On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new motive¹ for attachment² to the house in which she was born, where she had suffered so much, where her mother had just died. She could not see the window and the chair on its castors without weeping. She thought she had mistaken the heart of her old father when she found herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in the morning and gave her his arm to take her to breakfast; he looked at her for hours together with an eye that was almost kind; he brooded over her as though she had been gold. The old man was so unlike himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weakness, attributed it to his great age, and feared that his faculties³ were giving away. But the day on which the family put on their mourning, and after dinner, to which meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who knew his secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser⁴ was explained.  
“My dear child,” he said to Eugenie when the table had been cleared and the doors carefully shut, “you are now your mother’s heiress, and we have a few little matters to settle between us. Isn’t that so, Cruchot?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father?”
 
“Yes, yes, little one; I can’t bear the uncertainty⁵ in which I’m placed. I think you don’t want to give me pain?”
 
“Oh! father—”
 
“Well, then! let us settle it all to-night.”
 
“What is it you wish me to do?”
 
“My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her, Cruchot.”
 
“Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide the property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous taxes on the ready money which he may possess. Therefore, to avoid all this, he must be released from making the inventory⁶ of his whole fortune, part of which you inherit from your mother, and which is now undivided between you and your father—”
 
“Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying before you tell it to a mere⁷ child?”
 
“Let me tell it my own way, Grandet.”
 
“Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter wish to rob me,—do you, little one?”
 
“But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?” said Eugenie impatiently.
 
“Well,” said the notary⁸, “it is necessary to sign this deed, by which you renounce⁹ your rights to your mother’s estate and leave your father the use and disposition¹⁰, during his lifetime, of all the property undivided between you, of which he guarantees you the capital.”
 
“I do not understand a word of what you are saying,” returned Eugenie; “give me the deed, and show me where I am to sign it.”
 
Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at his daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, undergoing as he did so such violent emotion that he wiped the sweat from his brow.
 
“My little girl,” he said, “if, instead of signing this deed, which will cost a great deal to record, you would simply agree to renounce your rights as heir to your poor dear, deceased mother’s property, and would trust to me for the future, I should like it better. In that case I will pay you monthly the good round sum of a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for as many masses as you want for anybody—Hein! a hundred francs a month—in livres?”
 
“I will do all you wish, father.”
 
“Mademoiselle,” said the notary, “it is my duty to point out to you that you are despoiling¹¹ yourself without guarantee—”
 
“Good heavens! what is all that to me?”
 
“Hold your tongue, Cruchot! It’s settled, all settled,” cried Grandet, taking his daughter’s hand and striking it with his own. “Eugenie, you won’t go back on your word?—you are an honest girl, hein?”
 
“Oh! father!—”
 
He kissed her effusively¹², and pressed her in his arms till he almost choked her.
 
“Go, my good child, you restore your father’s life; but you only return to him that which he gave you: we are quits. This is how business should be done. Life is a business. I bless you! you are a virtuous¹³ girl, and you love your father. Do just what you like in future. To-morrow, Cruchot,” he added, looking at the horrified¹⁴ notary, “you will see about preparing the deed of relinquishment¹⁵, and then enter it on the records of the court.”
 
The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by which she herself completed her spoliation. At the end of the first year, however, in spite of his bargain, the old man had not given his daughter one sou of the hundred francs he had so solemnly pledged to her. When Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could not help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding-place, from whence he brought down about a third of the jewels he had taken from his nephew, and gave them to her.
 
“There, little one,” he said in a sarcastic¹⁶ tone, “do you want those for your twelve hundred francs?”
 
“Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to me?”
 
“I’ll give you as many more next year,” he said, throwing them into her apron¹⁷. “So before long you’ll get all his gewgaws,” he added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on his daughter’s feelings.
 
Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust¹⁸, felt the importance of initiating¹⁹ his daughter into the secrets of his thrift²⁰ and its management. For two consecutive²¹ years he made her order the household meals in his presence and receive the rents, and he taught her slowly and successively the names and remunerative²² capacity of his vineyards and his farms. About the third year he had so thoroughly²³ accustomed her to his avaricious²⁴ methods that they had turned into the settled habits of her own life, and he was able to leave the household keys in her charge without anxiety, and to install her as mistress of the house.
 
Five years passed away without a single event to relieve the monotonous²⁵ existence of Eugenie and her father. The same actions were performed daily with the automatic regularity²⁶ of clockwork. The deep sadness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every one; but if others surmised²⁷ the cause, she herself never uttered a word that justified²⁸ the suspicions which all Saumur entertained about the state of the rich heiress’s heart. Her only society was made up of the three Cruchots and a few of their particular friends whom they had, little by little, introduced into the Grandet household. They had taught her to play whist, and they came every night for their game. During the year 1827 her father, feeling the weight of his infirmities, was obliged to initiate²⁹ her still further into the secrets of his landed property, and told her that in case of difficulty she was to have recourse to Maitre Cruchot, whose integrity was well known to him.
 
Towards the end of this year the old man, then eighty-two, was seized by paralysis³⁰, which made rapid progress. Dr. Bergerin gave him up. Eugenie, feeling that she was about to be left alone in the world, came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped more tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, as in that of all loving women, love was the whole of life. Charles was not there, and she devoted³¹ all her care and attention to the old father, whose faculties had begun to weaken, though his avarice³² remained instinctively³³ acute. The death of this man offered no contrast to his life. In the morning he made them roll him to a spot between the chimney of his chamber³⁴ and the door of the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, with gold. He asked for an explanation of every noise he heard, even the slightest; to the great astonishment³⁵ of the notary, he even heard the watch-dog yawning in the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent stupor³⁶ at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers, and receipts given. At such times he worked his chair forward on its castors until he faced the door of the inner room. He made his daughter open it, and watched while she placed the bags of money one upon another in his secret receptacles and relocked the door. Then she returned silently to her seat, after giving him the key, which he replaced in his waistcoat pocket and fingered from time to time. His old friend the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress would inevitably³⁷ marry his nephew the president, if Charles Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions; he came every day to take Grandet’s orders, went on his errands to Froidfond, to the farms and the fields and the vineyards, sold the vintages, and turned everything into gold and silver, which found their way in sacks to the secret hiding-place.
 
At length the last struggle came, in which the strong frame of the old man slowly yielded to destruction. He was determined³⁸ to sit at the chimney-corner facing the door of the secret room. He drew off and rolled up all the coverings which were laid over him, saying to Nanon, “Put them away, lock them up, for fear they should be stolen.”
 
So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole being had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door behind which lay his treasures, saying to his daughter, “Are they there? are they there?” in a tone of voice which revealed a sort of panic fear.
 
“Yes, my father,” she would answer.
 
“Take care of the gold—put gold before me.”
 
Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before him, and he would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed³⁹ upon them, like a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a distressful⁴⁰ smile would flicker⁴¹ upon his face.
 
“It warms me!” he would sometimes say, as an expression of beatitude stole across his features.
 
When the cure of the parish came to administer the last sacraments, the old man’s eyes, sightless, apparently⁴², for some hours, kindled⁴³ at the sight of the cross, the candlesticks, and the holy-water vessel⁴⁴ of silver; he gazed at them fixedly⁴⁵, and his wen moved for the last time. When the priest put the crucifix of silver-gilt to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he made a frightful⁴⁶ gesture, as if to seize it; and that last effort cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not see, though she was kneeling beside him bathing with tears his stiffening⁴⁷ hand, which was already cold.
 
“My father, bless me!” she entreated⁴⁸.
 
“Take care of it all. You will render me an account yonder!” he said, proving by these last words that Christianity must always be the religion of misers⁴⁹.
 
Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood,—Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence⁵⁰ for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble⁵¹ friend. After her father’s death Eugenie learned from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed⁵² an income of three hundred thousand francs from landed and personal property in the arrondissement of Saumur; also six millions invested at three per cent in the Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six francs); also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred thousand francs in silver crown-pieces, besides all the interest which was still to be collected. The sum total of her property ............