Old Grandet took no notice.

“Oh, have pity; you are killing me!” said the mother.

Eugenie caught up a knife, and her cry brought Nanon on the scene.

“Father, if you cut away a single piece of gold, I shall stab myself.  You are killing my mother, and you will kill me, too.”

Old Grandet for once was frightened.  He tried to make it up with his wife, he kissed Eugenie, and even promised that Eugenie should marry her cousin if she wanted to.

Mme. Grandet lingered till October, and then died.  “There is no happiness to be had except in heaven; some day you will understand that,” she said to her daughter just before she passed away.

M. Cruchot was called in after Mine.  Grandet’s death, and in his presence Eugenie agreed to sign a deed renouncing her claim to her mother’s fortune while her father lived.  She signed it without making any objection, to old Grandet’s great relief, and he promised to allow her 100 francs a month.  But the old man himself was failing.  Bit by bit he relinquished his many activities, but lived on till seven years had passed.  Then he died, his eyes kindling at the end at the sight of the priest’s sacred vessels of silver.  His brother’s creditors were still unpaid.  Eugenie was informed by M. Cruchot that her property amounted to 17,000,000 francs.  “Where can my cousin be?” she asked herself.  “If only we knew where the young gentleman was, I would set off myself and find him,” Nanon said to her.  The poor heiress was very lonely.  The faithful Nanon, now fifty-nine, married Antoine Cornoiller, the bailiff of the estates, and these two, who had known one another for years, lived in the house.

The Cruchots still hoped to marry M. le President to Eugenie, and every birthday the magistrate brought a handsome bouquet.  But the heart of Eugenie remained steadfast to her cousin.

“Ah, Nanon,” she would say, “why has he never written to me once all these years?”

Mme. des Grassins, unwilling to see the triumph of her old rivals, the Cruchots, went about saying that the heiress of the Grandet millions would marry a peer of France rather than a magistrate.  Eugenie, however, thought neither of the peer nor of the magistrate.  She gave away enormous sums in charity, and lived on quietly in the dreary old house.  Her wealth brought her no comfort, her only treasures were the two portraits left in her charge.  Yet she went on loving, and believed herself loved in return.

IV.—­The Honour of the Grandets

Charles Grandet, in the course of eight years, met with considerable success in his trading ventures.  He saw very quickly that the way to make money in the tropics, as in Europe, was to go in for buying and selling men, and so he plunged into the slave trade of Africa, and under the name of Carl Shepherd was known in the East Indies, in the United States, and on the African coasts.  His plan was to get rich as speedily as possible, and then return to Paris and live respected.  For a time—­that is, on his first voyage—­the thought of Eugenie gave him infinite pleasure; but soon all recollection of Saumur was blotted out, and his cousin became merely a person to whom he owed 6,000 francs.