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into all things, even at the moment when she offers consolation,
Eugenie sought to cheat her cousin's grief by turning his thoughts
inward upon himself.
"My honor?" exclaimed the young man, tossing aside his hair with an
impatient gesture as he sat up on his bed and crossed his arms. "Ah!
that is true. My uncle said my father had failed." He uttered a
heart-rending cry, and hid his face in his hands. "Leave me, leave me,
cousin! My God! my God! forgive my father, for he must have suffered
sorely!"
There was something terribly attractive in the sight of this young
sorrow, sincere without reasoning or afterthought. It was a virgin
grief which the simple hearts of Eugenie and her mother were fitted to
comprehend, and they obeyed the sign Charles made them to leave him to
himself. They went downstairs in silence and took their accustomed
places by the window and sewed for nearly an hour without exchanging a
word. Eugenie had seen in the furtive glance that she cast about the
young man's room--that girlish glance which sees all in the twinkling
of an eye--the pretty trifles of his dressing-case, his scissors, his
razors embossed with gold. This gleam of luxury across her cousin's
grief only made him the more interesting to her, possibly by way of
contrast. Never before had so serious an event, so dramatic a sight,
touched the imaginations of these two passive beings, hitherto sunk in
the stillness and calm of solitude.
"Mamma," said Eugenie, "we must wear mourning for my uncle."
"Your father will decide that," answered Madame Grandet.
They relapsed into silence. Eugenie drew her stitches with a uniform
motion which revealed to an observer the teeming thoughts of her
meditation. The first desire of the girl's heart was to share her
cousin's mourning.
VI
About four o'clock an abrupt knock at the door struck sharply on the
heart of Madame Grandet.
"What can have happened to your father?" she said to her daughter.
Grandet entered joyously. After taking off his gloves, he rubbed his
hands hard enough to take off their skin as well, if his epidermis had
not been tanned and cured like Russia leather,--saving, of course, the
perfume of larch-trees and incense. Presently his secret escaped him.
"Wife," he said, without stuttering, "I've trapped them all! Our wine
is sold! The Dutch and the Belgians have gone. I walked about the
market-place in front of their inn, pretending to be doing nothing.
That Belgian fellow--you know who I mean--came up to me. The owners of
all the good vineyards have kept back their vintages, intending to
wait; well, I didn't hinder them. The Belgian was in despair; I saw
that. In a minute the bargain was made. He takes my vintage at two
hundred francs the puncheon, half down. He paid me in gold; the notes
are drawn. Here are six louis for you. In three months wines will have
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