me."

"Poor Nanon!" said Eugenie, pressing her hand.

"I've made it downright good and dainty, and _he_ never found it out. I
bought the lard and the spices out of my six francs: I'm the mistress of
my own money"; and she disappeared rapidly, fancying she heard Grandet.

XI

For several months the old wine-grower came constantly to his wife's
room at all hours of the day, without ever uttering his daughter's name,
or seeing her, or making the smallest allusion to her. Madame Grandet
did not leave her chamber, and daily grew worse. Nothing softened the
old man; he remained unmoved, harsh, and cold as a granite rock. He
continued to go and come about his business as usual; but ceased to
stutter, talked less, and was more obdurate in business transactions
than ever before. Often he made mistakes in adding up his figures.

"Something is going on at the Grandets," said the Grassinists and the
Cruchotines.

"What has happened in the Grandet family?" became a fixed question which
everybody asked everybody else at the little evening-parties of Saumur.
Eugenie went to Mass escorted by Nanon. If Madame des Grassins said a
few words to her on coming out of church, she answered in an evasive
manner, without satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end of two
months, it became impossible to hide, either from the three Cruchots
or from Madame des Grassins, the fact that Eugenie was in confinement.
There came a moment when all pretexts failed to explain her perpetual
absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover by whom the secret
had been betrayed, all the town became aware that ever since New Year's
day Mademoiselle Grandet had been kept in her room without fire, on
bread and water, by her father's orders, and that Nanon cooked little
dainties and took them to her secretly at night. It was even known that
the young woman was not able to see or take care of her mother, except
at certain times when her father was out of the house.

Grandet's conduct was severely condemned. The whole town outlawed him,
so to speak; they remembered his treachery, his hard-heartedness,
and they excommunicated him. When he passed along the streets, people
pointed him out and muttered at him. When his daughter came down the
winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the
inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity the
bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the
impress