Then they both
came down and sat in their places before the window waiting for
Grandet, with that cruel anxiety which, according to the individual
character, freezes the heart or warms it, shrivels or dilates it, when
a scene is feared, a punishment expected,--a feeling so natural that
even domestic animals possess it, and whine at the slightest pain of
punishment, though they make no outcry when they inadvertently hurt
themselves. The goodman came down; but he spoke to his wife with an
absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table without appearing
to remember his threats of the night before.
"What has become of my nephew? The lad gives no trouble."
"Monsieur, he is asleep," answered Nanon.
"So much the better; he won't want a wax candle," said Grandet in a
jeering tone.
This unusual clemency, this bitter gaiety, struck Madame Grandet with
amazement, and she looked at her husband attentively. The goodman
--here it may be well to explain that in Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and
Bretagne the word "goodman," already used to designate Grandet, is
bestowed as often upon harsh and cruel men as upon those of kindly
temperament, when either have reached a certain age; the title means
nothing on the score of individual gentleness--the goodman took his
hat and gloves, saying as he went out,--
"I am going to loiter about the market-place and find Cruchot."
"Eugenie, your father certainly has something on his mind."
Grandet, who was a poor sleeper, employed half his nights in the
preliminary calculations which gave such astonishing accuracy to his
views and observations and schemes, and secured to them the unfailing
success at sight of which his townsmen stood amazed.
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