t he might talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father
came to dole out the provisions; when the steps of the old man sounded
on the staircase he escaped into the garden. The small criminality of
this morning _tete-a-tete_ which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to
their innocent love the lively charm of a forbidden joy.

After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields and his other
occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an
unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in
listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastic
life, which revealed to him the beauty of these souls, unknown and
unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed such morals
impossible in France, and admitted their existence nowhere but in
Germany; even so, they seemed to him fabulous, only real in the novels
of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of
Goethe--before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the
poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to
the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the
overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie at
rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the happy
hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded
them of the parting that was at hand.

Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Grandet took his nephew
to the Civil courts, with the solemnity which country people attach to
all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in his
father's estate. Terrible renunciation! species of domestic apostasy!
Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of
attorney,--one for des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had
charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all
the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for foreign countries;
and finally, when he received his simple mourning clothes from Paris, he
sent for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his useless wardrobe. This
last act pleased Grandet exceedingly.

"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your fortune,"
he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain black cloth. "Good!
very good!"

"I hope you will believe, monsieur," answered his nephew, "that I shall
always try to conform to my situation."

"What's that?" said his uncle,