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Updated: June 8, 2025
"Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine," said Madame Grandet, "we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch the haymakers." "Have you a theatre?" "Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play! Why, monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?" "See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here are your chickens, in the shell."
But "you are absolutely without means," all the misfortunes of life were summed up in those words! Grandet walked round the garden three times, the gravel crunching under his heavy step. In the crucial moments of life our minds fasten upon the locality where joys or sorrows overwhelm us.
"What do you want?" said his uncle. "The sugar." "Put in more milk," answered the master of the house; "your coffee will taste sweeter." Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put away and placed it on the table, looking calmly at her father as she did so.
The goodman here it may be well to explain that in Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and Bretagne the word "goodman," already used to designate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and cruel men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either have reached a certain age; the title means nothing on the score of individual gentleness the goodman took his hat and gloves, saying as he went out,
"I think so," answered Madame Grandet. "Are your vintages all finished?" said Monsieur de Bonfons to Grandet. "Yes, all of them," said the old man, rising to walk up and down the room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the words, "all of them."
There, no doubt, some hiding-place had been ingeniously constructed; there the title-deeds of property were stored; there hung the scales on which to weigh the louis; there were devised, by night and secretly, the estimates, the profits, the receipts, so that business men, finding Grandet prepared at all points, imagined that he got his cue from fairies or demons; there, no doubt, while Nanon's loud snoring shook the rafters, while the wolf-dog watched and yawned in the courtyard, while Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleeping, came the old cooper to cuddle, to con over, to caress and clutch and clasp his gold.
"Poor Nanon!" said Eugenie, pressing her hand. "I've made it downright good and dainty, and he never found it out. I bought the lard and the spices out of my six francs: I'm the mistress of my own money"; and she disappeared rapidly, fancying she heard Grandet.
"How can they bang in that way!" exclaimed Nanon; "do they want to break in the door?" "Who the devil is it?" cried Grandet. Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the door, followed by her master. "Grandet! Grandet!" cried his wife, moved by a sudden impulse of fear, and running to the door of the room. All the players looked at each other.
The plan of Eugénie Grandet, as the book stands, seems to have been made without any regard to the chief and most exacting demand of the story; where another writer would be using every device he could think of to mark the effect of the succeeding years, Balzac is free to tell the story as straightforwardly as he chooses.
At length, old Grandet pays his debt to nature, and Eugenie is left with the millions. Until now she had waited for the wandering lover's return; but he, engaging in the slave-trade, has lost all the generous impulses of his youth, and comes back only to deny his early affection and marry the ill-favoured daughter of a Marquis.
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