“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried the mother, lifting herself up.
Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.
“Father!” cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging herself close to him with clasped hands, “father, in the name of all the saints and the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died upon the cross! in the name of your eternal salvation, father! for my life’s sake, father!—do not touch that! It is neither yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an unhappy relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!”
“If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it is as bad as touching it.”
“Father, don’t destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do you hear?”
“Oh, have pity!” said the mother.
“Father!” cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran upstairs terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at hand.
“Well, what now?” said Grandet coldly, with a callous smile.
“Oh, you are killing me!” said the mother.
“Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that gold, I will stab myself with this one! You have already driven my mother to her death; you will now kill your child! Do as you choose! Wound for wound!”