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雙語·歐也妮·葛朗臺 吝嗇鬼許的愿·情人起的誓

所屬教程:譯林版·歐也妮·葛朗臺

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2022年05月17日

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IV

In her father’s absence Eugenie had the happiness of busying herself openly with her much-loved cousin, of spending upon him fearlessly the treasures of her pity—woman’s sublime superiority, the sole she desires to have recognized, the sole she pardons man for letting her assume. Three or four times the young girl went to listen to her cousin’s breathing, to know if he were sleeping or awake;then, when he had risen, she turned her thoughts to the cream, the eggs, the fruits, the plates, the glasses—all that was a part of his breakfast became the object of some special care. At length she ran lightly up the old staircase to listen to the noise her cousin made. Was he dressing? Did he still weep? She reached the door.

“My cousin!”

“Yes, cousin.”

“Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room?”

“Where you like.”

“How do you feel?”

“Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry.”

This conversation, held through the closed door, was like an episode in a poem to Eugenie.

“Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so as not to annoy my father.”

She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a bird.

“Nanon, go and do his room!”

That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to the slightest noise, now lost its decaying aspect in the eyes of Eugenie. It grew luminous; it had a voice and spoke to her; it was young like herself—young like the love it was now serving. Her mother, her kind, indulgent mother, lent herself to the caprices of the child’s love, and after the room was put in order, both went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him company. Does not Christian charity make consolation a duty? The two women drew a goodly number of little sophistries from their religion wherewith to justify their conduct.

Charles was made the object of the tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart felt the sweetness of the gentle friendship, the exquisite sympathy which these two souls, crushed under perpetual restraint, knew so well how to display when, for an instant, they were left unfettered in the regions of suffering, their natural sphere. Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to fold the linen and put in order the toilet articles which Charles had brought;thus she could marvel at her ease over each luxurious bauble and the various knick-knacks of silver or chased gold, which she held long in her hand under a pretext of examining them. Charles could not see without emotion the generous interest his aunt and cousin felt in him; he knew society in Paris well enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, he would find all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie thus appeared to him in the splendor of a special beauty, and from thenceforth he admired the innocence of life and manners which the previous evening he had been inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took from Nanon the bowl of coffee and cream, and began to pour it out for her cousin with the simplicity of real feeling, giving him a kindly glance, the eyes of the Parisian filled with tears;he took her hand and kissed it.

“What troubles you?” she said.

“Oh! These are tears of gratitude,” he answered.

Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the candlesticks.

“Here, Nanon, carry them away!” she said.

When she looked again towards her cousin she was still blushing, but her looks could at least deceive, and did not betray the excess of joy which innundated her heart; yet the eyes of both expressed the same sentiment as their souls flowed together in one thought—the future was theirs.

This soft emotion was all the more precious to Charles in the midst of his heavy grief because it was wholly unexpected. The sound of the knocker recalled the women to their usual station. Happily they were able to run downstairs with sufficient rapidity to be seated at their work when Grandet entered; had he met them under the archway it would have been enough to rouse his suspicions. After breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the keeper from Froidfond, to whom the promised indemnity had never yet been paid, made his appearance, bearing a hare and some partridges shot in the park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the millers.

“Ha, ha! Poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish in Lent. Is all that fit to eat?”

“Yes, my dear, generous master; it has been killed for two days.”

“Come, Nanon, bestir yourself,” said Grandet; “take these things, they’ll do for dinner. I have invited the two Cruchots.”

Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and looked at everybody in the room.

“Well!” she said, “And how am I to get the lard and the spices?”

“Wife,” said Grandet, “give Nanon six francs, and remind me to get some of the good wine out of the cellar.”

“Well, then, Monsieur Grandet,” said the keeper, who had come prepared with an harangue for the purpose of settling the question of the indemnity, “Monsieur Grandet—”

“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” said Grandet; “I know what you want to say. You are a good fellow; we will see about it to-morrow, I’m too busy to-day. Wife, give him five francs,” he added to Madame Grandet as he decamped.

The poor woman was only too happy to buy peace at the cost of eleven francs. She knew that Grandet would let her alone for a fortnight after he had thus taken back, franc by franc, the money he had given her.

“Here, Cornoiller,” she said, slipping ten francs into the man’s hand, “some day we will reward your services.”

Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away.

“Madame,” said Nanon, who had put on her black coif and taken her basket, “I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it’ll go fast enough somehow.”

“Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down,” said Eugenie.

“Something very extraordinary is going on, I am certain of it,” said Madame Grandet. “This is only the third time since our marriage that your father has given a dinner.”

About four o’clock, just as Eugenie and her mother had finished setting the table for six persons, and after the master of the house had brought up a few bottles of the exquisite wine which provincials cherish with true affection, Charles came down into the hall. The young fellow was pale; his gestures, the expression of his face, his glance, and the tones of his voice, all had a sadness which was full of grace. He was not pretending grief, he truly suffered; and the veil of pain cast over his features gave him an interesting air dear to the heart of women. Eugenie loved him the more for it. Perhaps she felt that sorrow drew him nearer to her. Charles was no longer the rich and distinguished young man placed in a sphere far above her, but a relation plunged into frightful misery. Misery begets equality. Women have this in common with the angels—suffering humanity belongs to them. Charles and Eugenie understood each other and spoke only with their eyes; for the poor fallen dandy, orphaned and impoverished, sat apart in a corner of the room, and was proudly calm and silent. Yet, from time to time, the gentle and caressing glance of the young girl shone upon him and constrained him away from his sad thoughts, drawing him with her into the fields of hope and of futurity, where she loved to hold him at her side.

At this moment the town of Saumur was more excited about the dinner given by Grandet to the Cruchots than it had been the night before at the sale of his vintage, though that constituted a crime of high-treason against the whole wine-growing community. If the politic old miser had given his dinner from the same idea that cost the dog of Alcibiades his tail, he might perhaps have been called a great man; but the fact is, considering himself superior to a community which he could trick on all occasions, he paid very little heed to what Saumur might say. The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure and the violent death of Guillaume Grandet, and they determined to go to their client’s house that very evening to commiserate his misfortune and show him some marks of friendship, with a view of ascertaining the motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots to dinner.

At precisely five o’clock Monsieur C. de Bonfons and his uncle the notary arrived in their Sunday clothes. The party sat down to table and began to dine with good appetites. Grandet was grave, Charles silent, Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did not say more than usual; so that the dinner was, very properly, a repast of condolence.

When they rose from table Charles said to his aunt and uncle—

“Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a long and painful correspondence.”

“Certainly, nephew.”

As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles could hear nothing and was probably deep in his letter-writing, he said, with a dissimulating glance at his wife—

“Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will be Latin to you; it is half-past seven; you can go and attend to your household accounts. Good-night, my daughter.”

He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. A scene now took place in which Pere Grandet brought to bear, more than at any other moment of his life, the shrewd dexterity he had acquired in his intercourse with men, and which had won him from those whose flesh he sometimes bit too sharply the nickname of “the old dog.” If the mayor of Saumur had carried his ambition higher still, if fortunate circumstances, drawing him towards the higher social spheres, had sent him into congresses where the affairs of nations were discussed, and had he there employed the genius with which his personal interests had endowed him, he would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his native land. Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside of Saumur the goodman would have cut a very sorry figure. Possibly there are minds like certain animals which cease to breed when transplanted from the climates in which they are born.

“M…m…mon…sieur le p…p…president, you said t…t…that b…b…bankruptcy—”

The stutter which for years the old miser had assumed when it suited him, and which, together with the deafness of which he sometimes complained in rainy weather, was thought in Saumur to be a natural defect, became at this crisis so wearisome to the two Cruchots that while they listened they unconsciously made faces and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here it may be well to give the history of this impediment of the speech and hearing of Monsieur Grandet.

No one in Anjou heard better, or could pronounce more crisply the French language (with an Angevin accent) than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite of his shrewdness, he had been taken in by an Israelite, who in the course of the discussion held his hand behind his ear to catch sounds, and mangled his meaning so thoroughly in trying to utter his words that Grandet fell a victim to his humanity and was compelled to prompt the wily Jew with the words and ideas he seemed to seek, to complete himself the arguments of the said Jew, to say what that cursed Jew ought to have said for himself; in short, to be the Jew instead of being Grandet. When the cooper came out of this curious encounter he had concluded the only bargain of which in the course of a long commercial life he ever had occasion to complain. But if he lost at the time pecuniarily, he gained morally a valuable lesson; later, he gathered its fruits. Indeed, the goodman ended by blessing that Jew for having taught him the art of irritating his commercial antagonist and leading him to forget his own thoughts in his impatience to suggest those over which his tormentor was stuttering.

No affair had ever needed the assistance of deafness, impediments of speech, and all the incomprehensible circumlocutions with which Grandet enveloped his ideas, as much as the affair now in hand. In the first place, he did not mean to shoulder the responsibility of his own scheme; in the next, he was determined to remain master of the conversation and to leave his real intentions in doubt.

“M…m…monsieur de B…B…Bonfons,” —

For the second time in three years Grandet called the Cruchot nephew Monsieur de Bonfons; the president felt he might consider himself the artful old fellow’s son-in-law—

“You…ou said th…th…that b…b…bankruptcy c…c…could, in some c…c…cases, b…b…be p…p…prevented b…b…by—”

“By the courts of commerce themselves. It is done constantly,”said Monsieur C. de Bonfons, bestriding Grandet’s meaning, or thinking he guessed it, and kindly wishing to help him out with it.“Listen.”

“Y…yes,” said Grandet humbly, with the mischievous expression of a boy who is inwardly laughing at his teacher while he pays him the greatest attention.

“When a man so respected and important as, for example, your late brother—”

“M…my b…b…brother, yes.”

“Is threatened with insolvency—”

“They c…c…call it in…ins…s…solvency?”

“Yes; when his failure is imminent, the court of commerce, to which he is amenable (please follow me attentively), has the power, by a decree, to appoint a receiver. Liquidation, you understand, is not the same as failure. When a man fails, he is dishonored; but when he merely liquidates, he remains an honest man.”

“T…t…that’s very d…d…different, if it d…d…doesn’t c…c…cost m…m…more,” said Grandet.

“But a liquidation can be managed without having recourse to the courts at all. For,” said the president, sniffing a pinch of snuff,“don’t you know how failures are declared?”

“N…n…no, I n…n…never t…t…thought,” answered Grandet.

“In the first place,” resumed the magistrate, “by filing the schedule in the record office of the court, which the merchant may do himself, or his representative for him with a power of attorney duly certified. In the second place, the failure may be declared under compulsion from the creditors. Now if the merchant does not file his schedule, and if no creditor appears before the courts to obtain a decree of insolvency against the merchant, what happens?”

“W…w…what h…h(huán)…h(huán)appens?”

“Why, the family of the deceased, his representatives, his heirs, or the merchant himself, if he is not dead, or his friends if he is only hiding, liquidate his business. Perhaps you would like to liquidate your brother’s affairs?”

“Ah! Grandet,” said the notary, “that would be the right thing to do. There is honor down here in the provinces. If you save your name—for it is your name—you will be a man—”

“A noble man!” cried the president, interrupting his uncle.

“Certainly,” answered the old man, “my b…b…brother’s name was G…G…Grandet, like m…m…mine. Th…that’s c…c…certain;I d…d…don’t d…d…deny it. And th…th…this l…l…liquidation might be, in m…m…many ways, v…v…very advan…t…t…tageous t…t…to the interests of m…m…my n…n…nephew, whom I l…l…love. But I must consider. I don’t k…k…know the t…t…tricks of P…P…Paris. I b…b…belong to Sau…m…mur, d…d…don’t you see? M…m…my vines, my d…d…drains—in short, I’ve my own b…b…business. I never g…g…give n…n…notes. What are n…n…notes? I t…t…take a good m…m…many, but I have never s…s…signed one. I d…d…don’t understand such things. I have h…h(huán)…h(huán)eard say that n…n…notes c…c…can be b…b…bought up.”

“Of course,” said the president. “Notes can be bought in the market, less so much per cent. Don’t you understand?”

Grandet made an ear…trumpet of his hand, and the president repeated his words.

“Well, then,” replied the man, “there’s s…s…something to be g…g…got out of it? I k…know n…nothing at my age about such th…th…things. I l…l…live here and l…l…look after the v…v…vines. The vines g…g…grow, and it’s the w…w…wine that p…p…pays. L…l…look after the v…v…vintage, t…t…that’s my r…r…rule. My c…c…chief interests are at Froidfond. I c…c…can’t l…l…leave my h…h(huán)…h(huán)ouse to m…m…muddle myself with a d…d…devilish b…b…business I kn…know n…n…nothing about. You say I ought to l…l…liquidate my b…b…brother’s af…f…fairs, to p…p…prevent the f…f…failure. I c…c…can’t be in two p…p…places at once, unless I were a little b…b…bird, and—”

“I understand,” cried the notary. “Well, my old friend, you have friends, old friends, capable of devoting themselves to your interests.”

“All right!” thought Grandet, “make haste and come to the point!”

“Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your brother Guillaume’s chief creditor and said to him—”

“One m…m…moment,” interrupted the goodman, “said wh…wh…what? Something l…l…like this. Monsieur Gr…Grandet of Saumur this, Monsieur Grandet of Saumur that. He l…loves his b…b…brother, he loves his n…nephew. Grandet is a g…g…good uncle;he m…m…means well. He has sold his v…v…vintage. D…d…don’t declare a f…f…failure; c…c…call a meeting; l…l…liquidate;and then Gr…Gr…Grandet will see what he c…c…can do. B…b…better liquidate than l…let the l…l…law st…st…stick its n…n…nose in. Hein? isn’t it so?”

“Exactly so,” said the president.

“B…because, don’t you see, Monsieur de B…Bonfons, a man must l…l…look b…b…before he l…leaps. If you c…c…can’t, you c…c…can’t. M…m…must know all about the m…m…matter, all the resources and the debts, if you d…d…don’t want to be r…r…ruined. Hein? isn’t it so?”

“Certainly,” said the president. “I’m of opinion that in a few months the debts might be bought up for a certain sum, and then paid in full by an agreement. Ha! ha! you can coax a dog a long way if you show him a bit of lard. If there has been no declaration of failure, and you hold a lien on the debts, you come out of the business as white as the driven snow.”

“Sn…n…now,” said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear, “wh…wh…what about s…now?”

“But,” cried the president, “do pray attend to what I am saying.”

“I am at…t…tending.”

“A note is merchandise—an article of barter which rises and falls in prices. That is a deduction from Jeremy Bentham’s theory about usury. That writer has proved that the prejudice which condemned usurers to reprobation was mere folly.”

“Whew!” ejaculated the goodman.

“Allowing that money, according to Bentham, is an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally merchandise,” resumed the president; “allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing at another, the courts decide—ah! how stupid I am, I beg your pardon—I am inclined to think you could buy up your brother’s debts for twenty…five per cent.”

“D…d…did you c…c…call him Je…Je…Jeremy B…Ben?”

“Bentham, an Englishman.’

“That’s a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamentations in business,” said the notary, laughing.

“Those Englishmen s…sometimes t…t…talk sense,” said Grandet. “So, ac…c…cording to Ben…Bentham, if my b…b…brother’s n…notes are worth n…n…nothing; if Je…Je—I’m c…c…correct, am I not? That seems c…c…clear to my m…m…mind—the c…c…creditors would be—No, would not be; I understand.”

“Let me explain it all,” said the president. “Legally, if you acquire a title to all the debts of the Maison Grandet, your brother or his heirs will owe nothing to any one. Very good.”

“Very g…good,” repeated Grandet.

“In equity, if your brother’s notes are negotiated—negotiated, do you clearly understand the term?—negotiated in the market at a reduction of so much per cent in value, and if one of your friends happening to be present should buy them in, the creditors having sold them of their own free…will without constraint, the estate of the late Grandet is honorably released.”

“That’s t…true; b…b…business is b…business,” said the cooper. “B…b…but, st…still, you know, it is d…d…difficult. I h…h(huán)ave n…no m…m…money and n…no t…t…time.”

“Yes, but you need not undertake it. I am quite ready to go to Paris (you may pay my expenses, they will only be a trifle). I will see the creditors and talk with them and get an extension of time, and everything can be arranged if you will add something to the assets so as to buy up all title to the debts.”

“We…we’ll see about th…that. I c…c…can’t and I w…w…won’t bind myself without—He who c…c…can’t, can’t; don’t you see?”

“That’s very true.”

“I’m all p…p…put ab…b…bout by what you’ve t…t…told me. This is the f…first t…t…time in my life I have b…been obliged to th…th…think—”

“Yes, you are not a lawyer.”

“I’m only a p…p…poor wine…g…grower, and know n…nothing about wh…what you have just t…told me; I m…m…must th…think about it.”

“Very good,” said the president, preparing to resume his argument.

“Nephew!” said the notary, interrupting him in a warning tone.

“Well, what, uncle?” answered the president.

“Let Monsieur Grandet explain his own intentions. The matter in question is of the first importance. Our good friend ought to define his meaning clearly, and—”

A loud knock, which announced the arrival of the des Grassins family, succeeded by their entrance and salutations, hindered Cruchot from concluding his sentence. The notary was glad of the interruption, for Grandet was beginning to look suspiciously at him, and the wen gave signs of a brewing storm. In the first place, the notary did not think it becoming in a president of the Civil courts to go to Paris and manipulate creditors and lend himself to an underhand job which clashed with the laws of strict integrity;moreover, never having known old Grandet to express the slightest desire to pay anything, no matter what, he instinctively feared to see his nephew taking part in the affair. He therefore profited by the entrance of the des Grassins to take the nephew by the arm and lead him into the embrasure of the window—

“You have said enough, nephew; you’ve shown enough devotion. Your desire to win the girl blinds you. The devil! you mustn’t go at it tooth and nail. Let me sail the ship now; you can haul on the braces. Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as a magistrate in such a—”

He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins saying to the old cooper as they shook hands—

“Grandet, we have heard of the frightful misfortunes which have just befallen your family—the failure of the house of Guillaume Grandet and the death of your brother. We have come to express our grief at these sad events.”

“There is but one sad event,” said the notary, interrupting the banker—”the death of Monsieur Grandet, junior; and he would never have killed himself had he thought in time of applying to his brother for help. Our old friend, who is honorable to his finger-nails, intends to liquidate the debts of the Maison Grandet of Paris. To save him the worry of legal proceedings, my nephew, the president, has just offered to go to Paris and negotiate with the creditors for a satisfactory settlement.”

These words, corroborated by Grandet’s attitude as he stood silently nursing his chin, astonished the three des Grassins, who had been leisurely discussing the old man’s avarice as they came along, very nearly accusing him of fratricide.

“Ah! I was sure of it,” cried the banker, looking at his wife.“What did I tell you just now, Madame des Grassins? Grandet is honorable to the backbone, and would never allow his name to remain under the slightest cloud! Money without honor is a disease. There is honor in the provinces! Right, very right, Grandet. I’m an old soldier, and I can’t disguise my thoughts; I speak roughly. Thunder! it is sublime!”

“Th…then s…s…sublime th…things c…c…cost d…dear,”answered the goodman, as the banker warmly wrung his hand.

“But this, my dear Grandet—if the president will excuse me—is a purely commercial matter, and needs a consummate business man. Your agent must be some one fully acquainted with the markets—with disbursements, rebates, interest calculations, and so forth. I am going to Paris on business of my own, and I can take charge of—”

“We’ll see about t…t…trying to m…m…manage it b…b…between us, under the p…p…peculiar c…c…circumstances, b…b…but without b…b…binding m…m…myself to anything th…that I c…c…could not do,” said Grandet, stuttering; “because, you see, monsieur le president naturally expects me to pay the expenses of his journey.” The goodman did not stammer over the last words.

“Eh!” cried Madame des Grassins, “Why it is a pleasure to go to Paris. I would willingly pay to go myself.”

She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage him in cutting the enemy out of the commission, coute que coute; then she glanced ironically at the two Cruchots, who looked chap…fallen.

Grandet seized the banker by a button and drew him into a corner of the room.

“I have a great deal more confidence in you than in the president,” he said; “besides, I’ve other fish to fry,” he added, wriggling his wen. “I want to buy a few thousand francs in the Funds while they are at eighty. They fall, I’m told, at the end of each month. You know all about these things, don’t you?”

“Bless me! Then, am I to invest enough to give you a few thousand francs a year?”

“That’s not much to begin with. Hush! I don’t want any one to know I am going to play that game. You can make the investment by the end of the month. Say nothing to the Cruchots; that’ll annoy them. If you are really going to Paris, we will see if there is anything to be done for my poor nephew.”

“Well, it’s all settled. I’ll start to…morrow by the mail…post,” said des Grassins aloud, “and I will come and take your last directions at—what hour will suit you?”

“Five o’clock, just before dinner,” said Grandet, rubbing his hands.

The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des Grassins said, after a pause, striking Grandet on the shoulder—

“It is a good thing to have a relation like him.”

“Yes, yes; without making a show,” said Grandet, “I am a g…good relation. I loved my brother, and I will prove it, unless it c…c…costs—”

“We must leave you, Grandet,” said the banker, interrupting him fortunately before he got to the end of his sentence. “If I hurry my departure, I must attend to some matters at once.”

“Very good, very good! I myself—in c…consequence of what I t…told you—I must retire to my own room and ‘d…d…deliberate,’ as President Cruchot says.”

“Plague take him! I am no longer Monsieur de Bonfons,”thought the magistrate ruefully, his face assuming the expression of a judge bored by an argument.

The heads of the two factions walked off together. Neither gave any further thought to the treachery Grandet had been guilty of in the morning against the whole wine-growing community; each tried to fathom what the other was thinking about the real intentions of the wily old man in this new affair, but in vain.

“Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval’s?” said des Grassins to the notary.

“We will go there later,” answered the president. “I have promised to say good-evening to Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt, and we will go there first, if my uncle is willing.”

“Farewell for the present!” said Madame des Grassins.

When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe remarked to his father—

“Are not they fuming, hein?”

“Hold your tongue, my son!” said his mother; “They might hear you. Besides, what you say is not in good taste—law-school language.”

“Well, uncle,” cried the president when he saw the des Grassins disappearing, “I began by being de Bonfons, and I have ended as nothing but Cruchot.”

“I saw that that annoyed you; but the wind has set fair for the des Grassins. What a fool you are, with all your cleverness! Let them sail off on Grandet’s ‘We’ll see about it,’ and keep yourself quiet,young man. Eugenie will none the less be your wife.”

In a few moments the news of Grandet’s magnanimous resolve was disseminated in three houses at the same moment, and the whole town began to talk of his fraternal devotion. Every one forgave Grandet for the sale made in defiance of the good faith pledged to the community; they admired his sense of honor, and began to laud a generosity of which they had never thought him capable. It is part of the French nature to grow enthusiastic, or angry, or fervent about some meteor of the moment. Can it be that collective beings, nationalities, peoples, are devoid of memory?

When Pere Grandet had shut the door he called Nanon.

“Don’t let the dog loose, and don’t go to bed; we have work to do together. At eleven o’clock Cornoiller will be at the door with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen for him and prevent his knocking;tell him to come in softly. Police regulations don’t allow nocturnal racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not know that I am starting on a journey.”

So saying, Grandet returned to his private room, where Nanon heard him moving about, rummaging, and walking to and fro, though with much precaution, for he evidently did not wish to wake his wife and daughter, and above all not to rouse the attention of his nephew, whom he had begun to anathematize when he saw a thread of light under his door.

About the middle of the night Eugenie, intent on her cousin, fancied she heard a cry like that of a dying person. It must be Charles, she thought; he was so pale, so full of despair when she had seen him last—could he have killed himself? She wrapped herself quickly in a loose garment—a sort of pelisse with a hood—and was about to leave the room when a bright light coming through the chinks of her door made her think of fire. But she recovered herself as she heard Nanon’s heavy steps and gruff voice mingling with the snorting of several horses. “Can my father be carrying off my cousin?” she said to herself, opening her door with great precaution lest it should creak, and yet enough to let her see into the corridor.

Suddenly her eye encountered that of her father; and his glance, vague and unnoticing as it was, terrified her. The goodman and Nanon were yoked together by a stout stick, each end of which rested on their shoulders; a stout rope was passed over it, on which was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere Grandet still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his leisure hours.

“Holy Virgin, how heavy it is!” said the voice of Nanon.

“What a pity that it is only copper sous!” answered Grandet.“Take care you don’t knock over the candlestick.”

The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two rails of the staircase.

“Cornoiller,” said Grandet to his keeper in partibus, “have you brought your pistols?”

“No, monsieur. Mercy! what’s there to fear for your copper sous?”

“Oh! nothing,” said Pere Grandet.

“Besides, we shall go fast,” added the man; “your farmers have picked out their best horses.”

“Very good. You did not tell them where I was going?”

“I didn’t know where.”

“Very good. Is the carriage strong?”

“Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can carry three thousand weight. How much does that old keg weigh?”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Nanon. “I ought to know! There’s pretty nigh eighteen hundred—”

“Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to tell my wife I have gone into the country. I shall be back to dinner. Drive fast, Cornoiller; I must get to Angers before nine o’clock.”

The carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great door, let loose the dog, and went off to bed with a bruised shoulder, no one in the neighborhood suspecting either the departure of Grandet or the object of his journey. The precautions of the old miser and his reticence were never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in that house, filled as it was with gold. Hearing in the morning, through the gossip of the port, that exchange on gold had doubled in price in consequence of certain military preparations undertaken at Nantes, and that speculators had arrived at Angers to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by the simple process of borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury notes the sum he intended to put into the Funds, having swelled it considerably by the exchange.

“My father has gone,” thought Eugenie, who heard all that took place from the head of the stairs.

Silence was restored in the house, and the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her cousin’s chamber. A line of light, thin as the blade of a sabre, shone through a chink in the door and fell horizontally on the balusters of the rotten staircase.

“He suffers!” she said, springing up the stairs.

A second moan brought her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the strained posture suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the room hastily.

“He must be very tired,” she said to herself, glancing at a dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their addresses: “To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, & Co., carriage-makers”; “To Monsieur Buisson, tailor,” etc.

“He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France at once,” she thought.

Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The words, “My dear Annette,” at the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the floor.

“His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does he say to her?”

These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of fire.

“Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I ought to go away—What if I do read it?”

She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a child which, though asleep, knows its mother’s touch and receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful care. Like a mother Eugenie raised the drooping hand, and like a mother she gently kissed the chestnut hair—“Dear Annette!” a demon shrieked the words in her ear.

“I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter,” she said.

She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she read each sentence her heart swelled more and more, and the keen glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of first love still more precious.

My dear Annette—Nothing could ever have separated us but the great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human foresight could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my position. If I wish to leave France an honest man—and there is no doubt of that—I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try my fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must seek my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they tell me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the affronts, the neglect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son of a bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be killed in a duel the first week;therefore I shall not return there. Your love—the most tender and devoted love which ever ennobled the heart of man—cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved, I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn

enterprise.

“Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I will give it to him,” thought Eugenie.

She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.

I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have the hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, I have not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hundred louis, not even one louis. I don’t know that anything will be left after I have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go quietly to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin in the new world like other men who have started young without a sou and brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long day I have faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me than for another, because I have been so petted by a mother who adored me, so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by meeting, on my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The flowers of life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could not last. Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than a careless young man is supposed to feel—above all a young man used to the caressing ways of the dearest woman in all Paris, cradled in family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home, whose wishes were a law to his father—oh, my father! Annette, he is dead!

Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I have grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to keep me with you in Paris you were to sacrifice your luxury, your dress, your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for the expenses of my extravagant ways of living. Besides, I would never accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and forever—

“He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!”

Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, he did not wake, and she resumed her reading.

When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West Indies ages a European, so they say; especially a European who works hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten years, your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion, your spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps more cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment and ingratitude of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep in the depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of four years of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the memory of your poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness, because, do you see, dear Annette, I must conform to the exigencies of my new life; I must take a commonplace view of them and do the best I can.Therefore I must think of marriage, which becomes one of the necessities of my future existence; and I will admit to you that I have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle’s house, a cousin whose face, manners, mind, and heart would please you, and who, besides, seems to me—

“He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her,”thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped abruptly in the middle of the last sentence.

Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent girl should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter? To young girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant and pure, all is love from the moment they set their feet within the enchanted regions of that passion. They walk there bathed in a celestial light shed from their own souls, which reflects its rays upon their lover; they color all with the flame of their own emotion and attribute to him their highest thoughts. A woman’s errors come almost always from her belief in good or her confidence in truth. In Eugenie’s simple heart the words, “My dear Annette, my loved one,”echoed like the sweetest language of love; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes of the Venite adoremus, repeated by the organ, caressed her ear. Moreover, the tears which still lingered on the young man’s lashes gave signs of that nobility of heart by which young girls are rightly won.

How could she know that Charles, though he loved his father and mourned him truly, was moved far more by paternal goodness than by the goodness of his own heart? Monsieur and Madame Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their son, and lavishing upon him the pleasures of a large fortune, had kept him from making the horrible calculations of which so many sons in Paris become more or less guilty when, face to face with the enjoyments of the world, they form desires and conceive schemes which they see with bitterness must be put off or laid aside during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of the father in this instance had shed into the heart of the son a real love, in which there was no afterthought of self-interest. Nevertheless, Charles was a true child of Paris, taught by the customs of society and by Annette herself to calculate everything; already an old man under the mask of youth. He had gone through the frightful education of social life, of that world where in one evening more crimes are committed in thought and speech than justice ever punishes at the assizes; where jests and clever sayings assassinate the noblest ideas; where no one is counted strong unless his mind sees clear: and to see clear in that world is to believe in nothing, neither in feelings, nor in men, nor even in events—for events are falsified. There, to “see clear”we must weigh a friend’s purse daily, learn how to keep ourselves adroitly on the top of the wave, cautiously admire nothing, neither works of art nor glorious actions, and remember that self-interest is the mainspring of all things here below. After committing many follies, the great lady—the beautiful Annette—compelled Charles to think seriously; with her perfumed hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future position; as she rearranged his locks, she taught him lessons of worldly prudence; she made him effeminate and materialized him—a double corruption, but a delicate and elegant corruption, in the best taste.

“You are very foolish, Charles,” she would say to him. “I shall have a great deal of trouble in teaching you to understand the world. You behaved extremely ill to Monsieur des Lupeaulx. I know very well he is not an honorable man; but wait till he is no longer in power, then you may despise him as much as you like. Do you know what Madame Campan used to tell us?—‘My dears, as long as a man is a minister, adore him; when he falls, help to drag him in the gutter. Powerful, he is a sort of god; fallen, he is lower than Marat in the sewer, because he is living, and Marat is dead. Life is a series of combinations, and you must study them and understand them if you want to keep yourselves always in good position.’”

Charles was too much a man of the world, his parents had made him too happy, he had received too much adulation in society, to be possessed of noble sentiments. The grain of gold dropped by his mother into his heart was beaten thin in the smithy of Parisian society; he had spread it superficially, and it was worn away by the friction of life. Charles was only twenty-one years old. At that age the freshness of youth seems inseparable from candor and sincerity of soul. The voice, the glance, the face itself, seem in harmony with the feelings; and thus it happens that the sternest judge, the most sceptical lawyer, the least complying of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude of heart or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes are still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the brow. Charles, so far, had had no occasion to apply the maxims of Parisian morality; up to this time he was still endowed with the beauty of inexperience. And yet, unknown to himself, he had been inoculated with selfishness. The germs of Parisian political economy, latent in his heart, would assuredly burst forth, sooner or later, whenever the careless spectator became an actor in the drama of real life.

Nearly all young girls succumb to the tender promises such an outward appearance seems to offer: even if Eugenie had been as prudent and observing as provincial girls are often found to be, she was not likely to distrust her cousin when his manners, words, and actions were still in unison with the aspirations of a youthful heart. A mere chance—a fatal chance—threw in her way the last effusions of real feeling which stirred the young man’s soul; she heard as it were the last breathings of his conscience.

She laid down the letter—to her so full of love—and began smilingly to watch her sleeping cousin; the fresh illusions of life were still, for her at least, upon his face; she vowed to herself to love him always. Then she cast her eyes on the other letter, without attaching much importance to this second indiscretion; and though she read it, it was only to obtain new proofs of the noble qualities which, like all women, she attributed to the man her heart had chosen.

My dear Alphonse—When you receive this letter I shall be without friends; but let me assure you that while I doubt the friendship of the world, I have never doubted yours. I beg you therefore to settle all my affairs, and I trust to you to get as much as you can out of my possessions. By this time you know my situation. I have nothing left, and I intend to go at once to the Indies. I have just written to all the people to whom I think I owe money, and you will find enclosed a list of their names, as correct as I can make it from memory. My books, my furniture, my pictures, my horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do not wish to keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles which might serve as the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. My dear Alphonse, I will send you a proper power of attorney under which you can make these sales. Send me all my weapons. Keep Briton for yourself; nobody would pay the value of that noble beast, and I would rather give him to you—like a mourning-ring bequeathed by a dying man to his executor. Farry, Breilmann, & Co. built me a very comfortable travelling-carriage, which they have not yet delivered; persuade them to keep it and not ask for any payment on it. If they refuse, do what you can in the matter, and avoid everything that might seem dishonorable in me under my present circumstances. I owe the British Islander six louis, which I lost at cards; don’t fail to pay him—

“Dear cousin!” whispered Eugenie, throwing down the letter and running softly back to her room, carrying one of the lighted candles.

A thrill of pleasure passed over her as she opened the drawer of an old oak cabinet, a fine specimen of the period called the Renaissance, on which could still be seen, partly effaced, the famous royal salamander. She took from the drawer a large purse of red velvet with gold tassels, edged with a tarnished fringe of gold wire—a relic inherited from her grandmother. She weighed it proudly in her hand, and began with delight to count over the forgotten items of her little hoard.

First she took out twenty portugaises, still new, struck in the reign of John V., 1725, worth by exchange, as her father told her, five lisbonnines, or a hundred and sixty-eight francs, sixty-four centimes each; their conventional value, however, was a hundred and eighty francs apiece, on account of the rarity and beauty of the coins, which shone like little suns.

Item, five genovines, or five hundred-franc pieces of Genoa;another very rare coin worth eighty-seven francs on exchange, but a hundred francs to collectors. These had formerly belonged to old Monsieur de la Bertelliere.

Item, three gold quadruples, Spanish, of Philip V., struck in 1729, given to her one by one by Madame Gentillet, who never failed to say, using the same words, when she made the gift, “This dear little canary, this little yellow-boy, is worth ninety-eight francs! Keep it, my pretty one, it will be the flower of your treasure.”

Item (that which her father valued most of all, the gold of these coins being twenty-three carats and a fraction), a hundred Dutch ducats, made in the year 1756, and worth thirteen francs apiece.

Item, a great curiosity, a species of medal precious to the soul of misers—three rupees with the sign of the Scales, and five rupees with the sign of the Virgin, all in pure gold of twenty-four carats; the magnificent money of the Great Mogul, each of which was worth by mere weight thirty-seven francs, forty centimes, but at least fifty francs to those connoisseurs who love to handle gold.

Item, the napoleon of forty francs received the day before, which she had forgotten to put away in the velvet purse.

This treasure was all in virgin coins, true works of art, which Grandet from time to time inquired after and asked to see, pointing out to his daughter their intrinsic merits—such as the beauty of the milled edge, the clearness of the flat surface, the richness of the lettering, whose angles were not yet rubbed off.

Eugenie gave no thought to these rarities, nor to her father’s mania for them, nor to the danger she incurred in depriving herself of a treasure so dear to him; no, she thought only of her cousin, and soon made out, after a few mistakes of calculation, that she possessed about five thousand eight hundred francs in actual value, which might be sold for their additional value to collectors for nearly six thousand. She looked at her wealth and clapped her hands like a happy child forced to spend its overflowing joy in artless movements of the body. Father and daughter had each counted up their fortune this night—he, to sell his gold; Eugenie to fling hers into the ocean of affection.

She put the pieces back into the old purse, took it in her hand, and ran upstairs without hesitation. The secret misery of her cousin made her forget the hour and conventional propriety; she was strong in her conscience, in her devotion, in her happiness.

As she stood upon the threshold of the door, holding the candle in one hand and the purse in the other, Charles woke, caught sight of her, and remained speechless with surprise. Eugenie came forward, put the candle on the table, and said in a quivering voice:

“My cousin, I must beg pardon for a wrong I have done you;but God will pardon me—if you—will help me to wipe it out.”

“What is it?” asked Charles, rubbing his eyes.

“I have read those letters.”

Charles colored.

“How did it happen?” she continued; “how came I here? Truly, I do not know. I am tempted not to regret too much that I have read them; they have made me know your heart, your soul, and—”

“And what?” asked Charles.

“Your plans, your need of a sum—”

“My dear cousin—”

“Hush, hush! My cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others. See,” she said, opening her purse, “here are the savings of a poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can surely borrow the purse of your sister.”

Eugenie, as much a woman as a young girl, never dreamed of refusal; but her cousin remained silent.

“Oh! You will not refuse?” cried Eugenie, the beatings of whose heart could be heard in the deep silence.

Her cousin’s hesitation mortified her; but the sore need of his position came clearer still to her mind, and she knelt down.

“I will never rise till you have taken that gold!” she said. “My cousin, I implore you, answer me! let me know if you respect me, if you are generous, if—”

As he heard this cry of noble distress the young man’s tears fell upon his cousin’s hands, which he had caught in his own to keep her from kneeling. As the warm tears touched her, Eugenie sprang to the purse and poured its contents upon the table.

“Ah! yes, yes, you consent?” she said, weeping with joy.“Fear nothing, my cousin, you will be rich. This gold will bring you happiness; some day you shall bring it back to me—are we not partners? I will obey all conditions. But you should not attach such value to the gift.”

Charles was at last able to express his feelings. “Yes, Eugenie;my soul would be small indeed if I did not accept. And yet—gift for gift, confidence for confidence.”

“What do you mean?” she said, frightened.

“Listen, dear cousin; I have here—”

He interrupted himself to point out a square box covered with an outer case of leather which was on the drawers.

“There,” he continued, “is something as precious to me as life itself. This box was a present from my mother. All day I have been thinking that if she could rise from her grave, she would herself sell the gold which her love for me lavished on this dressing-case; but were I to do so, the act would seem to me a sacrilege.”

Eugenie pressed his hand as she heard these last words.

“No,” he added, after a slight pause, during which a liquid glance of tenderness passed between them, “no, I will neither sell it nor risk its safety on my journey. Dear Eugenie, you shall be its guardian. Never did friend commit anything more sacred to another. Let me show it to you.”

He went to the box, took it from its outer coverings, opened it, and showed his delighted cousin a dressing-case where the rich workmanship gave to the gold ornaments a value far above their weight.

“What you admire there is nothing,” he said, pushing a secret spring which opened a hidden drawer. “Here is something which to me is worth the whole world.”

He drew out two portraits, masterpieces of Madame Mirbel, richly set with pearls.

“Oh, how beautiful! Is it the lady to whom you wrote that—”

“No,” he said, smiling; “this is my mother, and here is my father, your aunt and uncle. Eugenie, I beg you on my knees, keep my treasure safely. If I die and your little fortune is lost, this gold and these pearls will repay you. To you alone could I leave these portraits; you are worthy to keep them. But destroy them at last, so that they may pass into no other hands.”

Eugenie was silent.

“Ah, yes, say yes! You consent?” he added with winning grace.

Hearing the very words she had just used to her cousin now addressed to herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her first look of loving womanhood—a glance in which there is nearly as much of coquetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Angel of purity! between us two money is nothing, never can be anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be all henceforth.”

“You are like your mother—was her voice as soft as yours?”

“Oh! much softer—”

“Yes, for you,” she said, dropping her eyelids. “Come, Charles, go to bed; I wish it; you must be tired. Good-night.”

She gently disengaged her hand from those of her cousin, who followed her to her room, lighting the way. When they were both upon the threshold—

“Ah!” he said, “why am I ruined?”

“What matter?—my father is rich; I think so,” she answered.

“Poor child!” said Charles, making a step into her room and leaning his back against the wall, “If that were so, he would never have let my father die; he would not let you live in this poor way; he would live otherwise himself.”

“But he owns Froidfond.”

“What is Froidfond worth?”

“I don’t know; but he has Noyers.”

“Nothing but a poor farm!”

“He has vineyards and fields.”

“Mere nothing,” said Charles disdainfully. “If your father had only twenty-four thousand francs a year do you suppose you would live in this cold, barren room?” he added, making a step in advance.“Ah! there you will keep my treasures,” he said, glancing at the old cabinet, as if to hide his thoughts.

“Go and sleep,” she said, hindering his entrance into the disordered room.

Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good-night with a mutual smile.

Both fell asleep in the same dream; and from that moment the youth began to wear roses with his mourning.

The next day, before breakfast, Madame Grandet found her daughter in the garden in company with Charles. The young man was still sad, as became a poor fellow who, plunged in misfortune, measures the depths of the abyss into which he has fallen, and sees the terrible burden of his whole future life.

“My father will not be home till dinner-time,” said Eugenie, perceiving the anxious look on her mother’s face.

It was easy to trace in the face and manners of the young girl and in the singular sweetness of her voice a unison of thought between her and her cousin. Their souls had espoused each other, perhaps before they even felt the force of the feelings which bound them together. Charles spent the morning in the hall, and his sadness was respected. Each of the three women had occupations of her own. Grandet had left all his affairs unattended to, and a number of persons came on business—the plumber, the mason, the slater, the carpenter, the diggers, the dressers, the farmers; some to drive a bargain about repairs, others to pay their rent or to be paid themselves for services. Madame Grandet and Eugenie were obliged to go and come and listen to the interminable talk of all these workmen and country folk. Nanon put away in her kitchen the produce which they brought as tribute. She always waited for her master’s orders before she knew what portion was to be used in the house and what was to be sold in the market. It was the goodman’s custom, like that of a great many country gentlemen, to drink his bad wine and eat his spoiled fruit.

Towards five in the afternoon Grandet returned from Angers, having made fourteen thousand francs by the exchange on his gold, bringing home in his wallet good treasury-notes which bore interest until the day he should invest them in the Funds. He had left Cornoiller at Angers to look after the horses, which were well-nigh foundered, with orders to bring them home slowly after they were rested.

“I have got back from Angers, wife,” he said; “I am hungry.”

Nanon called out to him from the kitchen: “Haven’t you eaten anything since yesterday?”

“Nothing,” answered the old man.

Nanon brought in the soup. Des Grassins came to take his client’s orders just as the family sat down to dinner. Grandet had not even observed his nephew.

“Go on eating, Grandet,” said the banker; “we can talk. Do you know what gold is worth in Angers? They have come from Nantes after it? I shall send some of ours.”

“Don’t send any,” said Grandet; “they have got enough. We are such old friends, I ought to save you from such a loss of time.”

“But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes.”

“Say was worth—”

“Where the devil have they got any?”

“I went to Angers last night,” answered Grandet in a low voice.

The banker shook with surprise. Then a whispered conversation began between the two, during which Grandet and des Grassins frequently looked at Charles. Presently des Grassins gave a start of astonishment; probably Grandet was then instructing him to invest the sum which was to give him a hundred thousand francs a year in the Funds.

“Monsieur Grandet,” said the banker to Charles, “I am starting for Paris; if you have any commissions—”

“None, monsieur, I thank you,” answered Charles.

“Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur is going to settle the affairs of the house of Guillaume Grandet.”

“Is there any hope?” said Charles eagerly.

“What!” exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, “are you not my nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not your name Grandet?”

Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned pale, and left the room. Eugenie looked at her father with admiration.

“Well, good-bye, des Grassins; it is all in your hands. Decoy those people as best you can; lead ‘em by the nose.”

The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper accompanied the banker to the front door. Then, after closing it, he came back and plunged into his armchair, saying to Nanon—

“Get me some black-currant ratafia.”

Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, he got up, looked at the portrait of Monsieur de la Bertelliere, and began to sing, doing what Nanon called his dancing steps—

“Dans les gardes francaises

J’avais un bon papa.”

Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at each other in silence. The hilarity of the master always frightened them when it reached its climax.

The evening was soon over. Pere Grandet chose to go to bed early, and when he went to bed, everybody else was expected to go too; like as when Augustus drank, Poland was drunk. On this occasion Nanon, Charles, and Eugenie were not less tired than the master. As for Madame Grandet, she slept, ate, drank, and walked according to the will of her husband. However, during the two hours consecrated to digestion, the cooper, more facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered a number of his own particular apothegms—a single one of which will give the measure of his mind. When he had drunk his ratafia, he looked at his glass and said—

“You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than it is empty! Such is life. You can’t have and hold. Gold won’t circulate and stay in your purse. If it were not for that, life would be too fine.”

He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came with her spinning-wheel, “You must be tired,” he said; “put away your hemp.”

“Ah, bah! then I shall get sleepy,” she answered.

“Poor Nanon! Will you have some ratafia?”

“I won’t refuse a good offer; madame makes it a deal better than the apothecaries. What they sell is all drugs.”

“They put too much sugar,” said the master; “you can’t taste anything else.”

The following day the family, meeting at eight o’clock for the early breakfast, made a picture of genuine domestic intimacy. Grief had drawn Madame Grandet, Eugenie, and Charles en rapport; even Nanon sympathized, without knowing why. The four now made one family. As to the old man, his satisfied avarice and the certainty of soon getting rid of the dandy without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, made him nearly indifferent to his presence in the house.

He left the two children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to conduct themselves as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet, in whom he had implicit confidence as to all that concerned public and religious morality. He busied himself in straightening the boundaries of his fields and ditches along the high-road, in his poplar-plantations beside the Loire, in the winter work of his vineyards, and at Froidfond. All these things occupied his whole time. For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene at night when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her heart had followed the treasure. Confederates in the same secret, they looked at each other with a mutual intelligence which sank to the depth of their consciousness, giving a closer communion, a more intimate relation to their feelings, and putting them, so to speak, beyond the pale of ordinary life. Did not their near relationship warrant the gentleness in their tones, the tenderness in their glances? Eugenie took delight in lulling her cousin’s pain with the pretty childish joys of a new-born love.

Are there no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle songs and softest glances? Do we not tell it marvellous tales of the golden future? Hope herself, does she not spread her radiant wings above its head? Does it not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of sorrow and its tears of joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry for the pretty pebbles with which to build its shifting palaces, for the flowers forgotten as soon as plucked? Is it not eager to grasp the coming time, to spring forward into life? Love is our second transformation. Childhood and love were one and the same thing to Eugenie and to Charles; it was a first passion, with all its child-like play—the more caressing to their hearts because they now were wrapped in sadness.

Struggling at birth against the gloom of mourning, their love was only the more in harmony with the provincial plainness of that gray and ruined house. As they exchanged a few words beside the well in the silent court, or lingered in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy seat saying to each other the infinite nothings of love, or mused in the silent calm which reigned between the house and the ramparts like that beneath the arches of a church, Charles comprehended the sanctity of love; for his great lady, his dear Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles. At this moment he left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy as it was, and turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house, whose customs no longer seemed to him ridiculous.

He got up early in the mornings that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father came to dole out the provisions;when the steps of the old man sounded on the staircase he escaped into the garden. The small criminality of this morningtete-a-tete which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to their innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy. After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his other occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastic life, which revealed to him the beauty of these souls, unknown and unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed such morals impossible in France, and admitted their existence nowhere but in Germany;even so, they seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of Goethe—before her fall.

Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the happy hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded them of the parting that was at hand. Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took his nephew to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country people attach to all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in his father’s estate. Terrible renunciation! species of domestic apostasy! Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of attorney—one for des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries; and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from Paris, he sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his useless wardrobe. This last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.

“Ah! Now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your fortune,” he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain black cloth. “Good! Very good!”

“I hope you will believe, monsieur,” answered his nephew, “that I shall always try to conform to my situation.”

“What’s that?” said his uncle, his eyes lighting up at a handful of gold which Charles was carrying.

“Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings and other superfluities which may have some value; but not knowing any one in Saumur, I wanted to ask you to—”

“To buy them?” said Grandet, interrupting him.

“No, uncle; only to tell me of an honest man who—”

“Give me those things, I will go upstairs and estimate their value; I will come back and tell you what it is to a fraction.Jeweller’s gold,” examining a long chain, “eighteen or nineteen carats.”

The goodman held out his huge hand and received the mass of gold, which he carried away.

“Cousin,” said Grandet, “may I offer you these two buttons? They can fasten ribbons round your wrists; that sort of bracelet is much the fashion just now.”

“I accept without hesitation,” she answered, giving him an understanding look.

“Aunt, here is my mother’s thimble; I have always kept it carefully in my dressing-case,” said Charles, presenting a pretty gold thimble to Madame Grandet, who for many years had longed for one.

“I cannot thank you; no words are possible, my nephew,” said the poor mother, whose eyes filled with tears. “Night and morning in my prayers I shall add one for you, the most earnest of all—for those who travel. If I die, Eugenie will keep this treasure for you.”

“They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine francs, seventy-five centimes,” said Grandet, opening the door. “To save you the pain of selling them, I will advance the money—in livres.”

The word livres on the littoral of the Loire signifies that crown prices of six livres are to be accepted as six francs without deduction.

“I dared not propose it to you,” answered Charles; “but it was most repugnant to me to sell my jewels to some second-hand dealer in your own town. People should wash their dirty linen at home, as Napoleon said. I thank you for your kindness.”

Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment’s silence.

“My dear uncle,” resumed Charles, looking at him with an uneasy air, as if he feared to wound his feelings, “my aunt and cousin have been kind enough to accept a trifling remembrance of me. Will you allow me to give you these sleeve-buttons, which are useless to me now? They will remind you of a poor fellow who, far away, will always think of those who are henceforth all his family.”

“My lad, my lad, you mustn’t rob yourself this way! Let me see, wife, what have you got?” he added, turning eagerly to her. “Ah! a gold thimble. And you, little girl? What! diamond buttons? Yes, I’ll accept your present, nephew,” he answered, shaking Charles by the hand. “But—you must let me—pay—your—yes, your passage to the Indies. Yes, I wish to pay your passage because—d’ye see, my boy?—in valuing your jewels I estimated only the weight of the gold; very likely the workmanship is worth something. So let us settle it that I am to give you fifteen hundred francs—in livres;Cruchot will lend them to me. I haven’t got a copper farthing here—unless Perrotet, who is behindhand with his rent, should pay up. By the bye, I’ll go and see him.”

He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out.

“Then you are really going?” said Eugenie to her cousin, with a sad look, mingled with admiration.

“I must,” he said, bowing his head.

For some days past, Charles’s whole bearing, manners, and speech had become those of a man who, in spite of his profound affliction, feels the weight of immense obligations and has the strength to gather courage from misfortune. He no longer repined, he became a man. Eugenie never augured better of her cousin’s character than when she saw him come down in the plain black clothes which suited well with his pale face and sombre countenance. On that day the two women put on their own mourning, and all three assisted at a Requiem celebrated in the parish church for the soul of the late Guillaume Grandet.

At the second breakfast Charles received letters from Paris and began to read them.

“Well, cousin, are you satisfied with the management of your affairs?” said Eugenie in a low voice.

“Never ask such questions, my daughter,” said Grandet. “What the devil! Do I tell you my affairs? Why do you poke your nose into your cousin’s? Let the lad alone!”

“Oh! I haven’t any secrets,” said Charles.

“Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew; you’ll soon find out that you must hold your tongue in business.”

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree—

“I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell—perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—”

“Do you love me?” she said.

“Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling.

“I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon’s den, in the darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the most unreserved of kisses.

“Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,” said Charles.

“So be it!” cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.

The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame Grandet’s prayer-book.

“Mercy!” cried Nanon, “Now they’re saying their prayers.”

As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet bestirred himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He became very liberal of all that cost him nothing; took pains to find a packer; declared the man asked too much for his cases; insisted on making them himself out of old planks; got up early in the morning to fit and plane and nail together the strips, out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some strong cases, in which he packed all Charles’s effects; he also took upon himself to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and get them to Nantes in proper time.

After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of all passions—the one whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities—they will understand the poor girl’s tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse.

At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man’s love.

On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite of the gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by Charles, had tears in her eyes.

“The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas—oh, may God guide him!”

At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to the diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the door, and insisted on carrying the young man’s carpet-bag. All the tradesmen in the tortuous old street were on the sill of their shop-doors to watch the procession, which was joined in the market-place by Maitre Cruchot.

“Eugenie, be sure you don’t cry,” said her mother.

“Nephew,” said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which the coach started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, “depart poor, return rich; you will find the honor of your father safe. I answer for that myself, I—Grandet; for it will only depend on you to—”

“Ah! My uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is it not the best gift that you could make me?”

Not understanding his uncle’s words which he had thus interrupted, Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned cheeks of the old miser, while Eugenie pressed the hand of her cousin and that of her father with all her strength. The notary smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old man, which he alone had understood.

The family stood about the coach until it started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:

“Good-bye to you!”

Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation. Eugenie and her mother had gone to a corner of the quay from which they could still see the diligence and wave their white handkerchiefs, to which Charles made answer by displaying his.

“Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single moment,” said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover’s handkerchief.

Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take place in the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast a forestalling eye upon the various operations which the goodman carried on in Paris by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month after the latter’s departure from Saumur, Grandet, became possessed of a certificate of a hundred thousand francs a year from his investment in the Funds, bought at eighty francs net. The particulars revealed at his death by the inventory of his property threw no light upon the means which his suspicious nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive the certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon, unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money was transported; for about this time she was absent five days, under a pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond—as if the goodman were capable of leaving anything lying about or out of order! In all that concerned the business of the house of Guillaume Grandet the old cooper’s intentions were fulfilled to the letter.

The Bank of France, as everybody knows, affords exact information about all the large fortunes in Paris and the provinces.The names of des Grassins and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well known there, and they enjoyed the esteem bestowed on financial celebrities whose wealth comes from immense and unencumbered territorial possessions. The arrival of the Saumur banker for the purpose, it was said, of honorably liquidating the affairs of Grandet of Paris, was enough to avert the shame of protested notes from the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the property were taken off in presence of the creditors, and the notary employed by Grandet went to work at once on the inventory of the assets. Soon after this, des Grassins called a meeting of the creditors, who unanimously elected him, conjointly with Francois Keller, the head of a rich banking-house and one of those principally interested in the affair, as liquidators, with full power to protect both the honor of the family and the interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet of Saumur, the hopes he diffused by means of des Grassins in the minds of all concerned, facilitated the transactions. Not a single creditor proved recalcitrant; no one thought of passing his claim to his profit-and-loss account; each and all said confidently, “Grandet of Saumur will pay.”

Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed the notes in circulation as they fell due, and held them under lock and key in their desks. First result aimed at by the old cooper!

Nine months after this preliminary meeting, the two liquidators distributed forty-seven per cent to each creditor on his claim. This amount was obtained by the sale of the securities, property, and possessions of all kinds belonging to the late Guillaume Grandet, and was paid over with scrupulous fidelity.

Unimpeachable integrity was shown in the transaction. The creditors gratefully acknowledged the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed by the Grandets. When these praises had circulated for a certain length of time, the creditors asked for the rest of their money. It became necessary to write a collective letter to Grandet of Saumur.

“Here it comes!” said the old man as he threw the letter into the fire. “Patience, my good friends!”

In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, Grandet of Saumur demanded that all vouchers for claims against the estate of his brother should be deposited with a notary, together with acquittances for the forty-seven per cent already paid; he made this demand under pretence of sifting the accounts and finding out the exact condition of the estate. It roused at once a variety of difficulties.

Generally speaking, the creditor is a species of maniac, ready to agree to anything one day, on the next breathing fire and slaughter;later on, he grows amicable and easy-going. To-day his wife is good-humored, his last baby has cut its first tooth, all is well at home, and he is determined not to lose a sou; on the morrow it rains, he can’t go out, he is gloomy, he says yes to any proposal that is made to him, so long as it will put an end to the affair; on the third day he declares he must have guarantees; by the end of the month he wants his debtor’s head, and becomes at heart an executioner. The creditor is a good deal like the sparrow on whose tail confiding children are invited to put salt—with this difference, that he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds of which he is never able to lay hold of.

Grandet had studied the atmospheric variations of creditors, and the creditors of his brother justified all his calculations. Some were angry, and flatly refused to give in their vouchers.

“Very good; so much the better,” said Grandet, rubbing his hands over the letter in which des Grassins announced the fact.

Others agreed to the demand, but only on condition that their rights should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even reserved the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this began a long correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur agreeing to all conditions. By means of this concession the placable creditors were able to bring the dissatisfied creditors to reason. The deposit was then made, but not without sundry complaints.

“Your goodman,” they said to des Grassins, “is tricking us.”

Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume Grandet many of the creditors, carried away by more pressing business in the markets of Paris, had forgotten their Grandet claims, or only thought of them to say: “I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I shall ever get out of that affair.”

The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, which, as he used to say, is a pretty good devil after all. By the end of the third year des Grassins wrote to Grandet that he had brought the creditors to agree to give up their claims for ten per cent on the two million four hundred thousand francs still due by the house of Grandet.

Grandet answered that the notary and the broker whose shameful failures had caused the death of his brother were still living, that they might now have recovered their credit, and that they ought to be sued, so as to get something out of them towards lessening the total of the deficit.

By the end of the fourth year the liabilities were definitely estimated at a sum of twelve hundred thousand francs. Many negotiations, lasting over six months, took place between the creditors and the liquidators, and between the liquidators and Grandet. To make a long story short, Grandet of Saumur, anxious by this time to get out of the affair, told the liquidators, about the ninth month of the fourth year, that his nephew had made a fortune in the Indies and was disposed to pay his father’s debts in full; he therefore could not take upon himself to make any settlement without previously consulting him; he had written to him, and was expecting an answer.

The creditors were held in check until the middle of the fifth year by the words, “payment in full,” which the wily old miser threw out from time to time as he laughed in his beard, saying with a smile and an oath, “Those Parisians!” But the creditors were reserved for a fate unexampled in the annals of commerce. When the events of this history bring them once more into notice, they will be found still in the position Grandet had resolved to force them into from the first.

As soon as the Funds reached a hundred and fifteen, Pere Grandet sold out his interests and withdrew two million four hundred thousand francs in gold, to which he added, in his coffers, the six hundred thousand francs compound interest which he had derived from the capital. Des Grassins now lived in Paris. In the first place he had been made a deputy; then he became infatuated (father of a family as he was, though horribly bored by the provincial life of Saumur) with a pretty actress at the Theatre de Madame, known as Florine, and he presently relapsed into the old habits of his army life. It is useless to speak of his conduct; Saumur considered it profoundly immoral. His wife was fortunate in the fact of her property being settled upon herself, and in having sufficient ability to keep up the banking-house in Saumur, which was managed in her name and repaired the breach in her fortune caused by the extravagance of her husband. The Cruchotines made so much talk about the false position of the quasi-widow that she married her daughter very badly, and was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his father in Paris and became, it was said, a worthless fellow. The Cruchots triumphed.

“Your husband hasn’t common sense,” said Grandet as he lent Madame des Grassins some money on a note securely endorsed. “I am very sorry for you, for you are a good little woman.”

“Ah, monsieur,” said the poor lady, “who could have believed that when he left Saumur to go to Paris on your business he was going to his ruin?”

“Heaven is my witness, madame, that up to the last moment I did all I could to prevent him from going. Monsieur le president was most anxious to take his place; but he was determined to go, and now we all see why.”

In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no obligation to des Grassins.

吝嗇鬼許的愿·情人起的誓

父親不在家,歐也妮就不勝欣喜地可以公然關(guān)切她心愛的堂兄弟,可以放心大膽把胸中蘊蓄著的憐憫,對他盡量發(fā)泄了。憐憫是女子勝過男子的德行之一,是她愿意讓人家感覺到的唯一的情感,是她肯讓男人挑逗起來而不怨怪的唯一的情感。歐也妮跑去聽堂兄弟的呼吸,聽了三四次,要知道他睡著還是醒了;之后,他起床了,于是咖啡、乳酪、雞蛋、水果、盤子、杯子,一切有關(guān)早餐的東西,都成為她費心照顧的對象。她輕快地爬上破舊的樓梯,聽堂兄弟的響動。他是不是在穿衣呀?他還在哭嗎?她一直跑到房門外面。

“喂,弟弟!”

“哎,大姊!”

“你喜歡在哪兒用早餐,堂屋里還是你房里?”

“隨便?!?/p>

“你好嗎?”

“大姊,說來慚愧,我肚子餓了?!?/p>

這段隔著房門的談話,在歐也妮簡直是小說之中大段的穿插。

“那么我們把早餐端到你房里來吧,免得父親不高興?!?/p>

她身輕如燕地跑下廚房。

“拿儂,去替他收拾臥房。”

這座上上下下不知跑了多少次的樓梯,一點兒聲音就會咯咯作響的,在歐也妮眼中忽然變得不破舊了;她覺得樓梯明晃晃的,會說話,像她自己一樣年輕,像她的愛情一樣年輕,同時又為她的愛情服務(wù)。還有她母親,慈祥而寬容的母親,也樂意受她愛情的幻想驅(qū)遣。查理的臥房收拾好了,她倆一齊進去,替不幸的孩子做伴:基督教的慈悲,不是叫人安慰受難者嗎?兩個女子在宗教中尋出許多似是而非的怪論,為她們有失體統(tǒng)的行為做借口。

因此查理·葛朗臺受到最親切最溫柔的款待。他為了痛苦而破碎的心,清清楚楚地感到這種體貼入微的友誼,這種美妙的同情的甜蜜;那是母女倆被壓迫的心靈,在痛苦的領(lǐng)域——它們的日常天地——內(nèi)心能有一刻兒自由就會流露的。既然是至親骨肉,歐也妮就不妨把堂兄弟的內(nèi)衣和隨身帶來的梳妝用具整理一下,順便把手頭撿到的小玩意兒,鏤金鏤銀的東西,稱心如意地逐件玩賞,并且以察看做工為名,拿在手里不放。查理看到伯母與堂姊對他古道熱腸的關(guān)切,不由得大為感動;他對巴黎社會有相當?shù)恼J識,知道以他現(xiàn)在的處境,照例只能受人冷淡。他發(fā)覺歐也妮那種特殊的美,光艷照人;隔夜他認為可笑的生活習慣,從此他贊美她的純樸了。所以當歐也妮從拿儂手中接過一只琺瑯的碗,滿滿盛著咖啡和乳酪,很親熱地端給堂兄弟,不勝憐愛地望了他一眼時,查理便含著淚拿起她的手親吻。

“哎喲,你又怎么啦?”她問。

“哦!我感激得流淚了。”

歐也妮突然轉(zhuǎn)身跑向壁爐架拿燭臺。

“拿儂,”她說,“來,把燭臺拿走?!?/p>

她回頭再瞧堂兄弟的時候,臉上還有一片紅暈,但眼神已經(jīng)鎮(zhèn)定,不致把衷心洋溢的快樂泄露了;可是兩人的目光都表現(xiàn)同樣的情緒,正如他們的心靈交融在同一的思想中:未來是屬于他們的了。

這番柔情,查理覺得特別甘美,因為他遭了大難,早已不敢存什么希望。大門上錘子響了一下,立刻把兩個女子召歸原位。幸而她們下樓相當快,在葛朗臺進來的時候,手里已經(jīng)拿上活計;如果他在樓下環(huán)洞那邊碰到她們是準會疑心的。老頭兒急急忙忙吃完午餐之后,來了法勞豐田上看莊子的,早先說好的津貼至今沒拿到。他帶來一只野兔、幾只鷓鴣,都是大花園里打到的,還有磨坊司務(wù)欠下的鰻魚與兩條梭魚。

“哎!哎!來得正好,這高諾阿萊。這東西好吃嗎,你說?”

“好吃得很呢,好心的先生;打下來有兩天了?!?/p>

“喂,拿儂,快來!”好家伙說,“把這些東西拿去,做晚飯菜;我要請兩位克羅旭吃飯呢?!?/p>

拿儂瞪著眼發(fā)呆,對大家望著。

“可是,”她說,“叫我哪兒來肥肉跟香料呢?”

“太太,”葛朗臺說,“給拿儂六法郎。等會兒我要到地窖里去找好酒,別忘了提醒我一聲?!?/p>

看莊子的久已預(yù)備好一套話,想解決工資問題:

“這么說來,葛朗臺先生……”

“咄,咄,咄,咄!”葛朗臺答道,“我知道你的意思,你是一個好小子。今天我忙得很,咱們明兒談吧。太太,先給他五法郎。”

他說完趕緊跑了??蓱z的女人覺得花上十一法郎求一個清靜,高興得很。她知道葛朗臺把給她的錢一個一個逼回去之后,準有半個月不尋事。

“哎,高諾阿萊,”她把十法郎塞在他手里說,“回頭我們再重重謝你吧。”

高諾阿萊沒有話說,走了。拿儂戴上黑頭巾,抓起籃子說:

“太太,我只要三法郎就夠了,多下的你留著吧。行了,我照樣會對付的?!?/p>

“拿儂,飯菜弄好一些呀,堂兄弟下來吃飯的呢?!睔W也妮吩咐。

“真是,家里有了大事了,”葛朗臺太太說,“我結(jié)婚到現(xiàn)在,這是你父親第三次請客?!?/p>

四點左右,歐也妮和母親擺好了六個人的刀叉,屋主把內(nèi)地人那么珍視的舊藏佳釀,提了幾瓶出來,查理也進了堂屋。他臉色蒼白,舉動,態(tài)度,目光,說話的音調(diào),在悲苦中別有一番嫵媚。他并沒假裝悲傷,他的難受是真實的,痛苦罩在他臉上的陰影,有一副為女子特別喜愛的神情。歐也妮因之愈加愛他了?;蛟S苦難替歐也妮把他拉近了些。查理不再是那個高不可攀的、有錢的美少年,而是一個遭難的窮親戚??嚯y生平等。救苦救難是女子與天使相同的地方。查理和歐也妮彼此用眼睛說話,靠眼睛了解;那個落難公子,可憐的孤兒,躲在一邊不出一聲,沉著,高傲;但堂姊溫柔慈愛的目光不時落在他身上,逼他拋開愁苦的念頭,跟她一起神游于未來與希望之中,那是她最樂意的事。

葛朗臺請克羅旭吃飯的消息,這時轟動了全城;他前一天出售當年的收成,對全體種葡萄的背信的罪行,倒沒有把人心刺激得這么厲害。蘇格拉底的弟子阿契皮阿特,為了驚世駭俗,曾經(jīng)把自己的狗割掉尾巴;如果這老奸巨猾的葡萄園主以同樣的心思請客,或許他也可成為一個大人物;可是他老是玩弄城里的人,沒有遇到過一個對手,所以從不把索漠人放在心上。臺·格拉桑他們,知道了查理的父親暴卒與可能破產(chǎn)的新聞,決意當天晚上就到他們的主雇家吊唁一番,慰問一番,同時探聽一下他們?yōu)槭裁词?,在這種情形之下請幾位克羅旭吃飯。

五點整,特·篷風所長跟他的叔叔老克羅旭公證人,渾身上下穿得齊齊整整地來了。大家立刻入席,開始大嚼。葛朗臺嚴肅,查理靜默,歐也妮一聲不出,葛朗臺太太不比平時多開口,真是一頓款待吊客的喪家飯。

大家離席的時候,查理對伯父伯母說:

“對不起,我先告退了,有些極不愉快的長信要寫?!?/p>

“請吧請吧,侄兒。”

他一走,葛朗臺認為查理一心一意地去寫信,什么都聽不見的了,便狡獪地望著妻子說:

“太太,我們要談的話,對你們簡直是天書,此刻七點半,還是鉆進你們的被窩去吧。明兒見,歐也妮?!?/p>

他擁抱了女兒,兩位女子離開了堂屋。葛朗臺與人交接的結(jié)果,早已磨煉得詭計多端,使一般被他咬得太兇的人常常暗里叫他老狗。那天晚上,他比平生任何時候都運用更多的機巧。倘使索漠前任區(qū)長的野心放得遠大一些,再加機緣湊巧,爬上高位,奉派到國際會議中去,把他保護私人利益的長才在那里表現(xiàn)一番的話,毫無疑問他會替法國立下大功。但也說不定一離開索漠,老頭兒只是一個毫無出息的可憐蟲。有些人的頭腦,或許像有些動物一般,從本土移到了另一個地方,離開了當?shù)氐乃?,就沒法繁殖。

“所……所長……先……先……先生,你你你……說……說說說過破破破產(chǎn)……”

他假裝了多少年而大家久已當真的口吃,和他在雨天常常抱怨的耳聾,在這個場合使兩位克羅旭難受死了,他們一邊聽一邊不知不覺地扯動嘴臉,仿佛要把他故意卷在舌尖上的字眼代為補足。在此我們應(yīng)當追敘一下葛朗臺的口吃與耳聾的故事。

在安育地區(qū),對當?shù)氐耐猎挾媚敲赐笍?,講得那么清楚的,誰都比不上這狡獪的葡萄園主。但他雖是精明透頂,從前卻上過一個猶太人的當。在談判的時候,那猶太人老把兩手捧著耳朵,假裝聽不清,同時結(jié)結(jié)巴巴的,口吃得厲害,永遠說不出適當?shù)淖盅郏灾赂鹄逝_竟吃了善心的虧,自動替狡猾的猶太人尋找他心中的思想與字眼,結(jié)果把猶太人的理由代說了,他說的話倒像是該死的猶太人應(yīng)該說的,他終于變了猶太人而不是葛朗臺了。那場古怪的辯論所做成的交易,是老箍桶匠平生唯一吃虧的買賣。但他雖然經(jīng)濟上受了損失,精神上卻得了一次很好的教訓,從此得益匪淺。葛朗臺臨了還祝福那個猶太人,因為他學會了一套本領(lǐng),在生意上叫敵人不耐煩,逼對方老是替我這方面打主意,而忘掉他自身的觀點。

那天晚上所要解決的問題,的確最需要耳聾與口吃,最需要莫名其妙地兜圈子,把自己的思想深藏起來:第一他不愿對自己的計劃負責;第二他不愿授人話柄,要人家猜不透他的真主意。

“特·篷……篷……篷風先生?!?/p>

葛朗臺稱克羅旭公證人的侄子為篷風先生,三年以來這是第二次。所長聽了很可能當作那奸刁的老頭兒已經(jīng)選定他做女婿。

“你你你……真的說……說破破破產(chǎn),在……在某某……某些情形中可……可可以……由……由……”

“可以由商事裁判出面阻止。這是常有的事?!碧亍づ耧L先生這么說,自以為把葛朗臺老頭的思想抓住了,或者猜到了,預(yù)備誠誠懇懇替他解釋一番,便又道,“你聽我說?!?/p>

“我聽……聽……聽著?!崩项^兒不勝惶恐地回答,狡猾的神氣,像一小學生面上裝作靜聽老師的話,暗地里卻在訕笑。

“一個受人尊敬而重要的人物,譬如像你已故的令弟……”

“舍弟……是的。”

“有周轉(zhuǎn)不靈的危險……”

“那……那那叫……叫作……周周周轉(zhuǎn)不靈嗎?”

“是的?!灾旅獠涣似飘a(chǎn)的時候,有管轄權(quán)的(請你注意)商事裁判所,可以憑它的判決,委任幾個當事人所屬的商會中人做清理委員。清理并非破產(chǎn),懂不懂?一個破產(chǎn)的人名譽掃地,但宣告清理的人是清白的?!?/p>

“那相相差……太大了,要是……那……那并并并不……花……花……花更……更……更多的錢?!备鹄逝_說。

“可是即使沒有商事裁判所幫忙,仍舊可以宣告清理的,因為,”所長吸了一撮鼻煙,接著說,“你知道宣告破產(chǎn)要經(jīng)過怎樣的手續(xù)嗎?”

“是呀,我從來沒有想……想……想過?!备鹄逝_回答。

“第一,”法官往下說,“當事人或者他的合法登記的代理人,要親自造好一份資產(chǎn)負債表,送往法院書記室。第二,由債權(quán)人出面申請??墒侨绻斒氯瞬惶岢鲑Y產(chǎn)負債表,或者債權(quán)人不申請法院把當事人宣告破產(chǎn),那么怎么辦呢?”

“對……對對對啦,怎……怎……怎么辦呢?”

“那么死者親族,代表人,承繼人,或者當事人自己,如果他沒有死,或者他的朋友,如果他避不見面,可以辦清理。也許你想把令弟的債務(wù)宣告清理吧?”所長問。

“??!葛朗臺!”公證人嚷道,“那可好極了。我們偏僻的內(nèi)地還知道名譽的可貴。要是你保得身家清白,因為這的確與你的身家有關(guān),那你真是大丈夫了……”

“偉大極了!”所長插嘴道。

“當……當然,”老頭兒答道,“我兄兄兄弟姓……姓……姓葛朗臺,跟……跟我我……我……我一樣,還……還……還還用說嗎?我……我……我……我沒有說不。清清……清……清……清理,在在……無……無論何……何種情……情形之下,從從……各各……各……各方面看看看,對我侄……侄……侄兒是很……很……很有有有利的,侄……侄侄兒又又又是我……我喜……喜歡的。可是先……先要弄清楚。我不認……認……認得那些巴黎的壞蛋。我……我是在索……索漠,對不對?我的葡葡葡萄秧,溝溝渠,總總……總之,我有我的事事事情。我從沒出過約……約……約期票。什么叫作約期票?我收收收……收到過很……很多,從來沒有……出……出給人家。我只……只……只知道約期票可……可可可以兌現(xiàn),可……可可以貼貼貼現(xiàn)。聽……聽說約……約……約期票可可以贖贖贖回……”

“是的,”所長說,“約期票可以打一個折扣從市場上收回來。你懂嗎?”

葛朗臺兩手捧著耳朵,所長把話再說了一遍。

“那么,”老頭兒答道,“這些事情也……也有好有壞嘍?我……我……我老了,這這這些都……都弄弄……弄不清。我得留……留在這兒看……看……看守谷子。谷子快……快收了,咱們靠……靠……靠谷子開……開開銷。最要緊的是,看……看好收成,在法勞豐我我……我有重……重要的收入。我不能放……放……放棄了家去去對對……對付那鬼……鬼……鬼……鬼事,我又攪攪不清。你你說……要避免破產(chǎn),要辦辦……辦清……清……清理,我得去巴黎。一個人又不不……不是一只鳥,怎怎……怎么能同時在……在……在兩個地方……”

“我明白你的意思,”公證人嚷道,“可是老朋友,你有的是朋友,有的是肯替你盡心出力的朋友?!?/p>

“得啦,”老頭兒心里想,“那么你自己提議呀!”

“倘使派一個人到巴黎去,找到令弟琪奧默最大的債主,對他說……”

“且慢,”老頭兒插嘴道,“對他說……說什么?是……是不是這……這樣:‘索漠的葛朗臺長……索漠……的葛朗臺短,他愛他的兄弟,愛他的侄……侄……侄子。葛朗臺是一個好哥……哥哥,有一番很好的意思。他的收……收……收成賣了好價。你們不要宣告破……破……破……破產(chǎn),你們集集集合起來,委……委……委托幾個清……清……清理人。那那時葛朗臺再……再……再瞧著辦。與其讓法院里的人沾……沾……沾手,不如清理來……來……來得上算……’嗯,是不是這么說?”

“對!”所長回答。

“因為,你瞧,篷……篷……篷……篷風先生,我們要三……三思而行。做……做不到總……總是做……做不到。凡是花……花……花錢的事,先得把收支搞清楚,才才才不至于傾……傾……傾家蕩產(chǎn)。嗯,對不對?”

“當然嘍,”所長說,“我嘛,我認為花幾個月的時間,出一筆錢,以協(xié)議的方式付款,可以把債券全部贖回。啊?。∧闶掷锬脡K肥肉,那些狗還不跟你跑嗎?只要不宣告破產(chǎn),把債權(quán)證件抓在你手里,你就是白璧無瑕?!?/p>

“白……白……白璧?”葛朗臺又把兩手捧著耳朵,“我不懂什么白……白……白璧。”

“哎,”所長嚷道,“你聽我說呀?!?/p>

“我……我我聽著。”

“債券是一種商品,也有市價漲落。這是根據(jù)英國法學家虞萊彌·朋撒姆關(guān)于高利貸的理論推演出來的。他曾經(jīng)證明,大家譴責高利貸的成見是荒謬的。”

“嗯!”好家伙哼了一聲。

“據(jù)朋撒姆的看法,既然原則上金錢是一種商品,代表金錢的東西也是一種商品,既然是商品,就免不了市價漲落;那么契據(jù)這種商品,有某某人簽字的文件,也像旁的貨物一樣,市場會忽而多忽而少,它們的價值也就忽而高忽而低,法院可以要人家……(哦,我多糊涂,對不起……)我認為你可以把令弟的債券打個二五折贖回來?!?/p>

“他叫……叫……叫作虞……虞……虞萊彌·朋……”

“朋撒姆,是個英國人。”

“這個虞萊彌,使我們在生意上再也用不到怨氣沖天?!惫C人笑著說。

“這些英國人有……有……有時真講情……情理,”葛朗臺說,“那么,照朋……朋……朋撒姆的看法,要是我兄弟的債券值……值……值多少……實際是并不值!我我……我……我說得對不對?我覺得明白得很……債主可能……不,不可能……我懂……懂懂得?!?/p>

“認我解釋給你聽吧,”所長說,“在法律上要是你拿到葛朗臺號子所有欠人的債券,令弟和他的繼承人就算跟大家兩訖了,行了?!?/p>

“行了?!崩项^兒也跟著說了一遍。

“以公道而論,要是令弟的債券,在市場上談判好,(談判,你明白這兩個字的意思嗎?)談判好打多少折扣;要是你朋友中有人在場收買了下來,既然債權(quán)人自愿出售而并沒受暴力脅迫,那么令弟的遺產(chǎn)就光明正大地沒有什么負債了。”

“不錯……生……生……生意是生意,這是老話,”箍桶匠說,“可是,你明……明……明……明白,這很……很……很難。我……我……我沒有錢錢錢,也……也……也沒有空,沒有空也沒……”

“是的,你不能分身。那么我代你上巴黎。(旅費歸你,那是小意思。)我去找那些債權(quán)人,跟他們談,把債券收回,把付款的期限展緩,只要在清算的總數(shù)上多付一筆錢,一切都好商量的。”

“咱咱咱們再談,我不……不……不……能,我不愿隨……隨……隨便答應(yīng),在在在……沒……沒有……做……做不到,總是做……做不到。你你你明白?”

“那不錯?!?/p>

“你跟……跟……跟我講……講……講的這一套,把我……我……我頭都漲……漲……漲昏了。我活到現(xiàn)在,第……第……第一次要想……想到這這……”

“對,你不是法學家?!?/p>

“不過是一個可……可……可憐的種葡萄的,你……你……你剛才說的,我一點兒不知道;我……我……我得研……研……研究一一一下?!?/p>

“那么……”所長似乎想把他們的談話歸納出一個結(jié)論來。公證人帶著埋怨的口吻插嘴道:

“老侄!……”

“哦,叔叔?”

“你應(yīng)當讓葛朗臺先生說明他的意思。委托這樣一件事不是小事。咱們的朋友應(yīng)當把范圍說清……”

大門上一聲錘響,報告臺·格拉桑一家來了,他們的進場和寒暄,打斷了克羅旭的話。這一打岔,公證人覺得很高興,葛朗臺已經(jīng)在冷眼覷他,肉瘤顫巍巍地表示心中的激動??墒鞘紫龋⌒闹斏鞯墓C人認為一個初級裁判所所長根本不宜于上巴黎去釣債權(quán)人上鉤,牽入與法律抵觸而不清不白的陰謀中去;其次,葛朗臺老頭肯不肯出錢還一點兒沒有表示,侄兒就冒冒失地參與,也使公證人莫名其妙地覺得害怕。所以他趁臺·格拉桑他們進來的當兒,抓著所長的胳膊,把他拉到一個窗洞下面:

“老侄,你的意思表示得夠了,獻殷勤也應(yīng)當適可而止。你想他的女兒想昏了。不要見鬼,沒頭沒腦地亂沖亂撞?,F(xiàn)在讓我來把舵,你只要從旁邊助我一臂就行。難道你值得以堂堂法官之尊,去參與這樣一件……”

他沒有說完,聽見臺·格拉桑向老箍桶匠伸著手說:

“葛朗臺,我們知道府上遭了不幸,琪奧默·葛朗臺的號子出了事,令弟去世了,我們特地來表示哀悼?!?/p>

公證人插嘴道:

“最不幸的是二爺?shù)乃馈R撬氲较蛐珠L求救,就不至于自殺了。咱們的老朋友愛名譽,連指甲縫里都愛到家,他想出面清理巴黎葛朗臺的債務(wù)呢。舍侄為免得葛朗臺在這樁涉及司法的交涉中遇到麻煩,提議立刻代他去巴黎跟債權(quán)人磋商,使他們相當?shù)貪M足?!?/p>

這段話,加上葡萄園主摸著下巴的態(tài)度,叫三位臺·格拉桑詫異到萬分。他們一路來的時候還在稱心如意地罵葛朗臺守財奴,差不多認為兄弟就是給他害死的。這時銀行家卻望著他的太太嚷道:

“啊!我早知道的!喂,太太,我路上跟你怎么說的?葛朗臺連頭發(fā)根里都是愛惜名譽的,絕不肯讓他們的姓氏有一點兒玷污。有錢而沒有名譽是一種病。咱們內(nèi)地還有人愛名譽呢!葛朗臺,你這個態(tài)度好極了,好極了。我是一個老軍人,裝不了假,只曉得把心里的話直說。這真是,我的天!偉大極了?!闭f著銀行家熱烈地握著他的手。

“可可可是偉……偉……偉大要花大……大……大錢呀?!崩项^兒回答。

“但是,親愛的葛朗臺,”臺·格拉桑接著說,“請所長先生不要生氣,這純粹是件生意上的事,要一個生意上的老手去交涉的。什么回復權(quán),預(yù)支,利息的計算,全得內(nèi)行。我有些事上巴黎,可以附帶代你……”

“咱們慢慢地來考慮,怎怎……怎么樣想出一個可……可……可能的辦法,使我不……不……不至于貿(mào)貿(mào)然答……答……答應(yīng)我……我……我不愿愿愿意做的事,”葛朗臺結(jié)結(jié)巴巴地回答,“因為,你瞧,所長先生當然要我負擔旅費的?!闭f這最后幾句時他不口吃了。臺·格拉桑太太便說:

“哎!到巴黎去是一種享受,我愿意自己花旅費去呢?!?/p>

她對丈夫丟了一個眼色,似乎鼓勵他不惜代價把這件差事從敵人手里搶過來;她又帶著嘲弄的神氣望望兩位臉色沮喪的克羅旭。

于是葛朗臺抓住了銀行家的衣紐,拉他到一邊對他說:

“在你跟所長中間,我自然更信任你。而且,”他的肉瘤牽動了幾下,“其中還有文章呢。我想買公債,大概有好幾萬法郎的數(shù)目,可是只預(yù)備出八十法郎的價錢。據(jù)說月底行市會跌。你是內(nèi)行,是不是?”

“嘿!豈敢!這樣說來,我得替你收進幾萬法郎的公債啰?”

“噓!開場小做做。我玩這個,誰都不讓知道。你可以買月底的期貨;可是不能叫克羅旭他們得知,他們會不高興。既然你上巴黎去,你替我可憐的侄兒探探風色?!?/p>

“就這樣吧,”臺·格拉桑提高了嗓音,“明天我搭驛車動身,幾點鐘再來請示細節(jié)呢?”

“明天五點吧,吃晚飯以前?!逼咸褕@主搓著手。

兩家客人又一起坐了一會兒。臺·格拉桑趁談話停頓的當兒拍拍葛朗臺的肩膀說:

“有這樣的同胞兄弟,叫人看了也痛快……”

“是呀是呀,”葛朗臺回答說,“表面上看不出,我可是極重骨……骨肉之情。我對兄弟很好,可以向大家證明,要是花……花……花錢不……不多……”銀行家不等他說完,很識趣地插嘴道:

“咱們告辭了,葛朗臺。我要提早動身的話,還得把事情料理料理?!?/p>

“好,好,為了剛才和你談的那件事,我……我要進……進……進我的‘評評……評……評議室’去,像克羅旭所長說的?!?/p>

“該死!一下子我又不是特·篷風先生了?!狈ü儆粲舨粯返叵耄樕系谋砬楹孟裨谕ド辖o辯護律師弄得不耐煩似的。

兩家敵對的人物一齊走了。早上葛朗臺出賣當?shù)仄咸褕@主的行為,都給忘掉了,彼此只想刺探對方:對于好家伙在這件新發(fā)生的事情上存什么心,是怎么一個看法??墒钦l也不肯表示。

“你跟我們上特·奧松華太太家去嗎?”臺·格拉桑問公證人。

“咱們過一會兒去,”所長回答,“要是家叔允許的話,我答應(yīng)特·格里鮑果小姐到她那邊轉(zhuǎn)一轉(zhuǎn)的,我們要先上那兒。”

“那么再見啰,諸位?!迸_·格拉桑太太說。

他們別過了兩位克羅旭,才走了幾步,阿道夫便對他的父親說:

“他們這一下可冒火呢,嗯?”

“別胡說,孩子,”他母親回答道,“他們還聽得見。而且你的話不登大雅,完全是法科學生的味兒?!?/p>

法官眼看臺·格拉桑一家走遠之后,嚷道:

“喂,叔叔!開場我是特·篷風所長,結(jié)果仍舊是光桿兒的克羅旭?!?/p>

“我知道你會生氣,不過風向的確對臺·格拉桑有利。你聰明人怎么糊涂起來了!葛朗臺老頭‘咱們再談’那一套,由他們?nèi)ハ嘈虐伞:⒆?,你放心,歐也妮還不一樣是你的?”

不多一會兒,葛朗臺慷慨的決心同時在三份人家傳布開去,城里的人只談著這樁手足情深的義舉。葛朗臺破壞了葡萄園主的誓約而出賣存酒的事,大家都加以原諒,一致佩服他的誠實,贊美他的義氣,那是出于眾人意料之外的。法國人的性格,就是喜歡捧一時的紅角兒,為新鮮事兒上勁。那些群眾竟是健忘得厲害。

葛朗臺一關(guān)上大門,就叫喚拿儂:

“你別把狗放出來,等會兒睡覺,咱們還得一起干事呢。十一點鐘的時候,高諾阿萊會趕著法勞豐的破車到這兒來。你留心聽著,別讓他敲門,叫他輕輕地進來。警察局不許人家黑夜里高聲大氣地鬧。再說,鄉(xiāng)鄰也用不到知道我出門。”

說完之后,葛朗臺走進他的工作室,拿儂聽著他走動,找東西,來來去去,可是小心得很。顯而易見他不愿驚醒太太和女兒,尤其不愿惹起侄兒的注意。他瞧見侄兒屋內(nèi)還有燈光,已經(jīng)在私下咒罵了。

半夜里,一心想著堂兄弟的歐也妮,似乎聽見一個快要死去的人在那里呻吟,而這個快要死去的人,對她便是查理:他和她分手的時候臉色不是那么難看,那么垂頭喪氣嗎?也許他自殺呢!她突然之間披了一件有風兜的大氅想走出去。先是她房門的隙縫中透進一道強烈的光,把她嚇了一跳,以為是失了火;后來她放心了,因為聽見拿儂沉重的腳步與說話的聲音,還夾著好幾匹馬嘶叫的聲音。她極其小心地把門打開一點兒,免得發(fā)出聲響,但開到正好瞧見甬道里的情形。她心里想:“難道父親把堂兄弟架走了不成?”

冷不防她的眼睛跟父親的眼睛碰上了,雖然不是瞧著她,而且也毫不疑心她在門后偷看,歐也妮卻嚇壞了。老頭兒和拿儂兩個,右肩上架著一根又粗又短的棍子,棍子上系了一條繩索,扣著一只木桶,正是葛朗臺閑著沒事的辰光在面包房里做著玩的那種。

“圣母瑪利亞!好重噢!先生?!蹦脙z輕聲地說。

“可惜只是一些大銅錢!”老頭兒回答,“當心碰到燭臺。”

樓梯扶手的兩根柱子中間,只照著一根蠟燭。

“高諾阿萊,”葛朗臺對那個虛有其名的看莊子的說,“你帶了手槍沒有?”

“沒有,先生。嘿!你那些大錢怕什么?……”

“噢!不怕?!备鹄逝_回答。

“再說,我們走得很快,”看莊子的又道,“你的佃戶替你預(yù)備了最好的馬?!?/p>

“行,行。你沒有跟他們說我上哪兒去嗎?”

“我壓根兒不知道。”

“好吧。車子結(jié)實嗎?”

“結(jié)實?嘿,能裝三千斤。你那些破酒桶有多重?”

“哦,那我知道!”拿儂說,“總該有一千八百斤?!?/p>

“別多嘴,拿儂!跟太太說我下鄉(xiāng)去了,回來吃夜飯?!咧Z阿萊,快一點兒,九點以前要趕到安越?!?/p>

車子走了。拿儂鎖上大門,放了狗,肩頭酸痛地睡下,街坊上沒有一個人知道葛朗臺出門,更沒有人知道他出門的目的。老頭兒真是機密透頂。在這座堆滿黃金的屋子里,誰也沒有見過一個大錢。早晨他在碼頭上聽見人家閑話,說南德城里接了大批裝配船只的生意,金價漲了一倍,投機商都到安越來收買黃金,他聽了便向佃戶借了幾匹馬,預(yù)備把家里的藏金裝到安越去拋售,拿回一筆庫券,作為買公債的款子,而且趁金價暴漲的機會又好賺一筆外快。

“父親走了?!睔W也妮心里想,她在樓梯高頭把一切都聽清楚了。

屋子里又變得寂靜無聲,逐漸遠去的車輪聲,在萬家酣睡的索漠城中已經(jīng)聽不見了。這時歐也妮在沒有用耳朵諦聽之前,先在心中聽到一聲呻吟從查理房中傳來,一直透過她臥房的板壁。三樓門縫里漏出一道像刀口一般細的光,橫照在破樓梯的欄桿上。她爬上兩級,心里想:

“他不好過哩?!?/p>

第二次的呻吟使她爬到了樓梯高頭,把虛掩著的房門推開了。查理睡著,腦袋倒在舊靠椅外面;筆已經(jīng)掉下,手幾乎碰到了地。他在這種姿勢中呼吸困難的模樣,叫歐也妮突然害怕起來,趕緊走進臥房。

“他一定累死了?!彼吹绞畮追夥夂玫男?,心里想。她看見信封上寫著——法萊—勃萊曼車行——蒲伊松成衣鋪,等等。

“他一定在料理事情,好早點兒出國。”

她又看到兩封打開的信,開頭寫著“我親愛的阿納德……”幾個字,使她不由得一陣眼花,心兒直跳,雙腳釘在地上不能動了。

“他親愛的阿納德!他有愛人了,有人愛他了!沒有希望嘍!……他對她說些什么呢?”

這些念頭在她腦子里心坎里閃過,到處都看到這幾個像火焰一般的字,連地磚上都有。

“沒有希望了!我不能看這封信。應(yīng)當走開……可是看了又怎么呢?”

她望著查理,輕輕地把他腦袋安放在椅背上,他像孩子一般聽人擺布,仿佛睡熟的時候也認得自己的母親,讓她照料,受她親吻。歐也妮也像做母親的一樣,把他垂下的手拿起,輕輕地吻了吻他的頭發(fā)?!坝H愛的阿納德!”仿佛有一個鬼在她耳畔叫著這幾個字。她想:

“我知道也許是不應(yīng)該的,可是那封信,我還是要看?!?/p>

歐也妮轉(zhuǎn)過頭去,良心在責備她。善惡第一次在她心中照了面。至此為止,她從沒做過使自己臉紅的事?,F(xiàn)在可是熱情與好奇心把她戰(zhàn)勝了。每讀一句,她的心就膨脹一點兒,看信時身心興奮的情緒,把她初戀的快感刺激得愈加尖銳了:

親愛的阿納德,什么都不能使我們分離,除了我這次遭到的大難,那是盡管謹慎小心也是預(yù)料不到的。我的父親自殺了,我和他的財產(chǎn)全部丟了。由于我所受的教育,在這個年紀上我還是一個孩子,可是已經(jīng)成了孤兒:雖然如此,我得像成人一樣從深淵中爬起來。剛才我花了半夜工夫做了一番盤算。要是我愿意清清白白地離開法國——我一定得辦到這一點——我還沒有一百法郎的錢好拿了上印度或美洲去碰運氣。是的,可憐的阿娜,我要到氣候最惡劣的地方去找發(fā)財?shù)臋C會。據(jù)說在那些地方,發(fā)財又快又穩(wěn)。留在巴黎嘛,根本不可能。一個傾家蕩產(chǎn)的人,一個破產(chǎn)的人的兒子,天哪,虧空了兩百萬!……一個這樣的人所能受到的羞辱,冷淡,鄙薄,我的心和我的臉都受不了的。不到一星期,我就會在決斗中送命。所以我絕不回巴黎。你的愛,一個男人從沒受到過的最溫柔最忠誠的愛,也不能搖動我不去巴黎的決心??蓱z??!我最親愛的,我沒有旅費上你那兒,來給你一個,受你一個最后的親吻,一個使我有勇氣奔赴前程的親吻……

——可憐的查理,幸虧我看了這封信!我有金子,可以給他啊,歐也妮想。她抹了抹眼淚又念下去:

我從沒想到過貧窮的苦難。要是我有了必不可少的一百路易旅費,就沒有一個銅子買那些起碼貨去做生意。不要說一百路易,連一個路易也沒有。要等我把巴黎的私債清償之后,才能知道我還剩多少錢。倘使一文不剩,我也就心平氣和地上南德,到船上當水手,一到那里,我學那些苦干的人的榜樣,年輕時身無分文地上印度,變了巨富回來。從今兒早上起,我把前途冷靜地想過了。那對我比對旁人更加可怕,因為我受過母親的嬌養(yǎng),受過最慈祥的父親的疼愛,剛踏進社會又遇到了阿娜的愛!我一向只看見人生的鮮花,而這種福氣是不會長久的??墒怯H愛的阿納德,我還有足夠的勇氣,雖然我一向是個無愁無慮的青年,受慣一個巴黎最迷人的女子的愛撫,享盡家庭之樂,有一個百依百順的父親……哦!阿納德,我的父親,他死了啊……

是的,我把我的處境想過了,也把你的想過了。二十四小時以來,我老了許多。親愛的阿娜,即使為了把我留在巴黎,留在你身旁,而你犧牲一切豪華的享受,犧牲你的衣著,犧牲你在歌劇院的包廂,咱們也沒法張羅一筆最低的費用,來維持我揮霍慣的生活。而且我不能接受你那么多的犧牲。因此咱們今天只能訣別。

——他離開她了,圣母瑪利亞!哦,好運氣!

歐也妮快樂得跳起來。查理身子動了一下,把她嚇得渾身發(fā)冷;幸而他并沒有醒。她又往下念:

我什么時候回來?不知道。印度的氣候很容易使一個歐洲人衰老,尤其是一個辛苦的歐洲人。就說是十年吧。十年以后,你的女兒十八歲,已經(jīng)是你的伴侶,會刺探你的秘密了。對你,社會已經(jīng)夠殘酷,而你的女兒也許對你更殘酷。社會的批判,少女的忘恩負義,那些榜樣我們已看得不少,應(yīng)當知所警惕。希望你像我一樣,心坎里牢牢記著這四年幸福的回憶,別負了你可憐的朋友,如果可能的話??墒俏也桓覉詻Q要求,因為親愛的阿納德,我必須適應(yīng)我的處境,用平凡的眼光看人生,一切都得打最實際的算盤。所以我要想到結(jié)婚,在我以后的生涯中那是一項應(yīng)有的節(jié)目。而且我可以告訴你,在這里,在我索漠的伯父家里,我遇到一個堂姊,她的舉動,面貌,頭腦,心地,都會使你喜歡的,并且我覺得她……

歐也妮看到信在這里中斷,便想:“他一定是疲倦極了,才沒有寫完?!?/p>

她替他找辯護的理由!當然,這封信的冷淡無情,叫這個無邪的姑娘怎么猜得透?在虔誠的氣氛中長大的少女,天真,純潔,一朝踏入了迷人的愛情世界,便覺得一切都是愛情了。她們徜徉于天國的光明中,而這光明是她們的心靈放射的,光輝所布,又照耀到她們的愛人。她們把胸中如火如荼的熱情點染愛人,把自己崇高的思想當作他們的。女人的錯誤,差不多老是因為相信善,或是相信真?!拔矣H愛的阿納德,我最親愛的”這些字眼,傳到歐也妮心中竟是愛情的最美的語言,把她聽得飄飄然,好像童年聽到大風琴上再三奏著“來啊,咱們來崇拜上帝”這幾個莊嚴的音符,覺得萬分悅耳一樣。并且查理眼中還噙著淚水,更顯出他的心地高尚,而心地高尚是最容易使少女著迷的。

她又怎么知道查理這樣地愛父親,這樣真誠地哭他,并非出于什么了不得的至情至性,而是因為做父親的實在太好的緣故。在巴黎,一般做兒女的,對父母多少全有些可怕的打算,或者看到了巴黎生活的繁華,有些欲望、有些計劃老是因父母在堂而無法實現(xiàn),覺得苦悶。琪奧默·葛朗臺夫婦卻對兒子永遠百依百順,讓他窮奢極侈地享盡富貴,所以查理才不至于對父母想到那些可怕的念頭。父親不惜為了兒子揮金如土,終于在兒子心中培養(yǎng)起一點純粹的孝心。然而查理究竟是一個巴黎青年,當?shù)氐娘L氣與阿納德的陶冶,把他訓練得對什么都得計算一下;表面上年輕,他實際已經(jīng)是一個深諳世故的老人。他受到巴黎社會的可怕的教育,眼見一個夜晚在思想上說話上所犯的罪,可能比重罪法庭所懲罰的還要多;信口雌黃,把最偉大的思想詆毀無余,而美其名曰妙語高論;風氣所播,竟以目光準確為強者之道;所謂目光準確,乃是全無信念,既不信情感,也不信人物,也不信事實,而假造事實。在這個社會里,要目光準確就得每天早上把朋友的錢袋掂過斤兩,對任何事情都得像政客一般不動感情;眼前對什么都不能欽佩贊美,既不可贊美藝術(shù)品,也不可贊美高尚的行為;對什么事都應(yīng)當把個人的利益看作高于一切。那位貴族太太,美麗的阿納德,在瘋瘋癲癲調(diào)情賣俏之后,教查理一本正經(jīng)地思索了:她用香噴噴的手摸著他的頭發(fā),跟他討論他的前程;一邊替他重做發(fā)卷,一邊教他為人生打算。她把他變得女性化而又實際化。那是從兩方面使他腐化,可是使他腐化的手段,做得高雅巧妙,不同凡俗。

“查理,你真傻,”她對他說,“叫你懂得人生,真不容易。你對臺·呂博先生的態(tài)度很不好。我知道他是一個不大高尚的人;可是等他失勢之后你再稱心如意地鄙薄他呀。你知道剛榜太太的教訓嗎?——孩子們,只要一個人在臺上,就得盡量崇拜他;一朝下了臺,趕快把他拖上垃圾堆。有權(quán)有勢的時候,他等于上帝;給人家擠倒了,還不如石像被塞在陰溝里的馬拉[1],因為馬拉已經(jīng)死了,而他還活著。人生是一連串縱橫捭闔的把戲,要研究,要時時刻刻地注意,一個人才能維持他優(yōu)越的地位。”

以查理那樣的一個時髦人物,父母太溺愛他,社會太奉承他,根本談不到有何偉大的情感。母親種在他心里的一點點真金似的品性,散到巴黎這架螺旋機中去了;這點兒品性,他平時就應(yīng)用得很淺薄,而且多次摩擦之后,遲早要磨蝕完的。但那時查理只有二十一歲。在這個年紀上,生命的朝氣似乎跟心靈的坦白還分不開。聲音,目光,面貌,都顯得與情感調(diào)和。所以當一個人眼神清澈如水,額上還沒有一道皺紋的時候,縱使最無情的法官,最不輕信人的訟師,最難相與的債主,也不敢貿(mào)然斷定他的心已老于世故,工于算計。巴黎哲學的教訓,查理從沒機會實地應(yīng)用過,至此為止,他的美是美在沒有經(jīng)驗??墒遣恢挥X之間,他血里已經(jīng)種下了自私自利的疫苗。巴黎人的那套政治經(jīng)濟,已經(jīng)潛伏在他心頭,只要他從悠閑的旁觀者一變而為現(xiàn)實生活中的演員,這些潛在的根苗便會立刻開花。

幾乎所有的少女都會相信外貌的暗示,以為人家的心地和外表一樣的美;但即使歐也妮像某些內(nèi)地姑娘一樣的謹慎小心,一樣的目光深遠,在堂兄弟的舉動、言語、行為與心中憧憬還內(nèi)外一致的時候,歐也妮也不見得會防他。一個偶然的機會,對歐也妮是致命傷,使她在堂兄弟年輕的心中,看到他最后一次的流露真情,聽到他良心的最后幾聲嘆息。

她把這封她認為充滿愛情的信放下,心滿意足地端詳著睡熟的堂兄弟:她覺得這張臉上還有人生的新鮮的幻象;她先暗暗發(fā)誓要始終不渝地愛他。末了她的眼睛又轉(zhuǎn)到另一封信上,再也不覺得這種冒昧的舉動有什么了不得了。并且她看這封信,主要還是想對堂兄弟高尚的人格多找些新證據(jù);而這高尚的人格,原是她像所有的女子一樣推己及人地假借給愛人的:

親愛的阿風斯,你讀到這封信的時候,我已經(jīng)沒有朋友了;可是我盡管懷疑那班滿口友誼的俗人,卻沒有懷疑你的友誼。所以我托你料理事情,相信你會把我所有的東西賣個好價。我的情形,想你已經(jīng)知道。我一無所有了,想到印度去。剛才我寫信給所有我有些欠賬的人,憑我記憶所及,附上清單一紙,我的藏書、家具、車輛、馬匹等等,大概足以抵償我的私債。凡是沒有什么價值的玩意兒,可以作為我做買賣的底子的,都請留下。親愛的阿風斯,為出售那些東西,我稍緩當有正式的委托書寄上,以免有人異議。請你把我全部的槍械寄給我。至于勃列東,你可以留下自用。這匹駿馬是沒有人肯出足價錢的,我寧愿送給你,好像一個臨死的人把常戴的戒指送給他的遺囑執(zhí)行人一樣。法萊—勃萊曼車行給我造了一輛極舒服的旅行車,還沒有交貨,你想法叫他們留下車子,不再要我補償損失。倘使不肯,另謀解決也可以,總以不損害我目前處境中的名譽為原則。我欠那個島國人六路易賭債,不要忘記還給他……

“好弟弟?!睔W也妮暗暗叫著,丟下了信,拿了蠟燭踅著小步溜回臥房。

到了房里,她快活得什么似的打開舊橡木柜的抽斗——文藝復興時期最美的家具之一,上面還模模糊糊看得出法朗梭阿一世的王徽。她從抽斗內(nèi)拿出一個金線墜子、金銀線繡花的紅絲絨錢袋,外祖母遺產(chǎn)里的東西。然后她很驕傲地掂了掂錢袋的分量,把她已經(jīng)忘了數(shù)目的小小的積蓄檢點一番。

她先理出簇新的二十枚葡萄牙金洋,一七二五年約翰五世鑄造,兌換率是每枚值葡幣五元,或者據(jù)她父親說,等于一百六十八法郎六十四生丁,但一般公認的市價可以值到一百八十法郎,因為這些金洋是罕有之物,鑄造極精,黃澄澄的光彩像太陽一般。

其次,是熱那亞幣一百元一枚的金洋五枚,也是稀見的古錢,每枚值八十七法郎,古錢收藏家可以出到一百法郎。那是從外曾祖特·拉·斐德里埃那兒來的。

其次,是三枚西班牙金洋,一七二九年斐列浦五世鑄造。香蒂埃太太給她的時候老是說:“這小玩意兒,這小人頭,值到九十八法郎!好娃娃,你得好好保存,將來是你私庫里的寶物。”

其次,是她父親最看重的一百荷蘭杜加,一七五六年鑄造,每枚約值十三法郎。成色是二十三開又零,差不多是十足的純金。

其次,是一批罕見的古物……一般守財奴最珍視的金徽章,三枚刻著天平的盧比,五枚刻著圣母的盧比[2],都是二十四開的純金,蒙古大帝的貨幣,本身的價值是每枚三十七法郎四十生丁,玩賞黃金的收藏家至少可以出到五十法郎。

其次,是前天才拿到,她隨便丟在袋里的四十法郎一枚的拿破侖。

這批寶物中間,有的是全新的,從未用過的金洋,真正的藝術(shù)品,葛朗臺不時要問到,要拿出來瞧瞧,以便向女兒指出它們本身的美點,例如邊緣的做工如何細巧,底子如何光亮,字體如何豐滿,筆畫的輪廓都沒有磨蝕分毫,等等。但歐也妮那天夜里既沒想到金洋的珍貴,也沒想到父親的癖性,更沒想到把父親這樣珍愛的寶物脫手是如何危險;不,她只想到堂兄弟,計算之下——算法上自然不免有些小錯——她終于發(fā)覺她的財產(chǎn)大概值到五千八百法郎,照一般的市價可以賣到六千法郎。

看到自己這么富有,她不禁高興得拍起手來,有如一個孩子快活到了極點,必須用肉體的動作來發(fā)泄一下。這樣,父女倆都盤過了自己的家私:他是為了拿黃金去賣,歐也妮是為了把黃金丟入愛情的大海。

她把金幣重新裝入錢袋,毫不遲疑地提了上樓。堂兄弟瞞著不給人知道的窘?jīng)r,使她忘了黑夜,忘了體統(tǒng),而且她的良心,她的犧牲精神,她的快樂,一切都在壯她的膽。

正當她一手蠟燭一手錢袋,踏進門口的時候,查理醒了,一看他的堂姊,便愣住了。歐也妮進房把燭火放在桌上,聲音發(fā)抖地說:

“弟弟,我做了一樁非常對不起你的事;但要是你肯寬恕的話,上帝也會原諒我的罪過?!?/p>

“什么事呀?”查理擦著眼睛問。

“我把這兩封信都念過了?!?/p>

查理臉紅了。

“怎么會念的,”她往下說,“我為什么上樓的,老實說,我現(xiàn)在都想不起了??墒俏夷盍诉@兩封信覺得也不必后悔,因為我識得了你的靈魂,你的心,還有……”

“還有什么?”查理問。

“還有你的計劃,你需要一筆款子……”

“親愛的大姊……”

“噓,噓,弟弟,別高聲,別驚動了人?!彼贿叴蜷_錢袋一邊說,“這是一個可憐的姑娘的積蓄,她根本沒有用處。查理,你收下吧。今天早上,我還不知道什么叫作金錢,是你教我弄明白了,錢不過是一種工具。堂兄弟就跟兄弟差不多,你總可以借用姊姊的錢吧?”

一半還是少女一半已經(jīng)成人的歐也妮,不曾防到他會拒絕,可是堂兄弟一聲不出。

“哎,你不肯收嗎?”歐也妮問。靜寂中可以聽到她的心跳。

堂兄弟的遲疑不決使她著了慌;但他身無分文的窘?jīng)r,在她腦海里愈加顯得清楚了,她便雙膝跪下,說道:

“你不收,我就不起來!弟弟,求你開一聲口,回答我呀!讓我知道你肯不肯賞臉,肯不肯大度包容,是不是……”

一聽到這高尚的心靈發(fā)出這絕望的呼聲,查理不由得落下淚來,掉在歐也妮手上,他正握著她的手不許她下跪。歐也妮受到這幾顆熱淚,立刻跳過去抓起錢袋,把錢倒在桌上。

“那么你收下了,嗯?”她快活得哭著說,“不用怕,弟弟,你將來會發(fā)財?shù)?,這些金子對你有利的,將來你可以還我,而且我們可以合伙,什么條件都行。可是你不用把這筆禮看得那么重啊?!?/p>

這時查理才能夠把心中的情感表白出來:“是的,歐也妮,我再不接受,未免太小心眼了??墒遣荒軟]有條件,你信托我,我也得信托你。”

“什么意思?”她害怕地問。

“聽我說,好姊姊,我這里有……”

他沒有說完,指著衣柜上裝在皮套里的一口方匣子。

“你瞧,這里有一樣東西,我看得和性命一樣寶貴。這匣子是母親給我的。從今天早上起我就想到,要是她能從墳?zāi)估镒叱鰜?,她一定會親自把這匣上的黃金賣掉,你看她當初為了愛我,花了多少金子;但要我自己來賣,真是太褻瀆了?!?/p>

歐也妮聽到最后一句,不禁顫巍巍地握著堂兄弟的手。

他們靜默了一會兒,彼此用水汪汪的眼睛望著,然后他又說:

“不,我既不愿把它毀掉,又不愿帶著去冒路上的危險。親愛的歐也妮,我把它交托給你。朋友之間,從沒有交托一件比這個更神圣的東西。你瞧過便知道?!?/p>

他過去拿起匣子,卸下皮套,揭開蓋子,傷心地給歐也妮看。手工的精巧,使黃金的價值超過了本身重量的價值,把歐也妮看得出神了。

“這還不算稀罕,”他說著撳了一下暗鈕,又露出一個夾底,“瞧,我的無價之寶在這里呢。”

他掏出兩張肖像,都是特·彌爾貝夫人[3]的杰作,四周鑲滿了珠子。

“哦,多漂亮的人!這位太太不就是你寫信去……”

“不,”他微微一笑,“是我的母親,那是父親,就是你的叔父叔母。歐也妮,我真要跪著求你替我保存這件寶物。要是我跟你小小的家私一齊斷送了,這些金子可以補償你的損失;兩張肖像我只肯交給你,你才有資格保留;可是你寧可把它們毀掉,絕不能落在第二個人手中……”

歐也妮一聲不出。

“那么你答應(yīng)了,是不是?”他嫵媚地補上一句。

聽了堂兄弟這些話,她對他望了一眼,那是鐘情的女子第一次瞧愛人的眼風,又愛嬌又深沉;查理拿她的手吻了一下。

“純潔的天使!咱們之間,錢永遠是無所謂的,是不是?只有感情才有價值,從今以后應(yīng)當是感情高于一切。”

“你很像你的母親。她的聲音是不是像你的一樣溫柔?”

“哦!溫柔多了……”

“對你是當然嘍,”她垂下眼皮說,“喂,查理,睡覺吧,我要你睡,你累了。明兒見?!?/p>

他拿著蠟燭送她,她輕輕地把手從堂兄弟手里掙脫。兩人一齊走到門口,他說:

“?。槭裁次业募覕」饬四??”

“不用急,我父親有錢呢,我相信。”她回答說。

查理在房內(nèi)走前了一步,背靠著墻壁:

“可憐的孩子,他有錢就不會讓我的父親死了,也不會讓你日子過得這么苦,總之他不是這么生活的?!?/p>

“可是他有法勞豐呢。”

“法勞豐能值多少?”

“我不知道,可是他還有諾阿伊哀?!?/p>

“一些起碼租田!”

“還有葡萄園跟草原……”

“那更談不上了,”查理滿臉瞧不起的神氣,“只要你父親一年有兩萬四千法郎收入,你還會住這間又冷又寒酸的臥房嗎?”他一邊說一邊提起左腳向前走了一步,“我的寶貝就得藏在這里面嗎?”他指著一口舊箱子問,借此掩飾一下他的思想。

“去睡吧。”她不許他走進凌亂的臥房。

查理退了出去,彼此微微一笑,表示告別。

兩人做著同樣的夢睡去,從此查理在守喪的心中點綴了幾朵薔薇。

下一天早上,葛朗臺太太看見女兒在午飯之前陪著查理散步。他還是愁容滿面,正如一個不幸的人墮入了憂患的深淵、估量到苦海的深度、感覺到將來的重擔以后的表情。

歐也妮看見母親臉上不安的神色,便說:

“父親要到吃晚飯的時候才回來呢?!?/p>

歐也妮的神色,舉動,顯得特別溫柔的聲音,都表示她與堂兄弟精神上有了默契。也許愛情的力量雙方都沒有深切地感到,可是他們的精神已經(jīng)熱烈地融成一片。查理坐在堂屋里暗自憂傷,誰也不去驚動他。三個女子都有些事情忙著。葛朗臺忘了把事情交代好,家中來了不少人。瓦匠,鉛管匠,泥水匠,土方工人,木匠,種園子的,管莊稼的,有的來談判修理費,有的來付田租,有的來收賬。葛朗臺太太與歐也妮不得不來來往往,跟嘮叨不已的工人與鄉(xiāng)下人答話。拿儂把人家送來抵租的東西搬進廚房。她老是要等主人發(fā)令,才能知道哪些該留在家里,哪些該送到菜場上去賣。葛朗臺老頭的習慣,和內(nèi)地大多數(shù)的鄉(xiāng)紳一樣,喝的老是壞酒,吃的老是爛果子。

傍晚五點光景,葛朗臺從安越回來了,他把金子換了一萬四千法郎,荷包里藏著王家?guī)烊?,在沒有拿去購買公債以前還有利息可拿。他把高諾阿萊留在安越,照顧那幾匹累得要死的馬,等它們將養(yǎng)好了再慢慢趕回。

“太太,我從安越回來啦,”他說,“我肚子餓了?!?/p>

“從昨天到現(xiàn)在沒有吃過東西嗎?”拿儂在廚房里嚷著問。

“沒有。”老頭兒回答。

拿儂端上菜湯。全家正在用飯,臺·格拉桑來聽取他主顧的指示了。葛朗臺老頭簡直沒有看到他的侄兒。

“你先吃飯吧,葛朗臺,”銀行家說,“咱們等會兒再談。你知道安越的金價嗎?有人特地從南德趕去收買。我想送一點兒去拋售?!?/p>

“不必了,”老家伙回答說,“已經(jīng)到了很多。咱們是好朋友,不能讓你白跑一趟。”

“可是金價到了十三法郎五十生丁呢?!?/p>

“應(yīng)當說到過這個價錢?!?/p>

“你鬼使神差地又從哪兒聽來的呀?”

“昨天夜里我到了安越?!备鹄逝_低聲回答。

銀行家驚訝得打了一個寒噤。隨后兩人咬著耳朵交談,談話中,臺·格拉桑與葛朗臺對查理望了好幾次。大概是老箍桶匠說出要銀行家買進十萬法郎公債的時候吧,臺·格拉桑又做了一個驚訝的動作。他對查理說:

“葛朗臺先生,我要上巴黎去;要是你有什么事叫我辦……”

“沒有什么事,先生,謝謝你?!辈槔砘卮?。

“能不能再謝得客氣一點兒,侄兒?他是去料理琪奧默·葛朗臺號子的事情的?!?/p>

“難道還有什么希望嗎?”查理問。

“哎,”老箍桶匠驕傲的神氣裝得逼真,“你不是我的侄兒嗎?你的名譽便是我們的。你不是姓葛朗臺嗎?”

查理站起來,抓著葛朗臺老頭擁抱了一下,然后臉色發(fā)白地走了出去。歐也妮望著父親,欽佩到了萬分。

“行了,再會吧,好朋友;一切拜托,把那班人灌飽迷湯再說。”

兩位軍師握了握手,老箍桶匠把銀行家一直送到大門外,然后關(guān)了門回來,埋在安樂椅里對拿儂說:

“把果子酒拿來!”

但他過于興奮了,沒法坐下,起身瞧了瞧特·拉·斐德里埃先生的肖像,踏著拿儂所謂的舞步,嘴里唱起歌來:

法蘭西的帝國軍隊中哎

我有過一個好爸爸……

拿儂,葛朗臺太太,歐也妮,不聲不響地彼此瞪了一眼。老頭兒快樂到極點的時候,她們總有些害怕。

晚會不久就告結(jié)束。先是葛朗臺老頭要早睡;而他一睡覺,家里便應(yīng)當全體睡覺:正好像奧古斯德一喝酒,波蘭全國都該醉倒[4]。其次,拿儂,查理,歐也妮,疲倦也不下于主人。至于葛朗臺太太,一向是依照丈夫的意志睡覺、吃喝、走路的。可是在飯后等待消化的兩小時中間,從來沒有那么高興的老箍桶匠,發(fā)表了他的不少怪論,我們只要舉出一兩句,就可見出他的思想。他喝完了果子酒,望著杯子說:

“嘴唇剛剛碰到,杯子就干了!做人也是這樣。不能要了現(xiàn)在,又要過去。錢不能又花出去又留在你袋里。要不然人生真是太美了?!?/p>

他說說笑笑,和氣得很。拿儂搬紡車來的時候,他說:

“你也累,不用績麻了?!?/p>

“啊,好!……不過我要厭煩呢。”女傭回答。

“可憐的拿儂,要不要來一杯果子酒?”

“啊!果子酒,我不反對;太太比藥劑師做得還要好。他們賣的哪里是酒,竟是藥?!?/p>

“他們糖放得太多,一點兒酒味兒都沒有了?!崩项^兒說。

下一天早上八點鐘,全家聚在一塊用早餐的時候,第一次有了融融的氣象。苦難已經(jīng)使葛朗臺太太、歐也妮和查理精神上有了聯(lián)系,連拿儂也不知不覺地同情他們。四個人變了一家。至于葛朗臺老頭,吝嗇的欲望滿足了,眼見花花公子不久就要動身,除了到南德的旅費以外不用他多花一個錢,所以雖然家里住著這個客,他也不放在心上了。

他聽任兩個孩子——對歐也妮與查理他是這樣稱呼的——在葛朗臺太太監(jiān)督之下自由行動;關(guān)于禮教的事,他是完全信任太太的。草原與路旁的土溝要整理,洛阿河畔要種白楊,法勞豐和莊園有冬天的工作,使他沒有功夫再管旁的事。從此,歐也妮進入了愛情里的春天。自從她半夜里把財寶送給了堂兄弟之后,她的心也跟著財寶一起去了。兩人懷著同樣的秘密,彼此瞧望的時候都表示出心心相印的了解,把他們的情感加深了,更親密,更相契,使他們差不多生活在另一個世界上。親族之間不作興有溫柔的口吻與含情的目光嗎?因此歐也妮竭力使堂兄弟領(lǐng)略愛情初期的、兒童般的歡喜,來忘掉他的痛苦。

愛情的開始與生命的開始,頗有些動人的相似之處。我們不是用甜蜜的歌聲與和善的目光催眠孩子嗎?我們不是對他講奇妙的故事,點綴他的前程嗎?希望不是對他老展開著光明的翅翼嗎?他不是忽而樂極而涕,忽而痛極而號嗎?他不是為了一些無聊的小事爭吵嗎,或是為了造活動宮殿的石子,或是為了摘下來就忘掉的鮮花?他不是拼命要抓住時間,急于長大嗎?戀愛是我們第二次的脫胎換骨。在歐也妮與查理之間,童年與愛情簡直是同一樁事情:初戀的狂熱,附帶著一切應(yīng)有的瘋癲,使原來被哀傷包裹的心格外覺得安慰。

這愛情的誕生是在喪服之下掙扎出來的,所以跟這所破舊的屋子,與樸素的內(nèi)地氣息更顯得調(diào)和。在靜寂的院子里,靠井邊與堂姊交談幾句;坐在園中長滿青苔的凳上,一本正經(jīng)地談著廢話,直到日落時分;或者在圍墻下寧靜的氣氛中,好似在教堂的拱廊下面,一同默想:查理這才懂得了愛情的圣潔。因為他的貴族太太,他親愛的阿納德,只給他領(lǐng)略到愛情中暴風雨般的騷動。這時他離開了愛嬌的、虛榮的、熱鬧的、巴黎式的情欲,來體味真正而純粹的愛。他喜歡這屋子,也不覺得這屋里的生活習慣如何可笑了。

他清早就下樓,趁葛朗臺來分配糧食之前,跟歐也妮談一會兒;一聽到老頭兒的腳步聲在樓梯上響,他馬上溜進花園。這種清晨的約會,連母親也不知道而拿儂裝作看不見的約會,使他們有一點兒小小的犯罪感覺,為最純潔的愛情添上幾分偷嘗禁果似的快感。等到用過早餐,葛朗臺出門視察田地與種植的時光,查理便跟母女倆在一起,幫她們繞線團,看她們做活,聽她們閑話,體味那從來未有的快樂。這種近乎修道院生活的樸素,把他看得大為感動,從而認識這兩個不知世界為何物的靈魂之美。他本以為法國不可能再有這種風氣,要就在德國,而且只是荒唐無稽的存在于奧古斯德·拉封丹[5]的小說之中??墒遣痪盟l(fā)覺歐也妮竟是理想中的歌德的瑪葛麗德,而且還沒有瑪葛麗德的缺點。

一天又一天,他的眼神,說話,把可憐的姑娘迷住了,一任愛情的熱浪擺布;她抓著她的幸福,猶如游泳的人抓著一根楊柳枝條想上岸休息。日子飛一般地過去,其間最愉快的時光,不是已經(jīng)為了即將臨到的離別而顯得凄涼黯淡嗎?每過一天,總有一些事提醒他們。臺·格拉桑走了三天之后,葛朗臺帶了查理上初級裁判所,莊嚴得了不得,那是內(nèi)地人在這種場合慣有的態(tài)度;他叫查理簽了一份拋棄繼承權(quán)的聲明書??膳碌穆暶?!簡直是離宗叛教似的文件。他又到克羅旭公證人那兒,繕就兩份委托書,一份給臺·格拉桑,一份給代他出售家具的朋友。隨后他得填寫申請書領(lǐng)取出國的護照。末了當查理定做的簡單的孝服從巴黎送來之后,他在索漠城里叫了一個裁縫來,把多余的衣衫賣掉。這件事叫葛朗臺老頭大為高興。他看見侄兒穿著粗呢的黑衣服時,便說:

“這樣才像一個想出門發(fā)財?shù)娜肆ā:?,很好!?/p>

“放心,伯父,”查理回答,“我知道在我現(xiàn)在的地位怎樣做人?!?/p>

老頭兒看見查理手中捧著金子,不由得眼睛一亮,問道:

“做什么?”

“伯父,我把紐扣,戒指,所有值幾個錢的小東西集了起來;可是我在索漠一個人都不認識,想請你……”

“叫我買下來嗎?”葛朗臺打斷了他的話。

“不是的,伯父,想請你介紹一個規(guī)規(guī)矩矩的人……”

“給我吧,侄兒,我到上面去替你估一估,告訴你一個準確的價值,差不了一生丁。”他把一條長的金鏈瞧了瞧說:

“這是首飾金,十八開到十六開?!?/p>

老頭兒伸出大手把大堆金子拿走了。

“大姊,”查理說,“這兩顆紐子送給你,系上一根絲帶,正好套在手腕里。現(xiàn)在正時興這種手鐲?!?/p>

“我不客氣,收下了,弟弟。”她說著對他會心地望了一眼。

“伯母,這是先母的針箍,我一向當作寶貝般放在旅行梳妝匣里的?!辈槔碚f著,把一個玲瓏可愛的金頂針送給葛朗臺太太,那是她想了十年而沒有到手的東西。老母親眼中含著淚,回答說:

“真不知道怎樣謝你才好呢,侄兒。我做早課夜課的時候,要極誠心地禱告出門人的平安。我不在之后,歐也妮會把它保存的。”

“侄兒,一共值九百八十九法郎七十一生丁,”葛朗臺推門進來說,“免得你麻煩去賣給人家,我來給你現(xiàn)款吧……里佛作十足算。”

在洛阿河一帶,里佛作十足算的意思,是指六法郎一枚的銀幣,不扣成色,算足六法郎。

“我不敢開口要你買,”查理回答,“可是在你的城里變賣首飾,真有點兒不好意思。拿破侖說過,臟衣服得躲在家里洗。所以我得謝謝你的好意。”

葛朗臺搔搔耳朵,一忽兒大家都沒有話說。

“親愛的伯父,”查理不安地望著他,似乎怕他多疑,“大姊跟伯母,都賞臉收了我一點兒小意思做紀念;你能不能也收下這副袖扣,我已經(jīng)用不著了,可是能叫你想起一個可憐的孩子在外面沒有忘掉他的骨肉。從今以后他的親人只剩你們了?!?/p>

“我的孩子,我的孩子,你怎么能把東西送光呢?……你拿了什么,太太?”他饞癆似的轉(zhuǎn)過身來問,“啊!一個金頂針。——你呢,小乖乖?噢,鉆石搭扣?!冒?,孩子,你的袖扣我拿了,”他握著查理的手,“可是答應(yīng)我……替你付……你的……是呀……上印度去的旅費。是的,你的路費由我來。尤其是,孩子,替你估首飾的時候,我只算了金子,也許手工還值點兒錢。所以,就這樣辦吧。我給你一千五百法郎……里佛作十足算,那是問克羅旭借的,家里一個銅子都沒有了,除非班羅德把欠租送來。對啦,對啦,我就得找他去。”

他拿了帽子,戴上手套,走了。

“你就走了嗎?”歐也妮說著,對他又悲哀又欽佩地望了一眼。

“該走了。”他低下頭回答。

幾天以來,查理的態(tài)度,舉動,言語,顯出他悲痛到了極點,可是鑒于責任的重大,已經(jīng)在憂患中磨煉出簇新的勇氣。他不再長吁短嘆,他變?yōu)榇笕肆?。所以看到他穿著粗呢的黑衣服下樓,跟蒼白的臉色與憂郁不歡的神態(tài)非常調(diào)和的時候,歐也妮把堂兄弟的性格看得更清楚了。這一天,母女倆開始戴孝,和查理一同到本區(qū)教堂去參加為琪奧默·葛朗臺舉行的追思彌撒。

午飯時分,查理收到幾封巴黎的來信,一齊看完了。

“喂,弟弟,事情辦得滿意嗎?”歐也妮低聲問。

“女兒,不作興問這些話,”葛朗臺批評道,“嘿!我從來不說自己的事,干嗎你要管堂兄弟的閑事?別打攪他?!?/p>

“噢!我沒有什么秘密哪?!辈槔碚f。

“咄,咄,咄,咄!侄兒,以后你會知道,做買賣就得嘴緊?!?/p>

等到兩個情人走在花園里的時候,查理挽著歐也妮坐在胡桃樹下的破凳上對她說:

“我沒有把阿風斯看錯,他態(tài)度好極了,把我的事辦得很謹慎、很忠心。我巴黎的私債全還清了,所有的家具都賣了好價錢;他又告訴我,他請教了一個走遠洋的船主,把剩下的三千法郎買了一批歐洲的小玩意,可以在印度大大地賺一筆錢的貨。他把我的行李都發(fā)送到南德,那邊有一條船開往爪哇。不出五天,歐也妮,我們得分別了,也許是永別,至少也很長久。我的貨,跟兩個朋友寄給我的一萬法郎,不過是小小的開頭。沒有好幾年我休想回來。親愛的大姊,別把你的一生跟我的放在一起,我可能死在外邊,也許你有機會遇到有錢的親事……”

“你愛我嗎?……”她問。

“噢!我多愛你?!币粽{(diào)的深沉顯得感情也是一樣的深。

“我等你,查理。喲,天哪!父親在二樓窗口?!彼驯平鼇硐霌肀奶眯值芡崎_。

她逃到門洞下面,查理一路跟著;她躲到樓梯腳下,打開了過道里的門;后來不知怎的,歐也妮到了靠近拿儂的小房間,走道里最黑的地方;一路跟著來的查理,抓住她的手放在他心口,挽了她的腰把她輕輕地貼在自己身上。歐也妮不再抗拒了,她受了,也給了一個最純潔、最溫

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