Honoré de Balzac

“ Charles, without listening further to his uncle, ran through the court and up the staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself across the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace for his lost parents.
"The first burst must have its way," said Grandet, entering the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed their seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping their eyes. "But that young man is good for nothing; his head is more taken up with the dead than with his money." ”

“ My cousin, you will eat some, will you not? I went to get these pretty grapes expressly for you."
"If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for you, nephew. When you have finished, we will go into the garden; I have something to tell you which can't be sweetened."
Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose meaning the young man could not mistake.
"What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of my poor mother"—at these words his voice softened—"no other sorrow can touch me."
"My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is pleased to try us?" said his aunt. ”

“ Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. At this moment Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, who had all three been thinking with a shudder of the old man's return, heard the knock whose echoes they knew but too well. ”

“ Where is my father?"
His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity, wept also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter. ”

“ After two hours' thought and care, during which Eugenie jumped up twenty times from her work to see if the coffee were boiling, or to go and listen to the noise her cousin made in dressing, she succeeded in preparing a simple little breakfast, very inexpensive, but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from the inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast was always taken standing. ”

“ The miser closed the blade of his knife with a snap, drank the last of his wine, and opened the door.
"My cousin, take courage!"
The tone of the young girl struck terror to Charles's heart, and he followed his terrible uncle, a prey to disquieting thoughts. Eugenie, her mother, and Nanon went into the kitchen, moved by irresistible curiosity to watch the two actors in the scene which was about to take place in the garden, where at first the uncle walked silently ahead of the nephew. Grandet was not at all troubled at having to tell Charles of the death of his father ”