Chapter 11

For several months the old wine-grower came constantly to his wife's
room at all hours of the day, without ever uttering his daughter's
name, or seeing her, or making the smallest allusion to her. Madame
Grandet did not leave her chamber, and daily grew worse. Nothing
softened the old man; he remained unmoved, harsh, and cold as a
granite rock. He continued to go and come about his business as usual;
but ceased to stutter, talked less, and was more obdurate in business
transactions than ever before. Often he made mistakes in adding up his
figures.

"Something is going on at the Grandets," said the Grassinists and the
Cruchotines.

"What has happened in the Grandet family?" became a fixed question
which everybody asked everybody else at the little evening-parties of
Saumur. Eugenie went to Mass escorted by Nanon. If Madame des Grassins
said a few words to her on coming out of church, she answered in an
evasive manner, without satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end
of two months, it became impossible to hide, either from the three
Cruchots or from Madame des Grassins, the fact that Eugenie was in
confinement. There came a moment when all pretexts failed to explain
her perpetual absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover by
whom the secret had been betrayed, all the town became aware that ever
since New Year's day Mademoiselle Grandet had been kept in her room
without fire, on bread and water, by her father's orders, and that
Nanon cooked little dainties and took them to her secretly at night.
It was even known that the young woman was not able to see or take
care of her mother, except at certain times when her father was out of
the house.

Grandet's conduct was severely condemned. The whole town outlawed him,
so to speak; they remembered his treachery, his hard-heartedness, and
they excommunicated him. When he passed along the streets, people
pointed him out and muttered at him. When his daughter came down the
winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers,
the inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity
the bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the
impress of angelic gentleness and melancholy. Her imprisonment and the
condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a map
of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the wall? Did
she not taste upon her lips the honey that love's kisses left there?
She was ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, just as
Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and pure in heart before
God, her conscience and her love helped her to suffer patiently the
wrath and vengeance of her father.

One deep grief silenced