Honoré de Balzac

“ I am very poorly; you know that."
"Ah, bah! you can stuff yourself as full as you please without danger, you're a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit yellow, that's true; but I like yellow, myself."
The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank within them. The daughter, however, had an inward prop at this crisis,—she gathered strength through love. ”

“ What the devil! shouldn't a father know where the gold in his house has gone to? She owned the only rupees in France, perhaps, and the Dutch ducats and the genovines—"
"Monsieur, Eugenie is our only child; and even if she had thrown them into the water—"
"Into the water!" cried her husband; "into the water! You are crazy, Madame Grandet! What I have said is said; you know that well enough. If you want peace in this household, make your daughter confess, pump it out of her. Women understand how to do that better than we do. Whatever she has done, I sha'n't eat her. Is she afraid of me? ”

“ I'll get you some more like it,—like those Dutch coins and the portugaises, the rupees of Mogul, and the genovines,—I'll give you some more on your fete-days, and in three years you'll have got back half your little treasure. What's that you say? Look up, now. Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries of the life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold live and swarm like men; they come, and go, and sweat, and multiply—"
Eugenie rose ”

“ Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters trembled.
"Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale," cried Nanon.
"Grandet, your anger will kill me," said the poor mother.
"Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; you never die in your family! Eugenie, what have you done with your gold?" he cried, rushing upon her.
"Monsieur," said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet's knees, "my mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her."
Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his wife's face, usually so yellow.
"Nanon, help me to bed," said the poor woman in a feeble voice ”

“ When the Cruchots got into the street Madame des Grassins said to them,—
"There is something going on at the Grandets. The mother is very ill without her knowing it. The girl's eyes are red, as if she had been crying all day. Can they be trying to marry her against her will?" *⁠*⁠* When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie's room in her stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a saucepan. ”

“ I believe her to be as innocent as the babe unborn. Do not make her wretched. Revoke your sentence. The cold is very severe; you may give her some serious illness."
"I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. She shall stay in her room, on bread and water, until she submits to her father. ”