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"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?"
I came to speak to you on business; but I see that you are conferring with " "Madame," said the cure, "I leave the field to you." "Oh! monsieur le cure," said Eugenie, "come back later; your support is very necessary to me just now." "Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child!" said Madame des Grassins. "What do you mean?" asked Eugenie and the cure together.
So saying, he offered her a little box which his servant had brought and which contained a Cape heather, a flower lately imported into Europe and very rare. Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately, pressed her hand, and said: "Adolphe wishes to make you my little offering."
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!
Obeying the desire to gossip over their mutual interests, all the upper and middle-class wine-growers in Saumur met at Monsieur des Grassins, where terrible imprecations were being fulminated against the ex-mayor. Nanon was spinning, and the whirr of her wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray rafters of that silent hall.
Charles was so completely out of his element in this abode, and so far from the vast chateau and the sumptuous life with which his fancy had endowed his uncle, that as he looked at Madame des Grassins he perceived a dim likeness to Parisian faces.
After bowing to the three des Grassins, the three Cruchots returned home, applying their provincial genius for analysis to studying, under all its aspects, the great event of the evening, which undoubtedly changed the respective positions of Grassinists and Cruchotines.
"Well, madame," she presently said, ironically, "no doubt I carry my wits in my pocket, for I do not understand you. Speak, say what you mean, before monsieur le cure; you know he is my director." "Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins writes me. Read it." Eugenie read the following letter:
The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous, all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams of her phoenix cousin.
"'Gai, gai, gai, le tonnelier, Raccommodez votre cuvier!" he answered, entering his wife's room fully dressed. "Yes, on my word, it is cold enough to freeze you solid. We shall have a fine breakfast, wife. Des Grassins has sent me a pate-de-foie-gras truffled! I am going now to get it at the coach-office.
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