Miss Eugenie Grandet

Old Grandet's hands that had been grasping and dancing stopped in mid-air.Holding tightly to the thing that suddenly appeared in the palm of his hand, he slowly opened his eyes. The dim eyeballs that seemed to be covered with a layer of gray stared fixedly at Philip for a while, as if he understood something. The sarcoma moved.

A surprising scene happened.

Just a moment ago, old Grandet was lying on the bed in a daze, unconscious, but now he seemed to wake up suddenly.Not only that, the spirit was injected into his body again in a way that human beings can't imagine.Without anyone's support at all, he himself tremblingly supported his head, neck and upper body, and he was about to sit up.

"Father, you lie down—"

After recovering from the stupefaction, Eugenie quickly wiped her cheeks, and hurried forward to stop her, but Grandet blocked her outstretched hand, and then he sat up by himself, trembling. He opened the roll of documents in his hand and spread it on the quilt.

His fingers rubbed the slightly rough paper repeatedly, his eyes fixed on it.

"Is it mine? Is it all mine?"

Finally raising his head, he looked at the person who brought the document and kept asking for confirmation.

"Yes," replied the other in a positive tone, "it's all yours, Father Grandet. This is the notarized document concerning the gratuitous transfer of the Montebello estate. You see, your name is written in the on everyone's column."

"Ah, ah, it's mine...it's really mine..."

Father's eyes emitted a strange light, and after muttering several times in his mouth, he raised his head with a red face, and said to Eugenie: "My dear, come and see, it's all mine!" Oh my! Dad has already figured it out, such a large piece of land, we planted grapes, pastures, beets, and oats, and watched it for ourselves, at least 500 million francs a year. ah!"

Eugenie sat beside the old father, followed his words, forced a smile and said, "Yes, yes. I will follow your orders and plant these."

Old Grandet threw off the quilt, and tremblingly wanted to go down, "I want to go and see for myself and measure the boundaries of the land. Daughter, hurry up and prepare a carriage for me," he muttered, "It's a long way to go. Well, it will take at least a few days to get there, but I know how to get there, I already know it..."

Eugenie took his hand.

"Father, I'll take you there when you recover."

Old Grandet shook off his daughter's hand trying to stop him, with an angry expression on his face.

"I'm going now! I want to see it myself, so I can rest assured..."

At this time, Philip came up, he supported the old Grandet, and said softly: "Father, look outside, it is getting dark. Tomorrow, wait until tomorrow, I will take you there in person, you can see The estate is yours already, it has no feet, it won't run away by itself."

After he came in, until this moment, the old man seemed to have noticed this person. He raised his head, looked at Philip for a moment, and then asked tremblingly, "Who are you?"

Philip paused, but before he could speak, the old Grandet's expression had turned into a guarded one. He hugged the document tightly in his arms, and turned to Eugenie and shouted: "Daughter! Hurry up and get this man Get away! He's here to grab those 25 Floavfons from me!"

Eugenie held back the tears that were about to burst into her eyes again, and was about to persuade the old father to go back to bed again, when Philip said: "Father, I am the one who was sent to bring you the papers of title! My master said, I must obey your orders. He also ordered me to report to you, the new master, all the circumstances of the property. Would you like to hear it now?"

"Okay!"

Old Grandet showed a reassuring expression, was supported by Philip, and lay back obediently.

Philip followed and sat beside him.

"Then, please listen to my report on the fields and the number of tenants in this property..."

Twilight fell, and the last gleam of light from the windows disappeared, leaving only a vague outline of everything in the room.Eugenie stood outside the door, listening silently to the voices in the room.Her old father was lying on the bed, listening carefully to the man sitting next to him patiently telling everything about the real estate, interrupting his narration and asking a few questions from time to time.

It can be heard that the other party should not be very familiar with the situation of this industry.So whenever the old Grandet asked about the specific number, he seemed a little hesitant, and the conversation would stop, but soon, he could always give an answer that satisfied the old Grandet.

The conversation continued in fits and starts until early the next morning.Whenever Eugenie thought that her father had finally fallen asleep contentedly, he would wake up not long after, to make sure that the document was indeed in her own hands at this moment, and that it had not been stolen by others.

The man from Paris showed unprecedented patience and tenderness.Throughout the whole night, he stayed beside old Grandet's bed, waiting for his interrogation from time to time.It wasn't until dawn that old Grandet finally got rid of his excitement—real exhaustion hit him.

After he asked the last question about the production of the lake, he stared dissatisfiedly at the person next to him who had been talking to him all night, but he caught a lot of inconsistencies and common-sense mistakes, and murmured, : "You are so incompetent, you don't even know what kinds of fish are produced in the lake. When I go there, I will have to consider changing the steward..."

"Yes, it is my negligence - I accept your arrangement..."

Philip said obediently, helping him to lie down.

"Sleep, now I can sleep comfortably..."

With the document firmly pressed under the pillow, old Grandet let out a satisfied sigh.

At last the candles in the candlesticks on the table burned out, and the flame gave a last jump and went out.

With the dim morning light coming in through the window, Philip stood by the bed for a long time, and when he was finally about to leave, the old Grandet, who seemed to be asleep, seemed to be startled by his footsteps, shivered, and opened his eyes again.

After a while of confusion, his eyes seemed to finally clear up, and finally settled on Philip's face.

"Ah, ah, it's you...you little boy from Paris..."

At last he recognized Philip.

"Yes, it's me, Dad."

said Philip, his voice slightly hoarse.

Old Grandet stared at him for a while, as if thinking of something, he hastily stretched out his hand to touch under the pillow again, and found the things he had hidden. He smiled contentedly again and let out a long breath.

"If you still want my Eugenie, give it to you—"

After he mumbled the last words of his life, he slowly closed his eyes.

----

When Philip came out of the room, he saw Eugenie standing at the end of the corridor with a candlestick in her hand, as if she had been waiting for a long time.

Her whole body was surrounded by a ball of dim yellow light from the candlestick in her hand.

Although the morning sun had dawned outside, the house was still extremely dark.Except for the ball of light in her hand, there was a deep darkness.

Five years passed like this.He felt that nothing had changed, that everything seemed to be the same as before.But she seemed to be farther away from him than before.

Just like now, with no one else around, when she really appeared in front of him again like this, instead of the imaginary one he had pieced together based on the various news about her that came from time to time. While watching the video, he didn't know how to get close to her.

He hadn't slept all night and was very tired now.But at the moment when he saw her, a feeling that couldn't be described in words seemed to emerge from the bottom of his heart.It took all his fatigue away.He hesitated for a while, and walked towards the light and shadow. He took big steps and looked very firm.

When he was halfway there, he saw the light that surrounded her move.

She also walked towards him.

He watched her getting closer and closer to him, his steps began to slow down, and finally, he stopped.He watched her continue to walk, and finally stopped in front of him.

In the past five years, she has hardly set foot in Paris again, even though her name is frequently mentioned along with wealth by men or women in Parisian social circles.

He had imagined many times, what kind of circumstances would it take for him to have the chance to see her again.

Unexpectedly, now he really saw her again, in a way that he could never have imagined before.

He stared at the woman in front of him with bloodshot eyes, with a deeply depressed gaze.