“Was I free—yes or no—to do what I would with my own? Was it not mine?”
“You are a child.”
“Of age.”
Dumbfounded by his daughter’s logic, Grandet turned pale and stamped and swore. When at last he found words, he cried: “Serpent! Cursed girl! Ah, deceitful creature! You know I love you, and you take advantage of it. She’d cut her father’s throat! Good God! you’ve given our fortune to that ne’er-do-well,—that dandy with morocco boots! By the shears of my father! I can’t disinherit you, but I curse you,—you and your cousin and your children! Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it was to Charles—but, no; it’s impossible. What! has that wretched fellow robbed me?—”
He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and silent.
“She won’t stir; she won’t flinch! She’s more Grandet than I’m Grandet! Ha! you have not given your gold for nothing? Come, speak the truth!”
Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic expression that stung him.
“Eugenie, you are here, in my house,—in your father’s house. If you wish to stay here, you must submit yourself to me. The priests tell you to obey me.” Eugenie bowed her head. “You affront me in all I hold most dear. I will not see you again until you submit. Go to your chamber. You will stay there till I give you permission to leave it. Nanon will bring you bread and water. You hear me—go!”
Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. Grandet, after marching two or three times round the garden in the snow without heeding the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter had gone to her mother; only too happy to find her disobedient to his orders, he climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and appeared in Madame Grandet’s room just as she was stroking Eugenie’s hair, while the girl’s face was hidden in her motherly bosom.
“Be comforted, my poor child,” she was saying; “your father will get over it.”