's personal experience. His sister found fault
with his attributing so many millions to the miser. "But, stupid, the
thing is true," he replied. "Do you want me to improve on truth? If
you only knew what it is to knead ideas, and to give them form and
colour, you wouldn't be so quick to criticize."

As is usual, when the interest is chiefly characterization, Balzac
does not give us a complicated plot. We have in Grandet a self-made
man, who has amassed riches by trade and speculation, and lives with
his wife and daughter in a gloomy old house, with only one servant as
miserly as the master. Eugenie's hand is sought by several suitors,
and in particular by the son of the banker des Grassins and the son of
the notary Cruchot, these two families waging a diplomatic warfare on
behalf of their respective candidates. Into this midst suddenly comes
the fashionable nephew Charles Grandet, whose father has, unknown to
him, just committed suicide to escape bankruptcy. Eugenie falls in
love with her cousin, and he, apparently, with her; but the old man,
unsoftened by his brother's death, using it even as a further means of
speculation, gets rid of the unfortunate lover by gingerly helping him
to go abroad. Years pass, and Eugenie's mother dies, while she herself
withers, under the miser's avaricious tyranny. At length, old Grandet
pays his debt to nature, and Eugenie is left with the millions. Until
now she had waited for the wandering lover's return; but he, engaging
in the slave-trade, has lost all the generous impulses of his youth,
and comes back only to deny his early affection and marry the
ill-favoured daughter of a Marquis. Eugenie takes a noble revenge for
this desertion by paying her dead uncle's debts, which Charles had
repudiated, and she marries the notary's son, who leaves her a widow
soon after.

Everything in the tale is absolutely natural, extraordinary in its
naturalness; and the reactions of its various persons upon each other
are traced with fine perception. There is not much of the outward
expression of love--in this Balzac did not excel--but there is a good
deal of its hidden tragedy. Moreover, the miser's ruling passion is
exhibited in traits that suggest still more than they openly display;
and all the action and circumstance are in the subdued tone proper to
provincial existence. The introductory words prepare the reader's mind
for what follows:--

"In certain country towns there are houses whose aspect