The Best Works of Balzac. Оноре де Бальзак

side. Why did I not consider social

       prejudices? Why did I yield to love? Why did I marry the natural

       daughter of a great lord? Charles has no family. Oh, my unhappy

       son! my son! Listen, Grandet! I implore nothing for myself,

       —besides, your property may not be large enough to carry a mortgage

       of three millions,—but for my son! Brother, my suppliant hands

       are clasped as I think of you; behold them! Grandet, I confide my

       son to you in dying, and I look at the means of death with less

       pain as I think that you will be to him a father. He loved me

       well, my Charles; I was good to him, I never thwarted him; he will

       not curse me. Ah, you see! he is gentle, he is like his mother, he

       will cause you no grief. Poor boy! accustomed to all the

       enjoyments of luxury, he knows nothing of the privations to which

       you and I were condemned by the poverty of our youth. And I leave

       him ruined! alone! Yes, all my friends will avoid him, and it is I

       who have brought this humiliation upon him! Would that I had the

       force to send him with one thrust into the heavens to his mother’s

       side! Madness! I come back to my disaster—to his. I send him to

       you that you may tell him in some fitting way of my death, of his

       future fate. Be a father to him, but a good father. Do not tear

       him all at once from his idle life, it would kill him. I beg him

       on my knees to renounce all rights that, as his mother’s heir, he

       may have on my estate. But the prayer is superfluous; he is

       honorable, and he will feel that he must not appear among my

       creditors. Bring him to see this at the right time; reveal to him

       the hard conditions of the life I have made for him: and if he

       still has tender thoughts of me, tell him in my name that all is

       not lost for him. Yes, work, labor, which saved us both, may give

       him back the fortune of which I have deprived him; and if he

       listens to his father’s voice as it reaches him from the grave, he

       will go the Indies. My brother, Charles is an upright and

       courageous young man; give him the wherewithal to make his

       venture; he will die sooner than not repay you the funds which you

       may lend him. Grandet! if you will not do this, you will lay up

       for yourself remorse. Ah, should my child find neither tenderness

       nor succor in you, I would call down the vengeance of God upon

       your cruelty!

       If I had been able to save something from the wreck, I might have

       had the right to leave him at least a portion of his mother’s

       property; but my last monthly payments have absorbed everything. I

       did not wish to die uncertain of my child’s fate; I hoped to feel

       a sacred promise in a clasp of your hand which might have warmed

       my heart: but time fails me. While Charles is journeying to you I

       shall be preparing my assignment. I shall endeavor to show by the

       order and good faith of my accounts that my disaster comes neither

       from a faulty life nor from dishonesty. It is for my son’s sake

       that I strive to do this.

       Farewell, my brother! May the blessing of God be yours for the

       generous guardianship I lay upon you, and which, I doubt not, you

       will accept. A voice will henceforth and forever pray for you in

       that world where we must all go, and where I am now as you read

       these lines.

      Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet.

      “So you are talking?” said Pere Grandet as he carefully folded the letter in its original creases and put it into his waistcoat-pocket. He looked at his nephew with a humble, timid air, beneath which he hid his feelings and his calculations. “Have you warmed yourself?” he said to him.

      “Thoroughly, my dear uncle.”

      “Well, where are the women?” said his uncle, already forgetting that his nephew was to sleep at the house. At this moment Eugenie and Madame Grandet returned.

      “Is the room all ready?” said Grandet, recovering his composure.

      “Yes, father.”

      “Well then, my nephew, if you are tired, Nanon shall show you your room. It isn’t a dandy’s room; but you will excuse a poor wine-grower who never has a penny to spare. Taxes swallow up everything.”

      “We do not wish to intrude, Grandet,” said the banker; “you may want to talk to your nephew, and therefore we will bid you good-night.”

      At these words the assembly rose, and each made a parting bow in keeping with his or her own character. The old notary went to the door to fetch his lantern and came back to light it, offering to accompany the des Grassins on their way. Madame des Grassins had not foreseen the incident which brought the evening prematurely to an end, her servant therefore had not arrived.

      “Will you do me the honor to take my arm, madame?” said the abbe.

      “Thank you, monsieur l’abbe, but I have my son,” she answered dryly.

      “Ladies cannot compromise themselves with me,” said the abbe.

      “Take Monsieur Cruchot’s arm,” said her husband.

      The abbe walked off with the pretty lady so quickly that they were soon some distance in advance of the caravan.

      “That is a good-looking young man, madame,” he said, pressing her arm. “Good-by to the grapes, the vintage is done. It is all over with us. We may as well say adieu to Mademoiselle Grandet. Eugenie will belong to the dandy. Unless this cousin is enamoured of some Parisian woman, your son Adolphe will find another rival in—”

      “Not at all, monsieur l’abbe. This young man cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool,—a girl without the least freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a quince.”

      “Perhaps you made the cousin notice it?”

      “I did not take the trouble—”

      “Place yourself always beside Eugenie, madame, and you need never take the trouble to say anything to the young man against his cousin; he will make his own comparisons, which—”

      “Well, he has promised to dine with me the day after to-morrow.”

      “Ah! if you only would, madame—” said the abbe.

      “What is it that you wish me to do, monsieur l’abbe? Do you mean to offer me bad advice? I have not reached the age of thirty-nine, without a stain upon my reputation, thank God! to compromise myself now, even for the empire of the Great Mogul. You and I are of an age when we both know the meaning of words. For an ecclesiastic, you certainly have ideas that are very incongruous. Fie! it is worthy of Faublas!”

      “You have read Faublas?”

      “No, monsieur l’abbe; I meant to say the Liaisons dangereuses.”

      “Ah! that book is infinitely more moral,”