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butterflies-dragons · 3 years ago

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Eugénie Grandet and Sansa Stark

Art credit: 1) Chinese Book Cover for "Eugénie Grandet" by Margarita Winkler; 2) Lady Sansa by Batata-Tasha

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother's queen.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

Channeling my inner Sansa Stark in order to avoid the terrible reality of late, I lost myself in some of the French, Spanish and Russian classics. Eugenié Grandet (1833) by Honoré de Balzac was one of them.

Eugenié Grandet is a book that Sansa Stark would love:

They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

Eugénie (23) and Sansa (13) are kind, generous, eager to please and extremely romantic girls.

Although they are both dutiful daughters, they have a strained relationship with their fathers and at some point they defy them out of love.

The main different between Eugénie and Sansa, aside their age, is their education. While Eugénie is a provincial girl from Saumur with almost zero formal education, Sansa, a northern girl, comes from high nobility and has been educated to be the perfect lady and queen.

Eugénie and Sansa aren't exactly the same, but while reading Balzac's novel it's very difficult not to find them similar. Even Eugénie's house in Saumur resembles Winterfell and the North, the same way Eugénie's walnut tree from her garden resembles the Heart Tree from Winterfell's godswood.

I'm sure that GRRM knows about Honoré del Balzac, however I have no certainty if he has read Eugénie Grandet. But I would not be surprised to know that he did read the novel, and in that case I would even suspect that Eugénie inspired him, even a little, while creating Sansa.

It could all be just a coincidence, of course.

FAIR WARNING : EUGÉNIE GRANDET SPOILERS

Saumur / The North & Winterfell

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street—now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain sections—is remarkable for the resonance of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped by the ramparts. Houses three centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the attention of artists and antiquaries.

(...) The whole history of France is there.

(...) The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

The vast and frigid realm of the Kings of Winter, the Starks of Winterfell, is generally considered the first and oldest of the Seven Kingdoms, in that it has endured, unconquered, for the longest. The vagaries of geography and history set the North apart from their southron neighbors.

It is often said that the North is as large as the other six kingdoms put together, but the truth is somewhat less grand: the North, as ruled today by House Stark of Winterfell, comprises little more than a third of the realm. Beginning at the southern edge of the Neck, the domains of the Starks extend as far north as the New Gift (itself part of their realm until King Jaehaerys I convinced Winterfell to cede those lands to the Night's Watch). Within the North are great forests, windswept plains, hills and valleys, rocky shores, and snow-crowned mountains. The North is a cold land—much of it rising moorlands and high plains giving way to mountains in its northern reaches—and this makes it far less fertile than the reaches of the south. Snow has been known to fall there even in summer, and it is deadly in winter.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The North

Robert snorted. "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I've never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?"

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

The rising sun sent fingers of light through the pale white mists of dawn. A wide plain spread out beneath them, bare and brown, its flatness here and there relieved by long, low hummocks. Ned pointed them out to his king. "The barrows of the First Men."

Robert frowned. "Have we ridden onto a graveyard?"

"There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace," Ned told him. "This land is old."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

Sewing and Embroidery

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round of constant work from the month of April to the month of November. On the first day of the latter month they took their winter station by the chimney.

(...) Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and other necessaries for the daily consumption.

(...) In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes.

(...) "and your cousin (...) who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) Her treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up; they were Charles’s dressing-case, the portraits hanging above her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,—a Penelope’s web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that gold so rich in memories.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. "Sansa's work is as pretty as she is," Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. "She has such fine, delicate hands."

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Underestimated

"We will try to relieve the monotony of your visit here. If you stay all the time with Monsieur Grandet, good heavens! what will become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser who thinks of nothing but his vines; your aunt is a pious soul who can’t put two ideas together; and your cousin is a little fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) “Not at all, monsieur l’abbe. This young man cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool,—a girl without the least freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a quince.”

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

"I … I had not thought, my lord." "Your Grace," he said sharply. "You truly are a stupid girl, aren't you? My mother says so."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

. . . ah, you're still a stupid little bird, aren't you? Singing all the songs they taught you . . .

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

Sansa reddened. Any fool would have realized that no woman would be happy about being called "the Queen of Thorns." Maybe I truly am as stupid as Cersei Lannister says.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

The woman that calls Eugénie a "little fool" is Madame des Grassins, who despite underestimating Mademoiselle Grandet, wants her to marry her son Adolphe.

In a similar way, Cersei Lannister underestimates Sansa, believing her unworthy of her beloved son Joffrey.

Romantics

They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without fearing to displease the master of the house. Grandet was absorbed in the long letter which he held in his hand; and to read it he had taken the only candle upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and refinement of his features. In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters, seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,—this vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the English “Keepsakes,” and that engraved by the Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew from his pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to make use of it. The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous,—all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams of her phoenix cousin.

(...) In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of earthly things had come for Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.

(...) It was a great honor to ride with the queen, and besides, Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinking it made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years. Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold. She treasured every chance to spend time with him, few as they were.

(...) He took her by the arm and led her away from the wheelhouse, and Sansa's spirits took flight. A whole day with her prince! She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

The touch of Joffrey's hand on her sleeve made her heart beat faster. "

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind … and the knights themselves, the knights most of all. "It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

She loved King’s Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet, harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not bear the thought of losing it all.

[…] They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Eugénie and her deep infatuation with her Parisian cousin Charles Grandet, reminds me a lot of Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

Charles was a prince in Eugénie's eyes, with all his dandy manners and Parisian refinement. Charles was the South and the pretty songs for Eugénie, the same way Prince Joffrey and even Ser Loras were the South and the pretty songs for Sansa.

Dressing well as a weapon

An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,—a business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single eyelet. And then, wishing for the first time in her life to appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well made, which rendered her attractive. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Do remind her to dress nicely today. The grey velvet, perhaps. We are all invited to ride with the queen and Princess Myrcella in the royal wheelhouse, and we must look our best." Sansa already looked her best. She had brushed out her long auburn hair until it shone, and picked her nicest blue silks. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa II "I will need hot water for my bath, please," she told them, "and perfume, and some powder to hide this bruise." The right side of her face was swollen and beginning to ache, but she knew Joffrey would want her to be beautiful. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI Knowing that Joffrey would require her to attend the tourney in his honor, Sansa had taken special care with her face and clothes. She wore a gown of pale purple silk and a moonstone hair net that had been a gift from Joffrey. The gown had long sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms. Those were Joffrey's gifts as well. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa I I have to look pretty, Joff likes me to look pretty, he's always liked me in this gown, this color. She smoothed the cloth down. The fabric was tight across her chest. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

Here, while Eugénie uses the business of dressing to try to impress and gain the affections of her cousin Charles, Sansa uses the same resource as a shield against Joffrey's ill temper and to cover the bruises left on her skin by Joffrey's ill temper.

Complimenting someone's name

“Is anything the matter, my cousin?” he said. “Hush!” said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to answer; “you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not to speak to monsieur—” “Say Charles,” said young Grandet. “Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!” cried Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "I don't even know your name." "Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower." "That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. "Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?" —A Clash of Kings - Jon III "I . . . I could call myself after my mother . . ." "Catelyn? A bit too obvious . . . but after my mother, that would serve. Alayne. Do you like it?" "Alayne is pretty." Sansa hoped she would remember. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Kissing Cousins

“My dear cousin—” “Hush, hush! my cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others. See,” she said, opening her purse, “here are the savings of a poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can surely borrow the purse of your sister.” —Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— “I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell—perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—” “Do you love me?” she said. “Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling. “I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her. She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon’s den, in the darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the most unreserved of kisses. “Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,” said Charles.

(...) After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,—the one whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities,—they will understand the poor girl’s tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man’s love.

—Eugénie Grandet * * * How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?" —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy's kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. —A Feast for Crows - Alayne II "I don't want you to marry him, Alayne. I am the Lord of the Eyrie, and I forbid it." He sounded as if he were about to cry. "You should marry me instead. We could sleep in the same bed every night, and you could read me stories." (...) She put a finger to his lips. "I know what you want, but it cannot be. I am no fit wife for you. I am bastard born." "I don't care. I love you best of anyone. " (...) "You must have a proper wife, a trueborn maid of noble birth." "No. I want to marry you, Alayne." Once your lady mother intended that very thing, but I was trueborn then, and noble. (...) "The Lord of the Eyrie can do as he likes. Can't I still love you, even if I have to marry her? —The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Eugénie and her cousin Charles's brief romance is nothing like any of Sansa's experiences with suitors, but it reminds me a bit of Sansa and her little cousin Robert Arryn interactions.

Despite looking at his provincial relatives with disdain at first, after knowing about the financial disgrace and death of his father, Charles gets use to the humble and monotonous life of Saumur and especially gets fond of Eugénie's kindness and generosity.

In a similar way, despite the violent events from Sansa's snow castle chapter in A Storm of Swords, after the the death of his mother Lysa, Sweetrobin clings to Sansa/Alayne as a mother figure and later love interest.

Charles is nothing like Sweetrobin though, he is more similar to men like Harrold Hardyng and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

At the end, similar to John Willoughby's actions, Charles Grandet chooses to marry a girl he doesn't love to re-gain his high status in Parisian society and a nobility title, unbeknownst that Eugénie had become extremely rich, richer than him and his new bride combined.

Harrold Hardyng is not Sansa's cousin but Robert Arryn's cousin and heir. Harry consented the betrothal to Alayne only to gain the political support from Petyr Baelish.

And while cousin Charles's kisses mean love's kisses to Eugénie, cousin Robert's unrequited kisses remind Sansa of another forced and unrequited kisses from the past that left only trauma and fear in her.

But despite all her awful experiences from unworthy suitors, Sansa still longs to know kisses of love, and she associates those with Snow and she happens to has a cousin named Snow. More about this later.

You will know it some day / You may learn that one day

It was a death worthy of her life,—a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures. “My child,” she said as she expired, “there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day.” (...) Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,—to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine; the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is love,—true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s love after she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven, thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny. Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of her deliverance. “My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer—and die!” —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa III "Life is not a song, sweetling," he'd told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." —A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

This is a parallel but also a contrast between Eugénie and Sansa.

Eugénie's mother wasn't happy with her husband. Monsieur Felix Grandet was an awful husband and father. His only love was gold. That's why at her hour of death, Madame Grandet envisions a destiny of sorrows for her daughter, knowing well that not only the Cruchots and des Grassins coveted Eugénie's inheritance, but it was her own father, Monsieur Grandet, the most dangerous threat to Eugénie's welfare.

On the other hand, Catelyn Stark, Sansa's mother, was very happy with Eddard Stark. Ned was a good husband but a terrible father. Being aware of her good luck in her marriage, Catelyn said this to his firstborn son Robb: "We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky." —A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V.

Catelyn's words of hope to her son contrast to Petyr Baelish's words of sorrow to Sansa, not only because the bad omen, but because he is an active player in the sorrows that await Sansa and her family.

Strained relationship with their fathers

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the obstinacy of his character impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and the sedum,—a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden, engaged in watching his daughter. —Eugénie Grandet * * *

He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Monsieur Felix Grandet and Lord Eddard Stark were awful fathers to Eugénie and Sansa. They both used their daughters for their own business but they never tried to understand the girls. They both could only watch them from apart not knowing how to approach them.

The severity of Père Grandet and Lord father Stark towards their daughters made Eugénie and Sansa defy them for the first time when they fell in love with Charles and Joffrey.

Ned was not the awful person that Monsieur Grandet was, though. Despite all his flaws as Sansa's father, he gave his own life in order to save Sansa from the same fate.

Melancholic Beauty

When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of angelic gentleness and melancholy. (...) “Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face. —Eugénie Grandet * * * Their litter had been sitting in the sun, and it was very warm inside the curtains. As they lurched into motion, Tyrion reclined on an elbow while Sansa sat staring at her hands. She is just as comely as the Tyrell girl. Her hair was a rich autumn auburn, her eyes a deep Tully blue. Grief had given her a haunted, vulnerable look; if anything, it had only made her more beautiful. —A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

Although it is a bit morbid to find beauty in someone's grief and misery, this image of our heroines being graceful while in disgrace got my attention.

This regard of Eugénie and Sansa comes from two men that wanted to reach them and gain their favor. Monsieur Cruchot, the notary, wanted Eugénie to marry his nephew, President Cruchot de Bonfons, while Tyrion Lannister, already married to Sansa, wishes to get her affections despite their forced marriage.

This is the point of view of two men that wanted to play the hero of a damsel in distress, but they are not the heroes that those fair maids wished for.

Love's kisses / Lover's kisses

Her imprisonment and the condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love’s kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her father. —Eugénie Grandet A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

While Eugénie's love to Charles gives her strength and dignify her in her tribulations, Sansa, in front of a beautiful winter scenery, feels soiled by her southern experiences. She feels that she doesn't belong in that pure, innocent world, as white as Snow.

Yet Sansa, defying her supposed maculated fate, embraces the beauty of the falling Snow that reminds her of home, and compared the sensation of the snowflakes brushing her face to lover's kisses.

The calling of the Snow at dawn was too powerful for Sansa to resist it. It was like the Snow telling her, you are wrong, you belong with me, let me kiss you to prove it.

"Jon Snow?" she blurted out, surprised.

"Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose."

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

No one will ever marry me for love

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur Grandet’s house. The most important of the first three was a nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons. Any litigant so ill-advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot, a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.

Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser, and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their faithful allies. On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the president.

This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur Adolphe des Grassins?

(...) “If I had a man for myself I’d—I’d follow him to hell, yes, I’d exterminate myself for him; but I’ve none. I shall die and never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my petticoats for the sake of my money,—just for all the world like the rats who come smelling after the master’s cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz’elle, it pleases me, but it isn’t love.”

(...) She (Eugénie's mother) shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.

(...) (Eugénie) Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

“If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

It came to her suddenly that she had stood in this very spot before, on the day Lord Eddard Stark had lost his head. That was not supposed to happen. Joff was supposed to spare his life and send him to the Wall. Stark’s eldest son would have followed him as Lord of Winterfell, but Sansa would have stayed at court, a hostage. Varys and Littlefinger had worked out the terms, and Ned Stark had swallowed his precious honor and confessed his treason to save his daughter’s empty little head. I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn. If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert’s brothers.

—A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

“I will be safe in Highgarden. Willas will keep me safe.” “But he does not know you,” Dontos insisted, “and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you. It’s your claim they mean to wed.” “My claim?” She was lost for a moment. “Sweetling,” he told her, “you are heir to Winterfell.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

“Yes. You are a ward of the crown. The king stands in your father’s place, since your brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of your hand. You are to marry my brother Tyrion.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

“The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark.” […] “She must marry a Lannister, and soon.” “The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name,” his uncle Kevan put in.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

“How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?” The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

As you can see, Monsieur Grandet's banker des Grassins wished Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, while his lawyer Monsieur Cruchot wished Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot de Bonfons. Both, the Cruchots and des Grassins, coveted Eugénie's inheritance.

In a similar way, the Lannisters, the Tyrells, Theon Greyjoy, Petyr Baelish, Harrold Hardyng, and even Lysa Tully in the name of his son Robert Arryn, coveted Sansa's claim to the North and Winterfell, with all the lands, money, armies and political power that come with the name Stark.

So, when I read these lines, 188 years after Balzac wrote them:

(...) and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

I couldn't help but think about Sansa Stark and one of the saddest quotes from the ASOIAF series:

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.

Walnut Tree / Heart Tree

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— (...) I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—”

“Do you love me?” she said.

“Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling.

“I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

(...) When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

(...) In the mornings she sat pensive beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers might have said, the tissue of life.

(...) Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood.

(...) At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes which had followed it.

—Eugénie Grandet

As you can see, Eugénie's walnut tree is the heart of her house in Saumur. In the old wooden bench beneath that immense tree, the cousin lovers Eugénie and Charles Grandet exchanged vows of eternal love. As Charles said later, beneath that walnut tree they got married.

Eugénie sat in that same wooden bench for years, remembering and waiting for her lover. Charles, on the other hand, forget his promises of eternal love, broke those vows and married another woman.

In a similar way, the weirwood trees are called heart trees, the weirwood from Winterfell's godswood is called the Heart of Winterfell, and godswoods are a sacred places for praying and meditation, under the weirwood tress lovers kiss and make promises, and heroes vows to protect the realms of men:

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. Jon drew in a breath, and he saw Sam Tarly staring. Even in the wolfswood, you never found more than two or three of the white trees growing together; a grove of nine was unheard of. The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward. The dried sap that crusted in the eyes was red and hard as ruby. Bowen Marsh commanded them to leave their horses outside the circle. "This is a sacred place, we will not defile it."

When they entered the grove, Samwell Tarly turned slowly looking at each face in turn. No two were quite alike. "They're watching us," he whispered. "The old gods."

"Yes." Jon knelt, and Sam knelt beside him.

They said the words together, as the last light faded in the west and grey day became black night.

"Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow," they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

The woods fell silent. "You knelt as boys," Bowen Marsh intoned solemnly. "Rise now as men of the Night's Watch."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

Robb bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered horse to plead with her young king to take her along.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

In contrast to Eugénie, who fervently clung to her walnut tree that became the symbol of her vows of eternal love to Charles, since Sansa left Winterfell, she only found godswoods without a weirwood tree:

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned’s cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. “I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home. The Eyrie was no home. […] When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In winter this will be a cold white prison.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

But despite the absence of a weirwood tree, those empty godswoods became a metaphor of Sansa herself, lost in the south and longing to come back home:

A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Sansa Stark has started her journey back home, she is going back North to take back her heart:

But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, “I’ll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She’d go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She’s gone back north, she has. That’s where her gods are.”

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne II

A veil of courtesy / Courtesy is a lady's armor

She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news of Charles’s return and his foolish treachery had spread through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her misery behind a veil of courtesy.

—Eugénie Grandet

What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady's armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

Courtesy is a lady's armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

"Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

A lady's armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face. No tears, she prayed. Please, please, I must not cry.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Agency, richness, power... And loneliness

At the end, life gives Eugénie her revenge, especially against the people that always coveted her vast wealth.

Eugénie was at last free, independent, rich and powerful, but she was very lonely. Her only comfort was the company and loyalty of la Grand Nanon:

Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood,—Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble friend.

—Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

La Grand Nanon was often compared to a loyal dog and she was in charge of the wolf-dog that protected the old Grandet House in Saumur.

Nanon did everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd exactions.

(...) Like a watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.

(...) Nanon went to bolt the outer door; then she closed the hall and let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that he seemed to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for his ferocity, recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored children of the fields understood each other.

—Eugénie Grandet

La Grand Nanon and the wolf-dog remind me of the Stark children's direwolves, of course. Loyal companions and protectors until the very end.

After the deaths of Monsieur et Madame Grandet, only Nanon remains to Eugénie. Then, thanks to the new financial independence of Mademoiselle Grandet, La Grand Nanon became rich as well, and she even got married to her old suitor Antoine Cornoiller.

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her cousin drank. “Nanon, we are alone—” “Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I’d go on foot to find him.” “The ocean is between us,” she said. While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller.

Eugénie became so rich that she was considered a Queen and the sovereign of her own court:

It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle Grandet’s house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond) outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every evening. Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the heiress.

Later, after knowing about Charles's betrayal, Eugénie chooses to marry President Cruchot de Bonfons under certain conditions. It was a sham marriage, only in name, but never consummated:

(...) “Monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie with a noble composure, inspired by the thought she was about to express, “would it be a sin to remain a virgin after marriage?” (...) “Monsieur le president,” said Eugenie in a voice of some emotion when they were left alone, “I know what pleases you in me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is yours. Oh!” she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, “I have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor to violate the laws of my own heart. —Eugénie Grandet

And even when President Cruchot de Bonfons was waiting to Eugénie's early death, he was the one that died and made his widow even richer by adding the Cruchot's fortune to the already vast Grandet's fortune:

Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur. God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with which, accurante Cruchot, he had drawn up his marriage contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, “in case they should have no children, their entire property of every kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation, dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc., etc.” This clause of the contract will explain the profound respect which monsieur le president always testified for the wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons. (...) Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president. Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life to a child would give death to his hopes,—the hopes of selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished as he looked into the future. —Eugénie Grandet

But Eugénie's vast riches were an empty victory for her. The avarice of her father marked her life.

Due to the frugal life style imposed by Monsieur Grandet, Eugénie was never attached to money and gold like her father was:

In spite of her vast wealth, she lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth. Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed, bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

“I have none but you to love me,” she says to Nanon.

The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of her education and the petty habits of her early life.

Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother, has neither husband nor children nor family.

—Eugénie Grandet

Eugénie was meant to be a wife and a mother, she wanted to love and be loved, but life only gave her sorrows and riches.

This sad ending reminds me a bit of Show Sansa's ending. She was a Queen of an independent Kingdom, but she didn't get any of her siblings with her at Winterfell.

But, unlike Eugénie that only knew the likes of Charles Grandet, the Cruchots and the des Grassins, and even if Sansa doesn't know it yet, there is someone who despite being offered Sansa's claim, had chosen her over Winterfell and the North and the name Stark:

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Unlike Tyrion, Willas, Theon, Littlefinger or even little Robert, who pursued Sansa’s claim over her, Jon Snow chose Sansa over her claim. Among all the high lords interested in becoming the Lord of Winterfell by marrying Sansa Stark, the bastard Jon Snow refused to despoil his sister Sansa of her rights, even if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.

Jon Snow is not some fancy suitor from the South like Charles Grandet was to Eugénie, like John Willoughby was to Marianne Dashwood, like Joffrey, Loras and even Harry were/are for Sansa/Alayne. Jon Snow has Stark blood, he was raised by Ned Stark, he worships the old gods, and he knows very well that you can't make false promises in front of a weirwood tree:

Jon said, “My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon II

So, there is hope.

The end.

[This post is very personal and was written during somehow convulsed times. So, if you have come this far, thanks for reading.]

#sansa stark #jonsa #eugénie grandet #honoré de balzac

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sarissophori · 4 years ago

Text

Forebode, Chapter 4

Twenty minutes passed. The second away team of Varrez, Han, Talgold and Barrens sat in the shuttle suited up and harnessed in. Clearance was asked for and given, the hangar was vented, and the shuttle made another run for the moon’s surface, performing an overfly of the area before landing in a clearing south of the valley by the dune sea, creating a cloud of fine red dust.

“See you kids later” Ausmith said. “Remember your emergency channels.”

They stepped out onto a plain of sand and rocky outcroppings, and a soft, whispering wind. The terrain rose gradually ahead of them, building up to the near mountains. XH-Lambda loomed over the western skyline, waxing to a quarter-phase. Several other moons were also out, rising and falling in their separate arcs, ghostly pale in the haze. Varrez in particular was taken by the sight.

“It’s so primordial, like how Mars must have looked before it was terraformed –minus the gas giant, of course.”

“Yeah, imagine that” Barrens said. “Let’s roll out the rover and get going, the sooner the better.”

“What’s your hurry, sergeant?” Varrez said. “We can take a few minutes for sample gathering, can’t we?”

“I’m not saying you can’t play around in the dirt, doc” Barrens said. “But we’ve got a job to do, and we shouldn’t stay down here any longer than we have to.”

“It’ll only take a second” Varrez said, kneeling to collect some quick sand and mineral samples, and tucking them away in containers.

“See? A second.”

“Maybe we should get going” Talgold said. “The daylight’s looking a little dull, and the rover’s electric.”

“Actually” Varrez said. “Because XH is a twin-sun system true night is very seldom here, even less so with a gas giant hanging overhead. There’s probably no such thing as true night on this moon, for all we know.”

Dr. Han, not caring for the conversation, cranked the rover and backed it out from the shuttle, down the ramp, and skidded it to a halt. He set it in drive and revved it twice.

“There’s a possible alien anomaly just a few kilometers away from us, and you people are talking about rocks and sunlight? Let’s go!”

Barrens grinned. “Han, my man.”

The flatness of the lowlands went by quickly as the rover sped across the wastes toward the mountain valley, kicking up dust and pebbles with its ample treads. As they neared the valley, they noticed odd silhouettes in the hanging mist, tall and thin but otherwise unclear; they became steadily revealed as the team drove closer, and the mists passed further downrange.

It was a forest of sharp, angular pinnacles, hundreds of feet high, filling the entirety of the valley and climbing to its lower slopes; skeletal forms bleached and bone-dry, tree-like in structure yet also unsettlingly alien.

“Christ” Barrens said. “Captain, I hope you’re seeing this.”

“I am” Hindel said from the bridge. “And I don’t believe it.”

“What do you think it is?” Talgold said.

In the awestruck silence, Varrez spoke quietly.

“It’s beautiful, grotesquely beautiful.”

They drove to the outermost eaves of the forest, boneyard, whatever it was, and parked the rover under its shadows. The ‘trees’ were smooth with odd indentations along sections of their trunks, like bamboo stalks; they rose vertical and robust, tapering into fragile tufts of tendrils like cotton canopies seven to eight hundred feet over them. The air within was still, the soft wind dying outside the outer staggered groves. Varrez walked up to a trunk and touched it, feeling it scrape along her gauntlet.

“It’s very stony; looks organic enough, though.”

“Almost like that growth we found in the lab” Barrens said. “Maybe this is what it grows into?”

“Perhaps we can cross-analyze” Han said. “Varrez, do you have a scraper?”

“Several” Varrez said, opening a small kit and handing him one.

“Every good geologist does.”

“Thank you” he said, taking it with a curt bow.

Holding a container underneath, Han scraped off trace amounts of the ‘tree’ for further study, snapped the lid shut, and gave Varrez her tool back.

“How deep is the marker into this thing, captain?” Barrens said.

“Almost six hundred meters in” Hindel said. “Follow your HUDs, and you’ll get there.”

“Alright.” Barrens grabbed a large backpack from the rover’s bed and slung it over his shoulders, synching it firmly across his chest, patting down the locks.

“I’m taking point. No one leaves sight of anyone else, got it?”

“Yessir sergeant!” Varrez and Talgold said, saluting flippantly.

“Right behind you” Han said with a thumbs-up.

Not quite the responses he wanted, but Barrens expected as much from a bunch of civilians.

At his lead, they entered the forest. The ground was almost completely covered by slithering and overlapping roots, tripping them up somewhat, though progress was steady; they weren’t in any hurry, mostly for safety, but also for being in the midst of a giant environmental wonderland, once the shock of its foreignness became a wonder for it.

The meter count on their HUDs counted down. Light coming through the canopies was the color of a rich late sunset, if sunset it was, filtered by the cotton puffs into shifting beams touched with wafting motes in the dead air, blurring to a deep ruby hue in the darker parts of the forest that slowly enveloped them.

“You almost expect a deer or something to come leaping out at any moment” Varrez said aloud, to herself.

“What, like a space-deer?” Talgold said.

“I got bad news for you, Varrez; space-deer probably eat people.”

“Oh? how do you figure that?” Varrez said.

“We’re in uncharted space, the rules are inverted here. It’s basic physics.”

Varrez chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Well if we do run into something” Barrens said. “It’ll be running straight into this.”

He patted a side pocket on his backpack, indicating the folded shock rifle he was carrying with him.

“Fully charged and ready to go. I’ve got a pistol on my leg as well.”

“You really think you’ll need those?” Varrez said.

“I didn’t think we’d be strolling through a giant petrified forest in the middle of a desert moon” Barrens said. “Who knows what else we’ll run into here that we haven’t seen yet?”

“Let’s just hope you won’t have to use them” Han said, keeping on the periphery of conversation as he glanced up and around at the overbearing stalks, himself almost expecting to see some alien creature scurrying in the ruby half-light.

Thirty minutes passed on their mission clocks. The trees grew largest and thickest where the marker indicated the metallic presence, now only a few meters away.

“Something’s flickering” Barrens said. “Right ahead of us.”

A wall glinted in front of them through the stalks and roots of the forest, faintly iridescent. It was scratched by the gripping trees, partly subsumed by them, but there were still patches of it that shone like silver, if tinted by a ruddy hue.

“Ensign Komev?” Varrez said. “I think you owe Ellson a beer. I might too.”

The team tentatively approached, and discovered more than a simple wall. Rising with, and above many, of the trunks and eaves, angular and yet organic, smooth as polished stone and gray as steel, was a single spire tapered like an icicle, monolithic and austere, the wall surrounding it only one part of a greater monument.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me” Barrens said.

“Incredible” Han said. “Something this far out can’t be manmade.”

“Then who built it?” Talgold said. “And would they consider this trespassing?”

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been home in a while” Varrez said. “Unless this is a typical aesthetic for them, whoever they are.”

“What, the whole ‘abandoned’ look?” Barrens said. “Always a crowd favorite.”

Captain Hindel chimed in. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We’re potentially talking about one of the greatest discoveries in human history; it’s worth taking a moment to plan out our next move.”

“Next move?” Talgold said. “I thought that was finding a way inside, past the wall.”

“Even if there was a way in” Barrens said. “I wouldn’t be so eager trying to find one in something so dilapidated, nor would I advise it for this team.”

“You wouldn’t have to” Talgold said. “This is an exploratory survey, not a military foray. You can wait out here, if you want.”

Barrens shifted his stance. “The captain put me in charge of everyone’s safety out here, whether you like it or not, and I strongly advise waiting for a properly equipped excavation team to assume the risk of checking this thing out before we do anything.”

“It’ll take a full year for anyone else to get here” Talgold said. “Are you seriously prepared to wait that long? Besides, I don’t think the captain meant for run-of-the-mill safety concerns to interfere with scientific research of this magnitude, do you?”

“We’re talking about strolling our way into a bunch of alien ruins that could be dangerously unstable” Barrens said. “My concerns aren’t ‘run-of-the-mill’, doc.”

“It doesn’t look unstable” Varrez said. She approached the wall and ran her gauntlet along its dirty yet refractive surface like she did the tree trunk, wiping away centuries of dust.

“I can’t find a crack in it, despite its condition.”

“With all respect, this is not a democracy” Barrens said.

“You’re right, it isn’t” Han said. “Thoughts, captain?”

Their channel to the bridge was silent for a moment. Hindel sat back in her chair and weighed her options, wanting the ruins to be explored, but fearing for any unseen hazard they may walk into –and how bad it would look on a report after her first time in command. Yet credentials and commendations, as well as the thrill of exploration, leaned heaviest on her and tipped the scales away from overt concern.

“Exploring the anomaly was your primary mission, though I understand the sergeant’s caution; I share it, too. However, this opportunity we have to touch, to study and record something other than human, even superficially, can’t be passed up while we have it all to ourselves. I give permission to search for a way inside the wall, provided the danger is minimal.”

“We can look out for ourselves, captain” Talgold said, smiling at Barrens.

“We’ll be careful” Varrez said.

“I have complete faith in the sergeant’s abilities to keep us safe” Han said.

Barrens shook his head, muttering to himself.

“You may proceed” Hindel said.

The team began walking the perimeter of what proved to be a very formidable old wall: sixty feet high and a third in width, topped with geometric parapets laced with interweaving patterns; whether purely for decoration, or perhaps for defense, couldn’t be guessed. After much scouting and slipping over roots, following the curve south and east, they found an archway-shaped opening in the wall.

“Captain, we found a way in” Talgold said, rushing forward. “Can you see it?”

“I can” Hindel said. “Be careful.”

Barrens grabbed him and made him wait for the other two lagging behind. Together, the team passed the entrance into the interior space, estimated by their HUDs to be over one thousand feet across, and choked with twisting, calcified saplings clinging to the inner wall. The ‘plain’ within the wall was covered in the same dull burnished metal of the spire and complex, overrun by thick vine patches and other nodules resembling fungi and molds; some of them were smaller versions of the larger stalks that made up the forest, as tall or taller than the team, already sprouting their thin, dandelion-like tendrils. Talgold wandered in awe, muttering excitedly while recording everything in detail, while Varrez gingerly collected more samples.

There was an open doorway at the base of the spire, resembling a gaping mouth with inverted teeth; inside was pitch black except the first dozen or so feet, where a red haze filtered through, giving the impression of a large waiting throat.

“Is this where this whole forest came from?” Talgold said. “Plant nursery gone wrong?”

“It’s the Wanderer all over again” Barrens said to himself, subconsciously patting his suit to make sure his weapons were still on him.

Not sharing his concern, Talgold stepped up to the doorway of the spire and slowly panned his helmet, letting his light shine within; the first artificial light in who knew how long.

It was a hallway, or a cathedral, leading into a dark his light couldn’t penetrate. Vines continued along the floor and walls, covering over intricate murals of hieroglyphics mixed with geometric symbols. There were rows of chambers on either side.

He laughed from giddiness. “You guys have gotta see this!”

The others rushed up and peered in, stunned by what they saw.

“We have to check this out” Talgold said. “We have to.”

“Is it safe?” Varrez said.

“Seems intact” Talgold said. “Hasn’t fallen over yet, anyway.”

“We’ve gone this far” Han said. “We should be okay if we stick together.”

“You’re out of your damn mind” Barrens said. “There’s no way we’re going inside this.”

“Captain?” Talgold said. “Just a quick foray, please?”

Barrens sighed. Another silent moment passed on Hindel’s end.

“Stay within each other’s sight.”

They entered the black of the hallway, filing in behind the sergeant as he took point again, grumbling as he did. The outside world subsided into the background, taking all reddish daylight with it. Their visors adjusted accordingly, though only by so much. They switched to infrared, seeing that the way was straight, and that the ceiling was high and vaulted. It also reverberated with the slightest noise, carrying the echo of their footsteps, every scrape of their suits, to an uncomfortable degree. Though not pristine there was no speck of dust, no obvious decay, as if the spire and what happened here were frozen in instance, eternally preserved without resolve.

Seems to be a theme on this planet, Barrens thought.

Nerves aside, they passed by the hieroglyphic murals with fascination, a desire to touch and study them, but that all-too-human dread kept them from lingering, and no one wanted to fall behind even a few steps of the others.

“Oh, I wish we could understand these” Varrez said. “It’s so beautiful how they interflow with each other, scene into scene, like they’re all one long unbroken conversation.”

“I think you missed your calling, Varrez” Talgold said. “You should have been a writer.”

“By their reflective gleam” Han said. “I’m tempted to say that these pictograms are lined in gold, or a similar alloy. An interesting use.”

“Guess human beings aren’t the only species who enjoy decorating” Varrez said.

Barrens scoffed. “What I’d like to know is where the damn lights are. What’s the point of writing on the walls if you can’t see it?”

“Maybe they could see it just fine” Talgold said.

“Fine nothing” Barrens said. “No lights, a skeleton forest, a bunch of weird voodoo-shit on the walls…it’s as if this whole place was designed to scare the hell out of you.”

He decided to check in with the Wayfarer.

“Still with us, captain?”

“There’s a little interference, but I read you” Hindel said. “I’m sending your feeds directly to archive. The company will definitely want records of this.”

“Hear that, guys?” Talgold said. “Once we get home, we’re set for life!”

Talgold’s voice carried down the hall ahead of them, penetrating the dark and reverberating in an uncomfortable closeness despite the size of the complex. Barrens glared back at him, and he shrugged.

“How far in are you?” Hindel said.

“About fifty meters” Barrens said. “I’m not sure how far it goes, but we haven’t had any trouble yet.”

“I’ve got Ausmith on an open channel in case” Hindel said.

A few more meters of echoing darkness, and the team came to the edge of a vast spherical chamber that was the heart of the structure. Their HUDs showed it to be at least five hundred feet in circumference. The hallway split off along the sides, skirting the void, meeting on the other side to continue as another hallway. On both sides, however, were long thin platforms with what appeared to be daises perched out overlooking the bowl.

“Quite the room” Han said. “Wonder what it was for?”

“You’re the alien expert” Barrens said. “You tell us.”

“Xeno-biology, not xeno-archeology” Han said. “No such field has ever needed to exist, until now.”

The team began to spread out as they stepped into the chamber, Barrens and Han going left, Varrez and Talgold right, staying close to the walls. Unlike the hallway, the chamber had no murals of complex hieroglyphs or geometric signatures; it was bare, almost utilitarian, yet even here arms of fossilized vines slithered along the floor, to the edge of the pit where they seemed to stop abruptly, almost as if they were severed from it.

Talgold dared to step in for a closer look, crouching by the lip of the bowl, when a noise broke his concentration; a hum, very subtle, so much so that he almost didn’t catch it. He tapped the side of his helmet.

“Anyone else hear that?”

“Hear what?” Varrez said.

“That humming sound, kind of like a ship engine, only softer.”

“I don’t hear anything” Varrez said. “Could be interference.”

“Are you getting any?”

She did a quick check. “No.”

“Then I don’t think it’s that.”

Talgold kept crouched and listened. The sound remained.

“Get down, and keep still.”

Varrez complied, waiting a moment.

“I hear it, barely.”

“But where’s it coming from?” Talgold said.

“Don’t ask me” Varrez said. “I would’ve missed it completely if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

Talgold stood up again, and the noise faded.

“It’s low level, like it’s coming from the floor.”

Varrez looked down, shifting her feet.

“You can’t be serious; this place is a ruin, how could anything still be running, assuming it even has a power source?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Then, Talgold noticed another oddity. The beam of his helmet light faded out as he looked across the pit, but it too was subtle, something that also almost slipped by him. On a hunch, he reached out his hand and held it over the pit. A thin blue outline gave way, creating faint ripples in the air. He pulled back, and the air corrected itself.

“Holy shit.”

“Dr. Han, Sergeant Barrens!” Verrez said. “Come here, quick!”

The two ran over, expecting to be shown some artifact or tool, a little disappointed to find their teammates seemingly milling about.

“What’s with all the ruckus?” Barrens said.

“Show them!” Varrez said, smiling widely.

Talgold reached out again and withdrew, creating the same disturbance as before.

“It has an effect on light too” he said. “Try it.”

They shone their lights across the void, and saw the beams distort and fade away before they could reach the other side.

“Well I’ll be” Han said.

“There’s a hum coming from the ground as well” Talgold said. “I bet the two are corollary.”

“A power source?” Han said.

“Maybe.”

Talgold glanced over to the platform and, without a word, walked towards it. He stepped onto the platform, approached the dais, and examined its smooth metallic surface. It had patterns similar to the hieroglyphs, arranged in sections separated by grooves and contained in blocks. Talgold studied them, his heartrate rising on his display.

“What are you doing?” Varrez said.

“What if this is some kind of control surface?” Talgold said.

“So what if it is?” Barrens said. “This place is ancient, kid. It’s not gonna work, and even if it did, I wouldn’t go messing with it.”

“I’m not” Talgold said. “I just want a visual record of it, for the archive.”

“Make it quick” Barrens said. “Then we’re leaving. I think we’ve explored enough for one day.”

“Sure, sure.” Talgold brushed his fingers on the dais, adjusting the brightness of his light.

“How’s that look, captain?”

“Like one for the history books” Hindel said. “Great job everyone. Tie up any loose ends and report back to the shuttle.”

A sudden deep groan went through the chamber, reverberating the hallways like they were hollow instruments. The team jumped, looking up and around nervously. All readouts rose sharply; Barrens hissed a sharp curse. A low rumbling continued, coming from the walls and vibrating them. The dais began to glow, illuminating the glyphs in a neon blue light. The force field over the pit shifted into visibility, humming ambiently as power fed into it once more.

“What happened? What’s going on?” Hindel said.

“There was a bit of a tremor, ma’am” Barrens said. “We’re getting out now, alert the shuttle.”

A pulse flashed from the dais, and the rumblings ceased. A small holographic sphere appeared from the glyph console, flickering and spinning serenely. Talgold watched it nervously.

“What the hell?”

The sphere stopped, registering his presence, and scanned his faceplate with a wide beam.

“Get down from there, Talgold!” Barrens said. “That’s an order!”

Before Talgold could comply, the hologram concentrated its beam into his eyes, holding him unmoving at first. Then he began to fidget, and tremble, and scream.

Barrens sprinted to the platform, leapt up the dais, and yanked Talgold free of the hologram, still screaming. His pupils were dilated, the sclera red from ruptured blood vessels. Tears streaked his face, and blood streamed from his nose. The sphere, interrupted from its attempted link, winked out and turned the console red, beginning a new wave of tremors.

Unseen doors closed, sealing off the chamber and hallways. A chill of dread gripped their spines. Varrez laughed nervously.

“Hey kid, kid, look at me!” Barrens said, cradling Talgold in his lap. He was still shaking, his eyes fixed on some far point, muttering incoherently.

“Shit!”

Barrens unslung his backpack and rummaged quickly through his med-kit, prepping a syringe and injecting it through a special port in Talgold’s suit. He gasped, shuddered, and lay still. A good sign, hopefully.

“Sergeant!” Hindel said, her voice cutting out. “Situation report, now!”

“Things got real FUBAR real fast, ma’am, I’ll get back to you.”

There was no way to know if any of what he said got through before static overwhelmed his connection, cutting them off from the Wayfarer.

“I’m not picking them up anymore” Varrez said. “What do we do now?”

“Hindel knows were still inside the structure” Han said. “I’m sure she’ll get us out somehow.”

“What about Talgold?”

“One problem at a time!” Barrens said, trying to rouse Talgold from his shock. He dared to take another syringe, a stimulant, and inject a minute amount into the port. Talgold gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, fighting for speech that was slow to return, muttering frustrated strings of incomprehension.

“Sh-sa-sarge…w-we…”

He grimaced between breaths, trying to force out the words.

“Slow down, take your time” Barrens said. “We’ve got plenty of it.”

“N-no, we d-don’t” Talgold spat.

“D-dangerous…have to…”

Talgold bolted up, heaved himself to his feet, and leaned over the console. Barrens moved to restrain him, but Talgold pushed him away, screaming.

“Get away from m-me!”

“I know you’re not feeling right, kid” Barrens said. “But you need to calm down.”

“I n-need to s-save us!” Talgold said. “Save us!”

“That’s it” Barrens said. “Got no other choice.”

Barrens gripped Talgold in a pin, struggling to bring him to the floor as Talgold fought against it; he quickly swiped the shock pistol from the sergeant’s holster and shot a low-setting bolt into his leg, making Barrens drop as pain and numbness spread throughout his calf.

Talgold waved at the icons, bringing up and manipulating holograms as if he were suddenly an expert on them. Varrez and Han watched on in stunned silence.

“This p-place is a research facility” Talgold said. “They abandoned it, q-quarantined it…had to destroy it.”

Images flashed and faded. The force field shifted hue, and the chamber walls shuddered.

“It knows w-we’re intruders” Talgold said. “Can’t risk infection, g-gonna wipe this place c-clean again, and everyone s-stuck inside it.”

Tears welled in Varrez’s eyes as the weight of the moment, of Talgold’s words, sank in. Han clapped her shoulder in consolation, fighting his own rising panic.

“If I c-can convince it to override p-protocol, I c-can save us.”

“How are you going to do that?” Barrens said. Talgold didn’t answer.

A shadow moved down the chamber walls, ambling like a large spider, noiseless in its descent. As Talgold tapped and swiped away in madness, its skulking outline caught Varrez’s attention. Her heart skipped a beat; she pulled on Han’s arm.

“What is that?”

It crouched on all fours, keeping as low and hidden as possible, stalking its way to the platform. Her eyes widened.

“Talgold, watch out!”

The creature sprinted, bounding its way up to the console; alerted by Varrez, Barrens snatched his pistol from under Talgold’s gaze and aimed, leading his shot, and fired into the creature’s chest. It recoiled and shrieked; an awful, ear-splitting wail of pain not only from the static bolt, but from the agony of its own existence.

Its full horridness was caught in their intersecting lights. Despite its animal-like demeanor it was bipedal, a mangled mess of carnage and physiology, unsettlingly humanoid; its bones were bent and dislocated, stained by dried gore, adorned with long sharp protrusions on its arms and backside. What was once a head was yanked back, the throat open and exposed; a mass of slithering feelers poked their way through the trachea as bare vocal cords screeched such an inhuman pitch of suffering, it froze the blood in their veins.

Barrens switched his pistol to its highest setting and fired again, then again. The creature stumbled, then redoubled to attack them. A fourth shot sent it over the platform and into the pit, landing with a sickening splat.

Varrez was sobbing as Han struggled to lead her to the chamber doors. Barrens grabbed Talgold and followed behind, stopping only to retrieve the rifle from his pack as more shadows moved around them.

“Han!” he said, tossing him his pistol. “Point and shoot, make’em count!”

Han nodded, though felt little assurance.

“The doors” Talgold said. “Get me to the d-doors.”

Barrens dragged him over as fast as he could, the creatures screaming as they closed in, punctuated by gagging and warbling noises.

“Hold him!” Barrens said to Varrez, handing Talgold off to her.

“Let’em do whatever he needs to do, we’ll cover you!”

Braced against Varrez’s shoulder, Talgold waved his hand beside the doors and activated a holographic pad.

“I can override the d-doors” he said. “It’s still g-gonna wipe the facility. We need to get out before it does.”

Barrens and Han started firing, and he hurried his fingers over the icons.

“Please, Talgold” Varrez said. “Please, oh God, please.”

“Almost, I t-think I…”

The icons faded. The doors groaned and slid apart, opening to the hallway.

“We’re through!” Varrez said.

Without waiting she hurried herself and Talgold out of the chamber. Barrens and Han shuffled after, laying down a suppressive fire as the doors slowly closed again, sealing in whatever it was that attacked them.

“What the fuck?” Barrens said.

“Let’s try and get reception” Han said, panting. “Maybe we can get Ausmith to meet us outside the forest.”

They carried on as swiftly as they could go with Talgold in tow, continuing to talk under his breath.

“Used to be green, used to have water…they brought it here, studied it, wanted to understand its resilience, adaptability…outbreak, there was an outbreak, growing and growing, whole hemisphere compromised; planet cleansed, only way to be sure.”

“Can this wait until we’re back on the ship, Talgold?” Varrez said. “Kinda not in the mood for it right now.”

“The ship?” Talgold said, his voice clearer, stronger.

“Yes, get back to the ship, and leave. It’ll start here, but it’ll spread, cleanse everything.”

“Don’t have to say that twice” Barrens said.

They returned to the entrance, but found that it had closed itself off like the inner chamber. Again, Barrens and Han took defensive positions as Varrez steadied Talgold to work another holo-pad, now glowing by the door frame.

“So, uh, how much time do you think we have left?” she said.

“I’m assuming not much” Talgold said, cracking the locks and opening the doors; that familiar dull, dirty orange light spilled in, a sight the team couldn’t have found more beautiful or uplifting.

“Fuck this moon” Barrens said. “Let it get cleansed, whatever the hell that means.”

A creeping form clinging to the outer door frame swung down and jumped them. It swiped its arm at them, lashing with its sharp whip-like growths, slashing Talgold across his chest and tearing open his suit. Trails of blood seeped through before the underlayer of bio-foam could close it.

Varrez screamed and fell backwards with him, barely saving them from another vicious slash. Barrens and Han unloaded on it, firing until its flesh and exposed organs were literally burning. The creature hissed and writhed, shriveling into a heap, mercifully dying with a rasping wail.

Catching his breath, Barrens tried contacting the bridge again.

“Captain Hindel, come in. This is Sergeant Barrens; can you hear me?”

“I can now” she said. “What happened? We got cut off by some kind of power flux. Some of your readouts are still on the fritz, are you alright?”

“Talgold’s in critical condition” Barrens said. “If you could get Ausmith to swing by the forest, we’d appreciate it.”

“Done” Hindel said. “Alerting Dr. Walsh to prep for immediate surgery.”

“Prepare yourself for a hell of a briefing, ma’am” Barrens said. “And captain? It’s good to hear your voice again.”

“Likewise, sergeant. Hindel out.”

Talgold gasped for air as Varrez and Han carried him over their shoulders, stumbling in their haste but refusing to slow down. Barrens sprinted beside them, leveling his rifle at the forest’s crimson shadows and scanning for any sign of movement. They seemed to be alone, for what little comfort that offered. The forest was sinister thing again, now that they knew what dwelt within, or perhaps was itself; a parasite, a rampant fungus that gave birth to monstrosities no nightmare could fathom.

They hurried under its brooding canopy, not only for Talgold’s sake or his premonitions, but for their own pounding fears, distilled to their most primal essence, fears far worse than simply being hunted like prey; fears of mutilation, being hacked to pieces by an abomination far from home or help, your friends having no choice other than to leave you behind, because saving you would kill them too.

They reached the end of the forest with no further attacks. The rover sat untouched. Ausmith had the shuttle parked and ready, standing by the ramp as the engines idled. He ran over when he saw them dragging Talgold.

“Christ, what happened to him?”

“Get us back to the ship, lieutenant” Barrens said. “Now!”

Varrez and Han hurried Talgold into the cabin and lay him down, trying to keep him prone. The bio-foam seal was holding, though he had since relapsed into shock.

“He’s bleeding internally” Han said. “If he makes it, it’ll be close.”

“What about the rover?” Ausmith said.

“Fuck the rover!” Varrez screamed, spitting on her visor. “Take off!”

He gave a curt nod and darted for the cockpit, closing the ramp, throttling the engines, and lumbering them skyward in a cloud of dust, leaving XH-Ld behind in a jolting ascent.

Han grabbed a med-kit from the shuttle’s bulkhead and did every meager thing he could do, to no avail. Talgold slipped further and further away, his vitals dropping to their faintest ebbs.

“He’s not going to make it.”

Talgold coughed, shuddering, flexing his fingers.

“Varrez, please; I don’t want to die with my helmet on.”

Varrez nodded while shaking, unlocking his helmet and gently removing it, setting it aside; he took a deep breath of the cabin’s pressurized oxygen, coughing again.

“Thanks, much better.”

“Hold on, Talgold” Varrez said, taking his hand.

“A few more minutes, okay? Please?”

Talgold said nothing. His eyes glazed over in a blank stare and his head turned away, rocked by the shuttle’s motion. His readout flatlined.

Varrez sobbed. Han bowed his head. Barrens sighed and looked down at his boots.

It proved a long, quiet return flight to the Wayfarer.

#story #sci fi #science firction #horror #forebode #sarissophori

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