Misers hold no belief in a life beyond the grave, the present is all in all to them. This thought throws a pitilessly clear light upon the irreligious times in which we live, for today more than in any previous era money is the force behind the law, politically and socially. Books and institutions, the actions of men and their doctrines, all combine to undermine the belief in a future life upon which the fabric of society has been built for eighteen hundred years. The grave holds few terrors for us now, is little feared as a transition stage upon man's journey. That future which once awaited us beyond the Requiem has been transported into the present. To reach per fas et nefas an early paradise of luxury and vanity and pleasure, to turn one's heart to stone and mortify the flesh for the sake of fleeting heart to stone and mortify the flesh for the sake of fleeting enjoyment of earthly treasure, as saints once suffered martyrdom in the hope of eternal bliss, is now the popular ambition! It is an ambition stamped on our age and seen in everything, even the very laws whose enaction requires the legislator to exercise not his critical faculty, but his power of producing money. Not 'What do you think?' but 'What can you pay?' is the question he is asked now. When the doctrine has been handed down from the bourgeoisie to the people, what will become of our country?

'Madame Grandet, have you finished?' asked the cooper.

'My dear, I am praying for you.'

'Very well! Good night. I shall have something to say to you tomorrow morning.'

The poor woman prepared herself for sleep as uneasily as a schoolboy who has not learnt his lessons and is terrified at the thought of his master's angry face when he wakes. As she muffled herself in the blankets to avoid hearing anything further, Eugenie crept to her side, in her nightdress and barefoot, and kissed her mother's forehead.

[ skipped a few pages ]

Eugenie, who had not trembled in her cousin's room, could scarcely stand when she reached her own. The unreflecting freedom of her existence had suddenly come to an end. She blamed herself bitterly and reproached herself again and again. 'What will he think of me? He will believe that I love him.' And yet in her heart this was exactly what she most wished him to believe. A guileless passion has its own intuition, and knows by instinct that love kindles love. What an event it was in the girl's lonely life to have gone in secret to a young man's room! For certain souls do not some thoughts and actions, prompted by love, amount to solemn betrothal?

An hour later she went to her mother's room, and helped her to dress as usual. Then the two women went downstairs to their seats by the window, and waited apprehensively for Grandet, with the kind of fever or cold sweat, lump in the throat or constricted chest, that afflicts people expecting some scene or act of punishment -- an emotion so common to flesh and blood that even domestic animals experience it, uttering cries when their master beats them, however slight the physical pain they suffer may be, although they make no sound when they hurt themselves badly by accident.

Yet another novel in the ongoing French series. At least this one had another plot besides love. Well love was the major plot but it was also about money. Misers, that is. Eugenie Grandet was a quick read and I enjoyed most of it. Especially the parts where Balzac just gave the story a break to give us his opinion on matters, like below.