Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
"Look here! my dear woman, just tell me, am I in the house of Monsieur Grandet, formerly mayor of Saumur, and brother to Monsieur Grandet of Paris?" "Yes, monsieur; and a very good, a very kind, a very perfect gentleman. Shall I help you to unpack your trunks?" "Faith! yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn't you serve in the marines of the Imperial Guard?" "Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Nanon.
In all Saumur there was no one not persuaded that Monsieur Grandet had a private treasure, some hiding-place full of louis, where he nightly took ineffable delight in gazing upon great masses of gold. Avaricious people gathered proof of this when they looked at the eyes of the good man, to which the yellow metal seemed to have conveyed its tints.
By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it.
"The devil take your good God!" growled Grandet in reply. Misers have no belief in a future life; the present is their all in all. This thought casts a terrible light upon our present epoch, in which, far more than at any former period, money sways the laws and politics and morals.
Are Eugène de Rastignac, le Père Goriot, and old Grandet real beings or mere incarnations of qualities, mathematical deductions from a given point? At last I was drawn in, and the Stuarts: Stuart has trained his wife in Balzac, and she has a dry original way of judging a novel, which is stimulating and keeps the ball rolling.
The figure of Grandet, the old miser, is indeed called up and accounted for abundantly, in all the conditions of his past; but the house too, within and without, is laid under strict contribution, is used to the full in the story.
"It's like flying!" she gasped, turning from her intent gaze out of the window. "Everything's flying, only the trees and fences all go the other way. I tell you I like it!" Dartmoor was about a three hours' ride distant, so it was not yet dark when they reached there, and were met by Madame Grandet, who had been in the college town with her husband for a fortnight.
"But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gentleman is as delicate as a woman." "Well, go on, as you've taken it into your head," said Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; "but don't set things on fire." So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling indistinct sentences. Charles stood aghast in the midst of his trunks.
Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as he looked at his daughter. "Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?" he said. "Yes, yes!" said the mother. "She'll do it if she says so!" cried Nanon. "Be reasonable, monsieur, for once in your life." The old man looked at the gold and then at his daughter alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet fainted.
If you wish to see me happy for my few remaining days, you must, at any cost, be reconciled to your father." On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie's imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking