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The abbe looked at her maliciously.
"Yes, monsieur," she answered.
"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said Charles,
addressing Adolphe.
"You must know, monsieur," said the abbe, "that we send them to
Babylon as soon as they are weaned."
Madame des Grassins examined the abbe with a glance of extreme
penetration.
"It is only in the provinces," he continued, "that you will find women
of thirty and more years as fresh as madame, here, with a son about to
take his degree. I almost fancy myself back in the days when the young
men stood on chairs in the ball-room to see you dance, madame," said
the abbe, turning to his female adversary. "To me, your triumphs are
but of yesterday--"
"The old rogue!" thought Madame Grassins; "can he have guessed my
intentions?"
"It seems that I shall have a good deal of success in Saumur," thought
Charles as he unbuttoned his great-coat, put a hand into his
waistcoat, and cast a glance into the far distance, to imitate the
attitude which Chantrey has given to Lord Byron.
The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more truly, the
preoccupation of mind into which the reading of the letter had plunged
him, did not escape the vigilance of the notary and the president, who
tried to guess the contents of the letter by the almost imperceptible
motions of the miser's face, which was then under the full light of
the candle. He maintained the habitual calm of his features with
evident difficulty; we may, in fact, picture to ourselves the
countenance such a man endeavored to preserve as he read the fatal
letter which here follows:--
My Brother,--It is almost twenty-three years since we have seen
each other. My marriage was the occasion of our last interview,
after which we parted, and both of us were happy. Assuredly I
could not then foresee that you would one day be the prop of the
family whose prosperity you then predicted.
When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no longer
living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive the disgrace
of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of the gulf until the
last moment, hoping to save myself. The end has come, I must sink
into it. The double bankruptcies of my broker and of Roguin, my
notary, have carried off my last resources and left me nothing. I
have the bitterness of owing nearly four millions, with assets not
more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay them. The wines in
my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices caused by the
abundance and quality of your vintage. In three days Paris will
cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I, an honest man,
shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I deprive my son of
a good name, which I have stained, and the fortune of his mother,
which I have lost. He knows nothing of all this,--my unfortunate
child whom I idolize! We parted tenderly.
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