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"

The poor helot came forward with a piteous look, cut herself a piece
of bread, and took a pear. Eugenie boldly offered her father some
grapes, saying,--

"Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will eat some, will you not?
I went to get these pretty grapes expressly for you."

"If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for you, nephew. When
you have finished, we will go into the garden; I have something to
tell you which can't be sweetened."

Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning the young
man could not mistake.

"What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of my poor mother"--at
these words his voice softened--"no other sorrow can touch me."

"My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to try us?"
said his aunt.

"Ta, ta, ta, ta," said Grandet, "there's your nonsense beginning. I am
sorry to see those white hands of yours, nephew"; and he showed the
shoulder-of-mutton fists which Nature had put at the end of his own
arms. "There's a pair of hands made to pick up silver pieces. You've
been brought up to put your feet in the kid out of which we make the
purses we keep our money in. A bad look-out! Very bad!"

"What do you mean, uncle? I'll be hanged if I understand a single word
of what you are saying."

"Come!" said Grandet.

The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the last of
his wine, and opened the door.

"My cousin, take courage!"

The tone of the young girl struck terror to Charles's heart, and he
followed his terrible uncle, a prey to disquieting thoughts. Eugenie,
her mother, and Nanon went into the kitchen, moved by irresistible
curiosity to watch the two actors in the scene which was about to take
place in the garden, where at first the uncle walked silently ahead of
the nephew. Grandet was not at all troubled at having to tell Charles
of the death of his father; but he did feel a sort of compassion in
knowing him to be without a penny, and he sought for some phrase or
formula by which to soften the communication of that cruel truth. "You
have lost your father," seemed to him a mere nothing to say; fathers
die before their children. 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. Charles noticed with minute
attention the box-borders of the little garden, the yellow leaves as
they fluttered down, the dilapidated walls, the gnarled fruit-trees,
--picturesque details which were destined to remain forever in his
memory, blending eternally, by the mnemonics that belong exclusively
to the passions, with the recollections of this solemn hour.

"It is very fine weather, very warm," said Grandet, drawing a long
breath.

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