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"Yes, uncle; but why--"

"Well, my lad," answered his uncle, "I have some bad news to give you.
Your father is ill--"

"Then why am I here?" said Charles. "Nanon," he cried, "order
post-horses! I can get a carriage somewhere?" he added, turning to
his uncle, who stood motionless.

"Horses and carriages are useless," answered Grandet, looking at
Charles, who remained silent, his eyes growing fixed. "Yes, my poor
boy, you guess the truth,--he is dead. But that's nothing; there is
something worse: he blew out his brains."

"My father!"

"Yes, but that's not the worst; the newspapers are all talking about
it. Here, read that."

Grandet, who had borrowed the fatal article from Cruchot, thrust the
paper under his nephew's eyes. The poor young man, still a child,
still at an age when feelings wear no mask, burst into tears.

"That's good!" thought Grandet; "his eyes frightened me. He'll be all
right if he weeps,--That is not the worst, my poor nephew," he said
aloud, not noticing whether Charles heard him, "that is nothing; you
will get over it: but--"

"Never, never! My father! Oh, my father!"

"He has ruined you, you haven't a penny."

"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"

His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and
reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity, wept
also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter. Charles, without
listening further to his uncle, ran through the court and up the
staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself across the bed and
hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace for his lost parents.

"The first burst must have its way," said Grandet, entering the
living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed their
seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping their eyes.
"But that young man is good for nothing; his head is more taken up
with the dead than with his money."

Eugenie shuddered as she heard her father's comment on the most sacred
of all griefs. From that moment she began to judge him. Charles's
sobs, though muffled, still sounded through the sepulchral house; and
his deep groans, which seemed to come from the earth beneath, only
ceased towards evening, after growing gradually feebler.

"Poor young man!" said Madame Grandet.

Fatal exclamation! Pere Grandet looked at his wife, at Eugenie, and at
the sugar-bowl. He recollected the extraordinary breakfast prepared
for the unfortunate youth, and he took a position in the middle of the
room.

"Listen to me," he said, with his usual composure. "I hope that you
will not continue this extravagance, Madame Grandet. I don't give you
MY money to stuff that young fellow with sugar."

"My mother had nothing to do with it," said Eugenie; "it was I who--"

"Is it because you are of age," said Grandet, interrupting his
daughter, "that you choose to contradict me? Remember, Eugenie--"

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