“Poor young man!” said Madame Grandet.
Fatal exclamation! Pere Grandet looked at his wife, at Eugenie, and at the sugar-bowl. He recollected the extraordinary breakfast prepared for the unfortunate youth, and he took a position in the middle of the room.
“Listen to me,” he said, with his usual composure. “I hope that you will not continue this extravagance, Madame Grandet. I don’t give you MY money to stuff that young fellow with sugar.”
“My mother had nothing to do with it,” said Eugenie; “it was I who—”
“Is it because you are of age,” said Grandet, interrupting his daughter, “that you choose to contradict me? Remember, Eugenie—”
“Father, the son of your brother ought to receive from us—”
“Ta, ta, ta, ta!” exclaimed the cooper on four chromatic tones; “the son of my brother this, my nephew that! Charles is nothing at all to us; he hasn’t a farthing, his father has failed; and when this dandy has cried his fill, off he goes from here. I won’t have him revolutionize my household.”
“What is ‘failing,’ father?” asked Eugenie.
“To fail,” answered her father, “is to commit the most dishonorable action that can disgrace a man.”
“It must be a great sin,” said Madame Grandet, “and our brother may be damned.”