ll be sufficiently explained
by certain events in the following history. Four sentences, precise
as algebraic formulas, sufficed him usually to grasp and solve all
difficulties of life and commerce: "I don't know; I cannot; I will not;
I will see about it." He never said yes, or no, and never committed
himself to writing. If people talked to him he listened coldly, holding
his chin in his right hand and resting his right elbow in the back of
his left hand, forming in his own mind opinions on all matters, from
which he never receded. He reflected long before making any business
agreement. When his opponent, after careful conversation, avowed the
secret of his own purposes, confident that he had secured his listener's
assent, Grandet answered: "I can decide nothing without consulting my
wife." His wife, whom he had reduced to a state of helpless slavery, was
a useful screen to him in business. He went nowhere among friends; he
neither gave nor accepted dinners; he made no stir or noise, seeming
to economize in everything, even movement. He never disturbed or
disarranged the things of other people, out of respect for the rights
of property. Nevertheless, in spite of his soft voice, in spite of his
circumspect bearing, the language and habits of a coarse nature came
to the surface, especially in his own home, where he controlled himself
less than elsewhere.

Physically, Grandet was a man five feet high, thick-set, square-built,
with calves twelve inches in circumference, knotted knee-joints,
and broad shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and pitted by the
small-pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth
were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring expression which people
attribute to the basilisk; his forehead, full of transverse wrinkles,
was not without certain significant protuberances; his yellow-grayish
hair was said to be silver and gold by certain young people who did not
realize the impropriety of making a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His
nose, thick at the end, bore a veined wen, which the common people said,
not without reason, was full of malice. The whole countenance showed
a dangerous cunning, an integrity without warmth, the egotism of a man
long used to concentrate every feeling upon the enjoyments of avarice
and upon the only human being who was anything whatever to him,--his
daughter and sole heiress, Eugenie. Attitude, manners, bearing,
everything about him, in short, testified to tha