing. Each took a slice of bread, a little fruit or some butter, and a glass of wine. As Eugenie looked at the table drawn up near the fire with an arm-chair placed before her cousin’s plate, at the two dishes of fruit, the egg-cup, the bottle of white wine, the bread, and the sugar heaped up in a saucer, she trembled in all her limbs at the mere thought of the look her father would give her if he should come in at that moment. She glanced often at the clock to see if her cousin could breakfast before the master’s return.

“Don’t be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes in, I will take it all upon myself,” said Madame Grandet. Eugenie could not repress a tear.

“Oh, my good mother!” she cried, “I have never loved you enough.”

Charles, who had been tramping about his room for some time, singing to himself, now came down. Happily, it was only eleven o’clock. The true Parisian! he had put as much dandyism into his dress as if he were in the chateau of the noble lady then travelling in Scotland. He came into the room with the smiling, courteous manner so becoming to youth, which made Eugenie’s heart beat with mournful joy. He had taken the destruction of his castles in Anjou as a joke, and came up to his aunt gaily.

“Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?”

“Very well, monsieur; did you?” said Madame Grandet.

“I? Perfectly.”

“You must be hungry, cousin,” said Eugenie; “will you take your seat?”

“I never breakfast before midday; I never get up till then. However, I fared so badly on the journey that I am glad to eat something at once. Besides—” here he pulled out the prettiest watch Breguet ever made.

“Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven o’clock!”

“Early?” said Madame Grandet.

“Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. Well, I shall be glad to have anything to eat—anything, it doesn’t matter what, a chicken, a partridge.”

“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.

“A partridge!” whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly have given the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.

“Come and sit down,” said his aunt.

The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother took ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.

“Do you always live here?” said Charles, thinking the room uglier by daylight than it had seemed the night before.

“Always,” answered Eugenie, looking at him, “except during the vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des Noyers.”

“Don’t you ever take walks?”

“Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine,”said Madame Grandet, “we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch the haymakers.”

“Have you a theatre?”

“Go to the theatre!” exclaimed Madame Grandet, “See a play!Why, monsieur, don’t you know it is a mortal sin?”

“See here, monsieur,” said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, “here are your chickens—in the shell.”

“Oh! fresh eggs,” said Charles, who, like all people accustomed to luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge, “that is delicious: now, if you will give me the butter, my good girl.”

“Butter! then you can’t have the galette.”

“Nanon, bring the butter,” cried Eugenie.

The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his sippets, with as much pleasure as a grisette takes in a melodrama where innocence and virtue triumph. Charles, brought up by a charming mother, improved, and trained by a woman of fashion, had the elegant, dainty, foppish movements of a coxcomb. The compassionate sympathy and tenderness of a young girl possess a power that is actually magnetic; so that Charles, finding himself the object of the attentions of his aunt and cousin, could not escape the influence of feelings which flowed towards him, as it were, and inundated him. He gave Eugenie a bright, caressing look full of kindness—a look which seemed itself a smile. He perceived, as his eyes lingered upon her, the exquisite harmony of features in the pure face, the grace of her innocent attitude, the magic clearness of the eyes, where young love sparkled and desire shone unconsciously.

“Ah! my dear cousin, if you were in full dress at the Opera, I assure you my aunt’s words would come true—you would make the men commit the mortal sin of envy, and the women the sin of jealousy.”

The compliment went to Eugenie’s heart and set it beating, though she did not understand its meaning.

“Oh! cousin,” she said, “you are laughing at a poor little country girl.”

“If you knew me, my cousin, you would know that I abhor ridicule; it withers the heart and jars upon all my feelings.”

Here he swallowed his buttered sippet very gracefully.

“No, I really have not enough mind to make fun of others; and doubtless it is a great defect. In Paris, when they want to disparage a man, they say: ‘He has a good heart.’ The phrase means: ‘The poor fellow is as stupid as a rhinoceros.’ But as I am rich, and known to hit the bull’s-eye at thirty paces with any kind of pistol, and even in the open fields, ridicule respects me.”

“My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart.”

“You have a very pretty ring,” said Eugenie; “is there any harm in asking to see it?”

Charles held out his hand after loosening the ring, and Eugenie blushed as she touched the pink nails of her cousin with the tips of her fingers.

“See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship.”

“My! there’s a lot of gold!” said Nanon, bringing in the coffee.

“What is that?” exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he pointed to an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed on the inside, and edged with a fringe of ashes, from the bottom of which the coffee-grounds were bubbling up and falling in the boiling liquid.

“It is boiled coffee,” said Nanon.

“Ah! my dear aunt, I shall at least leave one beneficent trace of my visit here. You are indeed behind the age! I must teach you to make good coffee in a Chaptal coffee-pot.”

He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.

“Gracious! if there are so many things as all that to do,” said Nanon, “we may as well give up our lives to it. I shall never make coffee that way; I know that! Pray, who is to get the fodder for the cow while I make the coffee?”

“I will make it,” said Eugenie.

“Child!” said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.

The word recalled to their minds the sorrow that was about to fall upon the unfortunate young man; the three women were silent, and looked at him with an air of commiseration that caught his attention.

“Is anything the matter, my cousin?” he said.

“Hush!” said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to answer; “you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not to speak to monsieur—”

“Say Charles,” said young Grandet.

“Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!” cried Eugenie.

Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. At this moment Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, who had all three been thinking with a shudder of the old man’s return, heard the knock whose echoes they knew but too well.

“There’s papa!” said Eugenie.

She removed the saucer filled with sugar, leaving a few pieces on the table-cloth; Nanon carried off the egg-cup; Madame Grandet sat up like a frightened hare. It was evidently a panic, which amazed Charles, who was wholly unable to understand it.

“Why! what is the matter?” he asked.

“My father has come,” answered Eugenie.

“Well, what of that?”

Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen eye upon the table, upon Charles, and saw the whole thing.

“Ha! ha! so you have been making a feast for your nephew;very good, very good, very good indeed!” he said, without stuttering.“When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

“Feast!” thought Charles, incapable of suspecting or imagining the rules and customs of the household.

“Give me my glass, Nanon,” said the master

Eugenie brought the glass. Grandet drew a horn-handled knife with a big blade from his breeches’ pocket, cut a slice of bread, took a small bit of butter, spread it carefully on the bread, and ate it standing. At this moment Charlie was sweetening his coffee. Pere Grandet saw the bits of sugar, looked at his wife, who turned pale, and made three steps forward; he leaned down to the poor woman’s ear and said—

“Where did you get all that sugar?”

“Nanon fetched it from Fessard’s; there was none.”

It is impossible to picture the profound interest the three women took in this mute scene. Nanon had left her kitchen and stood looking into the room to see what would happen. Charles, having tasted his coffee, found it bitter and glanced about for the sugar, which Grandet had already put away.

“What do you want?” said his uncle.

“The sugar.”

“Put in more milk,” answered the master of the house; “your coffee will taste sweeter.”

Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put away and placed it on the table, looking calmly at her father as she did so. Most assuredly, the Parisian woman who held a silken ladder with her feeble arms to facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no greater courage than Eugenie displayed when she replaced the sugar upon the table. The lover rewarded his mistress when she proudly showed him her beautiful bruised arm, and bathed every swollen vein with tears and kisses till it was cured with happiness. Charles, on the other hand, never so much as knew the secret of the cruel agitation that shook and bruised the heart of his cousin, crushed as it was by the look of the old miser.

“You are not eating your breakfast, wife.”

The poor helot came forward with a piteous look, cut herself a piece of bread, and took a pear. Eugenie boldly offered her father some grapes, saying—

“Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will eat some, will you not? I went to get these pretty grapes expressly for you.”

“If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for you, nephew. When you have finished, we will go into the garden; I have something to tell you which can’t be sweetened.”

Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning the young man could not mistake.

“What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of my poor mother”—at these words his voice softened—”no other sorrow can touch me.”

“My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to try us?” said his aunt.

“Ta, ta, ta, ta,” said Grandet, “there’s your nonsense beginning. I am sorry to see those white hands of yours, nephew”;

and he showed the shoulder-of-mutton fists which Nature had put at the end of his own arms.

“There’s a pair of hands made to pick up silver pieces. You’ve been brought up to put your feet in the kid out of which we make the purses we keep our money in. A bad look-out! Very bad!”

“What do you mean, uncle? I’ll be hanged if I understand a single word of what you are saying.”

“Come!” said Grandet.

The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the last of his wine, and opened the door.

“My cousin, take courage!”

The tone of the young girl struck terror to Charles’s heart, and he followed his terrible uncle, a prey to disquieting thoughts. Eugenie, her mother, and Nanon went into the kitchen, moved by irresistible curiosity to watch the two actors in the scene which was about to take place in the garden, where at first the uncle walked silently ahead of the nephew.

Grandet was not at all troubled at having to tell Charles of the death of his father; but he did feel a sort of compassion in knowing him to be without a penny, and he sought for some phrase or formula by which to soften the communication of that cruel truth. “You have lost your father,” seemed to him a mere nothing to say; fathers die before their children. But “you are absolutely without means,” —all the misfortunes of life were summed up in those words! Grandet walked round the garden three times, the gravel crunching under his heavy step. In the crucial moments of life our minds fasten upon the locality where joys or sorrows overwhelm us. Charles noticed with minute attention the box-borders of the little garden, the yellow leaves as they fluttered down, the dilapidated walls, the gnarled fruit-trees—picturesque details which were destined to remain forever in his memory, blending eternally, by the mnemonics that belong exclusively to the passions, with the recollections of this solemn hour.

“It is very fine weather, very warm,” said Grandet, drawing a long breath.

“Yes, uncle; but why—”

“Well, my lad,” answered his uncle, “I have some bad news to give you. Your father is ill—”

“Then why am I here?” said Charles. “Nanon,” he cried, “order post-horses! I can get a carriage somewhere?” he added, turning to his uncle, who stood motionless.

“Horses and carriages are useless,” answered Grandet, looking at Charles, who remained silent, his eyes growing fixed. “Yes, my poor boy, you guess the truth—he is dead. But that’s nothing; there is something worse: he blew out his brains.”

“My father!”

“Yes, but that’s not the worst; the newspapers are all talking about it. Here, read that.”

Grandet, who had borrowed the fatal article from Cruchot, thrust the paper under his nephew’s eyes. The poor young man, still a child, still at an age when feelings wear no mask, burst into tears.

“That’s good!” thought Grandet; “His eyes frightened me. He’ll be all right if he weeps—That is not the worst, my poor nephew,” he said aloud, not noticing whether Charles heard him, “that is nothing;you will get over it: but—”

“Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!”

“He has ruined you, you haven’t a penny.”

“What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?”

His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity, wept also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter. Charles, without listening further to his uncle, ran through the court and up the staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself across the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace for his lost parents.

“The first burst must have its way,” said Grandet, entering the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed their seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping their eyes. “But that young man is good for nothing; his head is more taken up with the dead than with his money.”

Eugenie shuddered as she heard her father’s comment on the most sacred of all griefs. From that moment she began to judge him. Charles’s sobs, though muffled, still sounded through the sepulchral house; and his deep groans, which seemed to come from the earth beneath, only ceased towards evening, after growing gradually feebler.

“Poor young man!” said Madame Grandet.

Fatal exclamation! Pere Grandet looked at his wife, at Eugenie, and at the sugar-bowl. He recollected the extraordinary breakfast prepared for the unfortunate youth, and he took a position in the middle of the room.

“Listen to me,” he said, with his usual composure. “I hope that you will not continue this extravagance, Madame Grandet. I don’t give you MY money to stuff that young fellow with sugar.”

“My mother had nothing to do with it,” said Eugenie; “it was I who—”

“Is it because you are of age,” said Grandet, interrupting his daughter, “that you choose to contradict me? Remember, Eugenie—”

“Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from us—”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” exclaimed the cooper on four chromatic tones;“the son of my brother this, my nephew that! Charles is nothing at all to us; he hasn’t a farthing, his father has failed; and when this dandy has cried his fill, off he goes from here. I won’t have him revolutionize my household.”

“What is ‘failing,’ father?” asked Eugenie.

“To fail,” answered her father, “is to commit the most dishonorable action that can disgrace a man.”

“It must be a great sin,” said Madame Grandet, “and our brother may be damned.”

“There, there, don’t begin with your litanies!” said Grandet, shrugging his shoulders. “To fail, Eugenie,” he resumed, “is to commit a theft which the law, unfortunately, takes under its protection. People have given their property to Guillaume Grandet trusting to his reputation for honor and integrity; he has made away with it all, and left them nothing but their eyes to weep with. A highway robber is better than a bankrupt: the one attacks you and you can defend yourself, he risks his own life; but the other—in short, Charles is dishonored.”

The words rang in the poor girl’s heart and weighed it down with their heavy meaning. Upright and delicate as a flower born in the depths of a forest, she knew nothing of the world’s maxims, of its deceitful arguments and specious sophisms; she therefore believed the atrocious explanation which her father gave her designedly, concealing the distinction which exists between an involuntary failure and an intentional one.

“Father, could you not have prevented such a misfortune?”

“My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes four millions.”

“What is a ‘million,’ father?” she asked, with the simplicity of a child which thinks it can find out at once all that it wants to know.

“A million?” said Grandet, “why, it is a million pieces of twenty sous each, and it takes five twenty sous pieces to make five francs.”

“Dear me!” cried Eugenie, “how could my uncle possibly have had four millions? Is there any one else in France who ever had so many millions?”

Pere Grandet stroked his chin, smiled, and his wen seemed to dilate.

“But what will become of my cousin Charles?”

“He is going off to the West Indies by his father’s request, and he will try to make his fortune there.”

“Has he got the money to go with?”

“I shall pay for his journey as far as—yes, as far as Nantes.”

Eugenie sprang into his arms.

“Oh, father, how good you are!”

She kissed him with a warmth that almost made Grandet ashamed of himself, for his conscience galled him a little.

“Will it take much time to amass a million?” she asked.

“Look here!” said the old miser, “you know what a napoleon is? Well, it takes fifty thousand napoleons to make a million.”

“Mamma, we must say a great many neuvaines for him.”

“I was thinking so,” said Madame Grandet.

“That’s the way, always spending my money!” cried the father.“Do you think there are francs on every bush?”

At this moment a muffled cry, more distressing than all the others, echoed through the garrets and struck a chill to the hearts of Eugenie and her mother.

“Nanon, go upstairs and see that he does not kill himself,” said Grandet. “Now, then,” he added, looking at his wife and daughter, who had turned pale at his words, “no nonsense, you two! I must leave you; I have got to see about the Dutchmen who are going away to-day. And then I must find Cruchot, and talk with him about all this.”

He departed. As soon as he had shut the door Eugenie and her mother breathed more freely. Until this morning the young girl had never felt constrained in the presence of her father; but for the last few hours every moment wrought a change in her feelings and ideas.

“Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?”

“Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred and fifty francs, sometimes two hundred—at least, so I’ve heard say.”

“Then papa must be rich?”

“Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me he bought Froidfond two years ago; that may have pinched him.”

Eugenie, not being able to understand the question of her father’s fortune, stopped short in her calculations.

“He didn’t even see me, the darling!” said Nanon, coming back from her errand. “He’s stretched out like a calf on his bed and crying like the Madeleine, and that’s a blessing! What’s the matter with the poor dear young man!”

“Let us go and console him, mamma; if any one knocks, we can come down.”

Madame Grandet was helpless against the sweet persuasive tones of her daughter’s voice. Eugenie was sublime: she had become a woman.

The two, with beating hearts, went up to Charles’s room. The door was open. The young man heard and saw nothing; plunged in grief, he only uttered inarticulate cries.

“How he loves his father!” said Eugenie in a low voice.

In the utterance of those words it was impossible to mistake the hopes of a heart that, unknown to itself, had suddenly become passionate. Madame Grandet cast a mother’s look upon her daughter, and then whispered in her ear—

“Take care, you will love him!”

“Love him!” answered Eugenie. “Ah! if you did but know what my father said to Monsieur Cruchot.”

Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin.

“I have lost my father, my poor father! If he had told me his secret troubles we might have worked together to repair them. My God! my poor father! I was so sure I should see him again that I think I kissed him quite coldly—”

Sobs cut short the words.

“We will pray for him,” said Madame Grandet. “Resign yourself to the will of God.”

“Cousin,” said Eugenie, “take courage! Your loss is irreparable;therefore think only of saving your honor.”

With the delicate instinct of a woman who intuitively puts her mind into all things, even at the moment when she offers consolation, Eugenie sought to cheat her cousin’s grief by turning his thoughts inward upon himself.

“My honor?” exclaimed the young man, tossing aside his hair with an impatient gesture as he sat up on his bed and crossed his arms.

“Ah! that is true. My uncle said my father had failed.”

He uttered a heart-rending cry, and hid his face in his hands.

“Leave me, leave me, cousin! My God! my God! Forgive my father, for he must have suffered sorely!”

There was something terribly attractive in the sight of this young sorrow, sincere without reasoning or afterthought. It was a virgin grief which the simple hearts of Eugenie and her mother were fitted to comprehend, and they obeyed the sign Charles made them to leave him to himself. They went downstairs in silence and took their accustomed places by the window and sewed for nearly an hour without exchanging a word. Eugenie had seen in the furtive glance that she cast about the young man’s room—that girlish glance which sees all in the twinkling of an eye—the pretty trifles of his dressing-case, his scissors, his razors embossed with gold. This gleam of luxury across her cousin’s grief only made him the more interesting to her, possibly by way of contrast. Never before had so serious an event, so dramatic a sight, touched the imaginations of these two passive beings, hitherto sunk in the stillness and calm of solitude.

“Mamma,” said Eugenie, “we must wear mourning for my uncle.”

“Your father will decide that,” answered Madame Grandet.

They relapsed into silence. Eugenie drew her stitches with a uniform motion which revealed to an observer the teeming thoughts of her meditation. The first desire of the girl’s heart was to share her cousin’s mourning.

About four o’clock an abrupt knock at the door struck sharply on the heart of Madame Grandet.

“What can have happened to your father?” she said to her daughter.

Grandet entered joyously. After taking off his gloves, he rubbed his hands hard enough to take off their skin as well, if his epidermis had not been tanned and cured like Russia leather—saving, of course, the perfume of larch-trees and incense. Presently his secret escaped him.

“Wife,” he said, without stuttering, “I’ve trapped them all! Our wine is sold! The Dutch and the Belgians have gone. I walked about the market-place in front of their inn, pretending to be doing nothing. That Belgian fellow—you know who I mean—came up to me. The owners of all the good vineyards have kept back their vintages, intending to wait; well, I didn’t hinder them. The Belgian was in despair; I saw that. In a minute the bargain was made. He takes my vintage at two hundred francs the puncheon, half down. He paid me in gold; the notes are drawn. Here are six louis for you. In three months wines will have fallen.”

These words, uttered in a quiet tone of voice, were nevertheless so bitterly sarcastic that the inhabitants of Saumur, grouped at this moment in the market-place and overwhelmed by the news of the sale Grandet had just effected, would have shuddered had they heard them. Their panic would have brought the price of wines down fifty per cent at once.

“Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?”

“Yes, little one.”

That term applied to his daughter was the superlative expression of the old miser’s joy.

“Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of twenty sous each?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet.”

“Then, father, you can easily help Charles.”

The amazement, the anger, the stupefaction of Belshazzar when he saw the Mene-Tekel-Upharsinbefore his eyes is not to be compared with the cold rage of Grandet, who, having forgotten his nephew, now found him enshrined in the heart and calculations of his daughter.

“What’s this? Ever since that dandy put foot in my house everything goes wrong! You behave as if you had the right to buy sugar-plums and make feasts and weddings. I won’t have that sort of thing. I hope I know my duty at my time of life! I certainly sha’n’t take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. I shall do for my nephew what it is proper to do, and you have no need to poke your nose into it. As for you, Eugenie,” he added, facing her, “don’t speak of this again, or I’ll send you to the Abbaye des Noyers with Nanon, see if I don’t; and no later than to-morrow either, if you disobey me! Where is that fellow, has he come down yet?”

“No, my friend,” answered Madame Grandet.

“What is he doing then?”

“He is weeping for his father,” said Eugenie.

Grandet looked at his daughter without finding a word to say;after all, he was a father. He made a couple of turns up and down the room, and then went hurriedly to his secret den to think over an investment he was meditating in the public Funds. The thinning out of his two thousand acres of forest land had yielded him six hundred thousand francs: putting this sum to that derived from the sale of his poplars and to his other gains for the last year and for the current year, he had amassed a total of nine hundred thousand francs, without counting the two hundred thousand he had got by the sale just concluded. The twenty per cent which Cruchot assured him would gain in a short time from the Funds, then quoted at seventy, tempted him. He figured out his calculation on the margin of the newspaper which gave the account of his brother’s death, all the while hearing the moans of his nephew, but without listening to them.

Nanon came and knocked on the wall to summon him to dinner. On the last step of the staircase he was saying to himself as he came down—

“I’ll do it; I shall get eight per cent interest. In two years I shall have fifteen hundred thousand francs, which I will then draw out in good gold—Well, where’s my nephew?”

“He says he doesn’t want anything to eat,” answered Nanon;“that’s not good for him.”

“So much saved,” retorted her master.

“That’s so,” she said.

“Bah! he won’t cry long. Hunger drives the wolves out of the woods.”

The dinner was eaten in silence.

“My good friend,” said Madame Grandet, when the cloth was removed, “we must put on mourning.”

“Upon my word, Madame Grandet! what will you invent next to spend money on? Mourning is in the heart, and not in the clothes.”

“But mourning for a brother is indispensable; and the Church commands us to—”

“Buy your mourning out of your six louis. Give me a hat-band;that’s enough for me.”

Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven without uttering a word. Her generous instincts, slumbering and long repressed but now suddenly and for the first time awakened, were galled at every turn.

The evening passed to all appearance like a thousand other evenings of their monotonous life, yet it was certainly the most horrible. Eugenie sewed without raising her head, and did not use the workbox which Charles had despised the night before. Madame Grandet knitted her sleeves. Grandet twirled his thumbs for four hours, absorbed in calculations whose results were on the morrow to astonish Saumur.

No one came to visit the family that day. The whole town was ringing with the news of the business trick just played by Grandet, the failure of his brother, and the arrival of his nephew. Obeying the desire to gossip over their mutual interests, all the upper and middle-class wine-growers in Saumur met at Monsieur des Grassins, where terrible imprecations were being fulminated against the ex-mayor.

Nanon was spinning, and the whirr of her wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray rafters of that silent hall.

“We don’t waste our tongues,” she said, showing her teeth, as large and white as peeled almonds.

“Nothing should be wasted,” answered Grandet, rousing himself from his reverie.

He saw a perspective of eight millions in three years, and he was sailing along that sheet of gold.

“Let us go to bed. I will bid my nephew good-night for the rest of you, and see if he will take anything.”

Madame Grandet remained on the landing of the first storey to hear the conversation that was about to take place between the goodman and his nephew. Eugenie, bolder than her mother, went up two stairs.

“Well, nephew, you are in trouble. Yes, weep, that’s natural. A father is a father; but we must bear our troubles patiently. I am a good uncle to you, remember that. Come, take courage! Will you have a little glass of wine?”

(Wine costs nothing in Saumur, and they offer it as tea is offered in China.)

“Why!” added Grandet, “you have got no light! That’s bad, very bad; you ought to see what you are about,” and he walked to the chimney-piece.

“What’s this?” he cried. “A wax candle! How the devil did they filch a wax candle? The spendthrifts would tear down the ceilings of my house to boil the fellow’s eggs.”

Hearing these words, mother and daughter slipped back into their rooms and burrowed in their beds, with the celerity of frightened mice getting back to their holes.

“Madame Grandet, have you found a mine?” said the man, coming into the chamber of his wife.

“My friend, wait; I am saying my prayers,” said the poor mother in a trembling voice.

“The devil take your good God!” growled Grandet in reply.

Misers have no belief in a future life; the present is their all in all. This thought casts a terrible light upon our present epoch, in which, far more than at any former period, money sways the laws and politics and morals. Institutions, books, men, and dogmas, all conspire to undermine belief in a future life—a belief upon which the social edifice has rested for eighteen hundred years. The grave, as a means of transition, is little feared in our day. The future, which once opened to us beyond the requiems, has now been imported into the present. To obtain per fas et nefas a terrestrial paradise of luxury and earthly enjoyment, to harden the heart and macerate the body for the sake of fleeting possessions, as the martyrs once suffered all things to reach eternal joys, this is now the universal thought—a thought written everywhere, even in the very laws which ask of the legislator, “What do you pay?” instead of asking him, “What do you think?” When this doctrine has passed down from the bourgeoisie to the populace, where will this country be?

“Madame Grandet, have you done?” asked the old man.

“My friend, I am praying for you.”

“Very good! Good-night; to-morrow morning we will have a talk.”

The poor woman went to sleep like a schoolboy who, not having learned his lessons, knows he will see his master’s angry face on the morrow. At the moment when, filled with fear, she was drawing the sheet above her head that she might stifle hearing, Eugenie, in her night-gown and with naked feet, ran to her side and kissed her brow.

“Oh! my good mother,” she said, “to-morrow I will tell him it was I.”

“No; he would send you to Noyers. Leave me to manage it; he cannot eat me.”

“Do you hear, mamma?”

“What?”

“He is weeping still.”

“Go to bed, my daughter; you will take cold in your feet: the floor is damp.”

Thus passed the solemn day which was destined to weight upon the whole life of the rich and poor heiress, whose sleep was never again to be so calm, nor yet so pure, as it had been up to this moment.

It often happens that certain actions of human life seem, literally speaking, improbable, though actual. Is not this because we constantly omit to turn the stream of psychological light upon our impulsive determinations, and fail to explain the subtile reasons, mysteriously conceived in our minds, which impelled them? Perhaps Eugenie’s deep passion should be analyzed in its most delicate fibres; for it became, scoffers might say, a malady which influenced her whole existence. Many people prefer to deny results rather than estimate the force of ties and links and bonds, which secretly join one fact to another in the moral order. Here, therefore, Eugenie’s past life will offer to observers of human nature an explanation of her naive want of reflection and the suddenness of the emotions which overflowed her soul. The more tranquil her life had been, the more vivid was her womanly pity, the more simple-minded were the sentiments now developed in her soul. Made restless by the events of the day, she woke at intervals to listen to her cousin, thinking she heard the sighs which still echoed in her heart. Sometimes she saw him dying of his trouble, sometimes she dreamed that he fainted from hunger. Towards morning she was certain that she heard a startling cry. She dressed at once and ran, in the dawning light, with a swift foot to her cousin’s chamber, the door of which he had left open. The candle had burned down to the socket. Charles, overcome by nature, was sleeping, dressed and sitting in an armchair beside the bed, on which his head rested; he dreamed as men dream on an empty stomach. Eugenie might weep at her ease; she might admire the young and handsome face blotted with grief, the eyes swollen with weeping, that seemed, sleeping as they were, to well forth tears. Charles felt sympathetically the young girl’s presence; he opened his eyes and saw her pitying him.

“Pardon me, my cousin,” he said, evidently not knowing the hour nor the place in which he found himself.

“There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and we thought you might need something. You should go to bed; you tire yourself by sitting thus.”

“That is true.”

“Well, then, adieu!”

She escaped, ashamed and happy at having gone there. Innocence alone can dare to be so bold. Once enlightened, virtue makes her calculations as well as vice. Eugenie, who had not trembled beside her cousin, could scarcely stand upon her legs when she regained her chamber. Her ignorant life had suddenly come to an end; she reasoned, she rebuked herself with many reproaches.“What will he think of me? He will think that I love him!” That was what she most wished him to think. An honest love has its own prescience, and knows that love begets love. What an event for this poor solitary girl thus to have entered the chamber of a young man! Are there not thoughts and actions in the life of love which to certain souls bear the full meaning of the holiest espousals?

An hour later she went to her mother and dressed her as usual. Then they both came down and sat in their places before the window waiting for Grandet, with that cruel anxiety which, according to the individual character, freezes the heart or warms it, shrivels or dilates it, when a scene is feared, a punishment expected—a feeling so natural that even domestic animals possess it, and whine at the slightest pain of punishment, though they make no outcry when they inadvertently hurt themselves. The goodman came down; but he spoke to his wife with an absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table without appearing to remember his threats of the night before.

“What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble.”

“Monsieur, he is asleep,” answered Nanon.

“So much the better; he won’t want a wax candle,” said Grandet in a jeering tone.

This unusual clemency, this bitter gaiety, struck Madame Grandet with amazement, and she looked at her husband attentively. The goodman—here it may be well to explain that in Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and Bretagne the word “goodman,” already used to designate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and cruel men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either have reached a certain age; the title means nothing on the score of individual gentleness—the goodman took his hat and gloves, saying as he went out—

“I am going to loiter about the market-place and find Cruchot.”

“Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his mind.”

Grandet, who was a poor sleeper, employed half his nights in the preliminary calculations which gave such astonishing accuracy to his views and observations and schemes, and secured to them the unfailing success at sight of which his townsmen stood amazed. All human power is a compound of time and patience. Powerful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the constant exercise of human power put to the service of self. It rests on two sentiments only—self-love and self-interest; but self-interest being to a certain extent compact and intelligent self-love, the visible sign of real superiority, it follows that self-love and self-interest are two parts of the same whole—egotism. From this arises, perhaps, the excessive curiosity shown in the habits of a miser’s life whenever they are put before the world. Every nature holds by a thread to those beings who challenge all human sentiments by concentrating all in one passion. Where is the man without desire? and what social desire can be satisfied without money?

Grandet unquestionably “had something on his mind,” to use his wife’s expression. There was in him, as in all misers, a persistent craving to play a commercial game with other men and win their money legally. To impose upon other people was to him a sign of power, a perpetual proof that he had won the right to despise those feeble beings who suffer themselves to be preyed upon in this world. Oh! who has ever truly understood the lamb lying peacefully at the feet of God?—touching emblem of all terrestrial victims, myth of their future, suffering and weakness glorified! This lamb it is which the miser fattens, puts in his fold, slaughters, cooks, eats, and then despises. The pasture of misers is compounded of money and disdain.

During the night Grandet’s ideas had taken another course, which was the reason of his sudden clemency. He had hatched a plot by which to trick the Parisians, to decoy and dupe and snare them, to drive them into a trap, and make them go and come and sweat and hope and turn pale—a plot by which to amuse himself, the old provincial cooper, sitting there beneath his gloomy rafters, or passing up and down the rotten staircase of his house in Saumur. His nephew filled his mind. He wished to save the honor of his dead brother without the cost of a penny to the son or to himself. His own funds he was about to invest for three years; he had therefore nothing further to do than to manage his property in Saumur. He needed some nutriment for his malicious activity, and he found it suddenly in his brother’s failure. Feeling nothing to squeeze between his own paws, he resolved to crush the Parisians in behalf of Charles, and to play the part of a good brother on the cheapest terms. The honor of the family counted for so little in this scheme that his good intentions might be likened to the interest a gambler takes in seeing a game well played in which he has no stake. The Cruchots were a necessary part of his plan; but he would not seek them—he resolved to make them come to him, and to lead up that very evening to a comedy whose plot he had just conceived, which should make him on the morrow an object of admiration to the whole town without its costing him a single penny.

内地的爱情

少女们纯洁而单调的生活中,必有一个美妙的时间,阳光会流入她们的心坎,花会对她们说话,心的跳动会把热烈的生机传给头脑,把意念融为一种渺茫的欲望;真是哀而不怨,乐而忘返的境界!儿童睁眼看到世界就笑,少女在大自然中发现感情就笑,像她儿时一样的笑。要是光明算得人生第一个恋爱对象,那么恋爱不就是心的光明吗?欧也妮终于到了把世界上的东西看明白的时候了。

跟所有内地姑娘一样,她起身很早,祷告完毕,开始梳妆,从今以后梳妆是一件有意义的事情了。她先把栗色的头发梳顺溜,很仔细地把粗大的辫子盘上头顶,不让零星短发从辫子里散出来,发髻的式样改成对称,越发烘托出她一脸的天真与娇羞;头饰的简朴与面部线条的单纯配得很调和。拿清水洗了好几次手,那是平日早已浸得通红,皮肤也变得粗糙了的,她望着一双滚圆的胳膊,私忖堂兄弟怎么能把手养得又软又白,指甲修得那么好看。她换上新袜,套上最体面的鞋子;一口气束好了胸,一个眼子都没有跳过。总之,她有生以来第一次希望自己显得漂亮,第一次懂得有一件裁剪合适、使她惹人注目的新衣衫的乐趣。

穿扮完了,她听见教堂的钟声,很奇怪地只数到七下,因为想要有充分的时间梳妆,不觉起得太早了。她既不懂一卷头发可以做上十来次,来研究它的效果,就只能老老实实抱着手臂,坐在窗下望着院子、小园和城墙上居高临下的平台;一派凄凉的景色,也望不到远处,但也不无那种神秘的美,为冷静的地方或荒凉的野外所特有的。

厨房旁边有口井,围着井栏,辘轳吊在一个弯弯的铁杆上。绕着铁杆有一株葡萄藤,那时枝条已经枯萎,变红;蜿蜒曲折的蔓藤从这儿爬上墙,沿着屋子,一直伸展到柴房顶上。堆在那里的木柴,跟藏书家的图书一样整齐。院子里因为长着青苔、野草,无人走动,日子久了,石板都是黑黝黝的。厚实的墙上披着绿荫,波浪似的挂着长长的褐色枝条。院子底上,通到花园门有八级向上的石磴,东倒西歪,给高大的植物淹没了,好似十字军时代一个寡妇埋葬她骑士的古墓。剥落的石基上面,竖着一排腐烂的木栅,一半已经毁了,却还布满各种藤萝,乱七八糟地扭作一团。栅门两旁,伸出两株瘦小的苹果树丫枝。园中有三条平行的小径,铺有细砂;小径之间是花坛,四周种了黄杨,借此堵住花坛的泥土;园子地上是一片菩提树荫,靠在平台脚下。一头是些杨梅树,另一头是一株高大无比的胡桃树,树枝一直伸到箍桶匠的密室外面。那日正是晴朗的天气,碰上洛阿河畔秋天常有的好太阳,使铺在幽美的景物、墙垣、院子和花园里树木上的初霜,开始融化。

欧也妮对那些素来觉得平淡无奇的景色,忽而体会到一种新鲜的情趣。千思百念,渺渺茫茫地在心头涌起,外界的阳光一点点的照开去,胸中的思绪也越来越多。她终于感到一阵模糊的、说不出的愉快把精神包围了,犹如外界的物体给云雾包围了一样。她的思绪,跟这奇特的风景连细枝小节都配合上了,心中的和谐与自然界的融成一片。

一堵墙上挂着浓密的凤尾草,草叶的颜色像鸽子的颈项一般时刻变化。阳光照到这堵墙上的时候,仿佛天国的光明照出了欧也妮将来的希望。从此她就爱这堵墙,爱看墙上的枯草,褪色的花,蓝的灯笼花,因为其中有她甜蜜的回忆,跟童年往事一样。有回声的院子里,每逢她心中暗暗发问的时候,枝条上每片落叶的声响就是回答。她可能整天待在这儿,不觉得时光飞逝。

然后她又心中乱糟糟的,骚动起来,不时站起身子,走过去照镜,好比一个有良心的作家打量自己的作品,想吹毛求疵地挑剔一番。

“我的相貌配不上他!”

这是欧也妮的念头,又谦卑又痛苦的念头。可怜的姑娘太瞧不起自己了;可是谦虚,或者不如说惧怕,的确是爱情的主要德行之一。像欧也妮那样的小布尔乔亚,都是身体结实,美得有点儿俗气的;可是她虽然跟弥罗岛上的爱神[1]相仿,却有一般隽永的基督徒气息,把她的外貌变得高雅,纯净,有点儿灵秀之气,为古代雕刻家没有见识过的。她的脑袋很大,前额带点儿男相,可是很清秀,像斐狄阿斯[2]的丘比特雕像;贞洁的生活使她灰色的眼睛光芒四射。圆脸上娇嫩红润的线条,生过天花之后变得粗糙了,幸而没有留下痘瘢,只去掉了皮肤上绒样的那一层,但依旧那么柔软细腻,会给妈妈的亲吻留下一道红印。她的鼻子大了一点儿,可是配上朱红的嘴巴倒很合适;满是纹路的嘴唇,显出无限的深情与善意。脖子是滚圆的。遮得密不透风的饱满的胸部,惹起人家的注意与幻想。当然她因为装束的关系,缺少一点儿妩媚;但在鉴赏家心目中,那个不甚灵活的姿态也别有风韵。所以,高大壮健的欧也妮并没有一般人喜欢的那种漂亮,但她的美是一望而知的,只有艺术家才会倾倒的。有的画家希望在尘世找到圣洁如玛利亚那样的典型:眼神要像拉斐尔所揣摩到的那么不亢不卑;而理想中的线条,又往往是天生的,只有基督徒贞洁的生活才能培养,保持。醉心于这种模型的画家,会发现欧也妮脸上就有种天生的高贵,连她自己都不曾觉察的:安静的额角下面,藏着整个的爱情世界;眼睛的模样,眼皮的动作,有股说不出的神明的气息。她的线条,面部的轮廓,从没有为了快乐的表情而有所改变,而显得疲倦,仿佛平静的湖边,水天相接之处那些柔和的线条。恬静、红润的脸色,光彩像一朵盛开的花,使你心神安定,感觉到它那股精神的魅力,不由不凝眸注视。

欧也妮还在人生的边上给儿童的幻象点缀得花团锦簇,还在天真烂漫的,采朵雏菊占卜爱情的阶段。她并不知道什么叫作爱情,只照着镜子想:“我太丑了,他看不上我的!”

随后她打开正对楼梯的房门,探着脖子听屋子里的声音。她听见拿侬早上惯有的咳嗽,走来走去,打扫堂屋,生火,缚住狼狗,在牛房里对牲口说话。她想:

“他还没有起来呢。”

她立刻下楼,跑到正在挤牛奶的拿侬前面。

“拿侬,好拿侬,做些乳酪给堂兄弟喝咖啡吧。”

“哎,小姐,那是要隔天做起来的,”拿侬大笑着说,“今天我没法做乳酪了。哎,你的堂兄弟生得标致,标致,真标致。你没瞧见他穿了那件金线纺绸睡衣的模样呢。嗯,我瞧见了。他细洁的衬衫跟本堂神父披的白祭衣一样。”

“拿侬,那么咱们弄些千层饼吧。”

“烤炉用的木柴谁给呢?还有面包,还有牛油?”拿侬说。她以葛朗台先生的总管资格,有时在欧也妮母女的心目中特别显得有权有势。“总不成为了款待你的堂兄弟,偷老爷的东西。你可以问他要牛奶、面粉、木柴,他是你的爸爸,会给你的。哦,他下楼招呼食粮来啦……”

欧也妮听见楼梯在父亲脚下震动,吓得往花园里溜了。一个人快乐到极点的时候,往往——也许不无理由——以为自己的心思全摆在脸上,给人家一眼就会看透;这种过分的羞怯与心虚,对欧也妮已经发生作用。可怜的姑娘终于发觉了自己的屋子冷冰冰的一无所有,怎么也配不上堂兄弟的风雅,觉得很气恼。她很热烈地感到非给他做一点儿什么不可;做什么呢?不知道。天真,老实,她听凭纯朴的天性自由发挥,并没对自己的印象和情感有所顾虑。一看见堂兄弟,女性的倾向就在她心中觉醒了,而且来势特别猛烈,因为到了二十三岁,她的智力与欲望都已经达到高峰。她第一次见了父亲害怕,悟出自己的命运原来操在他的手里,认为有些心事瞒着他是一桩罪过。她脚步匆忙地在那儿走,很奇怪地觉得空气比平时新鲜,阳光比平时更有生气,给她精神上添上了些暖意,给了她新生命。

她正在想用什么计策弄到千层饼,长脚拿侬和葛朗台却斗起嘴来。他们之间的吵架是像冬天的燕子一样少有的。老头儿拿了钥匙预备分配当天的食物,问拿侬:

“昨天的面包还有的剩吗?”

“连小屑子都没有了,先生。”

葛朗台从那只安育地方做面包用的平底篮里,拿出一个糊满干面的大圆面包,正要动手去切,拿侬说:

“咱们今儿是五个人吃饭呢,先生。”

“不错,”葛朗台回答,“可是这个面包有六磅重,还有的剩呢。这些巴黎人简直不吃面包,你等会儿瞧吧。”

“他们只吃馅子吗?”拿侬问。

在安育一带,俗语所说的馅子,是指涂在面包上的东西,包括最普通的牛油到最贵族化的桃子酱。凡是小时候舐光了馅子、面包剩下来的人,准懂得上面的那句话的意思。

“不,”葛朗台回答,“他们既不吃馅子,也不吃面包,就像快要出嫁的姑娘一样。”

他吩咐了几样顶便宜的菜,关起杂货柜正要走向水果房,拿侬把他拦住了说:

“先生,给我一些面粉跟牛油,替孩子们做一个千层饼吧。”

“为了我的侄儿,你想毁掉我的家吗?”

“为你的侄儿,我并不比为你的狗多费什么心,也不见得比你自己多费心……你瞧,你只给我六块糖!我要八块呢。”

“哎哟!拿侬,我从来没看见你这个样子,这算什么意思?你是东家吗?糖,就只有六块。”

“那么侄少爷的咖啡里放什么?”

“两块喽,我可以不用的。”

“在你这个年纪不用糖?我掏出钱来给你买吧。”

“不相干的事不用你管。”

那时糖虽然便宜,老箍桶匠始终觉得是最珍贵的舶来品,要六法郎一磅。帝政时代大家不得不省用糖,在他却成了牢不可破的习惯。

所有的女人,哪怕是最蠢的,都会用手段来达到她们的目的:拿侬丢开了糖的问题,来争取千层饼了。

“小姐,”她隔着窗子叫道,“你不是要吃千层饼吗?”

“不要,不要。”欧也妮回答。

“好吧,拿侬,”葛朗台听见了女儿的声音,“拿去吧。”

他打开面粉柜舀了一点儿给她,又在早先切好的牛油上面补了几两。

“还要烤炉用的木柴呢。”拿侬毫不放松。

“你要多少就拿多少吧,”他无可奈何地回答,“可是你得给我们做一个果子饼,晚饭也在烤炉上煮,不用生两个炉子了。”

“嘿!那还用说!”

葛朗台用着差不多像慈父一般的神气,对忠实的管家望了一眼。

“小姐,”厨娘嚷道,“咱们有千层饼吃了。”

葛朗台捧了许多水果回来,先把一盆的量放在厨房桌上。

“你瞧,先生,”拿侬对他说,“侄少爷的靴子多好看,什么皮呀!多好闻哪!拿什么东西上油呢?要不要用你鸡蛋清调的鞋油?”

“拿侬,我怕蛋清要弄坏这种皮的。你跟他说不会擦摩洛哥皮就是了……不错,这是摩洛哥皮;他自己会到城里买鞋油给你的;听说那种鞋油里面还掺白糖,叫它发亮呢。”

“这么说来,还可以吃的了?”拿侬把靴子凑近鼻尖,“哟!哟!跟太太的科隆水一样香!好玩!”

“好玩!靴子比穿的人还值钱,你觉得好玩?”

他把果子房锁上,又回到厨房。

“先生,”拿侬问,“你不想一礼拜来一两次砂锅,款待款待你的……”

“行。”

“那么我得去买肉了。”

“不用,你慢慢给我们炖个野味汤,佃户不会让你闲着的。不过我得关照高诺阿莱打几只乌鸦,这个东西煮汤再好没有了。”

“先生,乌鸦是吃死人的,可是真的?”

“你这个傻瓜,拿侬!它们还不是跟大家一样有什么吃什么。难道我们就不吃死人了吗?什么叫作遗产呢?”

葛朗台老头没有什么吩咐了,掏出表来,看到早饭之前还有半点钟工夫,便拿起帽子拥抱了一下女儿,对她说:

“你高兴上洛阿河边遛遛吗,到我的草原上去?我在那边有点儿事。”

欧也妮跑去戴上系有粉红缎带的草帽,然后父女俩走下七转八弯的街道,直到广场。

“一大早往哪儿去呀?”公证人克罗旭遇见了葛朗台问。

“有点儿事。”老头儿回答,心里也明白为什么他的朋友清早就出门。

当葛朗台老头有点儿事的时候,公证人凭以往的经验,知道准可跟他弄到些好处,因此就陪了他一块儿走。

“你来,克罗旭,”葛朗台说,“你是我的朋友,我要给你证明,在上好的土地上种白杨是多么傻……”

“这么说来,洛阿河边那块草原给你挣的六万法郎,就不算一回事吗?”克罗旭眨巴着眼睛问,“你还不够运气?……树木砍下的时候,正碰上南德城里白木奇缺,卖到三十法郎一株。”

欧也妮听着,可不知她已经临到一生最重大的关头,至高至上的父母之命,马上要由公证人从老人嘴里逼出来了。

葛朗台到了洛阿河畔美丽的草原上,三十名工人正在收拾从前种白杨的地方,把它填土,挑平。

“克罗旭先生,你来看一株白杨要占多少地。”他提高嗓门唤一个工人,“约翰,拿尺来把四……四……四边量……量……一下!”

工人量完了说:“每边八尺。”

“那就是糟蹋了三十二尺地,”葛朗台对克罗旭说,“这一排上从前我有三百株白杨,是不是?对了……三百……乘三……三十二……尺……就……就……就是五……五……五百棵干草;加上两旁的,一千五;中间的几排又是一千五。就……就算一千堆干草吧。”

“像这类干草,”克罗旭帮着计算道,“一千堆值到六百法郎。”

“算……算……算它一千两百法郎,因为割过以后再长出来的,还好卖到三四百法郎。那么,你算算一年一千……千……两百法郎,四十年……下……下……下来该多多少,加上你……你知道的利……利……利上滚利。”

“一起总该有六万法郎吧。”公证人说。

“得啦!只……只有六万法郎是不是?”老头儿往下说,这一回可不再结结巴巴了,“不过,两千株四十年的白杨还卖不到五万法郎,这不就是损失?给我算出来喽。”葛朗台说到这里,大有自命不凡之概,“约翰,你把窟窿都填平,只留下河边的那一排,把我买来的白杨种下去。种在河边,它们就靠公家长大了。”他对克罗旭补上这句,鼻子上的肉瘤微微扯动一下,仿佛是挖苦得最凶的冷笑。

“自然喽,白杨只好种在荒地上。”克罗旭这么说,心里给葛朗台的算盘吓住了。

“可不是,先生!”老箍桶匠带着讥讽的口吻。

欧也妮只顾望着洛阿河边奇妙的风景,没有留神父亲的计算,可是不久克罗旭对她父亲说的话,引起了她的注意:

“哎,你从巴黎招了一个女婿来啦,全个索漠都在谈论你的侄儿。快要叫我立婚书了吧,葛老头?”

“你……你……你清……清……清早出来,就……就……就是要告诉我这个吗?”葛朗台说这句话的时候,扯动着肉瘤,“那么,老……老兄,我不瞒你,你……你要知……知道的,我可以告诉你。我宁可把……把……女……女……女儿丢在洛阿河里,也……也不愿把……把她给……给她的堂……堂……堂兄弟;你不……不……不妨说给人人……人……人家听。啊,不必;让他……他们去胡……胡……胡扯吧。”

这段话使欧也妮一阵眼花。遥远的希望刚刚在她心里萌芽,就开花,长成,结成一个花球,现在她眼看着剪成一片片的,扔在地下。从隔夜起,促成两心相契的一切幸福的联系,已经使她舍不得查理;从今以后,却要由苦难来加强他们的结合了。苦难的崇高与伟大,要由她来担受,幸运的光华与她无缘,这不就是女子的庄严的命运吗?父爱怎么会在她父亲心中熄灭的呢?查理犯了什么滔天大罪呢?不可思议的问题!她初生的爱情已经够神秘了,如今又包上了一团神秘。她两腿哆嗦着回家,走到那条黝黑的老街,刚才是那么喜气洋洋的,此刻却一片荒凉,她感到了时光流转与人事纷纷留在那里的凄凉情调。爱情的教训,她一桩都逃不了。

到了离家只有几步路的地方,她抢着上前敲门,在门口等父亲。葛朗台瞥见公证人拿着原封未动的报纸,便问:

“公债行情怎么样?”

“你不肯听我的话,葛朗台,”克罗旭回答说,“赶紧买吧,两年之内还有两成可赚,并且利率很高,八万法郎有五千息金。行市是八十法郎五十生丁。”

“慢慢再说吧。”葛朗台摸着下巴。

公证人展开报纸,忽然叫道:“我的天!”

“什么事?”葛朗台这么问的时候,克罗旭已经把报纸送在他面前,说:“你念吧。”

巴黎商界巨子葛朗台氏,昨日照例前往交易所,不料返寓后突以手枪击中脑部,自杀殒命。死前曾致书众议院议长及商事裁判所所长,辞去本兼各职。闻葛氏破产,系受经纪人苏希及公证人洛庚之累。以葛氏地位及平素信用而论,原不难于巴黎商界中获得支援,徐图挽救;讵一时情急,遽尔出此下策,殊堪惋惜……

“我早知道了。”老头儿对公证人说。

克罗旭听了这话抽了一口冷气。虽然当公证人的都有镇静的功夫,但想到巴黎的葛朗台也许央求过索漠的葛朗台而被拒绝的时候,他不由得背脊发冷。

“那么他的儿子呢?昨天晚上还多么高兴……”

“他还没有知道。”葛朗台依旧很镇定。

“再见,葛朗台先生。”克罗旭全明白了,立刻去告诉特·篷风所长叫他放心。

回到家里,葛朗台看到早饭预备好了。葛朗台太太已经坐在那张有木座的椅子上,编织冬天用的毛线套袖。欧也妮跑过去拥抱母亲,热烈的情绪,正如我们憋着一肚子说不出的苦恼的时候一样。

“你们先吃吧,”拿侬从楼梯上连奔带爬地下来说,“他睡得像个小娃娃。闭着眼睛,真好看!我进去叫他,嗨,他一声也不回。”

“让他睡吧,”葛朗台说,“他今天起得再晚,也赶得上听他的坏消息。”

“什么事呀?”欧也妮问,一边把两小块不知有几克重的糖放入咖啡。那是老头儿闲着没事的时候切好在那里的,葛朗台太太不敢动问,只望着丈夫。

“他父亲一枪把自己打死了。”

“叔叔吗?”欧也妮问。

“可怜这孩子哪。”葛朗台太太嚷道。

“对啦,可怜,”葛朗台接着说,“他一个钱都没有了。”

“可是他睡的模样,好像整个天下都是他的呢。”拿侬声调很温柔地说。

欧也妮吃不下东西。她的心给揪紧了,就像初次对爱人的苦难表示同情,而全身都为之波动的那种揪心。她哭了。

“你又不认识你叔叔,哭什么?”她父亲一边说,一边饿虎般地瞪了她一眼,他瞪着成堆的金子时想必也是这种眼神。

“可是,先生,”拿侬插嘴道,“这可怜的小伙子,谁见了不替他难受呢?他睡得像木头一样,还不知道飞来横祸呢。”

“拿侬,我不跟你说话,别多嘴。”

欧也妮这时才懂得一个动了爱情的女子永远得隐瞒自己的感情。她不作声了。

“希望你,太太,”老头儿又说,“我出去的时候对他一字都不用提。我要去把草原上靠大路一边的土沟安排一下。我中饭时候回来跟侄儿谈。至于你,小姐,要是你为了这个花花公子而哭,这样也够了。他马上要到印度去,休想再看见他。”

父亲从帽子边上拿起手套,像平时一样不动声色地戴上,交叉着手指把手套扣紧,出门了。

欧也妮等到屋子里只剩她和母亲两个的时候,嚷道:

“啊!妈妈,我要死了。我从来没有这么难受过。”

葛朗台太太看见女儿脸色发白,便打开窗子叫她深呼吸。

“好一点儿了。”欧也妮过了一会儿说。

葛朗台太太看到素来很冷静、很安定的欧也妮,一下子居然神经刺激到这个田地,她凭着一般母亲对于孩子的直觉,马上猜透了女儿的心。事实上,欧也妮母女俩的生命,比两个肉体连在一块的匈牙利孪生姊妹[3]还要密切,她们永远一块儿坐在这个窗洞底下,一块儿上教堂,睡在一座屋子里,呼吸着同样的空气。

“可怜的孩子!”葛朗台太太把女儿的头搂在怀里。

欧也妮听了这话,仰起头来望了望母亲,揣摩她心里是什么意思,末了她说:

“干吗要送他上印度去?他遭了难,不是正应该留在这儿吗?他不是我们的骨肉吗?”

“是的,孩子,应该这样。可是你父亲有他的理由,应当尊重。”

母父俩一声不响地坐着,重新拿起活计,一个坐在有木座子的椅上,一个坐在小靠椅里。欧也妮为了感激母亲深切的谅解,吻着她的手说:

“你多好,亲爱的妈妈!”

这两句话使母亲那张因终身苦恼而格外憔悴的老脸,有了一点儿光彩。

“你觉得他长得体面吗?”欧也妮问。

葛朗台太太只微微笑了一下;过了一会儿她轻轻地说:

“你已经爱上他了是不是?那可不好。”

“不好?为什么不好?”欧也妮说,“你喜欢他,拿侬喜欢他,为什么我不能喜欢他?喂,妈妈,咱们摆起桌子来预备他吃早饭吧。”

她丢下活计,母亲也跟着丢下,嘴里却说:

“你疯了!”

但她自己也跟着发疯,仿佛证明女儿并没有错。

欧也妮叫唤拿侬。

“又是什么事呀,小姐?”

“拿侬,乳酪到中午可以弄好了吧?”

“啊!中午吗?行,行。”老妈子回答。

“还有,他的咖啡要特别浓,我听见台·格拉桑说,巴黎人都喝挺浓的咖啡。你得多放一些。”

“哪儿来这么些咖啡?”

“去买呀。”

“给先生碰到了怎么办?”

“不会,他在草原上呢。”

“那么让我快点儿去吧。不过番查老板给我白烛的时候,已经问咱们家里是不是三王来朝了。这样的花钱,满城都要知道喽。”

“你父亲知道了,”葛朗台太太说,“说不定要打我们呢。”

“打就打吧,咱们跪在地下挨打就是。”

葛朗台太太一言不答,只抬起眼睛望了望天。拿侬戴上头巾,出去了。欧也妮铺上白桌布,又到顶楼上把她好玩地吊在绳上的葡萄摘下几串。她在走廊里蹑手蹑脚,唯恐惊醒了堂兄弟,又禁不住把耳朵贴在房门上,听一听他平匀的呼吸,心里想:

“真叫作无事家中卧,祸从天上来。”

她从葡萄藤上摘下几张最绿的叶子,像侍候筵席的老手一般,把葡萄装得那么好看,然后得意扬扬地端到饭桌上。在厨房里,她把父亲数好的梨全部掳掠了来,在绿叶上堆成一座金字塔。她走来走去,蹦蹦跳跳,恨不得把父亲的家倾箱倒箧地搜刮干净;可是所有的钥匙都在他身上。拿侬揣着两个鲜蛋回来了。欧也妮一看见蛋,简直想跳上拿侬的脖子。

“我看见朗特的佃户篮里有鸡子,就问他要,这好小子,为了讨好我就给我了。”

欧也妮把活计放下了一二十次,去看煮咖啡,听堂兄弟的起床和响动;这样花了两小时的心血,她居然弄好一顿午餐,很简单,也不多花钱,可是家里的老规矩已经破坏完了,照例午餐是站着吃的,各人不过吃一些面包,一个果子,或是一些牛油,外加一杯酒。现在壁炉旁边摆着桌子,堂兄弟的刀叉前面放了一张靠椅,桌上摆了两盆水果,一个蛋盅,一瓶白酒,面包,衬碟内高高地堆满了糖:欧也妮望着这些,想到万一父亲这时候回家瞪着她的那副眼光,不由得四肢哆嗦。因此她一刻不停地望着钟,计算堂兄弟是否能够在父亲回来之前用完早餐。

“放心,欧也妮,要是你爸爸回来,一切归我担当。”葛朗台太太说。欧也妮忍不住掉下一滴眼泪,叫道:

“哦!好妈妈,怎么报答你呢?”

查理哼呀唱呀,在房内不知绕了多少圈,终于下楼了,还好,时间不过十一点。这巴黎人!他穿扮得花哨,仿佛在苏格兰的那位贵妇人爵府上做客。他进门时那副笑盈盈的怪和气的神情,配上青春年少多么合适,叫欧也妮看了又快活又难受。意想中伯父的行宫别墅,早已成为空中楼阁,他却嘻嘻哈哈地满不在乎,很高兴地招呼他的伯母:

“伯母,你昨夜睡得好吗?还有你呢,大姊?”

“很好,侄少爷,你自己呢?”葛朗台太太回答。

“我么?睡得好极了。”

“你一定饿了,弟弟,”欧也妮说,“来用早点吧。”

“中午以前我从来不吃东西,那时我才起身呢。不过路上的饭食太坏了,不妨随便一点儿,而且……”

说着他掏出勃莱甘造的一只最细巧的平底表。

“咦,只有十一点,我起早了。”

“早了?”葛朗台太太问。

“是呀,可是我要整东西。也罢,有东西吃也不坏,随便什么都行,家禽喽,鹧鸪喽。”

“啊,圣母玛利亚!”拿侬听了不禁叫起来。

“鹧鸪!”欧也妮心里想,她恨不得把全部私蓄去买一只鹧鸪。

“这儿坐吧。”伯母招呼他。

花花公子懒洋洋地倒在靠椅中,好似一个漂亮女子摆着姿势坐在一张半榻上。欧也妮和母亲端了两张椅子在壁炉前面,坐在他旁边。

“你们终年住在这儿吗?”查理问。他发觉堂屋在白天比在灯光底下更丑了。

“是的,”欧也妮望着他回答,“除非收割葡萄的时候,我们去帮一下拿侬,住在诺阿伊哀修道院里。”

“你们从来不出去遛遛吗?”

“有时候,星期日做完了晚祷,天晴的话,”葛朗台太太回答,“我们到桥边去,或者在割草的季节去看割草。”

“这儿有戏院没有?”

“看戏!”葛朗台太太嚷道,“看戏子!哎哟,侄少爷,难道你不知道这是该死的罪孽吗?”

“喂,好少爷,”拿侬捧着鸡子进来说,“请你尝尝带壳子鸡。”

“哦!新鲜的鸡子?”查理叫道。他正像那些惯于奢华的人一样,已经把他的鹧鸪忘掉了,“好极了!可有些牛油吗,好嫂子?”

“啊!牛油!那么你们不想吃千层饼了?”老妈子说。

“把牛油拿来,拿侬!”欧也妮叫道。

少女留神瞧着堂兄弟把面包切成小块,觉得津津有味,正如巴黎最多情的女工,看一出好人得胜的戏一样。查理受过极有涵养的母亲教养,又给一个时髦女子琢磨过了,的确有些爱娇而文雅的小动作,颇像一个风骚的情妇。少女的同情与温柔,真有磁石般的力量。查理一看见堂姊与伯母对他的体贴,觉得那股潮水般向他冲来的感情,简直没法抗拒。他对欧也妮又慈祥又怜爱地瞧了一眼,充满了笑意。把欧也妮端详之下,他觉得纯洁的脸上线条和谐到极点,态度天真,清朗有神的眼睛闪出年轻的爱情,只有愿望而没有肉欲的成分。

“老实说,亲爱的大姊,要是你盛装坐在巴黎歌剧院的花楼里,我敢保证伯母的话没有错,你要叫男人动心,叫女人妒忌,他们全得犯罪呢。”

这番恭维虽然使欧也妮莫名其妙,却把她的心抓住了,快乐得直跳。

“噢!弟弟,你取笑我这个可怜的乡下姑娘。”

“要是你识得我的脾气,大姊,你就知道我是最恨取笑的人:取笑会使一个人的心干枯,伤害所有的情感。”

说罢他有模有样地吞下一小块涂着牛油的面包。

“对了,大概我没有取笑人家的聪明,所以吃亏不少。在巴黎,‘他心地好呀’这样的话,可以把一个人羞得无处容身。因为这句话的意思是‘其蠢似牛’。但是我,因为有钱,谁都知道我拿起随便什么手枪,三十步外第一下就能打中靶子,而且还是在野地里,所以没有人敢开我玩笑。”

“侄儿,这些话就证明你的心好。”

“你的戒指漂亮极了,”欧也妮说,“给我瞧瞧不妨事吧?”

查理伸手脱下戒指,欧也妮的指尖,和堂兄弟粉红的指甲轻轻碰了一下,马上脸红了。

“妈妈,你看,多好的手工。”

“噢!多少金子啊。”拿侬端了咖啡进来,说。

“这是什么?”查理笑着问,他指着一个又高又瘦的土黄色的陶壶,上过釉彩,里边搪瓷的,四周堆着一圈灰土;里面的咖啡冲到面上又往底下翻滚。

“煮滚的咖啡呀。”拿侬回答。

“啊!亲爱的伯母,既然我在这儿住,至少得留下些好事做纪念。你们太落伍了!我来教你们怎样用夏伯太咖啡壶来煮成好咖啡。”

接着他解释用夏伯太咖啡壶的一套方法。

“哎哟,这样麻烦,”拿侬说,“要花上一辈子的工夫。我才不高兴这样煮咖啡呢。不是吗,我煮了咖啡,谁给咱们的母牛割草呢?”

“我来割。”欧也妮接口。

“孩子!”葛朗台太太望着女儿。

这句话,把马上要临到这可怜的青年头上的祸事,提醒了大家,三个妇女一齐闭口,不胜怜悯地望着他,使他大吃一惊。

“什么事,大姊?”

欧也妮正要回答,被母亲喝住了:

“嘘!孩子,你知道父亲会对先生说的……”

“叫我查理吧。”年轻的葛朗台说。

“啊!你名叫查理?多美丽的名字!”欧也妮叫道。

凡是预感到的祸事,差不多全会来的。拿侬,葛朗台太太和欧也妮,想到老箍桶匠回家就会发抖的,偏偏听到那么熟悉的门锤声响了一下。

“爸爸来了!”欧也妮叫道。

她在桌布上留下了几块糖,把糖碟子收了。拿侬把盛鸡蛋的盘子端走。葛朗台太太笔直地站着,像一头受惊的小鹿。这一场突如其来的惊慌,弄得查理莫名其妙。他问:

“嗨,嗨,你们怎么啦?”

“爸爸来了呀。”欧也妮回答。

“那又怎么样?”

葛朗台进来,尖利的眼睛望了望桌子,望了望查理,什么都明白了。

“啊!啊!你们替侄儿摆酒,好吧,很好,好极了!”他一点儿都不口吃地说,“猫儿上了屋,耗子就在地板上跳舞啦。”

“摆酒?”查理暗中奇怪。他想象不到这份人家的伙食和生活习惯。

“把我的酒拿来,拿侬。”老头儿吩咐。

欧也妮端了一杯给他。他从荷包里掏出一把面子很阔的牛角刀,割了一块面包,拿了一些牛油,很仔细地涂上了,就地站着吃起来。这时查理正把糖放入咖啡。葛朗台一眼瞥见那么些糖,便打量着他的女人,她脸色发白地走了过来。他附在可怜的老婆耳边问:

“哪儿来的这么些糖?”

“拿侬上番查铺子买的,家里没有了。”

这默默无声的一幕使三位女人怎样地紧张,简直难以想象。拿侬从厨房里跑出来,向堂屋内张望,看看事情怎么样。查理尝了尝咖啡,觉得太苦,想再加些糖,已经给葛朗台收起了。

“侄儿,你找什么?”老头儿问。

“找糖。”

“冲些牛奶,咖啡就不苦了。”葛朗台回答。

欧也妮把父亲藏起的糖碟子重新拿来放上桌子,声色不动地打量着父亲。真的,一个巴黎女子帮助情人逃走,用娇弱的胳膊拉住从窗口挂到地下的丝绳那种勇气,也不见得胜过把糖重新放上桌子时欧也妮的勇气。可是巴黎女子是有酬报的,美丽的手臂上每根受伤的血管,都会由情人用眼泪与亲吻来滋润,用快乐来治疗;欧也妮被父亲霹雳般的目光瞪着,惊慌到心都碎了,而这种秘密的痛苦,查理是永远不会得知的。

“你不吃东西吗,太太?”葛朗台问他的女人。

可怜的奴隶走过来恭恭敬敬地切了块面包,捡了一只梨。欧也妮大着胆子请父亲吃葡萄:

“爸爸,尝尝我的干葡萄吧!——弟弟,也吃一点儿好不好?这些美丽的葡萄,我特地为你摘来的。”

“哦!再不阻止的话,她们为了你要把索漠城抢光呢,侄儿。你吃完了,咱们到花园里去;我有事跟你谈,那可是不甜的喽。”

欧也妮和母亲对查理瞅了一眼,那种表情,查理马上懂得了。

“你是什么意思,伯父?自从我可怜的母亲去世以后……(说到母亲二字他的声音软了下来),不会再有什么祸事了……”

“侄儿,谁知道上帝想用什么灾难来磨炼我们呢?”他的伯母说。

“咄,咄,咄,咄!”葛朗台叫道,“又来胡说八道。——侄儿,我看到你这双漂亮雪白的手真难受。”

他指着手臂尽处那双羊肩般的手。

“明明是生来捞钱的手!你的教养,却把我们做公事包放票据用的皮,穿在你脚上。不行哪!不行哪!”

“伯父,你究竟什么意思?我可以赌咒,简直一个字都不懂。”

“来吧。”葛朗台回答。

吝啬鬼把刀子折起,喝干了杯中剩下的白酒,开门出去。

“弟弟,拿出勇气来呀!”

少女的声调叫查理浑身冰冷,他跟着厉害的伯父出去,焦急得要命。拿侬和欧也妮母女,按捺不住好奇心,一齐跑到厨房,偷偷瞧着两位演员,那幕戏就要在潮湿的小花园中演出了。伯父跟侄儿先是不声不响地走着。

说出查理父亲的死讯,葛朗台并没觉得为难,但知道查理一个钱都没有了,倒有些同情,私下想怎样措辞才能把悲惨的事实弄得和缓一些。“你父亲死了”这样的话,没有什么大不了。为父的总死在孩子前面。可是“你一点儿家产都没有了”这句话,却包括了世界上所有的苦难。老头儿在园子中间咯咯作响的沙径上已经走到了第三圈。在一生的重要关头,凡是悲欢离合之事发生的场所,总跟我们的心牢牢地黏在一块。所以查理特别注意到小园中的黄杨,枯萎的落叶,剥落的围墙,奇形怪状的果树,以及一切别有风光的细节;这些都将成为他不可磨灭的回忆,和这个重大的时间永久分不开。因为激烈的情绪有一种特别的记忆力。

葛朗台深深呼了一口气:

“天气真热,真好。”

“是的,伯父,可是为什么?……”

“是这样的,孩子,”伯父接着说,“我有坏消息告诉你。你父亲危险得很……”

“那么我还在这儿干吗?”查理叫道,“拿侬,上驿站去要马!我总该在这里弄到一辆车吧。”他转身向伯父补上一句。可是伯父站着不动。

“车呀马呀都不中用了。”葛朗台瞅着查理回答,查理一声不出,眼睛发呆了。“是的,可怜的孩子,你猜着了。他已经死了。这还不算,还有更严重的事呢,他是用手枪自杀的……”

“我的父亲?”

“是的。可是这还不算。报纸上还有名有分地批评他呢。哦,你念吧。”

葛朗台拿出问克罗旭借来的报纸,把那段骇人的新闻送在查理眼前。可怜的青年这时还是一个孩子,还在极容易流露感情的年纪,他眼泪涌了出来。

“啊,好啦,”葛朗台私下想,“他的眼睛吓了我一跳。现在他哭了,不要紧了。”

“这还不算一回事呢,可怜的侄儿,”葛朗台高声往下说,也不知道查理有没有在听他,“这还不算一回事呢,你慢慢会忘掉的,可是……”

“不会!永远不会!爸爸呀!爸爸呀!”

“他把你的家败光了,你一个钱也没有了。”

“那有什么相干?我的爸爸呢?……爸爸!”

围墙中间只听见号哭与抽噎的声音凄凄惨惨响成一片,而且还有回声。三个女人都感动得哭了:眼泪跟笑声一样会传染的。查理不再听他的伯父说话了,他冲进院子,摸到楼梯,跑到房内横倒在床上,把被窝蒙着脸,预备躲开了亲人痛哭一场。

“让第一阵暴雨过了再说。”葛朗台走进堂屋道。这时欧也妮和母亲急匆匆地回到原位,抹了抹眼泪,颤巍巍的手指重新做起活计来。“可是这孩子没有出息,把死人看得比钱还重。”

欧也妮听见父亲对最圣洁的感情说出这种话,不禁打了个寒噤。从此她就开始批判父亲了。查理的抽噎虽然沉了下去,在这所到处有回声的屋子里仍旧听得清清楚楚;仿佛来自地下的沉痛的呼号,慢慢地微弱,到傍晚才完全止住。

“可怜的孩子!”葛朗台太太说。

这句慨叹可出了事。葛朗台老头瞅着他的女人,瞅着欧也妮和糖碟子,记起了请倒霉侄儿吃的那顿丰盛的早餐,便站在堂屋中央,照例很镇静地说:

“啊!葛朗台太太,希望你以后不要再乱花钱。我的钱不是给你买糖喂那个小浑蛋的。”

“不关母亲的事,”欧也妮说,“是我……”

“你成年了就想跟我闹别扭是不是?”葛朗台截住了女儿的话,“欧也妮,你该想一想……”

“父亲,你弟弟的儿子在你家里总不成连……”

“咄,咄,咄,咄!”老箍桶匠这四个字全是用的半音阶,“又是我弟弟的儿子呀,又是我的侄儿呀。哼,查理跟咱们什么相干?他连一个子儿、半个子儿都没有,他父亲破产了。等这花花公子称心如意地哭够了,就叫他滚蛋;我才不让他把我的家搅得天翻地覆呢。”

“父亲,什么叫作破产?”

“破产,”父亲回答说,“是最丢人的事,比所有丢人的事还要丢人。”

“那一定是罪孽深重啰,”葛朗台太太说,“我们的弟弟要入地狱了吧。”

“得了吧,你又来婆婆妈妈的,”他耸耸肩膀,“欧也妮,破产就是窃盗,可是有法律保护的窃盗。人家凭了琪奥默·葛朗台的信用跟清白的名声,把口粮交给他,他却统统吞没了,只给人家留下一双眼睛落眼泪。破产的人比路劫的强盗还要不得:强盗攻击你,你可以防卫,他也拼着脑袋;至于破产的人……总而言之,查理是丢尽了脸。”

这些话一直响到可怜的姑娘心里,全部说话的分量压在她心头。她天真老实的程度,不下于森林中的鲜花娇嫩的程度,既不知道社会上的教条,也不懂似是而非的论调,更不知道那些骗人的推理;所以她完全相信父亲的解释,不知他是有心把破产说得那么卑鄙,不告诉她有计划的破产跟迫不得已的破产是不同的。

“那么父亲,那桩倒霉事儿你没有法子阻拦吗?”

“兄弟并没有跟我商量,而且他亏空四百万呢。”

“什么叫作一百万,父亲?”她那种天真,好像一个要什么就有什么的孩子。

“一百万?”葛朗台说,“那就是一百万个二十铜子的钱,五个二十铜子的钱才能凑成五法郎。”

“天哪!天哪!叔叔怎么能有四百万呢?法国可有人有这么几百万几百万的吗?”

葛朗台老头摸摸下巴,微微笑着,肉瘤似乎胀大了些。

“那么堂兄弟怎么办呢?”

“到印度去,照他父亲的意思,他应该想法在那儿发财。”

“他有没有钱上那儿去呢?”

“我给他路费……送他到……是的,送他到南德。”

欧也妮跳上去勾住了父亲的脖子。

“啊!父亲,你真好,你!”

她拥抱他的那股劲儿,差一点儿叫葛朗台惭愧,他的良心有些不好过了。

“赚到一百万要很多时候吧?”她问。

“哦,”箍桶匠说,“你知道什么叫作一块拿破仑[4]吧;一百万就得五万拿破仑。”

“妈妈,咱们得替他念‘九天经’吧?”

“我已经想到了。”母亲回答。

“又来了!老是花钱,”父亲嚷道,“啊!你们以为家里几千几百的花不完吗?”

这时顶楼上传来一声格外凄惨的悲啼,把欧也妮和她的母亲吓呆了。

“拿侬,上去瞧瞧:别让他自杀了。”葛朗台这句话把母女俩听得脸色发白,他却转身吩咐她们,“啊!你们,别胡闹。我要走了,跟咱们的荷兰客人打交道去,他们今天动身。过后我得去看克罗旭,谈谈这些事。”

他走了。葛朗台带上大门,欧也妮和母亲呼吸都自由了。那天以前,女儿在父亲前面从来不觉得拘束;但几小时以来,她的感情跟思想时时刻刻都在变化。

“妈妈,一桶酒能卖多少法郎?”

“你父亲的价钱是一百到一百五十,听说有时卖到两百。”

“那么他有一千四百桶收成的时候……”

“老实说,孩子,我不知道那可以卖到多少;你父亲从来不跟我谈他的生意。”

“这么说来,爸爸应该有钱哪。”

“也许是吧。不过克罗旭先生跟我说,他两年以前买了法劳丰。大概他现在手头不宽。”

欧也妮对父亲的财产再也弄不清了。她的计算便至此为止。

“他连看也没看到我,那小少爷!”拿侬下楼说,“他躺在床上像头小牛,哭得像圣女玛特兰纳,真想不到!这可怜的好少爷干吗这样伤心呀?”

“我们赶快去安慰安慰他吧,妈妈;等有人敲门,我们就下楼。”

葛朗台太太抵抗不了女儿那么悦耳的声音。欧也妮变得伟大了,已经是成熟的女人了。

两个人忐忑地上楼,走向查理的卧房。房门打开在那里。查理什么都没有看见,什么都没有听见。他浸在泪水中间,不成音节地在那里哼哼唧唧。

“他对他父亲多好!”欧也妮轻轻地说。

这句话的音调,明明显出她不知不觉已经动了情,存着希望。葛朗台太太慈祥地望了女儿一眼,附在她耳边悄悄地说:

“小心,你要爱上他了。”

“爱他!”欧也妮答道,“你没有听见父亲说的话呢!”

查理翻了一个身,看见了伯母跟堂姊。

“父亲死了,我可怜的父亲!要是他把心中的苦难告诉我,我跟他两个可以想法子挽回啊。我的上帝!我的好爸爸!我以为不久就会看到他的,临走对他就没有什么亲热的表示……”

他一阵呜咽,说不下去了。

“我们为他祷告就是了,”葛朗台太太说,“你得听从主的意思。”

“弟弟,勇敢些!父亲死了是挽回不来的;现在应该挽回你的名誉……”

女人的本能和乖巧,对什么事都很机灵,在安慰人家的时候也是如此;欧也妮想叫堂兄弟关切他自己,好减轻一些痛苦。

“我的名誉?”他猛地把头发一甩,抱着胳膊在床上坐起。

“啊!不错。伯父说我父亲是破产了。”

他凄厉地大叫一声,把手蒙住了脸。

“你走开,大姊,你走开!我的上帝,我的上帝!饶恕我的父亲吧,他已经太痛苦了。”

年轻人的真实的、没有计算、没有作用的痛苦的表现,真是又惨又动人。查理挥手叫她们走开的时候,欧也妮和母亲两颗单纯的心,都懂得这是一种不能让旁人参与的痛苦。她们下楼,默默地回到窗下的座位上,不声不响地工作了一小时。凭着少女们一眼之间什么都看清了的眼睛,欧也妮早已瞥见堂兄弟美丽的梳妆用具,金镶的剪刀和剃刀之类。在痛苦的气氛中看到这种奢华气派,使她对比之下更关切查理。母女俩一向过着平静与孤独的生活,从来没有一桩这样严重的事,一个这样惊心动魄的场面,刺激过她们的幻想。

“妈妈,”欧也妮说,“咱们应该替叔叔戴孝吧?”

“你父亲会决定的。”葛朗台太太回答。

她们又不作声了。欧也妮一针一针缝着,有规律的动作很可使一个旁观的人觉察她内容丰富的冥想。这可爱的姑娘第一个愿望,是想跟堂兄弟一起守丧。

四点光景,门上来势汹汹地敲了一阵,把葛朗台太太骇得心儿直跳,对女儿说:

“你父亲什么事呀?”

葛朗台高高兴兴地进来,脱下手套,两手拼命地搓,几乎把皮肤都擦破,幸而他的表皮像俄国皮那样上过硝似的,只差没有加过香料。他踱来踱去,一刻不停地看钟。临了他心头的秘密泄露了,一点儿也不口吃地说:

“告诉你,太太,他们都中了我的计。咱们的酒卖掉了!荷兰人跟比国人今儿动身,我在广场上闲荡,在他们的旅馆前面,装作无聊的神气。你认识的那家伙就来找我。所有出产好葡萄的人都压着货不肯卖,我自然不去阻拦他们。咱们的比国人可是慌了。我看得清清楚楚。结果是两百法郎一桶成交,一半付现。收到的货款全是黄金。合同已经签下,这六个路易[5]是给你的佣金。再过三个月,酒价一定要跌。”

他说最后一句的时候语气很镇静,可是话中带刺。索漠的人这时挤在广场上,葛朗台的酒脱手的消息已经把他们吓坏了,要是再听到上面的话,他们一定会气得发抖。人心的慌乱可能使酒价跌去一半。

“今年你不是有一千桶酒吗,父亲?”欧也妮问。

“是啊,小乖乖。”

这个称呼是老箍桶匠快乐到了极点的表示。

“可以卖到二十万法郎喽?”

“是的,葛朗台小姐。”

“这样,父亲,你很容易帮查理的忙了。”

当初巴比伦王拜太查,看到神秘的手在墙上预告他的死亡时,他的愤怒与惊愕也不能跟这时葛朗台的怒火相比。他早已把侄儿忘得一干二净,却发觉侄儿始终盘踞在女儿心里,在女儿的计算之中。

“啊,好!这个花花公子一进了我的家,什么都颠倒了。你们摆阔,买糖果,花天酒地地请客。我可不答应。到了这个年纪,我总该知道怎么做人了吧!并且也轮不到女儿,轮不到谁来教训我。应该怎样对付我的侄儿,我就怎样对付。不用你们管。——至于你,欧也妮,”他转过身子对她说,“再不许提到他,要不,我把你跟拿侬一起送到诺阿伊哀修道院去,看我做得到做不到;你再哼一声,明天就打发你走。——他在哪儿,这孩子?下过楼没有?”

“没有,朋友。”葛朗台太太回答。

“他在干什么?”

“哭他的父亲哪。”欧也妮回答。

葛朗台瞪着女儿,想不出话来。他好歹也是父亲啊。在堂屋里转了两下,他急急忙忙上楼,躲进密室去考虑买公债的计划。连根砍掉的两千阿尔邦的林木,卖到六十万法郎;加上白杨,上年和当年的收入,以及最近成交的二十万法郎买卖,总数大概有九十万。公债行情是七十法郎,短时期内好赚二分利,他很想试一试。他拿起记载兄弟死讯的那张报纸,写下数目计算起来,虽然听到侄儿的呻吟,也没有听进耳朵。

拿侬跑来敲敲墙壁请主人下楼,晚饭已经预备好了。走到穹隆下面楼梯的最后一级,葛朗台心里想:

“既然有八厘利,我一定做这笔生意。两年以后可以有一百五十万金洋从巴黎提回来。——哎,侄儿在哪里?”

“他说不要吃饭,”拿侬说,“真是不顾身体。”

“省省我的粮食也好。”主人回答。

“是吧。”她说。

“嘿!他不会永远哭下去的。肚子饿了,树林里的狼也躲不住呢。”

晚饭时候,大家好古怪地不出一声。等到桌布拿掉了,葛朗台太太才说:

“好朋友,咱们该替兄弟戴孝吧。”

“真是,太太,你只晓得想出花钱的玩意儿。戴孝在乎心,不在乎衣服。”

“可是兄弟的孝不能不戴,教会吩咐我们……”

“就在你六个路易里支出,买你们的孝服吧。我只要一块黑纱就行。”

欧也妮抬起眼睛向上望了望,一言不发。她慷慨的天性素来潜伏着,受着压制,第一遭觉醒了,又时时刻刻受到伤害。

这一晚,表面上跟他们单调生活中无数的夜晚一样,但却是最难受的一晚。欧也妮头也不抬地做她的活计,也不动用隔夜被查理看得一文不值的针线匣。葛朗台太太编织她的套袖。葛朗台坐在一边把大拇指绕动了四小时,想着明天会叫索漠全城吃惊的计算,出神了。

那晚谁也没有上门。满城都在谈论葛朗台的那一下辣手,他兄弟的破产,和侄子的到来。为了需要对共同的利益唠叨一番,索漠城内所有中上阶层的葡萄园主,都挤在台·格拉桑府上,对前任区长破口大骂。

拿侬照例绩麻,堂屋的灰色的楼板下面,除了纺车声,更没有别的声响。

“哎,哎,咱们都爱惜舌头,舍不得用哪。”她说着,露出一排又白又大的牙齿,像光杏仁。

“是呀,什么都得爱惜。”葛朗台如梦方醒似的回答。

他远远里看到三年以后的八百万家私,他在一片黄金的海上载沉载浮。

“咱们睡觉吧。我代表大家去向侄儿说一声晚安,顺便瞧瞧他要不要吃点儿东西。”

葛朗台太太站在二层楼的楼梯台上,想听听老头儿跟查理说些什么。欧也妮比母亲大胆,更走上两级。

“喂,侄儿,你心里难受是不是?好吧,你哭吧,这是常情。父亲总是父亲。可是我们遇到苦难就得耐心忍受。你在这里哭,我却在替你打算。你瞧,做伯父的对你多好。来,拿出勇气来。要不要喝一小杯酒呢?”

索漠的酒是不值钱的:请人喝酒就像印度人请喝茶。

“哎,”葛朗台接着说,“你没有点火。要不得,要不得!做什么事都得看个清楚啊。”

说着他走到壁炉架前面。

“哟!这不是白烛吗?哪儿来的白烛?娘儿们为了替这个孩子煮鸡蛋,把我楼板都会拆掉呢!”

一听到这几句,母女俩赶紧回房,钻在床上,像受惊的耗子逃回老巢一样快。

“葛朗台太太,你有金山银山不是?”丈夫走进妻子的卧房问。

“朋友,我在祷告,等一会儿好不好?”可怜的母亲声音异样地回答。

“见他的鬼,你的好天爷!”葛朗台咕噜着说。

凡是守财奴都只知道眼前,不相信来世。葛朗台这句话,把现在这个时代赤裸裸地暴露了出来。金钱控制法律,控制政治,控制风俗,到了前所未有的程度。学校,书籍,人物,主义,一切都在破坏对来世的信仰,破坏这一千八百年以来的社会基础。如今坟墓只是一个无人惧怕的阶段。死后的未来,给提到现在来了。不管什么义与不义,只要能够达到尘世的天堂,享尽繁华之福,化心肝为铁石,胼手胝足地去争取暂时的财富,像从前的殉道者为了未来的幸福而受尽苦难一样。这是今日最普遍的,到处都揭示着的思想,甚至法律上也这样写着。法律不是问立法者“你想些什么?”而是问“你出多少代价?”等到这种主义从布尔乔亚传布到平民大众的时候,真不知我们的国家要变成什么模样。

“太太,你完了没有?”老箍桶匠问。

“朋友,我还在为你祈祷呢。”

“好吧!再见。明儿早上再谈。”

可怜的女人睡下时,仿佛小学生没有念熟功课,生怕醒来看到老师生气的面孔。正当她怀着鬼胎钻入被窝,蒙住耳朵时,欧也妮穿着衬衣,光着脚,跑到床前,吻着她的前额说:

“噢!好妈妈,明天我跟他说,一切都是我做的。”

“不行,他会送你到诺阿伊哀。还是让我来对付,他不会把我吃掉的。”

“你听见没有,妈妈?”

“什么?”

“他老是在哭哪。”

“去睡觉吧,孩子。你光着脚要受凉了,地砖潮得很呢。”

这一重大的日子就这样过去了。有钱而可怜的独养女儿,一辈子都忘不了这一日;从今以后,她的睡眠再没有从前那么酣畅、那么深沉了。

人生有些行为,虽然千真万确,但从事情本身看,往往像是不可能的。大概我们对于一些自发的决心,从没加以心理的剖析,对于促成那些行为的神秘的原因,没有加以说明。欧也妮深刻的热情,也许要在她最微妙的组织中去分析;因为她的热情,如一般爱挖苦的人所说的,变成了一种病,使她终身受到影响。许多人宁可否认事情的结局,不愿估计一下把许多精神现象暗中联系起来的关系、枢纽和连锁的力量。在懂得观察人性的人,看了欧也妮的过去,就知道她会天真到毫无顾忌,会突如其来地流露感情。她过去的生活越平静,女子的怜悯,这最有机智的情感,在她心中发展得越猛烈。所以被白天的事情扰乱之下,她夜里惊醒了好几次,探听堂兄弟的声息,以为又听到了从隔天起一直在她心中响着的哀叹;忽而她看见他悲伤得闭住了气,忽而梦见他差不多要饿死了。黎明时分,她确实听到一声可怕的呼喊,便立刻穿衣,在晨光中蹑手蹑脚地赶到堂兄弟房里。房门打开着,白烛一直烧到盘底上。查理疲倦至极,在靠椅中和衣睡着,脑袋倒在床上。他像一般空肚子的人一样做着梦。欧也妮此时尽可哭个痛快,尽可仔细鉴赏这张年轻秀美的脸,脸上刻画着痛苦的痕迹,眼睛哭肿了,虽然睡着,似乎还在流泪。查理睡梦中受到精神的感应,觉得欧也妮来了,便睁开眼睛,看见她满脸同情地站在面前。

“噢,大姊,对不起。”他显然不知道什么时间,也不知道身在何处。

“弟弟,这里还有几颗真诚的心听到你的声音,我们以为你需要什么呢。你该好好地睡,这样坐着太累了。”

“是的。”

“那么再见吧。”

她赶紧溜走,觉得跑到这儿来又高兴又害臊。只有天真才会做出这种冒失的事。要是心里明白的话,连德行也会像罪恶一般做种种计较的。欧也妮在堂兄弟面前并没发抖,一回到自己屋里却两腿站不直了。浑浑噩噩的生活突然告终,她左思右想地考虑起来,把自己大大地埋怨了一番。“他对我要怎么想呢!以为我爱上了他吧。”其实这正是她最希望的。坦白的爱情自有它的预感,知道爱能生爱。幽居独处的姑娘,居然偷偷跑进一个青年的屋子,这是何等的大事!在爱情中间,有些思想,有些行为,对某些心灵不就等于神圣的婚约吗?

一小时以后,她走进母亲房内,像平时一样服侍她起床。然后她俩坐在窗下老位置上等候葛朗台,焦急的情绪正如一个人害怕责骂与惩戒的时候,心发冷发热,或者揪紧或者膨胀,看各人的气质而定。这种情绪也很自然,连家畜也感觉到:它们自己不小心而受了伤可以不哼一声,犯了过失挨了打,一点儿痛苦就会使它们号叫。老头儿下楼了,心不在焉地跟太太说话,拥抱了一下欧也妮,坐上饭桌,仿佛已经忘记了隔夜恐吓的话。

“侄儿怎么啦?这孩子倒不打搅人。”

“先生,他睡着呢。”拿侬回答。

“再好没有,他用不到白烛了。”葛朗台用讥讽的口气说。

这种反常的宽大,带些讽刺的高兴,使葛朗台太太不胜惊奇,留神瞧着她的丈夫。老头儿……(这儿似乎应当提醒读者,在都兰、安育、博爱都、布勒塔尼这些区域,老头儿这个名称——我们已经好几次用来称呼葛朗台了——用于最淳厚的人,同时也用于最残忍的人,只要他们到了相当的年龄。所以这个称呼对个人的慈悲仁厚毫无关系。)老头儿拿起帽子、手套,说:

“我要到广场上去溜达一下,好碰到咱们的几位克罗旭。”

“欧也妮,你父亲心中一定有事。”母亲对女儿说。

的确,不大需要睡眠的葛朗台,夜里大半时间都在做种种初步的盘算。这些盘算,使他的见解、观察、计划,特别来得准确,而且百发百中,做一样成功一样,叫索漠人惊叹不已。人类所有的力量,只是耐心加上时间的混合。所谓强者是既有意志,又能等待时机。守财奴的生活,便是不断地运用这种力量为自我效劳。他只依赖两种情感:自尊心与利益。但利益既是自尊心的实际表现,又是真正优越的凭据,所以自尊心与利益是一物的两面,都从自私自利来的。因此,凡是守财奴都特别耐人寻味,只要有高明的手段把他烘托出来。这种人物涉及所有的情感,可以说集情感之大成,而我们个个人都跟他们一脉相通。哪里有什么全无欲望的人?而没有金钱,哪个欲望能够满足?

葛朗台的确心中有事,照他妻子的说法。像所有的守财奴一样,他非跟人家钩心斗角,把他们的钱合法地赚过来不可,这在他是一种无时或已的需要。搜刮旁人,岂非施展自己的威力,使自己老是可以有名有分地瞧不起那些过于懦弱的、给人吃掉的人吗?躺在上帝面前的那平安恬静的羔羊,真是尘世的牺牲者最动人的写照,象征了牺牲者在彼世界的生活,证明懦弱与受苦受到何等的光荣。可是这些微言奥旨有谁懂得?守财奴只知道把这头羔羊养得肥肥的,把它关起来,宰它,烤它,吃掉它,轻蔑它。金钱与鄙薄,才是守财奴的养料。

夜里,老头儿的念头换了一个方向;这是他表示宽大的缘故。他想好了一套阴谋诡计,预备开巴黎人的玩笑,折磨他们,

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