“the abominable education of this world where, in an evening, more crimes are committed in thoughts, in words than the Law punishes, where soundbites murder the highest ideas, where one is only considered as strong as he sees clearly; and there, seeing clearly means believing in nothing, neither feelings nor men, nor even events” (quick and dirty translation)

Eugénie Grandet by Danielle Scarpa Kos

With perhaps the exception of Thomas Hardy, I am unfamiliar with non-French authors as preoccupied with questions of class and the major social changes of the 18th and 19th century as the holy trilogy of Flaubert, Zola and Balzac. Of these, Zola was long my favorite, probably because of his more easily understood idealism; re-reading Eugénie Grandet, however, was a great occasion to let Balzac grow on me – the elegance of his writing, the delicate irony married to acuity of observation (“ce combat secret… occupait passionnément les diverses sociétés de Saumur” – “this secret battle… engrossed the diverse societies of Saumur“), the neatness of the book structure where every scene felt necessary.

There are very few characters to like here: le père Grandet, the formidable shadow hovering over the entire book, is probably the most detestable of all. A devoted miser, he has built a huge fortune on ruthless cunning, breaches of trust and tireless exploitation of his fellow humans. For all this he is enormously admired in his home town of Saumur. The man lives like a pauper with his wife, his daughter Eugénie and his maid Nanon, an outcast he opportunistically rescued. Some vague reasons are provided for his greed: a destitute childhood, a predator’s taste for victory in business matters – but most of all, the picture is that of a man obsessed beyond reason or understanding, for whom is impossible to feel sorry.

Grandet has only one child, his daughter Eugénie, whose prospects attract suitors whose only charms are money and ambition. She herself is quite oblivious to all things romantic, until one day her cousin Charles is sent to spend some time in Saumur. They fall in love. Alas, the true motive for Charles’s visit is that his father, on the verge of bankruptcy, has sent him away while he commits an “honorable suicide”. Grandet arranges to have his nephew sent to the colonies to try and remake his fortune – and to keep this poor suitor away from his daughter. Charles gone, life goes back to its mean routine, with Grandet descending ever more into avarice while Eugénie endlessly waits for her lover’s return.

It will be years before Charles comes back to France. By then he has become the Grandet he was always meant to be, a selfish, obdurate man who dismisses his past promises to contract a marriage he thinks more advantageous. Eugénie discovers the truth at the same time she learns that the disgraceful bankrupcy is still looming. She decides to settle her cousin’s debts and resigning herself to a loveless, sexless marriage to one of her suitors. The rest of her life will be spent in quiet resignation, first at the sideof her callous husband, then as an even-richer widow.  While she will do some good with her immense fortune, she will remain a prisoner to it to the end – isolated from every true feeling and living in the barren existence that is all she has ever known.

Quite peculiar to Balzac is his extremely harsh indictment of individuals. Society, place, circumstances – these are understood to play a role in the human tragi-comedy, but Balzac’s cynicism is unmissable. Individuals are despicable and society heinous; this is made worse by the growing fascination with money he denounces, but he doesn’t see human barbarity as either new or receding. The only admirable characters, individuals touched by a true idea of religion, are represented by Eugénie and her mother; they are frankly so angelic as to lack nerve. Nanon is an exception, the only other character who is overall positive despite some flaws – and my favorite in the book, with her obstinacy to make the best of life and her readiness to compromise for it.