After two hours' thought and care, during which Eugenie jumped up twenty times from her work to see if the coffee were boiling, or to go and listen to the noise her cousin made in dressing, she succeeded in preparing a simple little breakfast, very inexpensive, but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from the inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast was always taken standing. Each took a slice of bread, a little fruit or some butter, and a glass of wine. As Eugenie looked at the table drawn up near the fire with an arm-chair placed before her cousin's plate, at the two dishes of fruit, the egg-cup, the bottle of white wine, the bread, and the sugar heaped up in a saucer, she trembled in all her limbs at the mere thought of the look her father would give her if he should come in at that moment. She glanced often at the clock to see if her cousin could breakfast before the master's return.
"Don't be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes in, I will take it all upon myself," said Madame Grandet.
Eugenie could not repress a tear.
"Oh, my good mother!" she cried, "I have never loved you enough."Charles, who had been tramping about his room for some time, singing to himself, now came down. Happily, it was only eleven o'clock. The true Parisian! he had put as much dandyism into his dress as if he were in the chateau of the noble lady then travelling in Scotland. He came into the room with the smiling, courteous manner so becoming to youth, which made Eugenie's heart beat with mournful joy. He had taken the destruction of his castles in Anjou as a joke, and came up to his aunt gaily.
"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?""Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.
"I? perfectly."
"You must be hungry, cousin," said Eugenie; "will you take your seat?""I never breakfast before midday; I never get up till then. However, Ifared so badly on the journey that I am glad to eat something at once.
Besides--" here he pulled out the prettiest watch Breguet ever made.
"Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven o'clock!""Early?" said Madame Grandet.
"Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. Well, I shall be glad to have anything to eat,--anything, it doesn't matter what, a chicken, a partridge.""Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.
"A partridge!" whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly have given the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.
"Come and sit down," said his aunt.
The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother took ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.
"Do you always live here?" said Charles, thinking the room uglier by daylight than it had seemed the night before.
"Always," answered Eugenie, looking at him, "except during the vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des Noyers.""Don't you ever take walks?"
"Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine," said Madame Grandet, "we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch the haymakers.""Have you a theatre?"
"Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play! Why, monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?""See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here are your chickens,--in the shell.""Oh! fresh eggs," said Charles, who, like all people accustomed to luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge, "that is delicious: now, if you will give me the butter, my good girl.""Butter! then you can't have the /galette/."
"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.
The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his sippets, with as much pleasure as a grisette takes in a melodrama where innocence and virtue triumph. Charles, brought up by a charming mother, improved, and trained by a woman of fashion, had the elegant, dainty, foppish movements of a coxcomb. The compassionate sympathy and tenderness of a young girl possess a power that is actually magnetic; so that Charles, finding himself the object of the attentions of his aunt and cousin, could not escape the influence of feelings which flowed towards him, as it were, and inundated him. He gave Eugenie a bright, caressing look full of kindness,--a look which seemed itself a smile. He perceived, as his eyes lingered upon her, the exquisite harmony of features in the pure face, the grace of her innocent attitude, the magic clearness of the eyes, where young love sparkled and desire shone unconsciously.
"Ah! my dear cousin, if you were in full dress at the Opera, I assure you my aunt's words would come true,--you would make the men commit the mortal sin of envy, and the women the sin of jealousy."The compliment went to Eugenie's heart and set it beating, though she did not understand its meaning.
"Oh! cousin," she said, "you are laughing at a poor little country girl.""If you knew me, my cousin, you would know that I abhor ridicule; it withers the heart and jars upon all my feelings." Here he swallowed his buttered sippet very gracefully. "No, I really have not enough mind to make fun of others; and doubtless it is a great defect. In Paris, when they want to disparage a man, they say: 'He has a good heart.' The phrase means: 'The poor fellow is as stupid as a rhinoceros.' But as I am rich, and known to hit the bull's-eye at thirty paces with any kind of pistol, and even in the open fields, ridicule respects me.""My dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart.""You have a very pretty ring," said Eugenie; "is there any harm in asking to see it?"Charles held out his hand after loosening the ring, and Eugenie blushed as she touched the pink nails of her cousin with the tips of her fingers.
"See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship."
"My! there's a lot of gold!" said Nanon, bringing in the coffee.
"What is that?" exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he pointed to an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed on the inside, and edged with a fringe of ashes, from the bottom of which the coffee-grounds were bubbling up and falling in the boiling liquid.
