each other. My marriage was the occasion of our last interview,
after which we parted, and both of us were happy. Assuredly I
could not then foresee that you would one day be the prop of the
family whose prosperity you then predicted.

When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no longer
living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive the disgrace
of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of the gulf until the
last moment, hoping to save myself. The end has come, I must sink
into it. The double bankruptcies of my broker and of Roguin, my
notary, have carried off my last resources and left me nothing. I
have the bitterness of owing nearly four millions, with assets not
more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay them. The wines in
my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices caused by the
abundance and quality of your vintage. In three days Paris will
cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I, an honest man,
shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I deprive my son of
a good name, which I have stained, and the fortune of his mother,
which I have lost. He knows nothing of all this,--my unfortunate
child whom I idolize! We parted tenderly. He was ignorant,
happily, that the last beatings of my heart were spent in that
farewell. Will he not some day curse me? My brother, my brother!
the curses of our children are horrible; they can appeal against
ours, but theirs are irrevocable. Grandet, you are my elder
brother, you owe me your protection; act for me so that Charles
may cast no bitter words upon my grave! My brother, if I were
writing with my blood, with my tears, no greater anguish could I
put into this letter,--nor as great, for then I should weep, I
should bleed, I should die, I should suffer no more, but now I
suffer and look at death with dry eyes.

From henceforth you are my son's father; he has no relations, as
you well know, on his mother's side. Why did I not consider social
prejudices? Why did I yield to love? Why did I marry the natural
daughter of a great lord? Charles has no family. Oh, my unhappy
son! my son! Listen, Grandet! I implore nothing for myself,
--besides, your property may not be large enough to carry a mortgage
of three millions,--but for my son! Brother, my suppliant hands
are clasped as I think of you; behold them! Grandet, I confide my
son to you in dying, and I look at the means of death wi