Do be satisfied for once in your
life."
"At ninety-nine! Are they, Cruchot?"
"Yes."
"Hey, hey! Ninety-nine!" repeated the old man, accompanying the notary
to the street-door. Then, too agitated by what he had just heard to
stay in the house, he went up to his wife's room and said,--
"Come, mother, you may have your daughter to spend the day with you.
I'm going to Froidfond. Enjoy yourselves, both of you. This is our
wedding-day, wife. See! here are sixty francs for your altar at the
Fete-Dieu; you've wanted one for a long time. Come, cheer up, enjoy
yourself, and get well! Hurrah for happiness!"
He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon the bed, and took
his wife's head between his hands and kissed her forehead.
"My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?"
"How can you think of receiving the God of mercy in your house when
you refuse to forgive your daughter?" she said with emotion.
"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" said Grandet in a coaxing voice. "We'll see about
that."
"Merciful heaven! Eugenie," cried the mother, flushing with joy, "come
and kiss your father; he forgives you!"
But the old man had disappeared. He was going as fast as his legs
could carry him towards his vineyards, trying to get his confused
ideas into order. Grandet had entered his seventy-sixth year. During
the last two years his avarice had increased upon him, as all the
persistent passions of men increase at a certain age. As if to
illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious
men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his
affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion.
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