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Mademoiselle lives like a queen. She's alone, that's true; but she likes it. Besides, my masters have good reasons." At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Grandet, worn out by grief even more than by illness, having failed, in spite of her prayers, to reconcile the father and daughter, confided her secret troubles to the Cruchots.
Others, however, maintained that Madame des Grassins was more intimate with the women of the house of Grandet than the Cruchots were, and could put into their minds certain ideas which would lead, sooner or later, to success. To this the former retorted that the Abbe Cruchot was the most insinuating man in the world: pit a woman against a monk, and the struggle was even.
Her only society was made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they came every night for their game.
Now if you wish to understand the mutual amazement of the provincial party and the young Parisian; if you would clearly see the brilliance which the traveller's elegance cast among the gray shadows of the room and upon the faces of this family group, endeavor to picture to your minds the Cruchots.
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.
As for the others, the general negligence of their dress, which was incomplete and wanting in freshness, like the toilet of all country places, where insensibly people cease to dress for others and come to think seriously of the price of a pair of gloves, was in keeping with the negligence of the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the only point on which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines agreed.
"Good evening, Grandet," he said, holding out his hand and affecting a sort of superiority, with which he always crushed the Cruchots. "Mademoiselle," he added, turning to Eugenie, after bowing to Madame Grandet, "you are always beautiful and good, and truly I do not know what to wish you."
When the Cruchots got into the street Madame des Grassins said to them, "There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is very ill without her knowing it. The girl's eyes are red, as if she had been crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her against her will?"
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.
Monsieur des Grassins offered Grandet a pinch of snuff, took one himself, shook off the grains as they fell on the ribbon of the Legion of honor which was attached to the button-hole of his blue surtout; then he looked at the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say, "Parry that thrust if you can!"
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