Chapter 9 - Page 2

reigned between the house and
the ramparts like that beneath the arches of a church, Charles
comprehended the sanctity of love; for his great lady, his dear
Annette, had taught him only its stormy troubles. At this moment he
left the worldly passion, coquettish, vain, and showy as it was, and
turned to the true, pure love. He loved even the house, whose customs
no longer seemed to him ridiculous. He got up early in the mornings
that he might talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father came to
dole out the provisions; when the steps of the old man sounded on the
staircase he escaped into the garden. The small criminality of this
morning _tete-a-tete_ which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to their
innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy.

After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his other
occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an
unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in
listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastic
life, which revealed to him the beauty of these souls, unknown and
unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed such
morals impossible in France, and admitted their existence nowhere but
in Germany; even so, they seemed to him fabulous, only real in the
novels of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret
of Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured
the poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to
the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the
overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie
at rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the
happy hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance
reminded them of the parting that was at hand.

Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took his
nephew to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country people
attach to all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his
rights in his father's estate. Terrible renunciation! species of
domestic apostasy! Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two
powers of attorney,--one for des Grassins, the other for the friend
whom he had charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he
attended to all the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for
foreign countries; and finally, when he received his simple mourning
clothes from Paris, he sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him
his useless wardrobe. This last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.

"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your
fortune," he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain black
cloth.