EUGENIE GRANDET, e-zha-ne gron-da. In the scenes of the 'Comedie Humaine' that , present aspects of provincial life the first Mace / by universal assent belongs to 'Eugenie Gran det' (1833). Its heroine is Balzac's finest female character, radiant in the generosity of her love; its story is probably the most terrible study of the corroding influence of avarice in any literature. Its astonishing power of grad ually developing description, exhibited in the account of Old Grandet's house, its strong room, store-closet, stairway, gives a presiding personality to inanimate objects in which each detail. marks the inevitable next step in the inexorable progress of the miser's vice to monomania. Grandet's assumed stammering hesitancy in bargaining infects the reader with the same impatience that it was designed to produce in his victims in negotiation. "There was in him? says Balzac, "something of the tiger, something too of the boa-constrictor. He could lie in wait, watch his prey, leap on it,— and then, opening the jaws of his purse, he would swallow a pile of ems and settle down tranquilly, like the serpent after his meal, im passive, cold, methodical? The story in brief outline is this: Felix Grandet, a cooper of Satunur, has amassed wealth from trade, land speculation and usury, but with such shrewd concealment that his wife and his daughter Eugenie think him as straitened as he is penurious. Partial con fidents of his business intrigue for the hand of the unsuspecting heiress, but are made the dupes and tools of Felix to swell his own fortune. Charles Grandet, a Parisian cousin, son of a bankrupt suicide, wins Eugenie's sym pathy and a love of which he proves unworthy. Felix contrives to save his brother's name to his own hidden profit: Eugenie remains faith ful to the memory of Charles, who prospers in India, while Felix, with unrelaxing vigilance, is ever seizing and devising new ways to add to his hoard. Eugenie had given Charles her little store of gold coins on his departure. Her
father sees opportunity to increase it by ex change. His discovery of the gift leads to a terrible scene, accentuating the miser's mania. He confines Eugenie and ignores her; avoids his wife, who falls ill. Should she die he would have to render an account of her es tate to his daughter. It becomes policy to keep the ailing wife alive and to cajole Eugenie to a renunciation of the accounting. The mother dies, but Eugenie's renunciation even of the in heritance from her is attained with a truly dia bolical ingenuity by playing on the poor girl's emotions. Five years later Felix dies, clutch ing at the gold on a crucifix. His last words to his daughter, in the very gasp of death: "Be careful. Some day you will have to ren der an account of all? Eugenie, now a woman of 30 and heiress to 19,000,000 francs, looks over-sea for Charles. He returns with enough to marry for social position and, ignorant of Eugenie's fortune, writes her a shameful letter, enclosing a check for her loan, with interest? He re, fuses to make final settlement of his father's debts. Eugenie does it. Charles discovers his mistake, too late. Eugenie contracts a marriage of form with the least unworthy of her old suitors, a lawyer, who, thinking to secure her fortune, arranged that each should be the other's heir but was himself first to die.
No novel of Balzac's is better constructed, none has more scenes and descriptions that cling to memory. Grandet's business transactions are told with the keenest psychological insight. The leading characters are among the master pieces of all fiction; the minor personages, es pecially the maid-servant, Nanon, are clearly defined. There are many scenes of great power ; that of the miser's death is incompara ble. Consult translation by Marriage, E., in library.'