Honoré de Balzac
translation: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

EUGENIE GRANDET
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X

Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous, was now quickened with the intense interest of a secret that bound these women intimately together. For them Charles lived and moved beneath the grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and morning Eugenie opened the dressing-case and gazed at the portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning her mother surprised her as she stood absorbed in finding her cousin's features in his mother's face. Madame Grandet was then for the first time admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made by Charles against her daughter's treasure.

"You gave him all!" cried the poor mother, terrified. "What will you say to your father on New Year's Day when he asks to see your gold?"

Eugenie's eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through mortal terror for more than half the morning. They were so troubled in mind that they missed high Mass, and only went to the military service. In three days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood; but—as regards the actors in it —more cruel than all the fabled horrors in the family of the Atrides.

"What will become of us?" said Madame Grandet to her daughter, letting her knitting fall upon her knees.

The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for the past two months that the woollen sleeves which she needed for the coming winter were not yet finished. This domestic fact, insignificant as it seems, bore sad results. For want of those sleeves, a chill seized her in the midst of a sweat caused by a terrible explosion of anger on the part of her husband.

"I have been thinking, my poor child, that if you had confided your secret to me we should have had time to write to Monsieur des Grassins in Paris. He might have sent us gold pieces like yours; though Grandet knows them all, perhaps—"

"Where could we have got the money?"

"I would have pledged my own property. Besides, Monsieur des Grassins would have—"

"It is too late," said Eugenie in a broken, hollow voice. "To-morrow morning we must go and wish him a happy New Year in his chamber."

"But, my daughter, why should I not consult the Cruchots?"

"No, no; it would be delivering me up to them, and putting ourselves in their power. Besides, I have chosen my course. I have done right, I repent of nothing. God will protect me. His will be done! Ah! mother, if you had read his letter, you, too, would have thought only of him."

The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear to which mother and daughter were a prey suggested to their minds a natural excuse by which to escape the solemn entrance into Grandet's chamber. The winter of 1819-1820 was one of the coldest of that epoch. The snow encumbered the roofs.

Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as she heard him stirring in his chamber, and said,—

"Grandet, will you let Nanon light a fire here for me? The cold is so sharp that I (...)

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