Then, by way of celebrating the new year, he kissed her on the forehead.
“Eugenie,” cried the mother, when Grandet was fairly gone, “I don’t know which side of the bed your father got out of, but he is good-tempered this morning. Perhaps we shall come out safe after all?”
“What’s happened to the master?” said Nanon, entering her mistress’s room to light the fire. “First place, he said, ‘Good-morning; happy New Year, you big fool! Go and light my wife’s fire, she’s cold’; and then, didn’t I feel silly when he held out his hand and gave me a six-franc piece, which isn’t worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind man! He is a good man, that’s a fact. There are some people who the older they get the harder they grow; but he,—why he’s getting soft and improving with time, like your ratafia! He is a good, good man—”
The secret of Grandet’s joy lay in the complete success of his speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after deducting the amount which the old cooper owed him for the discount on a hundred and fifty thousand francs in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which he had advanced to make up the sum required for the investment in the Funds which was to produce a hundred thousand francs a year, had now sent him, by the diligence, thirty thousand francs in silver coin, the remainder of his first half-year’s interest, informing him at the same time that the Funds had already gone up in value. They were then quoted at eighty-nine; the shrewdest capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months twelve per cent on his capital; he had simplified his accounts, and would in future receive fifty thousand francs interest every six months, without incurring any taxes or costs for repairs. He understood at last what it was to invest money in the public securities,—a system for which provincials have always shown a marked repugnance,—and at the end of five years he found himself master of a capital of six millions, which increased without much effort of his own, and which, joined to the value and proceeds of his territorial possessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely colossal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps the reward of some great service which the poor servant had rendered to her master unawares.
“Oh! oh! where’s Pere Grandet going? He has been scurrying about since sunrise as if to a fire,” said the tradespeople to each other as they opened their shops for the day.
When they saw him coming back from the wharf, followed by a porter from the coach-office wheeling a barrow which was laden with sacks, they all had their comments to make:—
“Water flows to the river; the old fellow was running after his gold,” said one.
“He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland,” said another.
“He’ll end by buying up Saumur,” cried a third.
“He doesn’t mind the cold, he’s so wrapped up in his gains,” said a wife to her husband.