Chapter 7

At this moment the town of Saumur was more excited about the dinner
given by Grandet to the Cruchots than it had been the night before at
the sale of his vintage, though that constituted a crime of
high-treason against the whole wine-growing community. If the politic
old miser had given his dinner from the same idea that cost the dog
of Alcibiades his tail, he might perhaps have been called a great man;
but the fact is, considering himself superior to a community which he
could trick on all occasions, he paid very little heed to what Saumur
might say.

The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure and the violent
death of Guillaume Grandet, and they determined to go to their
client's house that very evening to commiserate his misfortune and
show him some marks of friendship, with a view of ascertaining the
motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots to dinner. At
precisely five o'clock Monsieur C. de Bonfons and his uncle the notary
arrived in their Sunday clothes. The party sat down to table and began
to dine with good appetites. Grandet was grave, Charles silent,
Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did not say more than usual; so that
the dinner was, very properly, a repast of condolence. When they rose
from table Charles said to his aunt and uncle,--

"Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to undertake a long and
painful correspondence."

"Certainly, nephew."

As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles could hear nothing and
was probably deep in his letter-writing, he said, with a dissimulating
glance at his wife,--

"Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will be Latin to you; it
is half-past seven; you can go and attend to your household accounts.
Good-night, my daughter."

He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. A scene now took place
in which Pere Grandet brought to bear, more than at any other moment
of his life, the shrewd dexterity he had acquired in his intercourse
with men, and which had won him from those whose flesh he sometimes
bit too sharply the nickname of "the old dog." If the mayor of Saumur
had carried his ambition higher still, if fortunate circumstances,
drawing him towards the higher social spheres, had sent him into
congresses where the affairs of nations were discussed, and had he
there employed the genius with which his personal interests had
endowed him, he would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his
native land. Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside of Saumur
the goodman would have cut a very sorry figure. Possibly there are
minds like certain animals which cease to breed when transplanted from
the climates in which they are born.

"M-m-mon-sieur