ength and given her nothing in exchange for it. In the life of
the soul, as in the physical life, there is an inspiration and a
respiration; the soul needs to absorb the sentiments of another soul and
assimilate them, that it may render them back enriched. Were it not for
this glorious human phenomenon, there would be no life for the heart;
air would be wanting; it would suffer, and then perish. Eugenie had
begun to suffer. For her, wealth was neither a power nor a consolation;
she could not live except through love, through religion, through faith
in the future. Love explained to her the mysteries of eternity. Her
heart and the Gospel taught her to know two worlds; she bathed, night
and day, in the depths of two infinite thoughts, which for her may have
had but one meaning. She drew back within herself, loving, and believing
herself beloved. For seven years her passion had invaded everything. Her
treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up; they
were Charles's dressing-case, the portraits hanging above her bed, the
jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread upon a bed of wool
in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for a
while by her mother, which she wore religiously as she worked at a piece
of embroidery,--a Penelope's web, begun for the sole purpose of putting
upon her finger that gold so rich in memories.

It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry during the
period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well known. Consequently
the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, contented
themselves for the time being with surrounding the great heiress and
paying her the most affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was
filled with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of
its mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand
almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime minister;
above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said much to
her. If the heiress had wished for a train-bearer, one would instantly
have been found. She was a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never
emanates from noble souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus
still further belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being
of the persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So
the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle Grandet's
house (they calle