Chapter 10

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